If two Teabaggers gather in any city, one passes gas, and the other holds up a sign to protest the smell, they will get coverage on every major network, interviews on Fox, and write-ups in all the major papers. On the other hand, peace demonstrations and anti-corporate demonstrations, numbering in the thousands, receive scant mention if any. The same applied to tax day protests.
Thousands of young voters rallied at the White House this Tax Day to demand President Obama stand up to Big Polluters and make them pay their fair share. During the day of action, a flash mob, led by US Uncut’s Carl Gibson, successfully shut down a BP gas station in response to the company’s $9.9 billion tax credit from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which nearly matches the EPA’s entire annual operating budget.
Polluters marched in the streets, chanting, “Make polluters pay, not the EPA.”
Author Nicholas Shaxson, whom I previously interviewed for this blog, also participated in some guerrilla activism with US Uncut at a Verizon store in the District. Verizon is a multibillion-dollar corporation that pays lower tax rates than you do, and the company is able to do this by creatively redirecting its profits to their foreign wireless partner, and favorite target of the UK Uncut movement, Vodafone.
US Uncut snuck Shaxson, who is on the tail end of his book tour, into a Verizon store and set up a table onto which they dumped copies of his book, Treasure Island, which details the nefarious tax dodging habits of the world’s elites and corporations. Shaxson started signing away.
Shaxson writes that he was struck by how forcefully the organizers stressed peaceful protest.
“These people are not your enemy” they kept saying, talking about the store employees, and then the police, who were bound to show up. “We are fighting to protect their (police) salaries too.”
I can add that this has also been my experience covering the NYC chapter of US Uncut. Nonviolence is always stressed by organizers at the top of each protest, and I’ve witnessed activists speaking directly to police officers to explain US Uncut is in the streets to fight for their salaries…[emphasis added]
Inserted from <The Nation>
Oh those beautiful kids! Sadly I have had to recognize that the my physical limitations do not allow me to take to the streets, as I did so many times during the 1960s, and I have to settle for using my small talents to inform others, but I support nonviolent protest and do what I can to spread the word.
4 Responses to “More Demonstrations Ignored by Press”
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The very structure of our democracy makes it difficult to find a common enemy in order to have a reason to take to the streets. In the Middle East with ONE ruler it is easy to protest…citizens have a common cause. Here the technique of ‘divide & conquer’ is an impressive tool. Townships, districts, cities, counties, districts & States…each have their own tools of oppression. Our town eats away at right township by township…never enough citizens to override an issue and the rest of the townships aren’t affected so they don’t band together! First they came for the Labor Unions, but I wasn’t a member and did not speak out, then they came for the Jews (Muslims/Mexicans/Gays), but I wasn’t one so I did not speak out….when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out! THIS is the whole point of UNITED and, quite frankly, the Christian religion…to stand WITH your neighbor!
Zada, you make an excellent point here. One of the sites at which I cross post is very big on animal activism. To tell you the truth, there are so many issues affecting people, that animal rights just isn’t one of my hot button issues, although I do agree with many. However, I have started signing petitions, because I have come to respect the people supporting them, even though TomCats are too carnivorous to support all of them. 🙂
We are not as colorful to the media.They like fire breathing dragons, not peaceful protesters.
Patty we have our dragons, but we’re short on InsaniTEA.