nettime's_ticker on Tue, 29 Oct 2002 05:06:12 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> warm bodies, cold media digest [weisman, da rimini, dominguez] |
Mike Weisman <popeye@speakeasy.org> Re: <nettime> barlow@anti-war demo francesca da rimini <gashgirl@systemx.autonomous.org> anti-war chronicles "ricardo dominguez" <rdom@thing.net> Re: <nettime> barlow@anti-war demo [S] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 08:04:32 -0800 Subject: Re: <nettime> barlow@anti-war demo From: Mike Weisman <popeye@speakeasy.org> On 10/27/02 6:51 PM, geert lovink wrote: > The puzzling question to me is, why are the media going along with George > II on this. What the hell is in it for them? > But it's not important to the media. Why? John Perry Barlow remembers a bit of high school history. Hearst did use his newspaper to help start the Spanish-American War. But not to sell papers. Newspapers today (and even then) don't make money from selling papers. They make money from selling ads. And many make money today from the value of their properties, including real estate, radio and TV stations, book publishing, and investments. As the US economy enters the decline of its eventual demise, all aspects of the economy are going through dislocation. Real estate in the few remaining stable areas of the country is too expensive to buy, and agents are loath to put inventory on the market at declining prices. Newspaper ad sections are almost non-existent. During the dot.com boom there was an entire section of jobs ads; now there are almost none. Display ads are also in decline. No more full page color ads for Pets.com or MyLackey.com. No more tombstones for floating new issues; there are no new issues. Polls show that the vast majority of the country supports the war. The conventional wisdom is that the war will help the economy, although that has never been the case in the 20th century. The markets will decline precipitously if the US actually goes to war, an action that becomes less probable each day as the Bush administration backs off its war talk with the realization that it isn't going to influence the election and may even have hurt their chances to retake the Congress. But newspapers hope the war will increase the value of their investments, generate more consumer ads and classifieds, and lead to new vigor in the real estate market, where they really make their money. They also hope the Bush administration will continue to relax restrictions on media ownership, so that newspapers can expand their media footprint and make money from 'synergies.' Remember 'synergies' from the dot.com boom? Keep in mind too, that most US reporters today are conservatives, not liberals, according to research. The war will also destroy what's left of the real estate market, and owners in must sell situations will take a loss. Purchase of major appliances and cars, which currently sell with the help of zero-interest loans, will end. And forget new investment in the stock market. Buy gold. Newspapers are betting like contrarians, hoping that I am wrong about all this, and that the war will restore the vigor that papers enjoyed during the Clinton years, when consumers were more confident about the future. John is right about one thing: no one has any faith or trust in the nation's leadership, left or right, young or old. The level of distain and discouragement is higher than ever before. With good reason, because the political leadership of this country has absolutely no plan for the future, no post war plan, no war goals, no economic program except to burn more coal and turn back the clock to 1950, and no educational program. Blame John Perry Barlow and his friends like Bill Gates and George Gilder, who took the 'Me' generation to its absurd extreme, pontificating on the need to keep regulation out of the technology sector and creating an entire philosophy around selfishness, stupidity, and ignorance as virtues. Boo hoo. The future will be more like Red Dawn than Secaucus Seven. Welcome to the new shrinking, ostracisized, poor, declining, and impotent US. Its not the triumphant country in John's songs. But it could have been. Mike Weisman Seattle -- Please respond to: Mike Weisman popeye@speakeasy.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:55:51 +1100 (EST) From: francesca da rimini <gashgirl@systemx.autonomous.org> Subject: anti-war chronicles re JPP's statement: But from where I was marching, it looked like a big deal, and not simply because everything I'm involved with looks like a big deal to me. This was huge. Let me tell you a little about it, since apparently no one else is going to. since someone had just sent me a video of the big no war protest in central park in NYC a cpoupla weeks ago i was interested in knowing how the oct 26 peace/anti-war protests were going in dc and sanfrancisco and various other cities around the world so i was checking out various indymedia sites on saturday (US PM) and found a lotta reports and pictures, streaming files etc who expects to get "real news", witnessing etc from mainstream feeds these days....? the streets and the nets seem the more likely places to put your body and reports - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "ricardo dominguez" <rdom@thing.net> Subject: Re: <nettime> barlow@anti-war demo [S] Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 06:45:27 -0500 [Just a small amout of micro-media reports about these massive manifestations to be found - total blackout about all the demos at the dominant media level. Only spectacles of violence and death get covered in the U.S. - rdom]. Protesters March Against War in Iraq Sat Oct 26, 5:27 PM ET By LAWRENCE L. KNUTSON, Associated Press Writer http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021026/ap_on_re_us/anti_ war_protest_17 WASHINGTON (AP) - Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters circled the White House on Saturday after Jesse Jackson and other speakers denounced the Bush administration's Iraq policies and demanded a revolt at the ballot box to promote peace. The protest coincided with anti-war demonstrations from Augusta, Maine, to San Francisco and abroad from Rome and Berlin to Tokyo to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Mexico City. In Washington and many of the other demonstrations, protesters added complaints about U.S. policy toward the Palestinians. "We must not be diverted. In two years we've lost 2 million jobs, unemployment is up, stock market down, poverty up," Jackson told a spirited crowd in Washington. "It's time for a change. It's time to vote on Nov. 5 for hope. We need a regime change in this country." Congress has authorized the use of military force to achieve the administration policy of "regime change" in Iraq. "If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority," Jackson told the chanting, cheering throng spread out on green lawns near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. A sign showed Bush's face at the end of two bright red bombs with the caption: "Drop Bush, not bombs." The protest brought out the elderly, young parents with babies in strollers, even a man dressed as Uncle Sam wearing dreadlocks and another Uncle Sam, on stilts, with an elongated Pinocchio nose. Protest organizers claimed up to 200,000 people had answered the call to challenge President Bush (news - web sites)'s determination to force out Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). Because the U.S. Park Police no longer issues crowd estimates, the size of the crowd could not be verified. As the march began, participants stretched for at least five city blocks. On a nearby street corner, a handful of Iraqi-Americans staged a counterdemonstration. Aziz al-Taee, spokesman for the Iraqi-American Council, said, "I think America is doing just fine. ... We think every day Saddam stays in power, he kills more Iraqis." New Englanders ventured out in snow, sleet and rain to join demonstrations in Maine and Vermont. Across the nation a couple thousand showed up at the Colorado capitol in downtown Denver, and demonstrators marched at San Francisco. The thousands who gathered in cities across Europe, Asia and beyond also displayed vocal opposition to the U.S. policy toward Iraq and demanded reversal of Bush's Iraq policies. In San Francisco, demonstrators stretched about a mile as they marched from the financial district to City Hall, carrying placards that read, "Money for jobs, not for war" and "No blood for oil." Young punk rockers with mohawks, aging hippies and middle-aged couples with children all took part, chanting, "One, two, three, four, we don't want your racist war." In Berlin, an estimated 8,000 people, brandishing placards that declared "War on the imperialist war," converged on the downtown Alexanderplatz and marched past the German Foreign Ministry. Another 1,500 showed up in Frankfurt, 500 in Hamburg. Another 1,500 rain-soaked demonstrators gathered under umbrellas outside the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark. More than 1,000 marched in Stockholm, Sweden. In Washington, civil rights activist Al Sharpton addressed Bush, even though the president was at an economic summit in Mexico. "It would have been good for you to be here, George, so you could see what America really looks like," Sharpton said. "We are the real America. "We are the patriots that believe that America should heal the world and not bring the world to nuclear war over the interests of those business tycoons who put you in the White House." ___ Associated Press writers Elizabeth Wolfe in Washington and Angela Watercutter in San Francisco contributed to this report. <<<MORE>>>> 100,000 Flood Washington for What May Be the Biggest American Antiwar March Since Viet Nam The Usual Suspects-and Beyond by Esther Kaplan October 27th, 2002 2:30 PM WASHINGTON, D.C.-It's true, the longshoremen's drill team, with its sharp black uniforms and tightly rehearsed moves, did attract attention, as did the tuneful warbling of Rochester's Raging Grannies. And the paparazzi couldn't help but trail Rockers Against the War, a gaggle of glam rock retro-protesters from New York City who pranced with stylish profanity in platform shoes, boas, and glitter. But Saturday's D.C. march against war on Iraq, likely the largest antiwar protest here since the Viet Nam era, was not really an assembly of unions and community groups, of mosques, churches, and campuses-it was not a march of contingents at all. Rather, it was a sprawling mass of 100,000 individuals, families, and batches of friends who, to paraphrase Spike Lee, just got on the bus. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0244/kaplan.php - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net