WASHINGTON -- Bettina Aptheker remembers standing outside the Berkeley
Co-Op back in 1966, clipboard in hand, offering a petition against the war
in Vietnam. If she stood there all day, recalls the activist who now
teaches feminist history at UC Santa Cruz, she could get three dozen
signatures � maybe.
These days, those opposing war in Iraq have the Internet. Eli Pariser, the
22-year-old international director for MoveOn.org in New York, says his
group can gather 8,000 signatures in an hour, or an average of two a
second. Spawned as an e-mail effort to get Congress to "move on" from the
impeachment trial of President Clinton, the Web site has morphed into a
grass-roots antiwar powerhouse claiming 750,000 members � an increase of
100,000 in the last month alone.
As organizers prepare for Saturday's antiwar rallies in New York and
throughout Europe, Vietnam-era peace activists and scholars who have
studied pacifist influences on U.S. history marvel at how quickly the
movement has galvanized its supporters to take to the streets. It took
three years of ground combat in Vietnam, often televised, before activists
could rally 250,000 in mass antiwar rallies in 1968. Saturday's organizers
in New York hope to double that number � against a war that has not yet
begun. But with a majority of Americans supportive of war against Iraq �
although the numbers drop if conflict comes without U.N. support or with
heavy U.S. casualties � the battle for hearts and minds is very much a
contest for the mainstream. Marshaling the middle class against a war in
time to prevent it is all but impossible, scholars say.
"No major peace movement in modern American history has stopped a war,"
said Melvin Small, a historian at Wayne State University in Detroit and
author of "Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America's
Hearts and Minds." But "they did affect the trajectory of war."
The current antiwar movement has not only assigned itself the historically
unprecedented goal of stopping war in Iraq before it starts, but it has
also signaled a willingness to stay in the streets for any U.S. mission
involving the invasion of foreign countries in the name of fighting
terrorism. Fear of terrorist attacks propels many Americans to support a
war in Iraq, but activists believe their greatest argument is that war will
only increase the risk.
"What I see is a bigger and bigger movement over the question of what kind
of world order we want," said Tom Hayden, an organizer of antiwar efforts
then and now. While Vietnam-era protests grew out of the 1960s civil rights
movement, with its emphasis on peaceful pressure to achieve political
goals, "this grows out of the anti-globalization movement," Hayden said.
"Whatever happens in Iraq, the movement will continue to grow because of
discontent over the strategy of American empire," he added.
With public opinion up for grabs, both sides have taken great pains not to
repeat the public relations mistakes of the Vietnam era � particularly in
dealings with the news media.
During Vietnam, President Nixon's administration made a concerted effort �
often through the rhetoric of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew � to
marginalize protesters as hippies, druggies and basically unpatriotic. The
news media, particularly television, fueled the impression by homing in on
the most colorful, often sandal-clad, demonstrators with long hair and
tie-dyed shirts. The tactic backfired when protests grew mainstream.
Now, the White House has been careful to refrain from comment on the
demonstrators, and protesters have tried to emphasize the middle-class
nature of their crowds. The antiwar groups are still smarting, however,
over the news media treatment of their movement � including slight coverage
last fall by major newspapers and continued hype on TV � particularly CNN's
use of a protester burning a U.S. flag as an icon for coverage of January's
rallies.
Antiwar groups say they have also learned another lesson from the Vietnam
era � to make a distinction between opposition to U.S. policy, and U.S.
troops. If the United States does go to war against Iraq, however, support
for American soldiers could well dampen antiwar sentiment.
"We're being very careful not to direct animosity to troops," said Pariser
of MoveOn.org, which is run by six people, mostly from laptop computers in
their homes. "They're just trying to do their jobs, but it's irresponsible
to put their lives on the line when the inspections regime could lead to
disarmament."
Historians are still debating whether the Vietnam-era protests actually
stopped the war or protracted it. Some think Nixon pursued victory at all
costs in part because he did not want to appear to cave in to public
opinion. Others note moments when pivotal mass marches forced Presidents
Johnson and Nixon to scale back their military plans.
Already, a similar divide haunts the movement against a war in Iraq. Some
activists think protests last fall helped persuade President Bush to seek
congressional and U.N. support, delaying an invasion. Others worry that
increasing dissent will only strengthen his determination to proceed.
Targeting politicians is one similarity between Vietnam 1968 and Iraq 2003.
Hayden, a former California assemblyman and state senator, recalls the
1960s effort to attract a presidential candidate to the antiwar banner, and
he thinks the current antiwar movement will have to adopt a similar strategy.
"This is sure to attract the attention of the Democratic contenders," he
said. "That's how this dynamic works. You create the climate that allows
politicians to find voice and courage."
In 1968, the antiwar movement attracted Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota
and later, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, whose assassination, coupled
with the antiwar riots that broke out at the Democratic convention in
Chicago, took oxygen out of the movement.
"The assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King cut off
potential political turnaround much earlier," Hayden said.
"Had they lived, they could have affected the 1968 election outcome and
ended war. That was my hope, that the antiwar movement would galvanize a
presidential candidacy."
Instead, the war dragged on for seven more years.
Link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-antiwar14feb14,1,4713175.story
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/02/21/8870405
