What It Means to Get Out and March Against the Wars: October 27, 2007
It’s 1963, and I am walking with my homegirl Wendy to our first high school history class. Wendy asks me, “What do you think of the war?” I say, “What war?” “There’s a war in Vietnam!” she chides, as if I should know already. I consider a moment, and answer her. “I’m against all wars…”
Our history teacher, fresh out of Berkeley, gets the class rolling by writing in huge letters on the blackboard, V-I-E-T-N-A-M. “I want you all to know about Vietnam, because you may have to go there.” That was 1963. Little did we all reckon with the implications of our wrestling with the problem of the incipient war in Vietnam.
Flash forward, and I’ve already been in at least forty protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, teach-ins, candlelight marches, moratoriums, and lobbying campaigns against the war, and it is 1970…. or maybe 1969.
The reason why it may have been 1969 will be clearer when I finish telling my story of being a faithful foot soldier in the movement against the wars the United States has either waged directly or fomented, all over the world.
There were huge demonstrations against the Vietnam war on the East Coast, where I attended college. I recall walking down Wall Street and Madison Avenue in New York city with literally hundreds of thousands of other people protesting the war. And I was in Washington D.C. for a number of gigantic demonstrations in the late 60’s and 1970.
We took over New York, we took over Washington D.C., we stopped business, we held up traffic, we performed street theatre. In 1970 Leonard Bernstein even inspired the entire New York cast of the musical HAIR to come to D.C. and perform the entire show for us while we danced wildly to “Let the Sun Shine In”…..packing the Washington mall, surrounding the Washington memorial, the Lincoln memorial, up against the fence around the White House, half a million strong according to all creditable reports.
Yes, there were still newspapers and television reporters who insisted on parrotting the “tens of thousands” description of the crowds upon crowds of people marching to let the Nixon administration know that we wanted the US out of Vietnam. And Nixon had gone on record saying that he would just close his velvet White House drapes and ignore those crowds.
But privately Nixon called the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. He told Hoover that he was thinking of planning a nuclear strike against Hanoi. Hoover’s response was to tell Nixon, “Mr. President, open your drapes and look out on your back lawn. If you were to do that, I could not guarantee the safety of the United States..” Nixon never carried through with the nuclear option on Hanoi.
We were there that day, on Nixon’s back lawn, and every single one of us made a huge difference. We couldn’t have made that difference if we’d not come out in such numbers, and we couldn’t have known what the effect of those huge numbers would be. We couldn’t have known that our presence directly motivated Hoover’s remarks to Nixon. That is what we did with our simple presence, our commitment.
By the way, Daniel Ellsberg, who related the story about J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon, has told me that the incident happened during the big D.C. demonstration in 1969… not the one in 1970. Regardless of the year, we made a big difference. And we didn’t know it then.
These days, many of us are tired and dispirited, we think we are not doing anything when we get out in the streets and march, against the war in Iraq, and the threatened war in Iran, and the continuing war in Afghanistan. We make street theatre and stop traffic and lobby Congress and disrupt hearings. But we cannot know or measure the anxiety we inspire in those of the present administration who call us “focus groups” and try to discount us. We cannot know whose conscience, whose sanity, we’ll inspire by our mere, simple presence out there …. marching this weekend, on October 27, 2007.
We must never forget the account of our triumph in contributing to the prevention of a nuclear strike on Hanoi, and we must always keep in mind that our marching is crucial to maintaining the voice of the people as a force to reckon with …. in a nation whose democracy is in real danger.
So I ask you, fellow activists, fellow citizens, to get out and pound the pavement ’til the sound of our marching quakes the war makers.
Lynn Feinerman is a long-time media activist whose company has made movies including Ecorap: Voices from the ‘Hood, about eology and inner city youth. She is now the producer of the WOMEN RISING radio series.
While I applaud the persistence of those exhorting us to get out and march this weekend, I am growing extremely frustrated with the splintered nature of the anti-war movement. Marching on a weekend hasn’t worked and it won’t. You cannot spark the conscience and sanity of the war profiteers in Washington. The only thing they understand is power, and we’ll have power when we’re all marching, or even staying at home, on a WEEK DAY! Or perhaps several days in a row. We need a GENERAL STRIKE! Garrett Keizer wrote an article for the October edition of Harpers magazine suggesting the same thing, though he thought the first Tuesday in November would be a fitting day. I don’t know if he knows it but the Iraq Moratorium effort is already underway, and the day is the third Friday of every month. People all over the world have used non-violent strikes and boycotts effectively for decades, but for some reason the this method is “off the table” for the American Peace Movement, much in the same way that impeachment is “off the table” for the congressional democrats. What gives here? When are we going to stand up and truly take this country back?
@le12roy,
I also am frustrated with the splintered nature of the anti-war movement. But I am going to march this weekend anyway. I hope you reconsider and march as well.
I’ve marched and marched and marched and agree with the first comment: we pick convenient times when no one is in Washington, and it didn’t work and won’t. No one cares if we march. If we did pick week days and snarl things up a bit, there might be some attention. I know many who attend every peace rally they can find, but write no letters, never miss a day of work, and certainly haven’t cut back on their use of oil. We’d make a bit hit on the climate problem and the war problem if we were willing to do without some of our oil fix.
In the sixties when people marched it made the evening news and was reported. The MSM in the present era hides the protests and marches and refuses to give them coverage, even when the marches are in the tens of thousands. We must not forget that in 2003, the marches around the world and in Washingon DC were some of the largest ever and were given almost no coverage. Media now is owned by large corporations or individuals (Murdock), and has aligned itself with the Republiblican party due to a permisive atmosphere for continued amalgamation and expansion. General strikes and boycotts may be the only options left, starting with boycotts of the corporate owned papers, magazines, and TV shows. Following that, proceed to general strikes. If corporatations who align themselves with political parties are our enemies, then chipping away at their profits and ratings seems a reasonable start.
lwhunt is right.
Until the American electorate realizes that the only real vote they cast is the vote they cast in the marketplace, things will only get worse. Every dollar each person spends provides political power to the recipient of that dollar. Spending a dollar at Wall Mart is tantamount to sending a dollar to the Republican Party. The first “vote” to cast is to quit supporting the corporate media.
I firmly believe that the only thing that will get the Crony Capitalist Overlords attention off the hideous sucking sound being made by their Enron-ized Collateralized Debt Obligations is a huge BOYCOTT of everything– an especially Republican businesses like Exxon, Chevron, Home Depot, Domino’s Pizza, Hobby Lobby and the like.
I would be glad to eat rice and beans and not buy anything that isn’t absolutely necessary for as long as it took if I thought it would end the war and bring back the America I used to know and love.
Of course, that Enron-ish sucking sound is getting louder and we may all be eating rice and beans for a long time to comoe — and not by choice. BushCo and their Crony Capitalist pals have driven our country over a cliff– militarily and economically.
Oh, $190+ billion more for your wars, Georgie? No problem. $550M for children’s insurance? Outrageous! You must be some kind of Pinko Commie!
Over 70% of the economy is consumer spending.
We have the power.
Boycott, strike, disruption. Something different. Marching alone is not working.
How about a big TURN OFF THE TV WEEK campaign?
i will march this weekend
i cannot boycott … the amount of dollars i spend make no difference to those who have the most of what there is to get … and most of those victims of capitalism cannot afford to do such a thing.
Is marching the answer? Just part … but only a small part? maybe. But that does not mean it is not worth it.
I understand the frustration, and it is warranted. I understand the desire for more widespread and/or effective measures as well. They are warranted. But always remember that the very media we bitch about (absoultely justified bitching!), the inaction of various representatives, are designed to get us too frustrated, too hopeless, too pessimistic to carry on. They are designed to make sure the moment described in the piece above never happens. Remember, the whole point of the article was to show that even thought NOBODY in that crowd thought they had done a damn thing besides let off some steam, they made a huge difference.
You never know who is watching, wether they say they are or not. You never know who you are influencing, whether they say you are or not. I’d rather try than not try.
I marched to stop the Vietnam war many times and got tear gassed and clubbed by a cop. I slept in church basements in DC. I knew I was making a difference, even if small.
This time, I have marched before the war and during the war and will keep marching through the war, and the next one, and the next one. I don’t think I make a difference anymore in actually ending any war. I think we are helpless now to change things. Not enough people care enough to do something with real consequences — like a general strike, or closing down the bridges in DC as we did back then, or boycotting the media or just not shopping for stuff they don’t need.
I think we’re done, folks. Too much is f___ up. We are going to drown in our own effluvia. I am acting AS IF I could change things. I admit I do it to feel better. But I do it without hope.
What is the best strategy?
a. march
b. boycott megacorporations
c. vote for progressives or not at all
d. kill your TV
e. all of the above
The correct answer is e.
We did not have the internet in 1969, yet the protests seemed more organized and powerful. Others have said and I suspect it is true, we had a draft and subsequently more at stake. I had hoped the internet would provide more info, more connection etc. to make up for the lack of passion inspired by the draft but that does not seem to be the case. People seem to change, take chances and speak more powerfully when their back is too the wall. When the draft begins again, when we lose our homes due to raising costs and diminished income, when we can’t feed out kids, then we will march together on a weekday. I don’t think we can live in comfort and still show desperation.
Done with my Marching…both as a Troop and as a Protester.
“Been-there, done-that…”
I currently see few, among today’s ‘young’, standing-up or committing to march as ‘either-one’. Some-few, of course — maybe the “best of the best” — motivated by what they see as their ‘right-reasons’ (I’d count among-them the West-Pointers as well as the ‘new’ SDS/’Eco-Warriors’ — both ‘wrong’ in their narrow-viewpoints, but at-least committed to something other than narrowed self-interest). But, most Troops today are fighting against personal-poverty and their-own counterparts, and most Protesters against personal-boredom and their-own vacuousness.
Americans, in particular, never appreciate or value that which has just been ‘handed to them’…until they see it slipping-away. The crassness/apathy of this generation will no-doubt spawn a reactionary-generation to follow (as surely as did the ‘post-WW Greedy/Corrupted-Loafers’ of the-50’s). This time, however, enough damage will have been done in-interim to perhaps negate ‘American-Ascendancy’ and its ‘destined’ Novus Ordo Seclorum, altogether. The ‘jury is out’ regards whether or not that, ultimately, is a blessing or a curse…?
Yes, we made a difference then. But the war machine learned some lessons the last time around, so now we have a “volunteer” army, and a foreign legion of mercenaries. If the middle class had to send its sons and daughters to fight for Bush and big oil, and if the war costs were paid by higher taxes today, instead of by “supplementals” tomorrow, there would be more of us in the street. Unfortunately, too many of our fellow citizens will not act until Bush’s crimes impact them personally, and by then it will probably be too late.
The plutocrats are very smart players in their own game. They managed to corporatize rebellion( I recently saw a mass-produced “hippie chick” costume at a K MART store).
And even self-styled bohemians love to consume. The counter-culture is big business now.
The establishment uses the true rebels as fodder to prove their own nobility in tolerating the “nutty” dissenters.
We need a way to create our own mass media to wake the people up. Like Russell Means said, “Wake Up, white people! You’re oppressed by your own system!”
Think. Feel. Act. It’s all we are empowered to do as human beings.
The first commenter is right, only the general strike has the power to stop not just this war but future wars. Because it doesnt just intimidate, it changes actual power relations. But it doesnt just happen overnight, with a simple call to strike , it takes time and hard work to develop and organize and mobilize masses and requires everyone who is whining about change to actually form a group and start creating it.Meet every week and talk about capitalism and the loss of democracy and endless war and grow the thing organically.We do it here through the IWW but you can organize around any issue.
Wake up calls?:
a. Manditory military service without exemptions (except those in U.S. illegally).
b. Federal sales tax on all consumer goods to pay for the war.
c. One time $8000.00 surtax per citizen to pay for the war (This is the cost of the war per citizen according to recent study.).
d. No college loans or subsidies to anyone who hasn’t yet completed manditory military service.
e. Manditory voting in all elections.
f. . . . . .
We sure do need somethin’.
manditory voting on all elections XXXXXXXX
Only if none of the above was an option
seriously needed couldn’t ever happen though
Oh by the way, what the f-ck was the reason for THAT war, not that good profits were not made by many, especially republicans.
If the world’s most successful predatory species destroys itself, does that make it more successful?