In today’s New York Times (11/22/10), Kim Severson covers the annual protest at the U.S. military training facility formerly known as the School of Americas. The point of the story, though, is that the protests aren’t such a big deal anymore (the headline: “Fort Benning Protest Dwindles, if Not Its Passion.”)
The dismissive tone was evident in the very first sentence:
The annual November protest here at the gates of Fort Benning used to really be something.
The “smallest crowd ever” turned out this weekend for the Fort Benning protests–leading the Times to kid that “the times, they are a changing.”
The bizarre ,repressive police tactics were noted near the end of the article:
A few hours later, as a parade was ending, the police showed up in force, riot helmets stacked on car hoods and plastic handcuffs looped onto uniforms. They funneled the crowd from the legal protest area through a narrow pathway to the street and told anyone who stopped to keep moving.
Protesters, some yelling, “This is what Democracy looks like,” veered from the path. In a quick swirl of activity that took many by surprise, a dozen people were arrested, including news crews from Russian Television and two radio reporters.
They were put in a city bus and taken to the Muscogee County Jail. Bail was set as high $5,500.
Today’s story might lead one to wonder if the Times ever devoted much space to past SOA Watch activism at Fort Benning–you know, back in the good old days.
Searching the Nexis news database, it’s hard to find much. A November 21, 2005 article focused on counter-demonstrators: “Annual Protest Draws Ire of Those Supporting Troops” was the headline. Locals, readers were told, “have endured the annual protest with increasingly clenched teeth,” and “have come to see it as a slap of disrespect to the soldiers from the base who are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Odd, then, that today’s article conveys the message that locals are mostly disappointed with the low turnout, since they make money selling water and food to SOA protesters.
In 2000, the Times had a photo of the protest, but it did not seem to be connected to an actual story. A more thorough report the year before spent a lot of time talking about the changes to the school’s curriculum–the message being that whatever abuses may have been linked to the school were a thing of the past.
If the SOA protests were ever “really something,” the Times sure wasn’t telling its readers much about them.
So, thousands show up at Fort Benning, and that’s considered a “dwindling” number, while a fraction of that can attend some Tea Bag function, and that’s considered an indicator of “the strength of the movement”.
I guess we can say that at the “paper of record”, it’s really true:
Size doesn’t matter.
All the news that’s printed to fit …
“The annual November protest here at the gates of Fort Benning used to really be something we ignored when they were big.”
fixed
Yesterday, (Nov 22, 2010) The NY Times printed an article about the week-end progressive rally in opposition to US militarism at Ft Benning, Ga. To most gathered there, the annual School of Americas Watch event was terrific. One would not know that from the article below in the NY Times by writer, Kim Severson. She is correct in saying that the number of people was much smaller than the past several years. She is wrong in saying it was â┚¬Ã…“the smallest crowd ever.â┚¬Ã‚ Those of us who remember just a dozen people gathering in the early 1990’s and then watching it grow to 500 to 1000 to many thousands; know how far from the truth this statement is. The fact is that the event numbers are back to the pre-Jesuit college and high school daysâ┚¬” the energy of the movement is still powerful. When students from Jesuit schools didn’t come, the movement was smaller but still vibrantâ┚¬”Âfull of passion and resolve. So too today!
With small numbers, we threatened the Pentagon and very nearly brought down the school of torture, La Escuela de Americans.. The Jesuits have a new tactic, to get their students to Washington– the belly of the beast–to educate Congress on many issues of peace and justice. So, Jesuits, influenced by our Ft Benning passion and resolve do have a new strategy born out of our actions at Ft Benning. Their absence does not diminish our progressive movement. Ask, for example, Binghamton Universlty students who drove the 18 hours to Ft Benning. They came back full of passion for progressive change. Neither the soa watch or the thousands of students from sectarian and nonsectarian schools left the event with the same take as the NY Times writer. She should have attended just a few of the dozens of workshops that were often packed.
Binghamton University students were in the street getting signatures for a letter to the Chief of Staff, Pete Rouse. That is a new twist for usâ┚¬”Âwe normally concentrate on the legislative sideâ┚¬”Âno need to tell you why we are pressuring Obama to make the right decisionâ┚¬”Âhe has the executive power to shut the school down, just as he can shut down other terror camps like Guantanamo.
Binghamton students were active participants in a play at the Columbus Convention Centerâ┚¬”Âtheir professor and myself were so very proud of themâ┚¬”Âone student took the role of Mother Jones and the other the wife of Ben Salmon, a man sentenced to death by a US Army Courts Marshall, later reduced to 25 years and then torturedâ┚¬”Âfor not agreeing to put on the US Army uniform. There was a standing ovation in a packed theater room of over 200 peopleâ┚¬”Âan exhilarating feeling for all of us in the struggle to stand up to militarism.
The NY Times author uses the low sale of water by the size of the crowd. Surely, it was related, but over the years, people have learned to take their own water and free water has been given out by various progressive groups. It’s sad that the vendors were stuck with their water but there are other reasons for the lack of sale that she didn’t investigate.
The Times reports that after 9/11, the judge began to hand out six month sentences and the number of people going into the base went even lower. Not so, six month sentences were the norm before 9/11. I know, I was sentenced and served six months for a 1998 & 2000 crossing.
The NY Times notes that students went into the streets this year because it was an easier way to protest. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It was a decision by students and others that protection of government crimes committed against fellow citizens of the planet is not just because of military acts but because of the support of police agencies that are part of the system. The presence of the police state surrounding Ft Benning can only be appreciated by being there. Closed in by Georgia State troopers, Muscogee County Sheriff deputies, Columbus police, military police, CID, FBI and even Defense Department Police, the police state is very much a presence that students and others see as the real threat to our security.
We have film of the rough treatment given to those who were attacked by the police for walking on public property.
The author also seemed surprised that some people do not know the founder, Roy Bourgeois. Roy is not upset about thisâ┚¬”Âhis mission was never to make Roy Bourgeois the center of concern, rather, the reason people come to Ft Benning is to bring their passion for justice, love and peace to a place that cries out for change.
The failures of our leaders to end war and the love of military engagement was challenged by thousands this past week end. What is the alternative? For those who took the time, energy and cost to travel to Georgia, it was more rewarding than sitting at home watching Saturday and Sunday football.
We were never before featured in the NY Times when as many as 1700 people were arrested in one day (the year was 2000, one month later the Army closed the SOA (Dec 2000) and opened it up under a new name the following month–Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation).
The New York Times and other media friendly to the purveyors of violence have never been friendly to Americans who challenge the military. But we would like reporting to be factual and to reduce implications of failure or poor job to something as rewarding as the annual November progressive gathering in Columbus, Ga. Has the NY Times considered looking into the story of why the military will not reveal the names of graduates of the school since 2003? Isn’t there a story behind the annual issuing of blackened out names given to Congress Jim McGovern who has sponsored bills to close WHINSEC? Curiously, the Times chooses to write about what they see as a down year for the annual rally at the gates of Ft Benning–not the secrecy that surrounds the very graduates of the Latino military school paid for by US citizens.
There was a discussion the past year to move the event to Washington DC That will not be the case. For now, the spiritual and emotional presence at the very gates of the place were terror and torture is taught must be retained. Next year, thousands will come once again to Ft Benning. People will exchange ideas for change, have classroom think tanks, give ways to challenge the system of oppression, sing, dance, have a festival of compassion and hope and then go back to their home towns to work for real change.
Jack Gilroy
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/us/politics/22protest.html?hpw
Russia Today film crew arrested and imprisoned for 32 hours at the protest:
Jack, thanks for the intel and the ringing defense of this action.
Corpress SOP in these cases is to ignore, diminish and ridicule.
Clearly, their strategy hasn’t produced the desired results, and folks like you should take considerable pride in that.
Aluta continua
A quick search of the Westlaw database turned up a New York Times’ article from June 24, 2001 (“Sibling Nuns Will Go To Prison for Protesting at Military School” by Laurie Goodstein), as well as an October 6, 1996 Week in Review Column (“Be All That You Can Be: Your Future as an Extortionist”), various letters to the editors over the years denouncing the school, articles discussing arguments made before Congress as to why the school should be closed, and interestingly, a September 28, 1996 editorial calling for the closing of the school — hardly what you would expect from a newspaper that is “friendly to the purveyors of violence have never been friendly to Americans who challenge the military.”
The motto of the NY Times is: “All the news fit to print”. Curiously, the absence of NY Times commentary except for 1996 and 2001 and a couple of letters to the editor, begs the question: Where was the NY Times for all the other years in between? If the Times was not awakened by the acts of the graduates of La Escuela de Americas from 1948 to 1996, they can be forgiven for the near secret operation of the School of the Americas. Yet to give perfunctory coverage to the School of the Americas after the NY Times editorial of 1996 that exposed the SOA terror teaching manuals, makes one wonder what the Times criteria “fit to print” really means?
Thanks, Jack, for your thorough and, from my point of view, an accurate account of the SOAWatch November gathering as well as the Movement itself. One wonders if the NY Times prints “all the news fit to print” one wonders where they were when the numbers were in the 10’s and 15 thousands? Kathleen Desautels, SP
Fair: Two quotes from “back in the good old days.” FYI
“An Institution so clearly out of tune with American values and so stubbornly immune to reform should be shut down without further delay”
EditorialSept 28, 1996 NYTimes
” The school continues the cold war policy, now completely unjustified, of making military relations the central point of contact between American and Latin American governments. This focus is still a threat ot fragile civilian control of latin American militaries and still encourages abuses. ”
Editorial April 4, 1997 NY Times
Ann Tiffany
Ann, what a corpress outlet occasionally says, without any commitment to pressing, isn’t as significant as what it promotes day in and day out, don’t you think?
I’ve seen quite a number of these “one (or two) off” editorials over the decades. I’ve also seen reams of uncritical coverage of the death and destruction wrought by our gummint.
Which do you think more closely mirrors corporate media’s worldview?
Words are cheap.
Lives are dear.