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TechnoratiWhere Were the Anti-War Demonstrators?
A couple of weekends ago, there was a demonstration against the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle put the crowd at 1,000. I might have said something more - not over 2,000, though - and certainly wouldn't argue with the paper's headline: "S.F. anti-war march smaller than some hoped for."
It reported that "by 2 p.m., the crowd had dwindled to just a few dozen ... when peace activist Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who released the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War, took his turn at the microphone" (a claim whose veracity I cannot judge as, I too had left for another commitment by that point.) Since more people had turned out to hear Noam Chomsky at a couple of Bay Area appearances the prior weekend than came to the demonstration, the problem obviously wasn't lack of interest in the issues it raised. But as a quoted demonstrator said, "It should be 10-fold" and that probably was about the size it would have had to be to make people feel really good about it.
I decided I'd ask - mostly via email - a group of people, whose likelihood of attending the average antiwar march seemed to range from possible to probable, to "give me some idea of what your reasons were for not coming." The responses will not be confused with a scientific sampling, to be sure, but I was struck by the breadth of the reasons cited as well as by a certain eagerness in putting them forward. People seemed to want to talk about why they weren't there. This appeared to be a question they were asking themselves.
There were, of course, the routine everyday reasons: People didn't hear about it, or at least not soon enough. Some had to be at the kid's soccer game or they were in Portland, Oregon, and the like. Certainly the lack of reach of the publicity on this one did seem particularly pronounced. San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who came to the rally and ultimately spoke at it, told me he'd only heard about it two days earlier through an email reminder I'd sent out. One organizer of the event noted that the two public radio stations most likely to give it advance notice didn't and/or couldn't. (Pacifica station KPFA had been in the midst of an extended on-air fund-raising drive - times are tough there too.)
But some people who cited mundane reasons didn't let it go at that. One who felt he was "suffocating under a blizzard' at work," allowed that it was "not the full story" in that "in the past, I've made the decision to put things off," but "in this case, I have to say that I couldn't face another dispiritingly underpopulated demo." One who'd been out of town for the event noted that "I heard no one say they were going." Her sense was "that people haven't quite ramped up to be full out in their critique of Obama," a theme echoed personally in a reply that "I'm giving the president the benefit of the doubt" and another expressing the desire "to give Obama a chance. I'd hate to see the left do to him what we did to Jimmy Carter; look who that got us as President!"
At this point, the only surprising element about the "Obama factor" is how strong it's stayed for so long. The diminished enthusiasm for antiwar demonstrations aimed at Obama rather than Bush was obvious last spring, but with about half of the population now leaning against the proposal that the Administration increase Afghanistan troop levels a second time in its first year in office, it seemed that the bloom might be off the Rose Garden, but apparently not so much that you'd notice in the streets, anyhow.
And, while those of us devoted to stopping the wars he now presides over may cringe at the thought, let's not forget that Nobel Peace Prize. There were a few who first hoped that the awarding of the prize might be some subtle Scandinavian shaming exercise - giving the award to someone who really hadn't yet done much to promote world peace but, by virtue of his office, had the potential to do so. But Thorborn Jagland, past prime minister of Norway, has since clarified matters. According to Jagland, who currently serves as the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, "we have to look strictly to what Alfred Nobel said in his will - namely, to give the prize to the person who has done the most for peaceful development in the world in the last year. So we got to the conclusion unanimously that it is President Barack Obama." So, absurd as it may be, there are lots of people out there who think that the Administration's performance over the past year is what peacemaking looks like.
And the idea that a Democratic President must be "strong on defense," which is to say that he might have to wage wars that his supporters don't like, is a familiar one anyhow. The thinking goes that he won't be able to fulfill the rest of his agenda if he doesn't, presumably a consideration of some importance to a couple of respondents who cited their engagement in other issues like the national health insurance debate and "fighting the cuts to public higher education" as reasons for their not focusing on the ongoing wars.
The very busy leaflet that announced the October 17 San Francisco rally did address concerns such as these in calling for "Money for jobs, pensions, education, healthcare and housing, not wars & corporate bailouts." But perhaps the nation's track record of producing fabulous wealth - for some - while continuing to spend almost as much on its military as the rest of the world combined has made the argument that we can only have "guns or butter" less compelling for some. Maybe we should engage those who want to "give Obama a chance" on a more fundamental point.
The situation we face today is quite a bit different than during the administrations of either Carter - who almost pulled off the feat of having no one killed in combat on his watch - or Clinton - who did order the bombing of five countries and arguably greased the skids for Bush's "humanitarian invasion" of Iraq, but engaged in no sustained combat. We have to go back to the Kennedy/Johnson years to find a Democratic President so heavily involved in military action as Obama is now.
Just as a thought experiment, we might pose to those wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt the question of what we would think if Obama were to actually end our military engagement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but failed to win reelection to a second term as a result. Would that make him a failure? Is it more important that he walk out of the White House having fixed the home mortgage situation than having stopped eight years of killing than has produced little but coffins and enemies for this country and unmeasured death and destruction in the countries where the wars are actually fought? Or wouldn't we consider his one term the most successful stint served by a President in a very, very long time?
Of course, the more we pose the fundamental questions, the more likely we are to come up against the unpleasant fact that not all of our friends may support our call for immediate withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. For some who may have opposed this war for eight years now, it can be hard to come to grips with the fact that people we traditionally count in the antiwar camp may still be working their way through it. But, as recent statements of members of Code Pink following their visit to Afghanistan showed, there are, indeed, hardcore antiwar activists whose position is that the US needs to set a withdrawal date and work from there. While this does not mean that "Out now" activists should change their position, it may suggest a need to engage with proposals that fall short of the ultimate goal. After all, should we somehow succeed in blocking the troop increase currently under consideration, everything we know about the actual course of the war suggests that the facts on the ground will bring the logic of withdrawal to the fore.
Do they accomplish anything?
Clearly even those dead-set against the wars are not responding to calls to action. Some cite fundamental questions as to the ultimate value of demonstrations. One wrote: "I have to admit, the media blackouts do make me suspect that the mass mobe, however newsy and interesting and it-bleeds-it-leads it was 40 years ago, may have run its course. I don't think I'd argue the point very hard, but it's been on my mind." Another wrote that she "did attend the rally and subsequent march last March. I would say that I have attended about 75% of the peace events in San Francisco, including the one before the invasion of Iraq. I have attended one demonstration in Washington DC," but "my personal belief is that I continue to go to antiwar events because of the benefit I get from seeing and hearing other groups' perspectives on peace issues. I don't really think that the events have much of an effect on the opinions of folks who don't already agree with me that the wars should end."
And there are those who believe that demonstrations like the one on October 17 may actually have a negative impact: "I think it's politically a very bad idea to publicize one's weakness. In my view, that's a major, although unintended consequence of some of these things." For all we know, the demonstration skeptics may be right. We can certainly see how our failure to thwart the invasion of Iraq with the largest pre-war antiwar demonstrations the world has ever seen will suggest to some that they might just as well work around the garden. And if our ultimate argument is simply that it's important to do something rather than nothing, we shouldn't be afraid to say so. As one demonstrator the Chronicle quoted said, "People who have been out here year after year, they're demoralized. It's exhausting. But if I'm not out here, then I'm approving of the current policy."
And there are demonstrations and there are demonstrations - some stayed away because of their sense of what this particular one was all about. One long-time war opponent explained that he had another commitment at the time of the march, "but I cant say I would have shown up if I was free. I don't see any march in SF having much of an impact unless it is both large and broad-based. I think the two are connected. When I see a flyer that says ‘U.S. hands off Iran and North Korea!' it doesn't exactly inspire me to want to get involved."
Were there others who wouldn't come because they weren't comfortable with one or another aspect of the event's stated goals? Hard to say, but there were no shortage of positions to find fault with. In addition to all of the above mentioned issues, the rally's flyers argued to "End the siege of Gaza," for "Self determination for all oppressed nations and peoples," and to "End war crimes including torture! Prosecute the criminals!"
The event's multiple issues raise a fundamental question of organizing. Put in mathematical terms, that question is - When you're dealing with fractions of the population, do you add or multiply? For instance, if one-half of the population opposes the Afghanistan War and one-quarter is concerned with seeing the Israeli Army back off from Gaza, what is the result of combing the issues? Do we somehow add the two groups and wind up with more people on our side - potentially as much as three-quarters of the population if the two groups were entirely distinct? Or do we wind up multiplying the fractions and end up with support of as little as one-eighth of the population - one-quarter of the one-half who agreed with us on Afghanistan? While the goal of all events need not be to appeal to whatever polls tell us is our broadest potential constituency, we probably should at least consider whether we are placing so much on the agenda as to appeal to a vanishingly small sector of the public. In this case, the numerous slogans might have been more appropriately placed on individual banners at a rally that might have been more massive had it been called around fewer issues.
Finally, there were those who were not comfortable with the groups organizing the demonstration, or at least the groups they thought were organizing it.
One person whose absence I'd found particularly striking, given his seemingly perfect attendance record at such things, had been delayed by a meeting and arrived after the march had left, but noted that he couldn't say he "was inspired by seeing the same old radical sectarian tables" at the rally site.
Another said she "wasn't going to go because I don't like ANSWER demonstrations (because they have too many topics) but then I ended up with time on Saturday morning and felt that I'd like to stand against escalation of troops in Af/Pak." A couple of others also cited the fact of the ANSWER Coalition's organizing the rally as a factor in their non-attendance, either because they thought the group had tried to go it alone and failed to have sufficient reach or because they didn't like the type of event the group generally organizes. But they were wrong.
As the rally's emcee told the crowd at one point, the event was actually the product of the combined work of five separate coalitions. While the slim turnout raises the issue of whether the groups in question are really functioning as meaningful "coalitions," the inaccuracy of people's perceptions as to who was behind the demonstrations suggests they may have been looking for reasons not to turn out. All of which raises one of the most fundamental points of this entire discussion. This is not the place to debate the merits or demerits of the ANSWER Coalition, United For Peace and Justice, World Can't Wait, or any other group. The simple fact is, however, that they are the ones trying to do something. As Bay Area newscaster Scoop Nisker used to say, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." Ain't nobody else going to do it for us.
103 Comments so far
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Charlie Jackson
Texans for Peace
http://www.texansforpeace.org
Perhaps the trouble is with the word "demonstration," which suggests theater, i.e., is one step removed from reality or action.
Then, this disassociation of sensibility moves to a second, even greater level when what is being protested is itself a demonstration.
The wars started by George W. Bush have either from their outset or by a long ago "now" have one purpose: a demonstration of the size of one's penis.
This concern unfortunately transcends color and race. Bush's successor is doing exactly the same thing.
While attacks on so-called "intelligent" media may not qualify in dissident minds as effective action, I can't see where else to go. Attack on Fox News means nothing except more Fox News, exactly like the U.S. Government efforts to recruit new members of the Taliban.
Fox News is not substantial enough to deserve anyone's energy. But vehement attack on The New York Times, The Diane Rehm Show and BBC World Have Your Say could conceivably, if broad-based and unremitting enough with thousands and millions of original emails (no two alike) bring the purveyors of these shows back to their fickle senses.
Here's why they are valid targets: Because they've lost all journalistic determination to discover truth. While claiming multi-sidedness, when have they ever given their stage over to a Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal or Noam Chomsky? Even William F. Buckley, Jr. gave Chomsky equal time, so these marginalizing shows I just mentioned are, in effect, to the right of the late Buckley himself.
While I don't have television, I've been told that Rachel Madow occasionally will have a guest who is flat out against the Afghan War.
All shows unwilling to do that are fair game. To attack them-- repeatedly and to their face-- qualifies as socially progressive action in my view.
Obama won! That was the goal of a huge majority of the anti-war movement of the Bush years. And pure, blind hatred of GW Bush. The anti-war movement is a joke. If it had any real conviction, it would still exist. Obama won, pack it up guys!
Very funny...
Look at Bill Maher's article of today. Bill says Obama's a smart guy and he knows things Bill doesn't know. Just last week, Susan Herman of the ACLU used the "Obama needs time to turn the supertanker around" excuse for Obama's appalling actions on civil liberties. The "Obama needs more time" thing would make sense if he wasn't flying in Captain Hazelwood to pilot the war and the financial industry supertankers (to name two). It would make sense if he wasn't running the supertanker into the iceberg. This isn't a person whom we should be giving more time. We need to take off the blinders. If something is wrong, it is wrong. It doesn't matter if the wrong doer is well spoken and smart. We cannot afford to indulge our own illusions of Obama. Other people will die for our need to believe in him. That is a terrible injustice. It is an injustice we can rectify.
Yes!
Almost no one came because
those in the US that sincerely
want change are FED up, with
wasting their time and lives
going to tightly scripted carnivals
of impotent liberal respectability.
We want to sacrifice and fight for
the politics of actual results and
change.
Dwayne Chandler.
Majority of Americans -- and others -- are against the violence, ignorance and stupidity of war.
I certainly feel that we need a new way of protesting which
moves the risk and costs from the protester to the protested.
MIC wasn't simply a "warning" from IKE --
the MIC and its national security state and growing secrecy enveloping
our government long ago ousted the "people" from government.
We need to get corporate money out of our elections -
We need to get the CIA out of our elections, out of our
"free press" and out of business.
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
I remember the Vietnam protests well, but never participated in any. While they seemed large at the time, and people today like to say they helped stop the war, I don't think those protests had any effect at all on foreign policy.
The war ended in 1975, only after Nixon was replaced. It seems absurd to say that large protests in 1968, getting progressively smaller each year thereafter, had any role in ending the Vietnam wat. It is that history which undermines the efforts to recreate such protests today.
And even more importantly, today there are no rock concerts at the events, no military draft, no college deferments to feel guilty about, no prohibition on premarital sex to be negated by protesting the war, etc.
I don't think we (they) were really protesting the Vietnam war, just its negative effects on the protesters themselves, and today there simply aren't many negative effects on most U.S. residents.
Given the fact that several million protesters in America & elsewhere couldn't prevent the Iraq war, it's not surprising that fewer and fewer of us are participating in these periodic anti-war demonstrations. Furthermore isn't insanity defined as doing something over and over again and expecting different results? That's not to say that demonstrations should be discontinued, but a temporary moritorium on them might be appropriate. What instead? Well, since there's this universal quest for change, how about unleashing the creative potential of the masses, since that's what it takes to bring about change. That way we catch the watchdogs of the powers that be by surprise. They won't know what to do, whereas, handling anti-war demonstrations is second nature to them now. An example of a new type of protest would be TROOPS OUT NOW bumper stickers, available obline (or homemade), with car parades at major intersections every day at noon. Another example might be candle light vigils outside one's home at, say, 6 pm, with the entire family turning out. Daily actions being preferable to periodic actions, since the former lend themselves to building momentum, whereas, the latter build up energy for the big event, after which, letdown. Another advantage of daily actions is that the cost to each participant (time, money, risk) is reduced, thereby enabling more people to participate. What's more, as these daily events catch on, with more and more people participating, mass anti-war demonstrations are bound to take place. As for the proposed candle light vigils, the moment there's widespread participation, aerial photography will capture the enormity of the anti-war movement, which by theb would be irresistible.
MAYBE WHEN WE STOP CALLING THE SOLDIERS WHO KILL IN OUR NAME 'HEROES", THEN POSSIBLY WE WILL TRULY SEE THE EVIL OF WHAT AMERICA DOES AROUND THE GLOBE.
toubibcal, I agree.
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." -- Howard Zinn
We're in a bewildered herd moment. The sheep are getting picked away, little by little. Keep your head down and maybe you'll still be employed. Our social status is slipping.
No one seems to still believe that people have any power. Our lives are controlled by corporations, with their top-down structures.
The almost unbelievable end result of eight years of protests was that the protests didn't grow, the media completely ignored them and politicians escalated the wars. The election resulted in warmonger Obama, no different from warmonger Bush.
At this point, there are a few possible directions. We may continue to have an atomized public that gets by through TV and denial. We may have a coherent public unified by extreme poverty. Or we may have a total police state. It's looking like all three are happening, although the lack of understanding among people about what to do is profound.
I'm not sure people are educated enough to know that they need to oppose, resist and revolt against the corporate status quo. Probably that entails massive protests in Washington, D.C. (the shut it down kind) and coordinated tax resistance. The troops abroad just need to ignore orders. In short, symbolic protest has failed. The next actions have to have an effect by totally disrupting business as usual. Who can say when that will happen.
-TIA
I agree!
Much truth in that. After Vietnam the Pentagon saw the folly of the draft so now fights it's wars with mercenaries (contractors), state national guard militias, and lots of troop rotations (as many as four or five times).
"or they were in Portland, Oregon, and the like"
You mean they had to fill their SUVs with $150 worth of war juice and cruise the spectacular golden coast?
"I'd hate to see the left do to him what we did to Jimmy Carter"
But Carter was trounced by the "left" for being too far left, while any protest against war is surely a protest that the "decider in chief" is too far right.
"if Obama were to actually end our military engagement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but failed to win reelection to a second term as a result. Would that make him a failure?"
That's a very good question for USans who want to cut through and really understand themselves.
We must go to DC in March. Connect with your group of peace makers or not but GO!
I was in DC in 2003, 2005 (got pepper hosed there), 2006, 2007(twice), 2008 (twice) and just last spring. I was also in Orlando, and Tampa, did a few in Gainesville.
Anybody notice? Anybody listen? Were there enough of us? I guess the 600,000 (c-span number) in 2005 wasn't enough.
I'm old, tired, discouraged. Peaceful protest has devolved into a bad joke. Between the in-fighting in the "National Peace Community" with dueling events, and the ever increasing cost of just showing up... well, don't chide me.
I'm done. Done with electoral politics. We've got to start targeting the real leaders of our country. AIG, Goldman, yada yada.
Meanwhile, we're workin on homestead projects. Learning to grow my own. Veggies, chickens, fruit, nuts and we're adding to the place every new season.
I'm ready for a revolution, count me in with the firebrands and pitchforks (I've got a really nice selection).
And I'll bring the eats.
excellent! well said and done...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012! Acoustic, agrarian life...
Our Fascist Government has been playing at war longer than both World Wars combined.
People are just burnt out. What happened a century ago when the Tzar lost his pointless war?
so now it's FUCK PEACE - give 0 a chance?
Yep, just keep up your little cries for "peace", turning your cheek, and more "voting". See where it gets you. It gets you to right here to the doorstep of CD/01.02.09.
The sad truth in all of this is that most people, left and right, progressives (especially) and conservatives, are cowards at heart. You can dance all day around it if you like. But at the end of that dance, you'll tire and go home and go to sleep.
Longing and crying for "peace" has not worked. They don't care if you want peace.
What simply is it that you don't understand about that obvious truth?
No Draft - No Peace protestors
It seems that the only way to get people to risk being clubbed, maced, put in jail, fined and put on the FBI's no-fly list is to bring it home. The draft did it in the sixties. With all the distractions, what's it going to take today?
eviction and foreclosure
Obama will have the same policies of every presidency since the military dictatorship of Abraham Lincoln: unnecessary and endless warfare, debt slavery, federal power grabs, corporate handouts, theft of wealth and property, and curtailing individual freedom.
Sad to say, the real reason nobody will protest is simply that Americans are not angry enough to do much anything other than grumble and play stupid for Obama and the Democratic Party.
UNLESS, we intend to storm the White House and take it back, I think voting is still a necessary tool.
Voting, alone is NOT enough, though.
We have to SPEAK out and SUPPORT a candidate that is NOT a millionaire, a Harvard graduate or a lawyer.
If you have any spare change at all, STOP giving them to MOVEON.ORGs or any so-called progressive organization.
CONTRIBUTE to the people who consistently vote and support THE PEOPLE.
Take the pledge, PEOPLE:
NO more millionaires
NO more Harvard graduates
NO more lawyers
I support Dennis Kucinich for President 2012.
He is NOT a millionaire
He is NOT a Harvard graduate
He is NOT a lawyer
DENNIS KUCINICH IS a public servant.
DENNIS KUCINICH IS living in the same house he bought thirty years ago for under 100k.
DENNIS KUCINICH IS a compassionate human being.
DENNIS KUCINICH IS single-payer health care for all, end to war, peace department, end to welfare for the rich, corporate and environmental regulations, free public college education, end to NAFTA and WTO, public works programs, green jobs.
We're going to have universal rights to ownership of production, and free land, water, food, shelter, healthcare, education, transport, and information for all. The elites will be unemployed, begging on the street. It's coming and they can't stop it.
When a call comes to take the Pentagon & the Capital, and shut them down, I'll go --and stay.
Otherwise, good luck.
When will They EVER TURN?!
America LOVES war, torture, and corruption. We willingly give to these causes and blink not an eye as long as our personal little bubble thrives.
participating in demonstrations implies a connection between the opinion of the citizenry and governmental action...a connection that doesn't actually exist...therefore, no reason to participate...
demonstrations have also attempted to use, as weight, the notion that politicians responding to the wishes of those demonstrating will benefit, and that those not doing so will suffer repercussions...with 'them' now having taken control of the national election processes, this threat has utterly disappeared...
true change is coming, fueled by migrating or disappearing resources...
incidentally, the word 'war' carries the connotation of sudden, large-scale, defensive and unavoidable conflict brought to conclusion quickly...the scenarios to which we are attaching that word currently do not fit this description at all...I know I'm not the first to mention this...'anti-war' is an illogical term, when used in relation to these ongoing situations...
what are really needed are anti-government demonstrations, and those are the ones for which 'they' are waiting...waiting to squash with their drones and microwaves and crowd-tasers and gas...
that leaves one choice: total global and unanimous abandonment of the current system...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...acoustic, agrarian living...local governing...personal involvement in one's own sustenance and decision-making...
When there is any media coverage of a protest, the reporters interview only the least articulate, most fringy-looking protestors. The point of media coverage these days is to discredit the protestors, not to inform the public about the issues the protestors are trying to raise.
. During the war in Vietnam, the U.S. public saw the suffering of our soldiers and of the Vietnamese civilians every single night on the evening news. Not any more. The media cooperates with the government in sanitizing war.
I think people now are just trying to get by, just hoping they'll get to keep their jobs and their homes. I think they have come to realize that no one in power cares what they think or want, and that the system is so corrupt and rigged that, short of violence, they can't make a difference.
The enormous demonstrations against attacking Iraq made no difference. The huge outcry by ordinary citizens who all called our "representatives" and told them to vote against the Wall Street bailout accomplished nothing.
And our huge effort to get a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, and "change we can believe in" in the White House, turns out to have been a pointless waste of energy, too.
We are realizing that we are serfs, period.
This is all very true. Eight years of public demonstrations and we get Obama, who continues the wars. He even campaigned on expanding the wars in Afghanistan-Pakistan, and people still voted for him.
The public has no influence. We're ignored when we write. Third parties are shut out from participation. The mass of ignorant loyalist Democrats preclude any shakeup. Two-party corporate rule goes unchallenged. The mainstream corporate media doesn't cover or represent public views.
Even The Daily Show With Jon Stewart - that ironic dose of fake news - took care to ridicule the G20 demonstrators in Pittsburgh. Stewart's tone-deaf humor there may just reflect the common loyalist Democrat mindset. Horrible things are perpetrated by Dem leaders and yet the loyalists just don't see it. You tell it to them here on Common Dreams, but it still doesn't stick. It's like we are devolving and people don't want to know.
-TIA
Time for you as well as me to be in DC in March!
If we do nothing and stay in our safety zone, there will be no change to what we now have which is more of the same. Did not the man say that it was up to us to force the changes? It is good for us to express our power peacefully.
"It is good for us to express our power peacefully."
Why is that a good idea?
Because if we don't those with the big guns will kill us without giving it a thought. A peaceful revolution gives us a chance as a country to survive and force the changes necessary for us to hold our heads high again. What we have done in the name of the USA has rightfully shamed us. It's time to admit that and move toward those ideals that our country stands for which in our deepest knowing is not war and greed but love, respect, kindness, generosity etc. Then perhaps we can allow ourselves a modicum of pride. I can't imagine why the people who run the show want war unless they are pathologically sick. Of course once they do control the show, others will follow like sheep. And so we, you and me need to come together and act with peace in our heart and mind and the sheep will follow.
This articles raises important questions. Those who have been active in the anti-war movement, need to discuss the state of the movement. However, we need to bring some critical history and analysis to the debate.
1) There is a history of the co-optation of social movements (including the peace movement) by the Democratic Party. This history is the main thesis of book "The Democratic Party: a Critical History" by Lance Selfa. This co-optation continues today with national peace groups like United for Peace and Justice and Code Pink who have allied themselves to the Obama administration.
2) A comprehensive and structural analysis of war is lacking. We in the peace movement, generally speaking, do not look at the systemic forces that promote war after war. We should be discussing imperialism and capitalism. Many in the peace movement are liberals and get very uncomfortable discussing these issues, but they are crucial to coming up with an effective strategy. Check out Arun Gupta's lecture called "What Anti-War Movement" available on Democracy Now's website.
3) Lastly, peace movement activists should make connections with other groups, environmental, health care, civil liberty, economic justice etc. All of these groups are responding to problems that ultimately have the same source: our economic system. We should be uniting in common cause.
"We should be uniting in common cause"
Far-lefters are trying to unite the people in the common cause to supress the elite's class war assault. The key barrier is the elite-dispensed petro-opiates. As for the Demok/Repuk parties, them ones are wings of the elite establishment assigned to co-opt the two key platforms, cooperation and competition, and use them to divide/enslave the people.
Yes!
An idea to kick around...
Could lack of 'momentum' due to all kinds of circumstances, including the divisive effects of MSM, be the main preventer of forceful unity to end GWOT?
Unfortunately it seems almost impossible these days, despite internet, to shepherd people together. Lack of coherence is the warmongers' best friend.
How about a really, really MASSIVE planned event, with celebrities, musicians, and national figure antiwar activists being signed on... In Washington ... MLK Day? Posting about it on every online blog and news site.
One cause: PEACE -- US out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and make reparations there, ending 'GWOT' including torture and imprisonments ... Another "We Are the World" or even an impromptu Woodstock-like scene? A lot of people did turn out in "hope" on Inauguration Day. Say Obama needs the "help" from the grassroots he asked for. Something kickass and inspiring people to take up the torch until the wars are ended. Something so big it can't be ignored and that if it is ignored it will be noticed and an outrage, as in gov't this is it.
Just under a big tent instead of factions. Surely ending this 'war' is a first priority for many.
I had the privilege of hearing Cindy Sheehan speak in North Carolina last week. I applaud her for her consistent stand for peace regardless of which party is in the white house.
She's planning an "as long as it takes" protest in DC starting soon. If you can't be there, at least send support. This will be an unconventional protest.
Conventional protests are roped off in "free speech" areas, ignored by the media, assaulted with pepper spray and LRAD (very loud, painful sound to clear an area), and infiltrated by police disguised as black-block anarchists to help justify use of force against peaceful protestors.
And now for something completely different.
I wonder if all these people here would be willing to go to DC in March? I intend on being there as I have on a number of occasions. I also have every hope that all the differing groups will come together along with those individuals who believe in the error of warmongering but never belong to a "group" and through large numbers of determined peace people who say that enough is enough that we can force some kind of reaction that the main stream media cannot ignore. Call my hopes and dreams just that if you wish, but if there is only a small turnout and the media presents it as such....well who's fault is that? We really will have to take a hard look in the mirror for the answer. We peace people must turn out in force because if we don't there is very likely to be mayhem down the road a piece. I know from previous times in DC that they are very afraid of us... even peaceful people. The Gulf war was an eye opener for me. 200,000 at the very least marched. Many who worked in the buildings there. I counted 200 firefighters who were demonstrating FOR the war. I saw TV cameras who were filming us or interviewing us, but who admitted that these interviews would not be shown. I stood and watched daily the activity around the whitehouse. I watched people being arrested for sitting down. I was arrested too. There were many who were arrested numerous times. The people from the land of the four corners were there and the drumming that went on night after night and day after day was wonderful. As they dragged people off and took the drums away someone else would appear with a drum. This went on for at least 10 days. Oh, the excuse that we were given about why we weren't to drum was because Barbara couldn't sleep through that. There were other marches that appeared spontaneous. I marched with them. They didn't have permits either. They did bring the horses out when we returned from that march and corned many of us and there was blood on the ground. How long did that war last? I have a DEEP feeling, just like then that we can force the changes that our president keeps telling us to! Are you ready, or will you let those who benefit from war destroy us all?
"Give me liberty or give me death." - 1775
"Give me liberty or give me mild discomfort." 2000-2008
"Just give me comfort." 2009-???
I got sidetracked by anothers interesing comments earlier, but I did want to say that I believe there has been a noticeable decrease in anti-war articles on CD and everywhere I've seen since Bush left offioe.
Perhaps its a diffusion of purpose without Bush as a focus? Perhaps a more focused anti-war message would help.
Only fools and Cheney's are not anti-war.
The economic bailouts and stock market meltdown was very distracting and took up space on blogs and CD.
The "hope" that the people we elected might do our bidding and end the way may have led to a little let up in protest and writing.
The continued embrace of rendition and drone attack by our fine new president are cause for despair.
Other that that, things are going fine.
"Other that that, things are going fine."
OH Great! And there's that "hope" thang agin.......
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
"The simple fact is, however, that they are the ones trying to do something."
Doing "something" is no longer the answer. Do nothing is. Not a casual "nothing", but "radical nothing".
I agree with Cygnus-X1-isaHole November 2nd, 2009 11:46 am on vindicating truth:
"not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself."
Hardcore peaceful non-cooperation is the ultimate weapon for which there is no defense. It worked against the British Empire and it worked against the Nazi's. And it will work against American fascism.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
We have an obligation to do something about injustices that we share responsibility for. That's a start and nothing should get in the way of people becoming, or continuing to be, active.
Even things that don't seem to work are worthwhile, because we are at least active.
Yes!
Tom, As I've written on this site a number of times: my ten year old son wanted to sit out Obama's speech to public school students because of his antiwar views. The school's response was as follows: "Okay, but this is not going to be fun for you." He was sent to the principal's office and was not allowed to do homework. He was given some other meaningless task in a workbook as punishment. This is in northwest Ct. The superintendent of schools, who did not want to make the speech mandatory, is being threatened with her job. And on the green in Litchfield Ct, where antiwar protesters gathered every weekend for the last eight years: not a soul in sight.
Tom must one of those useful idiots who thinks there's any difference between Republicrat and Demopublican.
How so? I missed something, or you've read something in.
Americans don't protest wars, they know war profiteering is this nation's bread & butter. There were protests during Vietnam for selfish reasons, the draft. Nobody wanted to be forced to die for corporate profit. But they don't mind if other fools volunteer.
Americans don't like wars, but they are trapped in the automobile-transport system, and cannot get out. As long as energy demand makes fossil-fuel control essential to economic power, there will be energy wars--even after the fall of the U.S. empire.
The best way to defang the fossil-fuel industry is to end the autosprawl system. Free public transport is the direction that will get us there.
http://freepublictransports.com
Please, that's absurd reasoning, every nation's trapped in the automobile-transport system but they don't find necessary to invade, bomb and mass-murder other nations the same way the US does, the excuse is ridiculous. War's in America's blood, Americans love war, especially if all they have to do is cowardly drop bombs on innocent civilians from a safe 10,000 ft in the air.
The degree to which rank-and-file Americans profit by empire gets ridiculously exaggerated, even by those who disapprove. Americans affect disinterest not only because of perceived self-interest, but out of genuine poverty. This idea that they gain so much authentic wealth from their government's adventurism promotes the myths of natural shortage.
In short, empire makes inebriation and glitz cheap to Americans, but keeps housing, education, medical care, time and love and family expensive so that Americans stay at work and stay complicit.
Americans do not protest wars more than they do in part because they believe that war profiteering is the nation's bread and butter, but it is not.
Let's try another analogy. What if we were to call war the nation's crack?
But war IS the nation's bread & butter, followed by the entertainment industry. Just look at the numbers. Look at the defense budget. Every American is affected by what happens to these two industries, even (and especially) the poor, even if they don't work directly in the defense or the entertainment industries.
Where were most of these anti-war demonstrators when they were needed during election season? The Libertarian, Constitution, Green parties and Ralph Nader were all anti-war while Obama and Mccain weren't. Most of these anti-war protesters voted for Obama to continue wars. I feel dumb to have voted for Chuck Baldwin for desperately wanting the Constitution Party to rescue the Constitution but I am proud that Chuck Baldwin also supported ending wars. Can anyone confirm that the Green Party won't destroy the Constitution? I used to believe that the Constitution Party would rescue the Constitution until someone proved that they were actually against saving it? We need to save the Constitution before it's gone or else this country won't exist.
And now for something completely different:
Stop DEMONSTRATING. That strategy fails and only shows weakness.
Were there any Republicans at this demonstration? No? Then you aren't generating multi-partisan support. No strategy for solving the immense problem that America is in can succeed without general public support.
Too many issues dividing Progressive strength? Pick one target and UNITE against it.
The author's lament is pathetic: "should we somehow succeed in blocking the troop increase currently under consideration "
(Is that all Progressives can even dream to accomplish? to block the latest surge?)
It's all been so unsuccessful, hasn't it?
------------
I suggest a new strategy, since the old ones continue to fail.
One target. DAFT - Defense against Future Terrorism
It's a clever acronym, it's ENTERTAINING, not confrontational. ATTRACT people. Stop demonstrating.
Blame the system. There's a bug in America's code. There's a flaw of a law.
Bring this acronym into the public's eye. Bring the DAFT law into the public debate (Public Law 107-40, aka A.U.M.F.).
Show America this tiny little law, this concrete example of legislative catastrophe.
Show America that this forever war against future terrorists is insane and DAFT.
Stop dealing with each theater of absurd war by itself (CodePink, timetables for exit strategies). End the whole DAFT war.
Every country deals with future terrorism but ONLY America declared war against it.
Stop using MIC terms, stop competing on the MIC's field.
When talk is of Bush's GWOT, answer "You mean DAFT".
When Pelosi says "War on Terror", answer "No, you mean the DAFT war".
This plan is brought to you by locust, literally one computer user stubbornly typing.
Somebody should organize a mass protest for Memorial Day. Personally I am not wearing a poppy this year, as I feel it represents opium fueled Imperial colonialism.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Henry8
You seemed to have somehow missed the part of my comment where I mentioned that the bombing of civilians, even if it is done by the United States, constitutes a war crime and crimes against humanity by the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Principles. An intelligent and reasonable person would have to admit and conclude that the US under Clinton had committed a criminal act when it bombed the Serbs for 78 days in 1999.
Erroll
I didn't. I just didn't make my question clear enough I think. What I was asking (or trying to) was what should we do when "What if those "civilians" are slaughtering and raping other civilians?"?
Should we in your opinon stay out of it altogether? Mind our own business no matter what other people are doing to others? Like Rawanda, Darfur? As I stated to Jethro, I'm trying to really decide what I think....I feel that inclination right now I think, but is it right? Where does our obligation really lie?
At the same timer I feel the need to intervene in Darfur for example because I hate racists and religious fanatics....not to mention the depravity of slavery being practiced in that region. BUT.....should we? I'm just not sure and I've found that when I am having trouvble deciding what I think, people here help immensely by stating their thinking. Even NativeSon who hates my guts for some unknown reason has helped me come to conclusions at times.
"even if it is done by the United States, constitutes a war crime and crimes against humanity by the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Principles."
Especially if done by us I'd say. But I should have excluded your specific example from my question, it confused what I was trying to ask your reasoning on. I'd appreciate your thinking on this.....(if I'm clear now)
Yes, Henry8, the US "should stay out of it altogether". Liberal interventionists seem to believe that it is the role of the United States, as one of my history text books had inquired, to act as the policeman of the world. It is not. The civilians in Vietnam, where I ended up, were performing acts of torture and cruelty in the north and the south upon each other. That does not mean that the United States had any justification to intervene in their affairs. That is like saying because some nations did not like the fact that the United States treated African-Americans as second class citizens and had lynched them during the 1920s [and before] and had seen three civil rights workers killed in Mississippi in the 1960s, that that should have been a reason for foreign countries to send their soldiers into this country and to bomb civilians because they did not agree with the attitude of the US government during that time period.
Having the US or any other country meddle in the affairs of another nation by sending armed solders into a country that has never directly threatened the United States will only alienate the citizens of that country, justifiably, against the US as illustrated by what happened in Vietnam and what is currently occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is pouring kerosene upon a raging fire. Sending the military in will only exacerbate a bad situation by making it even worse than before.
Thanks Errol.....
A good point about the Vietnamese, they were indeed doing cruel things to each other, some of the villages we went into after the NVA had been there give me nightmares even today. I can still see things I don't want to as I'm sure you do.
Thats part of why I am inclining to, in effect isolationism, as some call it these days, I'd call it minding our own business.
I cannot see any reason why we should be responsible for the defense of Europe any longer. Or Asia, especially Korea for that matter.
"That is like saying because some nations did not like the fact that the United States treated African-Americans as second class citizens and had lynched them during the 1920s [and before] and had seen three civil rights workers killed in Mississippi in the 1960s, that that should have been a reason for foreign countries to send their soldiers into this country and to bomb civilians because they did not agree with the attitude of the US government during that time period."
A terrific analogy and a very good argument for what I'm thinking. Its what I've told others when they start denigrating Iraqi or even the Vietnamese, even today....if it were my country, my family, I'd be right there with them. I think that is very, very hard for someone to understand apparently if they haven't served.
"Having the US or any other country meddle in the affairs of another nation by sending armed solders into a country that has never directly threatened the United States will only alienate the citizens of that country, justifiably, against the US as illustrated by what happened in Vietnam and what is currently occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq."
As I said above, it would alienate the hell out of me and I don't see why it is so hard to see why we should not be there for some people. Kids dying for no reason and I don't mean just ours, is repulsive to anyone.
I'll tell you the honest truth, I don't know if I'd have the generosity of spirit shown by the NVA officers and men we fought against then to welcome us as they did a few years ago. No real bitterness, regrets for sure, but real warmness and forgiveness in their welcome and in their discussions of various engagements where some of us were actually both there.
Thanks....I kid you not, this was most helpful to me.
Here's why I no longer demo.
I was a regular at local weekend anti-war vigils for years and attended several of the major demos in DC and NYC.
Once a soldier's mom paused at our vigil, said she did not want him in Iraq, thanked us for speaking out.... and drove on.
More often, military age males, from the safety of passing vehicles, would shriek obscenities at predominantly retired vigilers.
Most often, people tooted a horn, their patriotic duty fulfilled.
Then our habitual war spender in Congress was re-elected by a greater margin.
Then a friend at the vigils lost his job.
Then I lost my job of 21 years.
And it occurred to me that none of the people left where I worked, ever mentioned participating in any anti-war activity.
Come to think of it, my ex-employer's CEO never spoke out against the war, either personally or in his corporate capacity. And he retired with a hefty bonus after contributing copious sums to re-elect congressmen who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, ultimately resulting in his laying off over 7,500 employees, (so far).
So I have laid off hoping to make a difference. Now I just hope to find a job and make a living.
- Post-Constitutional America
Yep,
We can see that demonstrations are not working and probably won't for a long time...maybe they are just obsolete because they don't end war as they become thinner as more people realize they are just doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result... but the result is more and more discouragement and less support which makes the desire for peace look weak.
And you are risking losing your position and freedom by speaking out during war...this is also true in every nation that is at war.
Lobbying is where the power is... and it is a money game.
What can be more discouraging than this?
Maybe it has become a drain on our spirit because it's time has past. When our calls and emails are tapped, what can be organized that can't be neutralized?
Lately, demonstrations have only shown us how ineffective our strategy has become in a war economy fed by fear and division.
After a million people leave the streets with their signs, and drive hundreds of miles home, the war economy remains the same and the war goes on.
Maybe something bigger than the next failed demonstration is building up in our lives... maybe this is a good change.
Good Luck
Passing traffic reacted to antiwar signs with about 40 percent positive reactions, 10 percent negative reactions and 50 percent blank stares. Pretty much every antiwar vigil got this kind of reaction - month after month, year after year, for eight years.
I once tried to get my office interested in attending local antiwar demonstrations. No one did, even after I passed out flyers listing the various vigils with the dates, times and addresses. No one talked about the wars to me, even though they knew my views.
-TIA
Tom Gallagher admits that Bill Clinton did "bomb five countries" but glosses over that inconvenient fact by stating that "he engaged in no sustained combat". Apparently the fact that no American forces were involved in fighting is supposed to somehow excuse the fact that Clinton gave the order for the US to lead NATO strikes against Serbia in 1999 for 78 days. According to the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg Principles the bombing and killing of civilians constitutes a war crime and crimes against humanity. Perhaps Mr. Gallagher is only concerned with the death and dismemberment of Americans while not expressing too much concern, if any, for those civilians who have been killed by American bombs.
Perhaps this is why not too many Americans are demonstrating against Obama. As long as American casualties are relatively low then protesters do not have to worry too much about the Afghans and the Pakistanis who have been ripped to pieces, like the Serbians had been, by American bombs.
What if those "civilians" are slaughtering and raping other civilians? Should the UN or NATO stand peaceably by and watch it happen as they did in Rawanda? Curious as to your reasoning.
Re Henry8 November 2nd, 2009 11:34 am
I must remind you of the Carter Doctrine, which may be paraphrased as: "Any civilians who live on top of our oil will receive our protection whether they want it or not."
There are no significant oil reserves in Rwanda. Draw your own conclusions.
I did....and thats why I have such a problem with the misuse of our military. We are in places where we shouldn't be more times than where we should be.
The UN is useless in these problems, so only strong nations can intervene, but should we do it unilaterally? Like Rawanda...Darfur? Where I thought and think we should or should we say "don't call us" and pretty much go isolationist?
I'm trying to figure out what I think about this (which some here will tell you is hard for me to think at all(lol) and I find I have very mixed emotions and thoughts about.
I'm feeling the inclination to disengage, pull everything back.....but is that the right thing to do?.......
Bring the troops home from everywhere! How can people fighting in the service of a corporate empire do more good than harm?
That's what to think. But what to do is the problem, isn't it?
What to do is really not the problem. Except for the obvious plasces for us to retain bases around the world....and thats 20...at most...close all ourt bases and indeed bring those troops home.
And unless a country directly attacks us or another Hitler or Kaiser shows up, keep them here.
Our military strength would be greater, which we need, but at a far lower cost, better equipped, better trained with better weapons than we have now. And no more contracts or mercenaries.
That kind of military would both defend us and generate strength to local economies...ours...not someone else's.
The problem I see is how to stop the collusion between General officers and the officer corp as a whole with the defense industry. The guy you are saluting today may be your wifes boss at the defense contractors tomorrow.
We have some very fine officers, but not nearly enough of them and far too many time servers that pad their pocketbooks. Far too many officers period as a matter of fact.
And the rest of the problem is how to find enough honest Congressmen and a President that will do whats right for our country. THAT is THE problem
The problem is the American people want peace, but don't want to give up their cars, so they are in a hopeless loop. Moral outrage cannot overcome economics.
http://freepublictransit.org
Tom, while you do mention the questions people have about the effectiveness of mass public demonstrations now, you downplay their significance. People became profoundly disillusioned when the huge worldwide demonstrations failed to prevent the invasion of Iraq. That psychological shock continues to impact people today.
Also, there is a growing awareness that the media will no longer present these demonstrations as important news events. Lately, the media have been more than willing to highlight extreme right wing actions, such as the disruptions of the health care town hall meetings, but have completely ignored many leftist protest events.
Obama has done nothing to improve the situation. His chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, routinely bullies progressives to toe the line and take no actions that might weaken the President. And Obama recently roared into San Francisco in his dark motorcade, entered his exclusive high-priced fundraiser at the Saint Francis Hotel by a side door, and completely ignored the protestors who has gathered at the front entrance. Obama, too, apparently wants to teach the lesson that demonstrations will not affect his decisions on public issues.
Great posts everybody.
Obomber, son of an oil man, ex-CIA banking operative, Graduate of Harvard School of Crime and Despotism, is NOT going to help us save the middle class or the world from disaster. He comes from the Ivory Castle and will be loyal to the ONE PERCENT elite. He's worse than Bush the Monkeyboy because half the illiterate country THINKS deep down he's really a good guy.
He is part and parcel of the CORPORATE COMMUNISM which has taken over all branches of government. All banks and most property in the US are now socialized (for the elite only). Cheney cut so many deals with the KGB after the Berlin Wall fell, that now, he's one of them. He's deep in Russian Oil ventures with the Russian mob imho, and that's probably were he got the great idea of torturing everybody, (including the taxpayer.) Accounts exist on the net, that chronicle the engineered collapse of the russian economy. I suspect, he was so good at doing it over there, that he decided to do it over here.
If we cannot appeal to the right, and frame the argument for action in a clear way that they will understand, we will not ever bring our country out of these NeoCon Dark Ages.
Corporate Communism: The belief that all power and wealth should be controlled by the Fortune 500 boardroom.
Marching in circles preaching to ourselves is not going to defeat the cancerous forces who have hijacked our government. As many posters here have lamented, the MSM won't even cover it. Letting the MSM die is a big help. Newscorp is dying on the vine since they can't tell the truth and no one wants to pay for a rag of lies any more. Besides the internet is free, and even fox news morons are broke and will soon loose cable when they join the ranks of the half a million newly unemployed Every Month. Get your neighbors to give CD a try.
That's what I think.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Standing around holding a nice hand made sign with a few of your friends has no effect on the power structure of our nation. People don't go to demonstrations any more because they don't work.
Voting doesn't work either, the way we do it now. We are given a choice between two evil corporate political parties and have to try and figure out which is the lesser evil---knowing both are evil and have no concern for the working people of our nation. We know the votes are up for sale to the highest bidder. In Congress they talk about campaign finance, in the corporations they talk about donations or contributions, but the people know the money changing hands are BRIBES.
Get over what your second grade teacher told you about freedom and justice for all. You were told that we live in a democracy and we are the best nation on earth. These are lies that your teacher told you. She believed them to be true---but they are not.
I suggest that we start over again---either by a revolution (as we are directed to do in our Declaration of Independence), or we can give voting one last chance. Vote against any person now in office who has voted against the will of the people by voting for the bankster bailout, the surge in Afghanistan and who will not vote for replacing the for profit health insurance corporations with a governmental agency to administrate Medicare for all.
If we vote based on the level of corruption (measured by their vote on these three issue) of our elected officials we may have a chance to really get some democracy in our land. If our representatives fear that to vote against the will of the people will lead them to the unemployment office, we may really get some democracy. The voice of the people may be heard.
It's worth a try. Kick the corrupt out of Congress.
You said,
"Voting doesn't work either, the way we do it now. We are given a choice between two evil corporate political parties and have to try and figure out which is the lesser evil---knowing both are evil and have no concern for the working people of our nation."
Then you said,
"I suggest that we start over again---either by a revolution (as we are directed to do in our Declaration of Independence), or we can give voting one last chance. Vote against any person now in office who has voted against the will of the people by voting for the bankster bailout, the surge in Afghanistan and who will not vote for replacing the for profit health insurance corporations with a governmental agency to administrate Medicare for all."
By your own reasoning it sounds like giving voting in our current 2 party farce will just be a wast of time, which I for one think it is. That is unless you are lucky enough to have a Bernie Sanders, or Dennis Kucinich representing you.
Re NC-Tom November 2nd, 2009 2:22 pm
Yeah, that hung me up too. There's no box on my sample ballot that's marked "Vote Against (Whomever)." A "None of the Above" ballot line would be a nice addition, but until that happens, we're stuck with voting FOR somebody who isn't the one we'd vote AGAINST if we could.
Clearly, voting FOR a third party or independent is the only way now available to vote AGAINST the corrupt status quo, and you can see how little support that has even on a presumably progressive site such as CD (sigh).
'Vote against any person now in office who has voted against the will of the people by voting for the bankster bailout, the surge in Afghanistan and...'
Good idea, but I suggest that you are weakening the idea by calling for more than one topic. Focus on ONE line in the sand.
I further suggest that this one line be about DAFT, because that should be the target.
Call for the repeal of Public Law 107-40, and any Congressperson who won't vote to repeal it doesn't get your vote.
No Progressive dreams will become reality until we end the DAFT war.
But as a quoted demonstrator said, "It should be 10-fold" and that probably was about the size it would have had to be to make people feel really good about it.
---------------
Ghandi taught that the purpose of a protest was to PROVOKE A RESPONSE, not to "feel good about it".
Satyagraha he called it, was a vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself.
Therefore the size of the protest doesn't matter.
Only its RESOLVE.
The right wing rarely demonstrates--and they get most of what they want. So how do they do it? Private pressure on individual Congresspersons in their offices. Economic pressure also works, and pressure during their electoral campaigns. That's how AIPAC and Big Pharma and the oil companies do it.
The right wing gets what they "want" because their leaders tell them what they're supposed to want, and then they proceed to do that thing.
The corporate right-wing gets what they want because they control the media.
They're able to plant stories that within hours will be repeated to audiences of tens of millions of Americans each and every hour.
Their propaganda is streamlined and razor sharp.
Most Americans are defenseless against it.
Saddam had a nuclear bomb that was going to go off in a major U.S. city.
Iran is an imminent threat to Israel.
A public option is socialized medicine.
Pure bullsh*t each one.
Whoever controls the media controls the country. Period.
Sioux Rose
CYGNUS: Exactly. I would only add that the right wing causes are exceptionally well-funded since the already greedy and liberated-of-a-conscience "types" profiting handsomely from the present egregious status quo wish to keep their personal gravy train rolling in. And as we've seen figures cited, generally a campaign contribution in the form of a few million (from bankers, big pharma, military contractors/private armies, etc) results in BILLIONS ($) of returns on one's "investment." The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, style.
First, the strength of the VietNam anti-war movement was due to two factors, first, it was an irrelevant war, and second, students and young people were being drafted to fight it. The possibility of being drafted woke up the college kids. The oligarchy was smart enough to realize this, and now we have a purely mercenary military. So, today we have irrelevant wars, and no one in the US has any skin in the game, save those who sign up. There is no gut level motivation for an anti-war movement, as there was for the VietNam war. I think the strength of the protest in that war is the aberration, not the lack of protest now.
The second reason, the group that has always been at the forefront of the progressive left is loath to take a position that directly confronts the objectives of Israel. So, for example, Rabbi Michael Lerner was a leader in the VietNam anti-war movement, but now he is the leader of Tikkun, a group that can be characterized as a vanguard of the zionist state of Israel (google it).