Conscious Choice: Censoring the Opposition

November 2002 | Hightower Lowdown

Censoring the Opposition

by Jim Hightower

Okay, most Washington press conferences aren’t anything more than self-serving noise that’s not worth covering, but this one was an exception. Nineteen Democrats in Congress pulled themselves together and stood tall in a press conference to say something that millions of Americans — indeed, an American majority — have been desperate to hear: "Wait one damned minute, Mr. Bush, we don’t agree with your rush to attack Iraq."

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Gang have been ceaselessly pounding the war drums, and the media has covered every nano-second of the administration’s self-serving beat. Yet, most Americans are asking basic questions like: What’s the rush? Why now? Who’ll die? What’ll be the result? And, one important question: "Where the hell are the Democrats?"

Sadly, the loyal opposition has been M.I.A., offering no flag of protest for war-wary Americans to rally behind. So, when Marcy Kaptur, Jim McDermott, Bob Filner, Barbara Lee, Bernie Sanders, Lynn Woolsey, Dennis Kucinich and other stalwart members of Congress had the guts to step forward in opposition, it was an important moment for We the People.

Only, we didn’t hear or see them, for the establishment media essentially ignored their stand and refused to cover their message. The New York Times, for example, ran only a brief item, burying it inside the Saturday paper and denigrating the 19 members as being "outside the mainstream." Well, in 1776, the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were outside the mainstream, too, but they were right, and they built a new nation on such democratic principles as having the right to dissent from the ruling dogma.

But on the Sunday talk shows after their press conference, none of the dissenters were invited to talk, even though the war was the featured topic on all networks. The sound of protest was censored, and the propaganda persists that there’s no important opposition to Bush’s Iraq Attack.

Jim Hightower is a columnist and author. To subscribe to The Hightower Lowdown, send $15, and your name, and address to: Lowdown, P.O. Box 20596, New York, NY 10011. Visit his web site for more info.

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