Again, it’s what they don’t say that’s interesting
Today, the SF Chron got around to acknowledging how pathetic the anti-War protests have been around the world. Indeed, the Chron mentioned this surprising little fact in both the lede and the first paragraph:
Fewer Protest Iraq War’s 3rd Anniversary
Protesters marking the third anniversary of the Iraq war made their voices heard around the world, with the largest marches in London, Portland and Chicago, though in numbers that were often lower than in previous years.
And that’s it. There’s nothing else in the article about these low numbers. Instead, the rest of the article is about who was protesting and what the protestor’s motives were. There is no attempt to analyze what is presented as the lead premise in the article: the fact that the numbers of people willing to put their feet where their mouths are is down.
I mean, you’d think that, given the relentless MSM drumbeat against the war in the last three years, the streets would be thronged with protestors, but no such luck. And you’d think that, given this disconnect between MSM reality and actual fact, someone in the MSM would be curious as to what happened. But, no, the facts are acknowledged, and then promptly ignored.
I have heard one theory, which I think is a good one, which is that this war is being fought with a volunteer army, rather than a conscripted one. In the 1960s/1970s, students took to the streets to protect their own hides. Here, while people object to the war in theory, they don’t actually have to deal with the fact of the war. That disconnect has got to lead to a certain inertia.
I suspect, though, that there’s also the distance between what people say to pollsters because they think they ought to, and what they actually believe. That is, when asked, many people will say, “Bad war. Shame.” But in their heart of hearts, they’re thinking, “Maybe there’s a reason we haven’t been attacked in almost five years. And maybe those wacky Muslims we’ve seen in the news beheading people and holding violent anti-American protests should be constrained. And maybe I’d rather have them constrained on their own turf, and not on mine. But I’d better not say this out loud.” Indeed, just to give color to this argument, I’ll remind you of the silent conservative Jews in Beverly Hills, and of the fact that Hollywood, loud in its praise for Brokeback as the movie to end all movies, nevertheless basically backhanded it at the Oscars.
Talking to Technorati: Anti-war protests, Media, Draft