Blog #6

Raise the Sound: Anti War Voices in Media

When researching anti-war throughout the media there is little coverage. On a Google search, where most Americans would go to find more information about a topic, there are outdated articles covering the first page and little to no legitimate information provided. This is abnormal for any research topic in the 21st century and can easily be seen a suspicious. 

The United States has a history of marketing war as a necessary and healthy event in our timeline, when it isn't really. Robert Jensen outlines this timeline in his article, published in 2001, there has since been many developments. He points directly at the United States unjust actions and behaviors that violate international law. It shields itself behind the guise of "self-defense". He compared the the bombing of hundreds of innocent civilians to the killing of American civilians in the 9-11 attacks. Jensen directly calls out the US stating that the claim of "war is the only way to deal with terrorists" is unsophisticated. 

Anti War. com covers a vast array of anti-war views that are not projected in the mainstream media coverage. The site breaks down the issues by nation and conflict. It is important to note that this site is run by a nonprofit institute. I found most interesting the page dedicated to the Garris v. FBI landmark case in which the FBI attempted to suppress the speech of antiwar.com author after he posted an FBI "watch list" to the site. The Court ordered that according to their First Amendment right and the Privacy Act of 1974 the FBI had to expunge the information collected about the authors from their records. 

Through previous understanding of war theories, I feel that the United States government is inclined to suppress antiwar speech because of concern of lack of unity when entering into war, whether it be legal and legitimate war or not. The two theories that came to mind were the Rally Around the Flag theory popularized by John Mueller and the Wag the Dog philosophy. 

The idea of rally around the flag is the sergeance of support and voter participation in the government when the nation is in crisis or war. This is not exactly the situation we find ourselves in when the US is suppressing anti-war speech but it is similar. The government cannot participate in war or "military actions" without the support, or at least the lack of wide spread protest. It is a basic political theory that a democracy is unable to operate without the support of its people and I feel this connects back because if anti-war voices were popularized the majority of the nation would disagree with its behaviors.

The Wag the Dog idea is similar in the sense that crisis brings people together and cause a gain in support.  It is originally based on a 1997 film. This relates itself to suppressed anti-war speech because it represents the positive effects crisis
coverage in 24 hour media has on support to the government- the stark opposite of what supporting anti-war speech would have.

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