I Think These Folks Were/Are On To Something

People Hate Government, Press Doesn't Care
August 9, 1997

by Ruffin Prevost
Special Assignments Team
pscpruffin@aol.com

"Where do I sign?" Suzette Lee growled. "I'll sign any piece of paper that says we ought to get rid of that corrupt sonofabitch."

Lee was just passing by, waiting for her bus in the Westwood area of Los Angeles. But when she heard a group of protesters in front of the Federal Building were circulating a petition calling for the immediate impeachment of President Bill Clinton, she didn't hesitate to sign it.

"I think we should impeach the crook," said the 79 year old Lee. "I'm disgusted with what's going on, everybody is fed up with the corruption, and we have to do something major to stop it now."

About 30 people lined the sidewalk in front of the Federal Building Saturday, August 9, to protest the creeping influence the United Nations has over the laws, politics and citizens of the United States. Though the protest may have been small by some measures, it was an effective one that resonated with the passing crowds.

Signs and banners proclaiming "The UN Sucks," "UN Is Hitler's Dream Come True" and "Honk If You Hate the UN" drew honks, thumbs-up and shouts of approval from the swirling traffic along Wilshire Boulevard. In car-crazy, chronically apathetic Los Angeles, a honk of support is about as close to a passionate political statement as most folks are likely to make.

The protest, organized by Melani Crandall of the Stand Up America Committee and a group of United We Stand members from Orange County, Calif., was designed to draw awareness to the rise of a New World Order in which the sovereignty of the American people takes a back seat to globalist interests.

"There is an ongoing conspiracy to rob us of our rights," one man barked through a megaphone at a mostly oblivious line of drivers waiting for a red light to turn green. "Your interests are being sold out to a global elite who wish to enslave you, masking their plot in the guise of international cooperation."

For ParaScope readers and others schooled in the background of the New World Order, Saturday's protest held no revelations. One bystander mailing letters at the nearby post office criticized it as an ineffectual display by a few "Ross Perot holdovers with too much time on their hands." But for the demonstrators, the important thing was to do something -- anything -- to make the world sit up and take notice.

"It's important that we take a stand and make some noise on these issues," said Ralph Silva of the Orange County United We Stand chapter. "We have to start convincing people of what's going on out there."

At another Federal Building protest going on nearby that same day, a much younger group of activists watched the anti-United Nations demonstrators with reserved skepticism. A group of students and other young people had gathered on the Federal Building's terrace and adjoining yard area to hold a rave-style gathering and protest a proposed nuclear dump in Ward Valley near the Colorado River, an important waterway to Southern California.

The event featured an imposing tower of amplifiers booming out bass-heavy techno tunes (the group had to supply its own electrical power) and was one of several "Atomic Butterfly" demonstrations staged at Federal Buildings around California recently by a group called A Kiss Big Collective. "We're trying to raise awareness about this issue through creating a community of dance and music" said Collective member Carl Anthony.

Last year's Atomic Butterfly drew nearly 500 people, Anthony said, and he credited a lack of exposure by the press for a lower turnout this year -- a dilemma the United We Stand organizers pointed out as a problem in publicizing their events as well.

Not a single Los Angeles newspaper, radio station, television program or other media organization (besides ParaScope) was present at the Federal Building Saturday, despite two high-profile events staged by grass-roots groups focusing on important issues.

Yet it's scarcely a surprise that the major press outlets aren't even aware of such groups or their causes. Most mainstream media coverage of political protests focuses more on the personalities and head-counts than the causes, as evidenced by the obsession with the exact number of marchers at the Million Man March.

But what is surprising is that given the lack of coverage and interest from an increasingly solipsistic, shallow and distracted corps of inside-the-beltway journalists, everyday citizens still manage to organize such events and patiently push their message to the public, one person at a time.

Ultimately, though, the surprise may be on the corporate media moguls and their overpaid talking-head anchors. With the rise of the Internet as the world's first many-to-many communications medium accessible and controllable by ordinary individuals, it eventually may not matter what the "gatekeepers" in the news business think is important. It may soon be a matter of what the people themselves decide to publish and read, leaving the mass market opinion-shapers to wonder why no one cares what they have to say any more.