New York Times Skips Pro-Life March, But Sends Writer and Photographer to Georgia for 'Dwindling' Anti-Army Protest

By Tim Graham | November 23, 2010 | 09:49

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The New York Times has a funny way of defining protests as "news" or "not news" depending on who is being protested. For example, they've entirely ignored the March for Life against abortion in Washington in 2008 and 2009 (and in 2010, gave it part of a sentence). But in Monday's paper, they openly worried that a left-wing protest is dwindling in popularity. They sent Times writer Kim Severson and a photographer to Columbus, Georgia for a protest against a U.S Army training center for Latin American military leaders. The headline was "A Protest Dwindles, If Not Its Passion: Activists Once Flocked to Fort Benning. Now It Seems More Like a Straggle."

The story stood at the top of the National section on page A14 with a large color photograph (about six inches high, nine inches across) of leftists marching with large circular flower signs. Severson began with wistful memories of a larger protest:

COLUMBUS, Ga. — The annual November protest here at the gates of Fort Benning used to really be something.

At its peak a few years ago, more than 17,000 people streamed into town, united in their effort to shut down the School of the Americas, a United States Department of Defense center that they believe has trained Latin American military leaders to torture and murder.

Hundreds of people would cross onto the base and get arrested in mass acts of civil disobedience. Catholic groups staged workshops. Old lefties treated it like a family reunion. Vendors sold bumper stickers and Guatemalan hacky sacks.

So many people from so many left-leaning organizations began showing up that School of the Americas Watch, which runs the protest, rented the local convention center for seminars and concerts.

But this year's protest, the Times reported, was the smallest crowd ever, and "fewer than 5,000 people showed up." Apparently, it's a little heard to rally against the Murderous American Imperialist Juggernaut when Barack Obama is the imperialist-in-chief:

Maybe it was the economy, some said. Others said that rallying liberal activists after the election of President Obama had become more challenging because many thought the fight was over.

The protest began after six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were killed in El Salvador in November 1989 by a group that a Congressional task force connected to School of the Americas graduates.

On the anniversary the following year, a small group led by the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest, held a water-only fast at the gates. He has since become an internationally known peace advocate and still lives in a small apartment near the gate.

“Most of the young people in the crowd don’t even know who he is,” said Liz Loescher, 68, an eight-time veteran of the protest who runs the Georgia Conflict Center in Athens.

The Times ignored the fact that Bourgeois was excommunicated in 2008 for supporting the ordination of women as priests. Severson concluded that the dwindling numbers don't hurt the importance of the left-wing cause:

For the old-timers, the arrests were a distraction, and the smaller crowds beside the point.

Lisa Porter, 45, had traveled from Berkeley, Calif., the seventh time she has done so. She spent much of her time sitting in quiet contemplation inches from the fence that separated her from the base.

“I believe torture is wrong, and I won’t tolerate it,” she said. “If there were only four people here, I’d still be with them.”

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Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Tim Graham on Twitter.

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Editorial decisions

Submitted by KC Mulville on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 10:08am.

From experience, I've been put off by marches as a form of political expression. However, that's not to say that I don't support the goal of the march. As it stands in this case, I certainly support the goals of both marches mentioned here.

Personal note: I happened to know the Jesuits who were killed in that massacre in El Salvador. I was part of a group of Jesuits who had stayed at the university residence where they were killed, just the year before. The troops that carried out the atrocity were trained in the defense base mentioned. So, I support the protest of that base. Of course, I also support the pro-life march.

We're talking about editorial decisions by the media. Tim is exactly right that this is a case of bias. But there's another dimension here. Think of the amazing bias of the media about Latin America in general!

Do any of you feel that the media has adequately reported on what's going on in Latin America? Central America, in particular?

Latin America is a huge blind spot in the media. Other than the Mexican border, and the mischief from Hugo Chavez, we almost never hear of it. A lot of the reason is that Latin America isn't considered a threat, but the media doesn't appreciate how much we're wasting it as an asset.

My point, ultimately, is an observation about how narrow the media's focus is. For a group that considers itself vital to an educated person's worldview, their focus is shockingly local, political, and self-serving.

Why do you support the

Submitted by stratman on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 4:06pm.

Why do you support the protest at this military base?

I'm just trying to understand your position. Usually you post well detailed/thought out posts, but this one eludes me beyond the connection that it was Jesuits killed.

Mixed motives

Submitted by KC Mulville on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 9:11pm.

It's all about the power of counter-insurgency tactics. Consider those tactics as they were used in the surge in Iraq, against terrorists. The strategy has three basic elements. First, you killed the bad guys. Second, you took away their argument; namely, that the existing government was corrupt. The way to do that was by influencing the local government to stop corruption. Third was to use the media and public communications to promote government successes, and win the hearts and minds of the people.

Great strategy, right? It worked wonders in Iraq.
But wait. The strategy in Iraq was used against real terrorists, and who were very nasty people, and deserved every killing they got.

But imagine, for a minute, what would happen if petty dictators learned those tactics, and used them to stomp out opposition? We would unintentionally be empowering dictators to slaughter their domestic opposition.

I argue that this is what happened with Latin America, especially in the mid-1970s forward.

It's essentially a case of mixed motives. The intent of the base is to offer training to foreign soldiers in counter-insurgency tactics. The school is a remnant of the Cold War, when Latin America was filled with Marxist insurgents. Americans wanted local governments to smother them, to stop the spread of communism. But the Latin dictators happily participated, because it taught them how to stomp out political opposition.

I have tremendous respect for the American military. I don't argue (but many protesters do) that the Americans were running a training base for torture. But just because the American military didn't intend that, it turned out that Latin American dictators exploited it for those very purposes.

The troops that killed those Jesuits were trained at the "School of the Americas." Just as we used those tactics against al-Qaeda, the Salvadorans used it against utterly peaceful people, who weren't terrorists but simply spoke out against the criminal corruption of the Salvadoran government. Basically, it was good that we brought those tactics to Iraq, but using those same tactics against innocent civilians led to massacres.

Counter-insurgency tactics, in the wrong hands, are dangerous weapons. I say we should close the base, and not hand out those "weapons" to people who would use them against political opposition.

Killing defenseless Jesuits

Submitted by stratman on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 12:02am.

Killing defenseless Jesuits requires no American training. The world has been proficient in murdering peaceful people since shortly after mankind existed. Obviously, though, we should not be helping evil to be evil. Yet, the enemy of my enemy, or at least the bought-off ally against my enemy was and still is an operative methodology. It has made for some unpleasant relationships at times (eg Saddam Hussein).

Was the training from the school encouraged by the school for use on the Jesuits and other peaceful people? There are no guarantees that school-trained foreign nationals will be 100% compliant with American values, and even if they are, that those they triain at home, or their leaders, will suscribe to what we do. Do we need to train foreigners at all, and if so, which ones?

What other countries have we trained at this center? Is there value for America in what is trained there? What about the military advisors we have in foreign countries? We have them in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as numerous other countries. The foreign nationals are being home-schooled in these cases. Should they be recalled as well?

What happened after the Jesuits were murdered? To the soldiers? To their superiors? To American support for El Salvadore? To speech in El Salvadore? Then vs Now - any substantive differences?

I don't know enough about the training center or what has transpired in the aftermath of the murders, so cannot make supported conclusions as this point. Your thoughts are considered in my process.

Excellent questions, all

Submitted by KC Mulville on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 5:45am.

Those questions would take an NB forum to answer. But let me discuss El Salvador, because (for obvious reasons) I'm very interested in it. To understand El Salvador’s present, you have to know (a little) about its history.

Originally, El Salvador was like many Latin countries; most of its wealth was concentrated into an oligarchy, and the military is basically their hired henchmen. No anti-oligarchy political opposition was tolerated, so the opposition went into the hills and became rebels, some of them Marxist. Usually, one group becomes dominant and establishes order, but in El Salvador, no one could emerge as dominant. The oligarchy couldn’t quash the rebels, but the rebels couldn’t win, either. They all splintered into gangs and fought each other. The result was a long and devastating civil war.

And you know what happens in civil war? All the men die. Two or three full generations of males (i.e., fathers, husbands, coaches, teachers, etc.) were basically wiped out. Who’s left? Teenagers. Impressionable. Attracted by testosterone. Easily manipulated. And in El Salvador, a few warlords emerged who could attract violent teenagers (remember, the fathers who were supposed to keep them in line were all dead) and so they all formed gangs. In El Salvador, almost every teenager has only two options: join a gang or join the military … which basically was a gang anyway, just supported by the oligarchy.

Very, very few have any chance at going to school. In fact, besides a few trade schools, El Salvador only had two colleges: one was the public university controlled by the government, and the other was run by … that’s right, the Jesuits. It’s the Universidad Centro Americano, the UCA (pronounced “ookaah”). That’s where we stayed, and the Jesuit UCA community was our host. As such, the Jesuits were really the only independent, intellectual opposition. They were the only non-rebels who stood in the government’s way. That's why they way they murdered the Jesuits was so revealing. In 1989, the military stepped up its own “surge” against opposition. The military sent a clear signal by going in and murdering the Jesuits. They took them onto the front lawn of the residence, and made a point to bash their heads in. The Jesuits had been the only intellectual opposition, and the military responded by deliberately bashing their heads in. Signal sent.

Well, though the Jesuits were defenseless, they were well-connected. Within hours of the murders, Jesuits all around the world knew about it, and started a worldwide protest. I tried to do my part. That night, I was on the evening news on a couple Baltimore TV stations … on that night, I was the “expert” that the media interviewed. Within a couple days, I had done several interviews on local radio, I wrote an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, etc. Jesuits all around the world started rattling the cage, and to their credit, the media flashed the story.

That’s probably why I am so concerned about the media in general. I know how important they can be!

In El Salvador, two things happened. The world shone an outraged spotlight on El Salvador, and the people of El Salvador (for perhaps the first time) were so shocked that they demanded that something be done.

Eventually, what happened was that the Salvadoran gangs learned the same lesson that Lucky Luciano and the mafia learned in the 1930s: publicity is bad for business. If the public is mad at you, you can’t survive. So the gangs were forced to come to agreement, and keep the peace. Since the early 1990s, El Salvador has been like the mafia: they get along, not because they really like each other, but because it’s a balance of power. It isn’t really a positive relationship, but at least it’s not a self-destructive one like it had been before.
They still have enormous structural problems. As I said, two or three whole generations were wiped out. Besides the damage to families, that’s a “brain drain” about how to sustain a country. In other words, they don’t know how to make the buses run on time. Their society has lost the “socialization” process that discourages bad behaviors (like, you can’t kill everyone you don’t like) and fosters productive behavior. Most of that cultural teaching process is lost. It’s not the kind of thing you can build overnight.

We are so stinking spoiled in this country. El Salvador shows what happens when you lose the things we take so much for granted. For all our bitching about our political process (including me), we have the most stable system in the world. We don’t shoot people. We don’t fear that opposition will get us killed. We have an education system that instills productive social behavior. OK, we know that political correctness is the cheap version of it, and healthy and respectful debate is the real thing. Do you know how rare that is? Do you realize how the rest of the world can’t even imagine that kind of freedom?

El Salvador is a lesson for all of us. It certainly has been for me.

Thank you for your

Submitted by stratman on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 5:17pm.

Thank you for your beautifully laid out response. I appreciate the poingancy of your personal participation. It truly made your post feel alive and all the more touching.

As a graduate of John Carroll University, i have a special place in my heart for the Jesuits. My first faculty advisor was a Jesuit chem prof and a wonderfully gentle and intellectual man. I have a good friend I met at the school who considered (tried?) the Jesuit life, and he told me a number of great stories of Jesuits he met along his journey. So I have an affinity for Jesuits and feel sadness and revulsion for what happened in El Salvadore.

I recall the executions but not the methodology used. Signal indeed. Do you know what happened to these soldiers?

"Do you know how rare that is? Do you realize how the rest of the world can’t even imagine that kind of freedom?"

Yes.

My awakening began at age eighteen listening to the stories of a girlfriend's mother and father who had lived under both Nazi and Communist rule, eventually escaping to America. Her experiences are echoed by Kitty Werthmann. Even so, it took many years for my current understanding and position to crystallize.

What El Salvadore does retain are survivors of this oppression and brutallity who can pass this knowledge down to successive generations. But without opportunities for work, education, and speech, who knows how long it will take for El Salvadorians to gain the liberty that we seem to all too often take for granted. Because the world knows these facts, the world tries to emmigrate to our land.

What is the status of religion in general, Jesuits in the specific, in today's El Salvadore? What about Universidad Centro Americano?

Aftermath

Submitted by KC Mulville on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 9:09pm.

Thank you. I'm honored.

There was a truth-commission thing, that identified the soldiers and its commanders. Some were arrested, as I recall, but by and large the country had so many problems that they couldn't dwell on punishment. A Jesuit called it a "non-redemptive" justice. Usually, the conviction of criminals restores a sense of social justice, but when the rest of the society is so riddled with injustice, the convictions were just a small drop in the bucket.

I regularly read the Jesuit newspapers, and that's where I get what limited information I can about El Salvador. The mainstream media just doesn't cover it. The UCA is still in business, and still doing most of the same work. Two of the murdered Jesuits were pioneers in social statistics, meaning they were just beginning to bring "science" to the social problems, and were analyzing ways to measure the effect of policies. It probably got them killed, because their studies showed how ineffective the then-current government really was. That pioneering school of social statistics has now been established in their legacy, but it's still under development. The university as a whole, the UCA, does great work.

The best way to describe how the country is doing is that it went from a civil war between the oligarchy and the peasants to a quieter civil war between plain old fashioned gangs. They signed on to the central American version of free trade, called CAFTA, but when the US economy went bad, so did theirs. And when the pickings are slim, the wealthy pick first.

As for religion, that's a whole 'nother essay. The country is still mostly Catholic, but it's becoming more and more secular. Nothing all that unique about that, these days, is there?

The thing is, El Salvador is a great place. It's the Wild West ... beautiful in its own way, but wild and dangerous. The people treated us wonderfully. We had a ball. The food was great, because I'm a steak and eggs kind of guy, and that's about all they have. So I love the place, and if they can ever stop the violence they have a chance to be a great asset to us, frankly. But it ain't there yet.

Thinking of these murders, I

Submitted by stratman on Thu, 11/25/2010 - 12:03am.

Thinking of these murders, I am struck (again) by the power of religion, the priest, the believer. The thugs recognized this too. The power of religion mixed with good science is extremely potent in moving people to better lives. The Jesuits paid the extreme price for wanting better for all.

I receive the JCU alumni news, a slick color magazine, which is filled with stories of students and alumni doing good work around the world. I believe they have written about the El Salvadore Jesuits at some point. I obviously didn't pay attention at the time. I will from now on. You are responsible for that.

Thank you.

One sign that there's a Dem

Submitted by Chris Norman on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 10:10am.

One sign that there's a Dem in the White House is that the NYT actually say who some of these protesters are. When a Republican is in, they try to pass these old hippies and professional leftists off as just normal, everyday Americans and sweet little old ladies who took time off from baking apple pies to protest.

Let's make the 2012 campaign: "The War on Error"

This should not surprise

Submitted by Van Halen on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 10:19am.

This should not surprise anyone. Today's Liberal is defined by:

Hatred of the United States.

Hatred of Capitalism.

Hatred of Democracy.

Hatred of individual liberty.

Love of abortion.

Hatred of God.

Hatred of any religion.

Hatred of the military.

Hatred of Corporations, businesses, and anything in the private sector that produces large amounts of revenue and creates employment.

Everything the Liberal leadership says is a lie.

Every time the Liberal leadership has to show its face it's with intent to deceive the viewer into thinking that there is some kind of Conservatism there.

hows that readership decline

Submitted by TruthMonger on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 10:23am.

hows that readership decline goin for ya, NYT...?

Congratulations Jimmy Carter!

New York Slimes.....

Submitted by adamsmith on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 10:28am.

As I have written some time ago, it is now "All the News that's fit to Twist"....It's unbelievable this thing even sells one copy. The only people buying this garbage are the Marxists,Socialists,Progressives who want to read news like they'd like to see reality. Unfortunately for them, most of this nation wants nothing to do with Socialism. I wish Socialism would die, it's a fricken disease....

Lets go hog wild

Submitted by phryingphish on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 11:34am.

Lets go hog wild and say that there have been 5,000,000 people murdered by left wing juntas in Latin America in the past 50 years (Excluding Cuba which is another story altogether). And the protesters are out there protesting this.

WHY are they NOT protesting the torture and murder of 30,000,000 US lives? PEOPLE torn from their position, their bodies RIPPED apart and their brains sucked out through a straw? This is not gruesome enough to protest?

Activists Once Flocked to

Submitted by jdhawk on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 12:09pm.

Activists Once Flocked to Fort Benning. Now It Seems More Like a Straggle." If you substitute Fort Benning for New York Times, the New York Times "journalist" might be writing the paper's epitaph. One can only hope . . .

My wife's cousin, a Philippine Army Ranger, went there in 2005.

Submitted by The Vet on Tue, 11/23/2010 - 1:04pm.

He got to stay with us for a few weeks afterward. I first heard about these idiots and their protests when I googled the place then.

Yeah, they don't teach torture there.

Wait, let me get the logic. People are trained there, not in torture, but are still trained and then go out to kill, maim, and eat babies.

So, it is not that we teach torture, it is that we just have them there.

You know what it is really, they are introduced to Fruit Loops and Coca-Cola there.

That is what it really is all about.

Once you are introduced to Fruit Loops and Coke, it just does something to your brain and that is how you become a killin' maimin' baby eater.

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