Is it all Theater?

Protests and riots in the streets are in vogue this past week. But what do they mean? Let's start with yesterday's New York protest by the remnants of Occupy Wall Street to mark the one year anniversary of that group. There were drum circles in Zuccoti Park, dozens of arrests and breathless media coverage. What there wasn't, however, were many people. According to many reports, there were more police and media than actual demonstrators. That's right, one year after this supposedly major people's movement began, it could not even muster a group big enough to outnumber the reporters and cops who showed up. Now, of course, this did not stop the media from covering the demonstration as if it were the equivalent of the Democrat Convention. I saw interviews with demonstrators who announced their purpose on multiple news shows. I even saw one man who was interviewed on three different news shows. The problem, however, is that there just was no real demonstration there; it was all theater, and the media thought it was glorious. At some point, however, reality has to step in and make clear that Occupy Wall Street is dead, over, kaput. No matter how hard the media tries, it cannot change the fact that all that is left is the usual group of kooks and radical leftists that come out in New York City for events like these. Even in the national center of left wing thought that is Manhattan, this group is on the fringe.

Then we have the demonstration/riots in various cities in the Moslem world. Here too, the media has a story that it is pushing no matter what the facts. Supposedly, the issue is the youtube video that essentially no one has seen. The upset has nothing to do with America, we are told by president Obama and his minions and the media repeats this stuff as if it were fact. The problem, however, is that the facts keep intruding and even some of the usually compliant media has noticed. It is hard to ignore the president of Libya when he tells the world that America was warned at least three days in advance of the attack that it might be coming. It is hard to ignore that Obama did nothing to increase security at Benghazi even after being warned. It is hard to call the attack in Banghazi an outgrowth of the video when one hears the details of the attack. According to an embassy guard interviewed on CNN and elsewhere, everything was quiet. Then there was an explosion as a bomb planted next to the embassy walls was detonated. Then something like a hundred heavily armed men attacked the embassy from all directions. There were no protesters, just a military attack by terrorists. These are the facts from which Obama tells us that there is no evidence that this was a terror attack.

Another of these protests supposedly about the video was held in London in front of the American embassy. I read the press reports and learned, at first, that British Moslems were upset with the video and therefore were protesting in front of the embassy. Two days later, I learned for the first time that the protests consisted of about 150 people and that over 100 of them were from British anti-war groups who protest anything that has to do with the USA because of our involvement in Afghanistan. In other words, in the theater of the media, London was just another outburst due to the video. In fact, however, the London protest has nothing to do with the video.

All of this gets me to wonder if these events are like the Tet offensive of the Viet Nam War. During the Tet holiday in 1968, the North Vietnamese attacked in great numbers at sites all across the country. In city after city and village after village, the North Vietnamese were defeated by US forces which inflicted terrible casualties on the enemy. On television screens in America, however, the theater of the attack told a different story. According to the news reports, America was losing the war, American troops were not safe in the country, and American generals were shocked and unprepared for what happened. It was the turning point as far as support for that war was concerned, and it was all based upon a media misrepresentation. Are these protests the same thing? Is this the push needed to drive the USA from engagement with the Moslem world? America needs the actual facts about these demonstrations/riots/terror attacks. Only in that way will our policy be able to meet the challenges that it faces. For Obama to lie about the events in Benghazi to cover up the failure of his administration to protect our diplomats is understandable during the election. After all, Obama has lied about so many things, one more will not matter. Sadly, however, we still need to deal with the crisis and that can only be done after understanding the actual problem. We need to hear the truth.