Measuring and Muffling Dissent - By the Numbers

[babylonsister]

I think I have autorank to thank for bringing this to my attention, so thanks.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59

Measuring and Muffling Dissent - By the Numbers

by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

Organizers are once again crying foul over the corporate media's undercount of last weekend's massive anti-war rally in Washington, DC. The danger here is not the undercount, which is to be expected from a lying media, but a ‘movement' practice that focuses on Big Events, to the detriment of grassroots organizing. After all, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Measuring and Muffling Dissent - By the Numbers

by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

"Slow-moving domestic resistance cannot hope to keep pace with the imperial juggernaut, especially if the measure of success is bodies reported to be present on The Mall."

Either the largest or second-largest U.S. demonstration yet against the Iraq war occurred in Washington, this past weekend, or it didn't. There will be no official figure. Ever since the U.S. Parks Service got caught brazenly underestimating the multitudes that converged on the Capitol Mall for the Million Man March, in 1995, the feds have refused to release protest crowd counts. In effect, the Park Service was saying: believe our undercount, or you'll get no count at all.
Federal silence on the numbers actually better serves the interests of the powers-that-be than the previous policy of lying about crowd size. In the absence of an official estimate, corporate media become the default public arbiters of protest numbers. Thus, corporate media tell tens of millions of us that merely "tens of thousands" showed up for the United for Peace and Justice rally, on Saturday, while organizers inform their far more limited audiences that 400-500,000 people participated.

U.S. corporate media - collectively, as cynical and dishonest a human cohort as has ever been assembled, far out-slicking the business/political class they serve - are sticklers for the numbers when the interests of the powerful are involved. Mass audiences are bombarded with ephemeral daily statistics from stock exchanges, despite the fact only a tiny fraction of the public cares about or has any direct interest in the cascade of digits and decimal points. Commerce-related data are infinitely interesting; people-related data are not, unless related to consumer spending habits. Data that tend to affirm the superiority of the American political-economic order, such as GDP (gross domestic product), are celebrated. Data that illuminate gross disparities in wealth and income are left buried inside the grand macro-measurements - secrets made unavailable to the general public by the corporate organs that claim a special mandate (privilege) to inform the public.

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[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Sounds like the vote counting nonsense

they seem afraid of numbers.

[babylonsister]

2. I wonder what would be different if it had been a pro-war rally? nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. That would have been easier to count

The reporter told me there were 40 freepers there Sat.

I know 5 year olds who can count to 40. LOL