We Can Help End the War One Third Friday at a Time
These are puzzling times for those of us old enough to remember Richard Nixon’s claim, during the height of Vietnam War protests, that the Silent Majority supported the war.
Five and a half years into the seemingly endless war in Iraq, the anti-war movement is finding that the new Silent Majority opposes the war.
Depending upon which poll you read, and how the question is phrased, a solid majority and perhaps as many as two-thirds of the American people want to end the war and start bringing our troops home.
Unfortunately, most of them say nothing about it unless asked by a pollster. On a day-to-day basis they are silent. Life goes on, and so does the war.
They elected a new Democratic Congress last year, with a clear mandate to end the war. But the new Congress is as chicken-hearted as the president is bullheaded. Next year’s presidential election offers precious little hope, as the three leading Democratic candidates refuse to commit to having our troops out by 2013.
Against that backdrop, how are we ever going to end this war?
The peace movement’s job is not to persuade Americans to oppose the war. They already do.
Foes need to speak up
The challenge is to find a way to reach them, mobilize them, and get them to become active, vocal advocates to end the war.
They spoke in great numbers before the war began, with a huge, loud outpouring of protest against the Bush administration’s plan to invade Iraq. Now their voices are muted — and no wonder. It is easy to become dispirited, after 55 months, with Bush and the Congress seemingly deaf.
United for Peace and Justice, the nation’s largest anti-war coalition, sought advice from activists in a recent online poll about what to do next, with a range of options including electoral action, a national march, lobbying Congress, civil disobedience, challenging war profiteers, targeted boycotts, and more.
The obvious answer seems to be “all of the above.”
That’s why I have joined many others who have signed on with the Iraq Moratorium, a decentralized but national grass-roots effort that asks individuals to take personal responsibility to do something — anything — to show their opposition to the war.
Third Friday action
The Iraq Moratorium asks people to pledge to take some action, either individually or collectively, on the third Friday of every month. That action can be as simple a gesture as wearing a black armband or button for the day, as big as participating in a large-scale protest, or a lot of things in between. The group’s Web site, www.IraqMoratorium.org. has a list of suggestions, and information on upcoming actions.
The third monthly Moratorium Day is Friday, Nov. 16.
Last month there were at least nine events across Wisconsin, and hundreds across the country, plus uncounted thousands of individual actions. Madison has no announced actions planned this month — sometimes it seems like every day is Moratorium Day in Madison — but many individuals who will do something.
The moratorium is designed to spread, grow and escalate over time and ratchet up the pressure on Congress and the president (present and future) to end the war. It is in it for the long haul.
It’s easy to dismiss all of this as meaningless. Nothing we do will make a difference, the cynics say.
But doing something is infinitely more likely to have an impact than doing nothing. The moratorium is one way to keep the flame burning and keep people engaged.
Buttons and armbands won’t stop the war by themselves. Neither will rallies and marches, or letters to the editor, or phone calls to Congress, or speeches or civil disobedience. There’s no single magic solution. Those who want to end this war need to do everything. The Iraq Moratorium is one more tool in the toolbox — but one that in the long run could be quite effective.
Bill Christofferson, a Vietnam veteran, former Madison newspaper reporter and longtime political consultant, now retired, is a volunteer member of the Iraq Moratorium Committee.
© 2007 Capital Newspapers
The cynics say nothing we do will make a difference. Well, I would say doing nothing will definately make a difference!
It’s actually four and a half years into the war/occupation. It is, however, six years since the invasion and pseudo-liberation of Afghanistan.
Easy to get numbers confused since it seems like at least a century that we’ve been in this Kafka-Orwell nightmare.
How does one disarm a nightmare?
Congress isn;t chicken hearted as this author puts forth. They are willing collaborators in dismantling the united states, and should be held accountable, each and every one.
Why the third friday of the month? Why not the first friday which is easier to remember. Each month you’d think “oh right this friday…” The first week people will associate with an event…after that they have to write it down otherwise they’ll forget which week it was?
The metro Detroit area peace activists are having a MARCH FOR PEACE as a third Friday gesture of solidarity with the Iraq Moratorium movement. This Friday, Nov. 16, at 4:00 PM in downtown. For more information go to: http://11hour4peace.org/ or write wethepeople2008@gmail.com
Come join us.
Peace
Why not every Friday…. Why not every day???
I have my peace buttons… but I think a black arm band (against my already black clothes :>)) would be more striking.
Put me down for every day — and for recalling all elected federal officials. We need a national referendum that provides new candidates and recalling the incumbent as options with taxpayer-funded campaign financing, no outside money, no limitations on ballot access other than a registration deadline, and instant runoff voting.
We also need a constitutional amendment that limits concentrated power while maintaining principles like human rights, individual liberties and freedom of speech, press, and religion, and news organizations that are not owned by capitalists.
If the majority of Americans ever figure out how bad they’ve been had, this bunch in the White House is going to be in deep doo. It’s past time for a peaceful revolution my friends. Way past time — and it’s never too late.
“We Can Help End the War One Third Friday at a Time”. Maybe so, but what do we do throughout the rest of the month? Praise the troops?
Veterans’ Day was “celebrated” on Monday. That should offset at least one third Friday of protest.
How can people condemn the war out of one side of their mouths and continue to praise the wonderful troops for their great work and sacrifices?
These are indeed puzzling times. The “Silent Majority” obviously approves of the war by praising the only people that make it possible - our boys and girls in uniform. We can’t, as Senator John Kerry convolutedly stated, separate the warrior from the war. If the war is wrong, the warrior is wrong. We can’t have it both ways.
Maybe on every third Friday, we could picket recruiting offices or try to educate families of military people, but for the rest of the month those people should be shunned and made to face the reality of their treachery. The troops have to be stopped.
If anyone realizes a Democratic Congress is ” as chicken-hearted as the president is bullheaded”, then to whom should the” foes” speak up? Speaking to Congress is an exercise in futility. It is not this administration or this Congress that is at the heart of our problems. The system itself is broken. We need to skirt the system, as Cheney and Bush have, to return government to the consent of the governed - if that was ever a reality.
If we speak to anyone, speak to working people not only about stopping this war but stopping government as we know it. Working people, the people that move this country, should simply stop. Stop everything and make demands on the government, not requests or petitions. Then, I think, the ears and eyes of Congress and of the White House would become more sensitive to the rationale of the people. A nation-wide work stoppage would make everything posible that is not now possible - an end to the war, health care reform, fair taxation, and whatever.
Talking is fine, but without action it will as always fall on deaf ears. Doing nothing, no work at all would be very effective and immediately so. There would be no need for the long haul, because the impact of doing nothing would be one of shock and awe, to coin a phrase, that even the selective deafness and blindness of our government could not ignore.
how are we ever going to end this war?
Simple, we stop supporting the troops, and the troops stop enabling the war. (Do you think Bush, Cheney, Rice, etc. are going to actually fight a war?) It’s our troops that make the war possible.
Don’t support our troops.
It seems to me that anything at any time with anyone doing anything to oppose this nightmare will help. Currently standing protest on the third friday and waving a black ribbon on the antenna of my car, when I am not bugging the h— out of my Congresspersons.
Dichterfreund asked “How does one disarm a nightmare?”
One wakes up…
People in the US have feared war on our home turf for a long time. Ever stop to think that we are already at war on our home turf? It’s a whole lot different from what we are used to thinking/seeing as “war” but nevertheless, if you look at it just so, we are struggling against a foe who lives next door or down the street, or dominates the electorate. The we of us who are paying attention must take action. Get loud and stay loud. Do what you know is right. Demand that we regain our democracy. You remember how.