At their national convention this week, the American Legion, a veteran’s organization with 2.7 million members, declared war on “public protests” and said that the group will “stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples. The “national commander” of the American Legion, Thomas Cadmus, went on to claim that the Legion “hope[s] that Americans will present their views” to their elected officials but that they will do it via correspondence rather than “media events” that will raise the provide “tools of encouragement” for the United States’ enemies.

The American Legion’s comments come during a week of increasing criticism of antiwar protestors, both from the usual right-wing media outlets as well as the Bush administration. While the administration has a history of dismissing public views with regard to the Iraq war, most famously with his dismissal of the February 15, 2003 protests when he said he would not “decide policy based upon a focus group,” both the level and intensity coming from the Bush administration is new. With Cindy Sheehan’s protest gaining media attention and recent polls indicating widespread support for the right to protest, the Bush administration has responded by belittling both protestors and their goals. This week, Bush said that an “immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake” and that those that advocate such a policy advancing a plan that “would weaken the United States.” On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Trent Duffy described critics of the war as people that people that do not want the United States to win the war on terror.

However, the harshest attacks from the administration came Tuesday from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld compared antiwar protestors to supporters of Joseph Stalin, declaring that while US intellectuals once praised “communism” and Stalin they eventually made the “right decision” and stopped supporting communism. Rumsfeld said that Americans were well “centered” and eventually make the right decision on all “big issues” and will do so eventually make the right decision about Iraq.

Here in Grand Rapids the corporate media has refrained from attacking antiwar protestors directly, but has done so via proxy by excluding them from most stories about Iraq and including pro-war voices in antiwar stories. For example, an August 18 story on WZZM 13 covering a local rally held in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan ended with a call-in segment in which viewers were asked to call and explain why the United States should stay in Iraq. WZZM 13’s story was typical of the coverage of the rally, all of which gave considerable space to pro-war voices and juxtaposed them in such a way that pro-war voices were portrayed as a reasonable and responsible way, whereas antiwar voices were portrayed as irresponsible.