NYT op-ed: Silence in the Streets: Where Have All the Protesters Gone? [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

Editorial Observer
There Is Silence in the Streets; Where Have All the Protesters Gone?
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Published: August 31, 2006

.... because there is no draft — a fact that Graham Nash noted sardonically on Sunday night (at Madison Square Garden) — no young person has to fear being conscripted into the fight. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Americans find it much easier to stay silent when there is no shared sacrifice.

This war is also largely hidden from American eyes. Unlike Vietnam, when journalists were free to witness and record combat operations, the Pentagon controls access to American troops in Iraq and the images that come with it. The Pentagon banned press coverage of the flag-draped coffins returning home from Iraq. The president refused to attend the funerals of soldiers. Even the cost of this war was tucked from the very start into “supplemental bills” that magically don’t count toward the budget deficit....

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.... in the 1960’s and 1970’s, antiwar protesters were told they were un-American, cowardly and lending aid and comfort to Communists. Then, the personal and national cost of war grew so great that public outrage drowned out this sort of propaganda. Now, people find protesters vaguely embarrassing and don’t want to make too much noise. Outside the concert hall, a soldier who served in Iraq and now opposes the war said he wished Neil Young could be more “subtle.”

Mr. Young’s call for impeachment is over the top, and it’s certainly not subtle. But the anti-Vietnam protesters were not exactly masters of subtlety either. Bloggers say there is an antiwar movement online. Perhaps, but it takes crowds to get America’s attention. Just look at the immigration debate.

The noisy, annoying, unsubtle leaders of the protest lent courage to the rest of us to cut school and march in a few rallies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/opinion/31observer.html?ex=1157256000&en=af7ad95f4e67171d&ei=5087%0A