Current Usage
Today, the phrase is regularly used in mainstream left movements such as the 2003 demonstrations against the Iraq War. It is the title of a 1980 book about mass media and the New Left by former student activist Todd Gitlin. Rightist commentators have also used the phrase to argue for such causes as U.S. condemnation of Islamic violence. The phrase is a poster tagline for the 2007 film Battle in Seattle and it is repeatedly chanted in the film. President Barack Obama used the phrase during demonstrations in Tehran over the outcome of Iranian elections in June, 2009. During the 2011 Wisconsin protests, protesters in Madison, WI chanted the phrase often in reference to the large national media presence and worldwide positive response. Protesters also chanted the phrase while being arrested and removed from the Capitol the morning of the first vote on the law they were protesting. Occupy Wall Street protesters chanted the phrase on October 1, 2011, when NYPD barricaded and arrested citizens on the Brooklyn Bridge in one of the largest mass-arrests of nonviolent demonstrators in US history.
Read more about this topic: The Whole World Is Watching
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or usage:
“Through this broad street, restless ever,
Ebbs and flows a human tide,
Wave on wave a living river;
Wealth and fashion side by side;
Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)