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TechnoratiDismantling Peace Movement Myths
A speech for Peace Action Maine on April 26th, 2008
* * *
Thanks so much for inviting me and for making me feel so welcome. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I was going to say this evening.
Frankly, it is a tall order to stand up in front of a group of people who have just eaten and be expected to say anything that can compete with the natural digestive process. And it is tough to fly from New York and assume that what I would prepare to say would automatically be relevant or interesting to this Maine community as you come together to celebrate and honor a few of your own.
Oh, just to add to my challenge, this is not a college auditorium or a lecture hall. This is a peace supper, not the right venue for a simple recitation of the broad array of depressing and demoralizing statistics with which you are all already too familiar.
So, what I am trying to say is: I did not want to risk winging it. This moment in time contains so much hope and possibility and so much death and destruction. These are not easy times and they are not getting easier -- and so I thought that I would take on some of the myths that burden, complicate and undermine our peace movements.
We have internalized some of these myths pretty deeply. We even reinforce them with one another. So, I thought it might be a valuable exercise to spend some time together dismantling a few of them.
What follows is my high subjective (and certainly incomplete) compilation of the myths of the peace movement.
In the 1960s, the peace movement was so much more powerful and so much cooler than we are.
There are no young people active in the peace movement. Don't they care?
We are marginalized and we are not having an impact.
We're not smart enough to oppose the war.
All we need to do is get the right person in the White House and then they'll enact our solutions.
Does any of this sound familiar? This is what I hear from brothers and sisters over and over again. Now, these myths are not equal -- some are bigger than others. And some have a kernel of truth (which is why they are myths and not lies) but cumulatively this constant bombardment is a real bummer.
So, I'm saying they are not true -- I'm saying that there are young people, and we are having an impact, and that no one person in any position of power is going to offer any answer automatically or just because they promised they would.
I'm saying we are the ones we have been waiting for, that we are creating the alternative. If that is what we are doing, not just going through some exercise of opposition, some knee-jerk resistance or recalcitrance, then we have a lot of work ahead of us -- and need to take the work more seriously, and ourselves less so.
And that starts with dismantling myths.
Myth One: In the 1960s, the peace movement was so much more powerful and so much cooler than we are today.
I want to start with the 1960s one. 2008 is a big year for revivals and recollections and reunions for the historians and the academics and the activists. 40 years since: the police riot in Chicago, the assassination of Martin Luther King and of Bobby Kennedy, Tommie Smith and John Carlos giving the black power salute as they received their Olympic medals, since Catonsville. And those are just a few of the things that happened in the U.S. that year -- around the world there was Prague Spring, the massacre at Tlateloco, the Paris uprising, the Biafran war. Here we are forty years later, and it is a potent moment for reflection.
But, the demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer are happening under the slogan "Recreate Sixty-Eight." Disclaimer: Now, I don't mean to undermine or disparage the work of activists and organizers in Denver and all of the friends who will go to Colorado this summer to demonstrate, and at the same time implore the democratic party to be the party of the people.
I like the rhythm of language a lot. And I love alliteration. In that way -- Recreate Sixty Eight is AWESOME. I love how it sounds. The organizers have their reasons for choosing it beyond how cool it sounds. There are a lot of lessons to learn from that era, and a lot of good things that happened that year.
But "recreate sixty-eight"? We cannot and should not recreate sixty-eight. The parallels between today and forty years ago are clear and compelling, and as I said there is a lot to learn from that period.
But here we are in 2008 and we need to be building a movement and building bridges between movements (because we are not a monolith) that is rooted in an analysis and understanding of this moment, this place, this context.
I was struck to read recently that at the beginning of 1968, less than half the American people believed the war in Vietnam was wrong, 45%, and that more than 15,000 U.S. soldiers had been killed and nearly 100,000 wounded. So the Vietnam War was both more bloody and more popular than the war and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan are in 2008.
In every way, this nation is less homogeneous than it was 40 years ago: we are racially, ethnically, religiously more diverse and more stratified. We are so much poorer, and so much richer than we were forty years ago. We are less innocent. We are less naíve. In short -- we are different. And this war is different. And so our movements must also be different.
But the media compares '68 and '08, the peace movement then and now. Some activists then and now compare us, some leaders (those who survived) compare that time to now as they seek new relevance.
But, we must not fall sway to this comparison.
We live in the United States of America -- a deeply nostalgic and deeply ahistorical nation saddled with a case of amnesia that approaches pathology. My SAT prep teacher would be so proud of that sentence. This is a dangerous and counterproductive combination -- nostalgic amnesia. And it infects our peace movements. We are tempted to fetishize the past instead of learn from it. The past is constantly being rewritten and repackaged and then sold to us as a distorted reflection in a house of mirrors. So, we don't want to recreate sixty-eight; we want to harness some of that energy, that sense of power and possibility and apply it to our very different context today.
Myth Two: There are no young people active in the peace movement. Don't they care?
And that leads to an interconnected myth: "Where are the young people?" I was at a college in Connecticut a few years ago and I think I was talking about war profiteering. It was a Friday afternoon and one of those early spring, warm days where the flip-flops get dragged out of the back of the closet.
Needless to say, there were not a lot of students there -- but those who were there were active, engaged and very, very earnest. The dialogue was going great until a professor stood up and asked me: "Where are the students? Where are the young people? They don't care. In my day, we were so radical. If there was a draft, man, then they'd know."
"If there was a draft..." It struck me as so spiteful. That would teach 'em. They'd be sorry they never paid attention in my class. I did not hear from him a sense of responsibility as a professor. No understanding of who these young people are he has made it his career to teach. And, no sense of agency, that he could help them do or be anything different.
So, I responded in a few ways: 1) There is a draft -- it is a whole series of backdoor drafts, the people who are fighting these wars don't want to be there and they cannot easily and legally leave -- they are drafted. 2) There will not be another draft -- so hoping that instituting a draft will catalyze a new generation of resistance is a non-starter (as Cheney would say) 3) The draft during the Vietnam war turned out lots of people against the war, but organizing under the banner "bring our boys home" meant that when Nixon "Vietnamized" the war, the mass anti-war movement packed up and went home -- long before the war was over, long before the killing stopped.
It was for many people a movement based on self-interest -- which may be bigger, but is in many ways less powerful than one built on principle and solidarity. The average "lifespan" of a 60s activist was about six months -- from tuning on at their first protest to tuning out and going back to Middle America. You don't end war in six-month increments -- no matter how much you rage during that period. Can we see ourselves today -- in 2008 -- building an anti-war movement founded on the idea that war is a failure of the imagination, that war is wrong, and that it must be resisted and opposed even if it is not affecting one personally? I think we can.
This question -- where are the young people? -- is heart-breaking. It misses all the incredible and courageous work that young people are doing all over this country. It says that young people are not doing peace and justice work because they are not doing it with us.
And it misses the fact that young people today have so much more to lose -- unless they are from very poor or very wealthy backgrounds, young people graduate from college saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt and no guarantee of a job. That debt is a kind of draft -- college grads are drafted into a life-cycle of taking on more debt, working two jobs, having little time for friendships or community. And all the time the culture whispers: go ahead and buy it --you deserve it -- and a little more debt doesn't matter. But, step out of line, miss one payment, and the house of cards collapses. We need to understand our young people and what they are up against.
But, we are at war and young people are at the forefront -- not just of the college-educated, debt-burdened variety. But urban and rural high school students are finding the new Students for a Democratic Society and creating a new legacy for that 60s-era organization. And there is something else that is missed by that "where are the young people?" question. More and more young people are in uniform. And they are calling cadence of the anti-war movement. And the war is not an abstraction for them: they know what 138-degree heat under Kevlar feels like. They see the lies up close. They have tasted fear and witnessed and participated in war crimes. They are paying the price for this administration's hubris and imperial designs with part of their bodies. They come home haunted and broken and hopping mad.
So, there are young people. And they need support and guidance, not condescension. One of the best things the War Resisters League has done in the last 10 years or so is to sublet space to Iraq Veterans Against the War in New York City. And over coffee and at the copy machine a dialogue between principled pacifists and people who volunteered for military service begins. It is a dialogue that will need to continue for years. It is a dialogue that makes us stronger, and it ensures that the next generation of peace activists will be more powerful and more sophisticated than the last -- understanding the past, but looking and moving forward, never back.
Myth Three: We are marginalized and we are not having an impact.
At the War Resisters League, we have had to relearn the fine art of the press release, because a few years back we realized that not only was the media coming out to our demonstrations, but they were lifting whole sections from our press releases -- warts and all, and we had better write better ones if we wanted better coverage.
We were so used to being marginalized and written off and now there we were on the front page. It took some adjustment. Starting in 2003, just about every demo we've organized has gotten great press coverage. Sometimes the tone is snarky, and reporters always ask why we did not have more people -- but we got covered.
Eventually, I realized we were getting press coverage not just because of our cutting edge, awesome demonstrations. But because we were manifestations of popular sentiment against the war. At a time when the administration is desperately trying to distract the American people from the war and the economy those two things are becoming fused in people's minds, and we are part of triggering, directing and sustaining that discussion. And that discussion turns the wheel of action.
We are still small. But, we speak for the majority of Americans every time we go into the streets. And it leads to this interesting sense of accountability. I am not just here for me. I am here for many people who cannot be here because they are working or they are afraid or they don't know this is happening -- but would be happy if they did.
We are having an impact. So let's use it while we have it. Because it will not always be that way. Whenever I am at a protest and it is all thumbs up and honking horns, I think about World War II, and what it would have been like to be a peace activist then.
Two of the peace activists I most admire -- my mother and father -- both supported the war in their own way. My mom was just a girl then, and talks about collecting cigarette and gum wrappers that they turned in. They were told that the wrappers would be made into ammunition. Everyone was part of the war effort. People planted victory gardens -- and at one point during the war, 40% of people's food came from those gardens, even in urban areas. I am staying at a friend's house and they have a sign from that era that says: "Save waste fats for explosives. Take them to your meat dealer."
My dad served in the Army in WWII. He was a field-decorated lieutenant. My uncles Jerry, Tom and Jim all served in WWII and my Uncle John was in the army, but did not go overseas. Of six brothers, only one -- my Uncle Dan who had already entered the Jesuits -- did not enlist.
People in the U.S. suffered because of WWII. Sacrificed was demanded and expected. Food and gas were rationed and Americans were called on to buy war bonds. At the height of the war, 40% of gross domestic product went to fund war.
Ralph DiGia, Bill Sutherland, the others who refused to serve in the military during World War II had to withstand that propaganda, and I cannot imagine how difficult that was.
So, today we are not opposing a popular total war.
We are resisting a war that barely registers on many peoples' radar screens. But -- when it registers -- the war is profoundly unpopular. The latest polls about the war have more than 70% of Americans opposed to the war, and when the question gets more general -- 80-something percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction this country is going.
But, we risk falling into a moebius strip logic trap: the war is unpopular; people oppose the war, war ends. But, it has not ended. It has ground on for five long years in Iraq, for seven for the long global war on terrorism.
Myth Four: We are not smart enough to end the war.
We have to dismantle the myth that only experts can get us out of Iraq, and unless we can formulate a rock solid plan for withdrawal from Iraq, we cannot really oppose the war.
Why? Why? Why does the war go on if the American people don't want it? There are many answers to this question and I don't have all of them -- but the one I see most often and most clearly is this: even good people who would like there not to be a war don't see a clear way out. And they don't understand the complexities -- you start talking Sunni, Shiite, Awakening, Badr Brigades, Nouri al-Maliki, Sadr City, phased redeployment and you have lost them one, two, three, seven times over. And not seeing a clear way out, and not being completely fluent in the language of deadly quagmire on an epic scale, they tune out.
We have a role and a task here as peace activists and organizers. And our role is not to teach them the grammatical nuances of the language of deadly quagmire on an epic scale.
Our role is to say: you do not need to have a PhD in foreign affairs to say that the war is wrong, to say that withdrawal needs to be immediate and complete, to say that we should not be spending our blood and treasure on wars of preemptive aggression based on lies. In fact, it is the PhDs and the experts, the arm chair warriors who got us into this war.
It takes courage, and moral and political clarity to reject the "pottery barn" maxim of foreign policy -- we broke it, we bought it. No, we need to say: Iraq is not a vase or a candelabra. We need to say to Washington: you broke it. And we did not buy it. And, at the same time acknowledge that we will be paying for Iraq forever -- $3 trillion and counting is the estimate that Stiglitz and Bilmes are using these days.
But we cannot occupy that country forever. The U.S. occupation is a catalyst and cause of violence, not the deterrent. The immediate and complete withdrawal is not a process; it is an executive order.
Myth Five: We can elect our way to an end to war.
But, if we can't stand up for all of that, we fall back on another myth -- the myth that we can express our anti-war sentiments through candidates. That the democratic majority in Congress -- the so-called revolution of 2006 -- or an Obama or Clinton in the White House -- will fulfill our anti-war agenda. The myth is that the right politician will say the right thing at the right time. Those magical incantations will part the quagmire like Moses parted the Red Sea and allow a new administration to do right what Bush did so wrong. It is a myth.
It is a myth. And I am not just saying this because I have found the last two years of campaigning emotionally and physically exhausting. And I'm not even running. Just watching it is irritating at this point.
Politicians will not save us. Democracy is not lever pulling or chad punching. It is not branding and messaging and framing and divining the new micro-interest group. It is not one day every two or four years. And it certainly is not the elaborate and vicarious puppetry spectacle and pageantry of the last eight years. It is hard, sustained, incremental, engaged work.
The name plate on the desk in the Oval Office is a very very small part of what we need to be working for. And yet the election sucks all the oxygen out of the room -- especially this one when there are racial and gender milestones at stake. And it sucks all the money out of the room. And it sharpens the lines that divide us.
And when we cede the answers to some politician, we invest in other people and in other systems what we really need to be investing in ourselves, in one another and in our movements. It puts our hope and our energy in the hands of people with other agendas and other masters.
And that brings me to my stirring conclusion -- it is us. It is you and I. It is Peace Action's platform to Reclaim Maine (a great -- and meaningful -- name). We are the alternative. This room is full of good people who work so hard -- war tax resisters making a principled decision not to pay for war and philanthropists who are generous and dependable, carpenters and green thumbs, computer whizzes and luddites, visionaries and implementers.
We are the alternative. We are the answer. And if you are looking around this room thinking "uh-oh," that's a good thing. Because coming to grip with this truth in the midst of all these myths means we need to be self-critical and challenge each other. It means we should do more -- be more -- reach out more and welcome more in.
We cannot wait. We cannot wait for a leader. We cannot wait for "the plan." We cannot wait for things to get worse. We cannot wait for the answers.
We have the answers, and it is us.
What is the alternative to depression and recession? Sharing.
What is the alternative to subprime mortgages crisis? Collective ownership.
What is the alternative to hunger? Farms and gardens.
What is the alternative to war and terrorism? International cooperation, universally accepted and enforced norms for nation-states, development that meets peoples' needs.
What is the alternative to prison, to soulless schools, to militarized borders? to capitalism and market driven globalization? to cluster bombs?
We answer these questions together and we create the alternatives together. We enact news truths that replace the myths.
Peace Action Maine invited Frida Berrigan, who serves on the board of the War Resisters League and works for the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative, to speak at their annual Peace Supper in Portland, Maine.
30 Comments so far
Show AllThe peace movement is one of those fuzzy, huggy, touchy feely kind of things that make perfect sense in a perfect world, but not the world we live in. As long as there are vicious hateful people that want to kill us there will be no peace. That will be pretty much until the end of time as near as I can see it. Sorry to say it, but there goes another peace myth.
The invisible "young people" for peace - marginalized and ignored.
OTOH, the "visible" young people are out there pursuing Republican values - chase the buck, get ahead and to hell with any of the disadvantaged.
"As I've heard said, war solves nothing ever"
Tell that to the Cartheginians and a few others. Its a good thought, but unfortunately its not true.Its like saying force never solves anything. It may not solve it, but it will certainly resolve it.
I don't say your ambition is wrong, I just say its better to acknowledge reality along the road.
BreeMass May 8th, 2008 4:56 pm
Has some good points there. Its a bit harder for young kids today than it was for us. But they don't have to worry about being drafted so they are one up on my bunch there.
HRC May 8th, 2008 4:41 pm
Surely they aren't that bad? I don't remember getting all those goodies delivered to our hooch. Maybe you fought in a more modern war? Perhaps a bit more experience and a bit more tolerance would serve you well.
Deran - way to practice the condescension that Frida was talking about. One of the reasons it is hard to engage is that us "young folks" are constantly running into people like you who tell us all we do is whine and play video games. Is that supposed to support our involvement?
Back in 2003 hundreds of thousands of young people around the country engaged and protested the war and it made no difference at all and we were virtually ignored by mainstream media. For many who were just starting out in political engagement, this was a harsh slap in the face and very disillusioning. But lots of us didn't give up and continue to work today. Just because the MSM ignores us doesn't mean we aren't there.
As far as voting goes, the spark with Obama is that he speaks to us and engages us on issues that matter to us. Republicans in general and Clinton like to focus on the issues, that while important, don't directly affect us. I care about Medicare and retirement funds, but right now I care more about paying for a college education, getting health care, finding affordable housing, jobs, and affordable quality childcare. Clinton is a huge NAFTA supporter and supporter of policies that send jobs that could be supporting my generation overseas. I also care about avoiding more military adventures and spending money at home instead of Iraq. I care about getting those in my generation home from places they shouldn't be, like Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm not saying Obama is perfect in these respects, but at least he's willing to listen and discuss them rather than pander to the hawks who just want a president who is going to nuke Iran and "defend America" (as if, as the largest military power in the world, we actually need that much defending).
These are the issues I care about and people in my generation care about. But, while we're struggling to pay for housing, food, childcare, student loans and the like, sometimes showing up at a demonstration isn't a top priority. Sometimes just being able to vote for somebody who realizes that the world isn't black and white is the best we can do. And it'd be nice if folks like Deran gave us a slight bit of credit rather than calling us all a bunch of whiners. Why the hell should we care what you think about us if you won't even attempt to get beyond denigration and name-calling?
As someone with extensive experience at the heart of this so-called peace movement--from my experience as Peace Chair for the Green Party of the US and as a delegate to United for Peace and Justice, and as someone who has done civil disobedience with Frida and the War Resister's League--I can say I know Frida and her coterie and love and respect them. But sadly—although she transcends the behavioral trappings of this label—she forgot to identify one of the biggest problems facing the so-called peace movement: career activists.
So many self-obsessed Baby Boomers are still madly clinging to control over the "movement" that a new generation is not being let in. Not even the Gen Xers like myself, right below them, can get a foothold in the organizing, much less the Millennial/youth generation, who see in these Boomers the same control-freak behaviors in which their parents engage. These aging activists or wanna-be activists, who never made a name for themselves, or who wish to cling to whatever fleeting fringe notoriety they have, simply refuse to gracefully exit stage left and let the young take over. They are still trying to relive the 60s.
Just look at the "Steering Committees" for the major coalitions like UFPJ. It's all the same people, year after year, predominantly of the same demographic: mostly white, mostly middle-aged, mostly-liberal and Democrat. Those three demographic designations are the least affected by this war.
I fault them first and foremost with the ineffectiveness of the movement, because their tactics are useless and anachronistic, if not a total parody or caricature of protest. They refuse to admit that marches and rallies and sixty year old chants and folk songs are completely ineffectual. They permit no innovation in tactical strategy. When a sit-in at the White House becomes a nostalgia party/photo-op for Cindy Sheehan and friends, instead of a piece of effective civil disobedience, no one but those who get on camera benefit.
Our movements will change when those leading them change. The Baby Boomers are the single most narcissistic, self-indulgent, prodigiously consuming generation in American history. They are as responsible for this war as the Administration, because it is their mindless ego-driven consumption that backed us into this corner.
But truly, the biggest myth of all is that Americans care about ending this war. The truth is, most are clueless about it, and the rest are apathetic. They have projected all their hopes and anxieties onto Obama, and I am predicting now, he will disappoint on a scale so large, no one will have the courage to admit it.
Deran: I suppose I am one of those "Obamabots," as I voted for Obama in the primary. What exactly is your solution?
Sure, I'd love for the Democratic and Republican nominees to have been Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul (that would make for a hell of a debate - and I think a smarter and more complex one, too), but it aint going to happen. Obama is not "the Christ," but he seems to be, by far, the best of the 3 (serious) contenders we have left.
What do you suggest? Should we all write in the perfect, though extreme-long-shot candidate, and in the end McCain ends, because the left was so fractured? I don't think any of our 3 choices reflect the ideal, but there's got to be a ramping up process. Realisitically, this country is not ready to vote in a Dennis Kucinich or any other candidate who would seriously challenge the status quo.
By referring to those who would vote for Obama as "Obamabots," who are only interested in consuming and playing video games, you're simply distancing yourself further from those who do not act as you think they should and you're actually making your ideals (whatever they may be) less appealing to people who might be open to them. Anyone I've met who's voting for Obama is not expecting him to save them but I think after 8 years of Cheney and Bush, we've got to admit, there is a difference.
Oh, and I, for one, don't play video games and I monitor my consumpsion.
This article is awesome! Frida Berrigan is an inspiration. The most overused criticism of the opposition to the status quo is that we don't offer any substantial alternatives. But here they are, folks, in black-and-white. As Leo Buscaglia used to say, "I don't know the answers, but I'm living them each and every day." Frida Berrigan is living them as well with all of the intelligence and heart that it takes.
just one more thing ... I've asked several people the following question:
If the OPEC nations (or even just Saudi Arabia) refused to sell oil to the United States, it would be devastating to our economy. Would military action be justified?
Appallingly, most people I've asked have said yes.
[If such a lock-out were to occur, the United States certainly could buy oil from other producers, even buy OPEC oil through a third party, but the per barrel cost would be devastating, and any hiatus is oil products arriving to feed our domestic markets would be staggering. Yes, increased domestic reliance on renewable is crucial. Like "wanting to bring the troops home" doesn't bring the troops home; "research into alternative energy technology" doesn't result in implementation of alternative energy, beyond a few tax credits. Both ideas have to get out of committee to mean anything. ]
Susan Parker: Right on!
A year or so after GWI, I had an opportunity to go back to college to take a few classes ... I was aroud 40 at the time. I was in high school in 1968, involved with SDS and the Resistance, working on educating my classmates about alternatives to simply complying with the draft and conscription.
After class one day as we were gathering ups our belongings, a much younger classmate told me that she envied me and my generation wrt Vietnam -- "For god's sake why?" I asked, incredulous -- "It was horrible. I remember the day my boyfriend left the house to go to the draft board and I didn't know if/when I'd see him next. I remember federal marshalls cutting the chain that bound a friend's boyfriend to the pulpit of a church. It was awful, I said, and so frustrating." -- But, you stopped the war, came the reply.
Who told you that? I demanded. My high school history teacher, she said. I didn't have the heart to tell her about the Christmas bombings or the endless "peace negotations" and the war that went on during those years ...
I think the "peace movement" was important ... primarily in empowering others to think, to doubt, to reject, to dare, to express ... much as the power of Martin Luther King, apart from his amazing oratorical skills, was in his example ... his personal courage in putting himself and his family OUT THERE ... in danger ... even though he knew well how dangerous it was ... it empowered others, and then there was the coming together ... etc.
I don't think computer chat boards offer the same thing -- at all -- it's is easy for people to exhort and bully and badger and demean on line, never actually risking even the disapproving GLANCE of another person.
I think the "lack of a (bigger) movement" likely speaks more to alienation and social pressures, the fear of risking public commitment with anything.
I hope that keyboarding Obama fans will actually get out and work for the candidate this fall, even if it means associating with those middle-ages Hillary "hags" they have been reviling for months. It's easy to be opinionated and assertive safe at your computer at home, but it can also create the illusion of a movement where there is only a aggregation of chat screen pseuds.
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edited to add: Over the years, I have been appalled so often to hear that the problem with Vietnam was that we lost ... the generals lost it, we pulled out "too early," yada yada ...
It appears to me now that a lot of folks who claim to have opposed vietnam came to that position as the anti-war movement grew ... because it was hopeless, because too many had died, because we "weren't being allowed to win", because it cost too much -- very much like the evolution of the anti-Iraq war sentiments ... that might well be changed if things "turned around" or "we were winning" or "casualties declined to nil" ...
Most of America never understood what was morally wrong about Vietnam, much as they don't understand that even if WMD had been found, the war on Iraq would have been morally wrong ...
As I've heard said, war solves nothing ever, usually it just sets up the foundation of resentment, anger, desire for revenge, etc, for the next war ... Stopping the madness is the key to stopping war.
Reading between the lines, the solution offered seems to be Global Communism or Fascism Globalization without being market driven is simply state ownership of Production= Communism, or Corporate ownership of state, which is Fascism.
As for the myths, yes I agree, we should debunk them. In the late 60's, the establishment as it was called then, did their best to piss off the young and blacks and get every group fighting against each other to create civil unrest, and there was unrest. But many of the anti-war protests seen on TV were much smaller than actually reported, and many were financed by ESSO (Rockefeller) money. Many adults supported the war simply because they were outraged by what they saw on TV, with the disrespect for the flag by long haired hippie freaks as we were called. Even then, the media mainly helped create the news, as they were controlled by the CIA under Operation Mockingbird. A lot of what happened in the 60's was manipulated and controlled by the establishment, but the dopes didn't figure it out they were being used as pawns.
They pitted black vs white, young vs old, men vs women (Rockefeller financed the feminism movement to get them into the workplace and stop having so many babies and create salary deflation). They flooded the country with drugs to destroy minds. They wanted a revolution to grow so they would have a chance to scrap the constitution by the target date which was July 4, 1976. They failed.
So they took another approach and today, they have won, they have simply scrapped the constitution without telling anyone, and maintained the illusion of Democracy, at least until recently. One of Bush's mission seems to have been removing the illusion to anyone but the brain dead. He has done a good job, worked for me, but it is surprising how effective they were in destroying brains, many of them are dead, and will not be missed in the culling of the herd to come.
If people protest too much, they will give us martial law, enforced with the boot of fascism. Their target audience today is largely global, proving to everyone that nationalism, democracy and capitalism, etc., do not work. They are using the destruction of America as an example, and convincing them the solution is One World Government-Communism/Fascism, call it what you want. They have intentionally created various crisis; illegal wars, financial crisis, energy shortage, food shortages, and manufactured some phony crisis like man made consumption driven Global Warming, peak oil, etc., in order to shock you and them into accepting the New World Order.
Following WW II, the US was positioned as the only real Superpower, and could have been a force for Good, and what did we do, we built up the Soviet Union and let China go Communist, and then proceeded to destroy any country in the developing world showing a hint of Democracy by accusing them of being soft on Communism or Socialists, like Iran in 1953, and so many other countries since. In those days we had a War on Communism. Today it is Terrorism. Both are fake. There is a war on, it is against the global citizens of the world, including Americans. The elite vs the non-elite.
The next generation will simply be slaves, and will require permission to have sex and have children. If they can't work, they won't eat. No retirement worries. More likely than not, there will be no such thing as families, as the state will take control of this function. There will also not be any religion, at least not a Christian or Islamic religion. If you read between the lines of MSM coverage, religion is being discredited with wars, terrorism, genocide blamed on religous differences. Families are being discredited as one atrocity after another is exposed, mothers and fathers killing their children, sexually abusing them, or sects like the FLDS with polygamous marriages who marry 13 year olds, not to mention the Catholic Church with their pedophilia problems. It's psyops at it's best, posing as news.
The path of peace is the path of realism.
And, it is profoundly simple, not hard, simple. It is in fact what you were designed to do, walk this path of peace.
We did not know so many things which are essential to peace in the sixties...
I was there. I was very dedicated. But, I am wiser today.
The next generation (if there is one) will no longer work for peace, they will simply and naturally express... and peace will result.
http://allinharmony.org
What I got out of this article is a sense that there is more to the Peace movement than protests.
If we are serious about changing the paradigm that has brought us war, economic collapse, climate collapse and negation of human rights, then we have to realize that we are required to change the way we live our lives.
Literally change it. We must re-evaluate how we get our food and from where, we must re-evaluate the way we transport ourselves and goods, we must re-evaluate how we treat each other (Republicans, Democrats, women, children, people of all colors, poor people, rich people...everybody). We must reject violence as a decision maker and do it in our lives.
It is true that the revolution happens in our mundane, day to day existence. These national political policies can only reflect what is happening on a more local level- if we are successful at creating peace in our communities,on a mundane daily level then this will ripple into the larger world.
Start where you are. If you can love the people around you, you are doing more for the peace movement than you can imagine. Striking up conversations on the bus, in the line at the grocery store, with the homeless dude on the corner...this is where it starts. No peace movement will be successful as long as we do not try to practice peace in our personal lives.
Maybe this is why the movement is struggling- there is nothing glamorous about this process. It requires patience, self-discipline and sacrifice. None of these is high on the American priority list and I do not think that peace activists are immune. Even here, on this forum where theoretically we are all here because we care about the same things, I have experienced hateful reactions (largely because "Republican" appears in my name) and I have read many hateful posts. Even here it seems that peace is elusive...
continually amused, who are you forgiving for slavery? the whitie imperialists of the 18th and 19th centuries who bought slaves from the africans or the africans who already had a centuries old slave trade going, long before whitie showed up? whitie only had to dock at the beach where africans had lots and lots of slaves of their own and were more than happy to sell. So who exactly is "you people"?
Thanks, smokey joe, I guess anyone who wishes for peace and listens to GOOD music smokes hash. Go for it, buddy, but I never did touch the weed and I never will. Need to keep my head clear so I can ridicule people like you and your favorite verbal jerk, the great Pill-popper named Rush. oh, and more importantly, truly work for peace.
zimmie53: Thanks for the quote from The Moody Blues song "The Story in Your Eyes" (Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, 1971). Also in that song:
"But I'm frightened for your children that the life that we are living is in vain and the sunshine we've been waiting for will turn to rain..."
All peacemakers have this fear--we had it then and we have it now, but we must continue to light the fires here on CD and in our respective worlds.
Thank you, Frida Berrigan, for your suggestions about what we need to do now. I have been inspired to resume my activities. I, too, faced problems as a student--in fact, I lost my college scholarship because of my attempts at peacemaking. But now I'm taking up the mantle of peacemaking long abandoned because of the very things you described (jobs, debt) and others not mentioned (domestic abuse, job discrimination, bankruptcy, poverty). But, hey, I no longer have anything to lose.
And I still listen to The Moody Blues and attend the group's concerts, when I can.
Thank you Frida Berrigan for your words and for all you have done and continue to do. At 61, I've been demonstrating for 45 years and I'm tired of it. But so what? I'll remember your words the next time I'm tempted to give in to pessimism. Pessimism and cynicism are recipes for inaction. None of us who cares about our world and its future can afford to indulge in pessimism. We can be realistic about the difficulties,even allow ourselves to feel the dark emotion of despair without caving in to it.
Eileen,
Maybe if we changed one letter in "engaged citizenry" and made it "enRaged citizenry", the fires would get lit.
Thanks for all your wise observations.
Berrigan lost me at "And it misses the fact that young people today have so much more to lose". How does this prevent them from spending at least some of their free time engaging in social and political activism ?
And take it as a spiteful wish or not, I do believe that if we still had a draft, young people would be FAR more active against wars. When you are directly threatened, you are more likely to act.
Frida Berrigan lives her beliefs against war by having made such dedication her life's work--as does Amy Goodman as a neverceasing truthtelling journalist who unerringly pursues peace and justice.
The nilhism and despairing cynicism of just a tiny few "knowledgeable"discussants who sit on their hands here at CD pales in comparison compared to courage and tenacity of these two extraordinarily inspired activists!
You bet we are the ones we have been waiting for and no politician should be trusted to save us.
A healthy democracy thrives on dissent.
Fascist regimes thrive when the people are controlled by FEAR.
In a healthy democracy the politicians are afraid of the people and what they fear is loosing power.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights;...to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
What we need is an engaged citizenry that lights the fire and provides the starch in the spine to our elected officials to do the right thing by we the people; and NOT for the benefit of corporations and conglomerates.
Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
The family member groups comprised of 9/11 victim's families and friends, led by the activism of the "Jersey Girls," among others, successfully lobbied Congress to enact legislation which created the commission to investigate the September 11 attacks. After nearly two years of effort, and 18 months of watching the train wreck of that investigation move forward, which Senator Max Cleland called "compromised," which lead commissioners Kean and Hamilton say was ineffective, under-funded, stonewalled, the family members have not backed down and are still calling for an honest, independent investigation to answer the questions that remain about the deaths of their loved ones.
What is significant about their more current efforts is that many in this group of people see as their natural allies those of us who consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the 9/11 Wars. These wars were undertaken as a direct result of the September 11 attacks. I invite all members of the peace movement to consider the power of the families' claims to answers, and how directly connected getting those answers is to how and why we are at war today. We have an administration that has flagrantly abused the civil liberties of all Americans through the loss of habeas corpus rights, through the power they assume in their concept of "unitary executive," through unprecedented secrecy of their actions. And it all stemmed from events of which we know very little.
Consider:
Through a Freedom of Information Act request by a private citizen to the FAA for all documents relating to the positive identification of the aircraft used in the attack -- publicly cited and referred to in at least one major movie, in news accounts, in fictional accounts, in kitchens and living rooms across the country – the records requested have been denied by the FBI and FAA, and the request is now working its way through the courts on appeal. The court continually agrees that the identity of the aircraft is common knowledge, and the documents and imagery relating to the positive ID'ing of the aircraft would not hamper any current investigation or lawsuit, and is a reasonable request in the public interest. The FBI refuses to release any documentation, saying instead that they have no records that positively identify the aircraft to release. While United Fight 93, American Airlines Flight 77, American Airlines Flight 11, and United Flight 175 are very nearly household words, the FBI is saying they do not have records which positively identify the aircraft by the identifying serial numbers of components and parts. Without positively identifying the parts recovered from the Pentagon, or the Shanksville field, we can only trust the government's account of what was involved in those incidents. And if they have been positively identified, it is in the public's interest to have that information available. To date, it has been kept secret.
Through a separate FOIA request the Oral Histories collected by the New York City Fire Department in Oct 2001 through Jan 2002 were released to the New York Times in 2005. Found in the Oral Histories are accounts of firefighters, emergency medical technicians, fire chiefs and a wealth of information on what they encountered during the crisis. At least 118 of them spoke about seeing, hearing, or experiencing explosions destroying sub-basement floors, the lobbies, and upper floors, all the way to the top, in most cases long before the buildings collapsed.
In another case, with the hour after the first tower was hit "an engineering type" person from the Guiliani administration was advising fire officials that the buildings were in danger of collapsing. This directly contradicted the expertise and experience of the fire chiefs which relied on their past experience and knowledge to assess the risks of sending their men into the towers. One chief who died in the collapse said when being told so early in the day, again within an hour after the first plane strike, "Who the f**k told you that?" A total collapse was the last thing on any of the fire chief's minds; a partial collapse perhaps, but not total collapse. And especially not three in one day, complete, and at the speed of gravity. Consider that three buildings fell, not just two. The third only from fire; a first in the history of steel framed construction.
Please consider the facts presented in the peer reviewed scientific papers to be found at the Journal of 9/11 Studies, and the information found at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Also, please consider what the government, law enforcement, military, and intelligence officials, academics and educators, engineers and other notable people have said at the website Patriots Question 9/11 about the need for a new investigation.
The wars we are currently engaged in, and the war this administration has lobbied for against Iran, all used the September 11 attacks as a primary catalyst. To help stop the 9/11 Wars, join with the many educated, principled people who are calling for a new investigation into the government's role in the September 11 attacks. We can all work for peace, strengthening one another's efforts, to make a more peaceful world by finding out exactly what happened on September 11, 2001. Peace will come through a repudiation of the military/industrial complex, its self-enriching agenda of resource wars under a pretense of a "global war on terror." Help expose the cover up of the event that catalyzed this agenda.
There's another myth that should be added to Frida's list about the late 60's - early 70's peace movement in the United States.
Remember how politicians like George Wallace, California Governor Ronald Reagan, and Nixon's Veep Spiro Agnew used to delight and incite the red-white-and-blue masses about the "pointy headed intellectuals who couldn't even park their bicycles straight" that supposedly were leading college age youth astray? Remember how the anti-Vietnam War effort was often characterized as a "white leftist" phenomenon, sometimes insidiously draining energy away from civil rights activism over racial and gender equality?
Public attitudes about withdrawing troops from Vietnam were deeply and repeatedly subjected to public opinion polling. Contrary to the popular myths, opposition to the Vietnam War was more widespread in minority communities than it was among whites, and support for the war was inversely related to income and educational levels. By that I mean poor people and high school drop outs opposed the war in greater proportion than their college educated, more affluent contemporaries did.
Such demographic facts directly undermine the myths that are still perpetuated which paint the peace movement as a largely white, middle class, campus-based exercise in social activism. True, college campuses were hot beds for protest. But controlling for wealth, education level, and race, the grassroots makeup of the folks who opposed the Vietnam war and demonstrated against it in the streets were working class America, not a bunch of pampered, privileged Ivory Tower elites worried mainly about their own draft status.
Bill from Saginaw
luckylefty: I can't help but feel the same sense of despair and cynicism that you obviously feel...and yet...
"The US will make a nice fire however..."
This reminded me of something I heard in a song before despair and cynicism paralyzed me: "We are part of the fire that is burning, and from the ashes we can build another day..."
Frida Berrigan says "...we need to be building a movement and building bridges between movements (because we are not a monolith) that is rooted in an analysis and understanding of this moment, this place, this context."
I agree with this, but also believe we must light some fires!
We're at an ancient nexus where it is necessary to be warriors of peace. Resolute, resistant, having the facts straight and being absolutely courteous. To see history of others who have done so - Gandhi, King, Tutu, Mandela, the full spectrum standing on 'the shoulders of giants'. These leaders did not lose.
The journey must traveled as the future one envisions. CD does not cover the entire world scope of peaceful activity and it is important to remember that just because one does not hear about every successful peace action does not mean that they do not exist.
CD DOES offer an opportunity to share information. Imagine posts as tools.
"It is hard, sustained, incremental, engaged work."
I think I'm a voice crying in the wilderness.
As long as we continue to find ways to hold the media accountable,
It is the knob , stupid , the on-off knob . The media would be accountable if 50 million Americans stopped watching Fox...or reading NYT...and not one word about it from Frida Berrigan .
Something about the ...forest for the trees
Deran May 7th, 2008 1:50 pm You got it Deran. When people have no breaking point, they are slaves. 93% of those who will cast a ballot in Nov. will do so as they did for High School Student Body President. Nothing but a "Popularity Contest". No issues. Business As Usual, as it has been for 35 years - Master fucks the working people, rapes the planet, and laughs all the way to the bank.
Frida lost. So did her husband. So did MLK, RFK, Medgar, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark and George Jackson as did all the executed, falsely imprisoned, or ritually defamed dissidents. We ate them, then we went back to force-feeding our children geno-toxic crap and sexualizing the little girls (don't they paint up pretty, good little gender slaves, show daddy some love sweetie).
The US will make a nice fire however. If humanity survives us, they will write some interesting histories. I don't think Aryans are going to be the "good guys" in that story. We can tell our lies to the smoking rubble.
This is all very nice, but; The Obamabots DO believe that elected their messiah will lead to all good things. And when you meet these youth Obamabots, I very quickly realized that beyond voting and donating, these folks are much more abt xbox and wii, than being in the streets opposing an illegal war, etc. Even if the Obama Christ is denied the Dem nomination, I honesly can not see any of these Obamabots doing anymore than whining abt it. They whine a lot, and do very little else beyond consume products.
Progressives know the problems and like Frida, I think it is time to quit the rants and concentrate on solutions. Good article.
Had a great conversation with an elderly activist who just heard from an attorney that was visiting the states from Great Britain. Apparently, when Blair was in office, doctors, lawyers, factory workers, etc. were protesting the Iraq war every other day. An average of 15,000 each time, until Blair withdrew the troops.
Wasn't sure if the media covered it, but just wanted to post this under this article.
Also, the May Day march in L.A. was quite larger than reported. I saw a tremendous amount of young people, as well as other age groups.
As long as we continue to find ways to hold the media accountable, word of mouth will continue to be the major force behind us. Along with a few blogs and sites like CD...