Although millions have marched worldwide, Bush’s war on Iraq is underway. But the peace movement is working not only to stop this war, but to lay the groundwork to prevent it from leading to future wars in Iran, North Korea, Colombia or wherever else the Bush administration sees a “target of opportunity.” This means we’ll need those now surging into the… return to article
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Reader Comments (23)Page 1 of 1 pagesAs the editor of The War in Context http://warincontext.org I have been following events and analysis very closely since 9-11. The pre-eminent failing of the movement thus far has been that its message is simply NO! It’s time we started getting clear about what we can say YES to and become as loud advocates of change as we are now voices of opposition.
Protests on the streets of America, while they are an understandable expression of frustration, are likely to alienate large numbers of people who oppose the war yet see the protesters as extremists.
The foundation has already been laid for providing the force required to evict George Bush from the White House. Howard Dean is emerging as the candidate capable of accomplishing the regime change that we now all dearly long for - a candidate who has been unequivocal in his opposition to this war. (I have no connection to his campaign.) While in the eyes of many progressives, Dean may seem too mainstream, it’s time that we unified behind a candidate who’s capable of winning.
Posted by Paul Woodward on Mar 21, 2003 at 1:44 PM blah, blah,blah! nothing new and no direction such as HOW, WHEN, and WHERE. I suggest an already established political party GREEN, that has openly opposed war and commits to working for peace. These articles are too long on words and too short on solutions. Gerry
Posted by Gerry Cartier on Mar 21, 2003 at 7:31 PM I agree that while the citizens of the United States are the only one that can get rid of Bush and change US Foreign Policy it might be worthwhile to connect with peace movements all over the world. Those of us who protest, are simply dismissed by the US as being Anti-American. With the Web it is now possible to find out what the rest of the world is doing - GarcÌa Marquez, Coelho and many other authors and intelectuals. The US has to open up to the rest of the World and find out what we are doing and thinking.
Posted by Maricarmen Ferrant on Mar 21, 2003 at 9:06 PM I am much relieved to see this sort of thought and consideration coming out of America. Please keep talking.
However, I concerned that one of your respondents would use this particular article to promote some individual candidate.
It was your Mr. Lincoln who said something about power corrupting, absolute power corrupting absolutely.
Your candidate would like fall prey to this malais.
What is really important is the overall education of the people. It may take generations, but if the message continues to be delivered it will some day be realized, which was the real cause of the successes you experienced with Viet Nam and civil rights protests in the last century.
As someone who used to travel regularly to the US I know how insular information is there. The big task is, as is noted above, to educate the American people to what is going on in the rest of the world, and to demonstrate how the actions and foreign policy of the United States has affected countries like Iraq and people like the Palestinians.
Keep teaching, and thanks.
Posted by Will Webster on Mar 22, 2003 at 5:54 AM the general american citizen is very ill informed about what is going on in the world and they should seek out books that explain who is behind the lies, inotherwords ,the many male ssecret societies that form the illuminati that controls the world or is attempting to do so.
Posted by arhataosho on Mar 22, 2003 at 7:17 AM Lets get practical. We have the beginnings of a very potential grassroots movement to get rid of Bush in the next election. Impeachment wont sell to the general public. Support th Dixie Chicks-Buy their latest CD.
Posted by Cr McCurdy on Mar 23, 2003 at 1:39 PM I, too, feel frustration. There may be no solution, but my world has indeed been a better place when Presidents like Mr. Carter and Mr. Clinton were at the helm of the US govt. Therefore, I think we MUST all link now, and find someone who CAN beat Bush, regardless of the outcome of the war. We MUST at least try to educate America, which means a return to academic freedom in the classroom, as opposed to training to a test. We must enlist those among us who understand the economy fully, to detail the budget for us, and demonstrate the cronyism and nepotism that chokes our economy. We MUST exhibit the difference between leadership and the rampant exercise of power to the general American population. We MUST begin to review the possible outcomes of national and foreign policy, understand costs versus benefits, and make wise decisions. And we MUST take back our right to vote for, and consequently CHOOSE our elected officials.
Posted by Carole Townsend on Mar 24, 2003 at 2:19 PM Yes, we must speak out in public and we must speak intelligently in dialogue with others who disagree. And most importantly, we must be spiritual warriors who fight poverty, injustice, prejudice, and inequality.
Posted by Julie Smith on Mar 24, 2003 at 4:48 PM Mr’s Loeb and Parrish spend a better third of their article bemoaning the failure of the Gulf War protests 12 years ago. Where is such bemoaning of the lack of action protesting Kosovo and Bosnia or of the near action in Haiti.
Thus is not the action that the current protesters (and leftists pundits) decry it is the leader. Search your hearts, why do you (hundreds of thousands) protest President Bush, but not President Clinton? Especially when President Clinton never even went to the ‘Security Council’ AT ALL so as to avoid a Russian veto.
Posted by Carl Snodgrass on Mar 25, 2003 at 12:03 AM Thank you, this gives me hope and strengthens my resolve. I’ll pass it on.
Posted by Paul Gray on Mar 25, 2003 at 2:00 AM Millions of people have been slaughtered in the spread of Islam.
Arabs understand 2 things that the weeping left do not:
duplicity, and the sword.
The US is currently using a page from the Arabs own playbook.
And keep in mind that they generally can’t even get along with each other, much less anyone else.
Further, the Arab countries would be in a far bigger mess than they are if they didn’t happen to have
black Gold under otherwise worthless land.
After all, it’s the west who have made them rich.
The Terrorists are Arabs, the Arabs
need to be aware that this is fundamentally THEIR problem,
because when it becomes OUR problem, we might have to SOLVE
the problem, and, unlike Arabs, America has never been known for
it’s sublety in such matters.
Posted by Sid Seven on Mar 25, 2003 at 4:43 AM Wow! I loved reading this. I am a newcomer…now give me some links. Were do I go to get involved with people in my area? Thanks. I continually look.
Posted by Elizabeth Ami Petersen on Mar 25, 2003 at 7:11 AM So, when we are going to de-populate the world of the ignoranamous people of our Society with one of those new 20 ton bombs?
Posted by Charles Perkins on Mar 25, 2003 at 9:13 PM Pure crap.
Completely devoid of the fact that war and capitalism go together. That we can never see an end to war without an end to capitalism.
Completely devoid of the fact that capitalist governments, especially “democratic” ones, when they can no longer tolerate an opposition put an end to it crushing the opposition by killing and jailing its leaders and thus frightening all others into silence.
No where does this article pose a way out. Rather it sees “terrorism” as a common enemy, i.e., common to the capitalist class and the rest of us. There is no understanding that if the so-called terrorists were to see a real struggle here in the states to put an end to U.S. imperialism by putting an end to capitalism they might become more discriminating.
When one considers “terrorism” one has to distinguish between the terrorism of the oppressor and that of the oppressed.
Was Nat Turner a terrorist? Was his terrorism justified? It sure was. Same for John Brown and many others.
Individual terrorism is a bad tactic because it allows the imperialist terrorists, i.e., those who like the slave holders engender the terrorism of the oppressed, to confuse the issue and get unthinking fools to fall into line with them in trying to stop terrorism.
You want to stop war and terrorism then you stop capitalism.
In the midst of this war against the Iraqi people that means doing everything possible to see to the victory of Iraq. That means abandoning the pacifist outlook of seeking peace instead of class war.
That means cheering whatever soldier it was that emulating Viet Nam rolled those grenades into the officers tents. Soldiers tricked into joining the military, bribed with jobs and schooling and some nonesense about a peacetime army who now understand must understand the need to turn their guns on their own officers. If legal justification is needed it is to be found in the fact that the whole world sees this war as illegal, that the whole world will see that the edicts layed down at Nuremburg requiring action against an illegal regime are legal justification for acting against their own officers.
continued
Jack Jersawitz
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
404-892-1238
Posted by Jack Jersawitz on Mar 26, 2003 at 1:35 PM continuing…
Last, but not least. The rank and file of the trade union movement, the only united class in society capable of stopping this war, have begun to campaign to force their leadership to call a general strike thus closing down the basis of the British part of the war machine.
The working class in this country is admittedly, in the main, more backward having lived in relative luxury on the scraps of the wealth the U.S. imperialist has stolen from the peoples of the rest of the world. Nonetheless the crashing economy has deepened the educational process and those who want to fight this war need to take up Marxism and begin to further that process. A good policy would entail going to the trade union members pointing out to them that they are in the same trench as the Iraqui people, the imperialists steal from both of them and seek to make both of them pay for the economic collapse, on one hand by trying to seize direct control of the oil, here by unemployment, ending of benefits, etc..
Black people in this country have long said that all white people here are responsible for racism and its effects. They are right to this extent; if you do not spend your life fighting it then you bear responsibility. The same is true inregard to the towers, fuck the Pentagon. To the extent that the folks in the towers did nothing actively to enhance the oppressive acts of imperialism in the world they were innocent. On the other hand to the extent that they did nothing actively to oppose imperialism they were guilty.
To the extent that we the opponents of the war do not act to bring into play the main historically created forces that can end capitalism by educating and advocating and struggling for the general strike, to that extent we deserve whatever befalls us. As tactic the towers hit was bad but the only response possible to those outside the working class and ignorant of the political path of Marxist revolution just as the only response open to Nat Turner or John Brown was what they did.
Those who gave their lives driving those planes into their targets were heroes we ought to honor just as the Bolsheviks honored the anarchist whi killed the Czar despite the fact their acts were political error.
The key question is whose side are you on? There is no middle ground in war.
VICTORY TO IRAQ!!!
VICTORY TO THE PALESTINIANS!!!.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Jack Jersawitz
404-892-1238
Posted by Jack Jersawitz on Mar 26, 2003 at 1:36 PM Plan B for the peace movement is boycotting. Now that protests and demonstrations have failed, direct economic action against the US products is the new face of the antiwar movement. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported (March 25), ëanti-war demonstrators are turning away from the widespread protests ... and are instead using smaller actions focusing on ... businesses that contribute to the U.S. war effort.í And the momentum is building up right now, from Iceland to Brazil.
Sign up at: http://www.motherearth.org/USboycott/index.php
and/or http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/boycott_america/
and/or http://www.boycottwar.net/
NB: This website has links to numerous news items about anti-US boycotts all over the world.Other boycott websites:
http://www.boycottamerica.org/
http://www.boycottbush.net/
http://www.boycottbush.org/
http://www.boycottwar.net/
http://www.consumers-against-war.de/caw.htm
Posted by Carl Wernerhoff on Mar 27, 2003 at 4:07 AM Is it just me or did the Dixie Chicks sell out right after they proclaimed to be embarrassed by Bush?
Maines said: “As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect.”
Honestly, people. I’m not going to “support” them after they show their record sales come before their morals.
Posted by Kevin Moore on Mar 27, 2003 at 6:37 AM This was a great article. It’s nice to have some uplifting and encouraging thoughts. Keep up the optomism and the great work!
Posted by Meghan on Mar 28, 2003 at 6:44 AM Well considered and well written article. How encouraging to read a point of view that sees beyond the hype and marketing of US military action and agression abroad. It gives me hope to see that American citizens are exercising their right to freedom of speech and not falling into line behind a leader whose actions are increasingly being correlated to those of Adolph Hitler’s. God help us all.
Posted by silvie on Mar 29, 2003 at 8:19 PM This story articulated some of the concerns I have had about the Peace Movement. It really pointed out our need for organization and connection. When people feel isolated they feel powerless, hopeless and they stop trying to move things along. I think this article is visionary and hopeful. I belong to an organization to end Racism, but now I realize that I must join a particular Peace organization to maximize my effectiveness. Going to Peace marches is not enough. Thanks for the Info and thinking!!!
Posted by Janice Thompson on Mar 30, 2003 at 11:46 PM I just watched Michelle Shocked and another woman on Dr. Phil this afternoon. Dr. Phil posed a question about whether people laying down in front of traffic was an effective way to send the peace message. It occurred to me that perhaps it would be seen as less obstructive if organizations sponsored ‘sit ins’ where people, in silence, sat in a public area, say a park, and withheld from the usual banners, rhetoric, etc. Silence is an awesome thing, especially if there were hundreds or even thousands of people involved. I think the message would be much more powerful and not as ‘in your face.’ as the methods employed now. The war is a very touchy subject and it’s almost seen as anti-American to be against it. To shout chants, wave banners or obstruct people from their daily life is confrontational, at the least. A more peaceful approach would be very different and maybe it would provoke more thought than your typical demonstration. What worked in the past might not work now.
Just a thought.
Posted by Annie on Apr 5, 2003 at 7:03 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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