But Steve, the Reality Is

Morning Edition does a righteous thing today, interviewing one of the "kooks" (see previous post) for peace, Rev. James Lawson. There was an illuminating exchange between Rev. Lawson and Steve Inskeep. Inskeep posed the following question to Lawson: "Why do you think the tactics of nonviolent protest have seemingly been less effective in recent years—you could go through a list of people who have gone to various institutions that they don’t like and gotten arrested at the gates, you could mention soldiers who have declined to return to the war in Iraq and have turned themselves in for arrest, you could go on and on, and yet…?"

At this point Lawson interrupts to state the truth of the matter, "But Steve, the reality is, that public education, academia, and the media [my emphasis added] have kept people from receiving the information about nonviolent struggle in the world..."

Lawson nails it on the head, day in and day out NPR overwhelms its listeners with pro-violence, pro-military thinkers and apologists, while folks like Medea Benjamin, Cindy Sheehan, Kyle Snyder, and Camilo Mejia never get fair airtime (even though Inskeep has reveled that he is aware of their existence).