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A blog that takes a look at West Chester area government, politics, and community events.



Monday, June 23, 2008

Waving flags of...

I've gotten a lot of emails regarding my article on the West Chester Flag Day demonstrations. No one was happy with it.

Peace Movement demonstrators complained that I miscounted the number of people on their side of the street. It's possible I did. But crowd counts are notoriously unreliable, and the fact I wanted to get across was that the Victory Movement had more people out than the Peace Movement did.

Victory Movement demonstrators complained of bias. Their problem: I included quotes from both the Peace Movement demonstrators and the Victory Movement demonstrators. (Read the Victory Movement's reaction to my article here.)

I still stand behind the article. It portrays the competing Flag Day demonstrations for what they really were: a battle between right wingers and left wingers. Maybe not all the demonstrators were aware of the images and political messages with which they were associating themselves?


A young Peace Movement demonstrator:




A group of Victory Movement demonstrators:



This is not to malign the demonstrations or the people who participated. It's extremely important that everyone gets their say. I hope both sides agree, at least, on that.

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