The state of the peace movement http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4585.shtml
By Howard Lisnoff Apr 14, 2009 The peace movement, once so vibrant during the Vietnam War, is nearly dead. There was a time, during the last 35 years or so that such pronouncements were frowned upon as airing dirty laundry. For some reason, the left seems hypersensitive to criticism. I've been an activist for over 40 years, so drawing a conclusion about the present state of antiwar actions is not pleasant. From March 27-29, The East Coast Campus Antiwar Network held a conference at Hunter College in New York City. The Socialist Worker (April 1, 2009), bills the conference as having "brought together some of the leading forces in the movement against war and occupation." Anthony Amove, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal (2006), gave the opening speech at the gathering that can be viewed at TheSitch.com. Two things impressed me about Amove's speech and the gathering at Hunter. The first was that only 60 people attended the conference. That figure, by itself, is quite telling about the state and "strength" of the antiwar movement. The second issue that struck me during Amove's speech was his observation about the low numbers of those who protest war and come to antiwar conferences. Amove, who I'm proud to say that I protested along with on many occasions, interpreted these low numbers as a sign that the movement was in a building phase. Sadly, the Hunter College conference came on the heels of an antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C., to which only a few thousand showed up. The Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition (ANSWER) organized that demonstration. Protest movements don't need huge numbers of people to be effective, but they do need a critical mass of activists, and that's been missing. The idea that the antiwar movement is in a building phase is nothing new. In 2001 and 2002, I belonged to an antiwar group in Rhode Island that organized in response to the war in Afghanistan. That was not a popular time during which to organize antiwar demonstrations and activities, as the drumbeat for war and retaliation was prevalent across the entire country. The vast majority of Americans wanted retribution for the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the response to antiwar organizing was disheartening. Sometime during 2002, leaders of the group in Rhode Island began to echo the same sentiment about attempting to build the antiwar movement and our activities quietly lapsed into oblivion. The truth about contemporary antiwar sentiment in the U.S. is that there's not a whole lot of interest. The election of Barack Obama has sapped much of what was antiwar sentiment -- already weakened -- with the wrongheaded belief that some sort of magical progress is being made to end war. In fact, just the opposite is happening in both Afghanistan and Pakistan! Afghanistan remains a country dominated by warlords, the Taliban, a weak "central" government, and enormous illicit drug production. Civilian war casualties mount there daily. World superpowers have acted in both the past and present as if Afghanistan were theirs for the taking, or more properly, for ruthlessly plundering. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are meant to project U.S. military power in the Middle East and Southwest Asia and to secure the oil supply of the region. To call these wars wars of liberation is a mockery! Trillions of dollars are wasted by an economy riddled with fatal flaws, while the government can't provide for the basic needs of people in the U.S. Sometime over the past few years, it has become chic to think that surfing antiwar Websites is akin to taking part in antiwar activity. Nothing could be further from the truth! Governments only respond to demands when those demands are made in the streets and through strong organization. Those elements are not present in any way in any movements for peace and justice within the U.S. Occasionally, demonstrations will result in the face of outrageous inequality, such as was apparent at the recent economic summit in London or at last year's Republican Convention in Minneapolis. But, those are one-time events and a sustained movement is nowhere on the horizon. As someone who was a war resister during the Vietnam War, I mourn the demise of the antiwar movement. I remained committed to antiwar action during the nuclear freeze and anti-intervention movements (in response to U.S.-sponsored wars in Central America) of the 1980s, and admire both the anti-globalization and environmental movements as they exist today. But with no military draft, which was a great impetus for activists in the 1960s and early 1970s, not much remains of the antiwar movement. -- Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer. He can be reached at [email protected]. . --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
