Thursday, October 06, 2005
The anti-war movement's "big tent"
On its "barbell" demographics:
Yes, as I traverse the Mall on Saturday, I cannot escape 13- and 14-year-old girls with peace signs (and the occasional Mercedes logo) painted on their cheeks. This odd demographic probably has something to do with the overrepresentation of a second group: demonstrators in their forties, too young to have protested the war in Vietnam but too old to be wearing their children's face paint, which many of them do anyway. But there are also veterans of the Vietnam-era protest movement here, legions of whom turn out to hold banners aloft and to listen to Joan Baez warble, "Where have all the flowers gone?" In fact, the only group visibly underrepresented at the march seems to be the very group that once upon a time dominated such events: college-age demonstrators.
One saw this same phenomenon at the demonstration outside Condoleezza Rice's speech at Princeton on Friday -- sure, there were some undergraduates, Princeton being a university and all, but there were also a lot of people reliving the bad old days (they still don't have jobs, apparently). Most of the undergraduates were inside watching Rice respectfully, and on the way out they did not join with the demonstrators. They stared at them as if they were a new exhibit in an old zoo.
On the consequences of the hollowed-out activism:
The absence of what has traditionally been the vanguard of U.S. protest politics--by my rough count, only one in a dozen demonstrators appears to fit the bill--points to a hollowness at the core of the antiwar movement. In an op-ed praising the demonstration for its "vintage feeling," Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson asked, "[H]aven't we heard this song before? You know: 'There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear'?" Apart from that "vintage feeling," however, there was nothing happening here. Part thirty-fifth college reunion and part flea market for the disaffected, where the sheer number of grievances on offer overwhelmed the only one that counted, what Washington endured this weekend wasn't exactly an antiwar march. It was anti-everything: Israel, the U.S. military, capitalism, colonialism, Wal-Mart. If anything, the march created the impression of a country so far removed from the war in Iraq that even the antiwar movement can't be bothered to demonstrate against it.
On the anti-war movement's anti-American captivity:
At the pre-march rally, one speaker drones on about Israeli "apartheid"; another, angry about something in the Philippines, shrieks in Tagalog. fuck bu[swastika]h; america: fighting terrorism since 1492--the crude placards and t-shirts tend to be the norm rather than the exception. Even some of the protesters recoil. As we sit on a bench watching teenagers prepare to carry a row of coffins draped with American flags--one is dropped, clumsily and obscenely, on its side--Nancy McMichael, a Washington, D.C., resident who protested the war in Vietnam, shows me that she has torn the event's official label in half. Her sticker, part of which formerly read, end colonial occupation: iraq, palestine, Haiti..., has been customized, leaving only the half that says, stop the war.
Fringe issues, however, dominate the day. Where the Vietnam antiwar movement focused directly on the war, with parts of it evolving over time into a broader indictment of "the system," today's march walks backward, addressing a litany of pet causes before it even gets to Iraq. The list of indictments--which can be sampled at the Palestine tent, the Counter-Military Recruitment tent (motto: "An Army of None"), and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador booth (cispes is still at it!)--dilute the message, creating the feel of a comic-book convention rather than a popular movement. Roger Yates, a demonstrator from Martinsburg, West Virginia, becomes so frustrated with the protest's incoherence that he grabs a bullhorn, jumps on a newspaper vending machine, and beseeches the marchers to remember why they came in the first place. "One thousand different causes won't hurt Bush," he yells. "If we don't focus on Iraq, it'll be like we were never here!"
By all means read the whole thing, and ask yourself whether the anti-war activists are doing anything other than pumping out raw material for anti-Americanism abroad.
20 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Thu Oct 06, 08:36:00 AM:
I understand that many of these protests draw a mishmosh of disaffected people, many with little or no political acumen.
That's America.
As to whether people against the bungled Iraq War are fueling terrorism, the answer is - if they are, they're doing a lot less to inflame the terrorists than George W. Bush's foreign policy of domination, destruction, militarism, and aggression.
It's the pro-war people who really get the bad guys going, Hawk. Let's be real about this.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu Oct 06, 10:11:00 AM:
I suspect part of the reason for the absence of focus to the antiwar crowd reflects the fact that we no longer have a draft. During the Vietnam War, protesters in many instances were reflecting their personal depths of antipathy towards the military, fighting the war, fear, anger -- all associated with loathing the notion of being drafted into the military to fight the war. Hence the lead demographic in the 1960's is generally absent today. Speculation, but probably not far off.
As for the debate SH raises with TH, I'd say your both right. There can be little question, given the media sophistication of the enemy, they do use American protests (which are often staged, by the way) to provide arguments and morale etc for their "troops." So do we, incidentally, when the voters turnout, etc. Both sides enage in propoganda wars, which is natural and to be expected in actual war.
I think it is also true that our military action has stimulated "the bad guys" to go to Iraq to join in jihad. Where I differ with SH, though, is that I am in full agreement and pleased with it.
I take it a given that the jihad-types want jihad, and I would just as soon they meet allah at the end of the m-16 of a US Marine, than in a building in Manhattan. What neither SH or I can really prove, and will only be told in time, is whether we will ultimately defeat the jihadis. I firmly believe we are and will. My guess is SH is doubtful, and thinks we create more than we kill.
I think that simply defies logic...jihadis join up because they think Americans are weak, decadent cowards, who "love life more than we love death." That's Osama's line based on American withdrawal from Somalia after Mogadishu, and the absence of a forceful response after numerous attacks. Of course, 9/11 changed all that. The evidence points to the fact that Americans are quite brave and tough in Afghanistan and Iraq, and neither has worked out too well for al qaeda. Furthermore, the empirical evidence (terrorists killed or captured, taliban overthrow, zarqawi losses of fallujah, mosul and alleged withdrawal of foreigners from iraq), suggest they are figuring out that fighting Americans is a losing proposition.
But it is still an open question, I would grant SH that.
By tyreea, at
Thu Oct 06, 02:01:00 PM:
Screwy Hoolie,
I repectfully disagree. The Muslims that hate us hated us before George Bush was elected, twice. The first World Trade Center bombing, Bali, Thailand, India, the UN Office in Bahgdad and the war against the Barbary Pirates in 1805 (read what they said in the Arabic version fo the peace treaty) demonstrate that this hatred goes deeper than the actions of one man. The anti-war movement in the US is the Islamic terrorists only practical weapon that can lead to final victory.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Thu Oct 06, 04:20:00 PM:
"The anti-war movement in the US is the Islamic terrorists only practical weapon that can lead to final victory."
You've got to be kidding me. So weak. By your own logic, al Qaeda was trying to destroy us well before there was an Iraq war, and therefore, before there was an anti-war movement. So I doubt the anti-war movement is an integral part of their master plan. Unless their plan was to make Bush invade Iraq in order to create an anti-war movement so that they could use that to defeat us.... hmmm... very crafty these terrorists.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu Oct 06, 05:36:00 PM:
Catchy:
To defend somebody else's argument for a second, I don't think you should be quite so literal. I think tyreea is arguing that only a lack of political will on the part of American leadership and its people - fueled in part by a demoralizing anti-war movement - can stall US progress. Jihadi's cannot physically prevail.
For instance, during Vietnam, the US did not lose the physicall conflict with Vietnam. Far from it. However, LBJ and McNamara lacked the political will to see it through, fueled in part by the division of the Democratic party and its antiwar sect. Nixon's presidency failed to see it through for well known reasons, not least of which was political paranoia. It's really all about will.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Oct 06, 06:06:00 PM:
Indeed, our society and our economy could easily suffer a few thousand casualties a year and $80 billion in cost fighting the insurgency in Iraq virtually forever if we concluded it were in our interest.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Thu Oct 06, 10:10:00 PM:
I understand. And yes you're right. But I have a problem equating the war in Iraq with the war on terrorism. Not liking the war in Iraq doesn't mean you're losing the will to fight terrorism around the war. Those are separate things to me. Though I know many disagree with that opinion.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Fri Oct 07, 07:27:00 AM:
... "fight terrorism around the war" - I meant to say "fight terrorism around the world"
By Cardinalpark, at
Fri Oct 07, 10:36:00 AM:
Catchy:
Iraq is the core battleground for the war against arabic islamic fascism, which uses terrorism as an instrument of war. It is in the very heart of Arabia, Baghdad. You cannot divorce the two. Only pacifists and democratic partisans do it for their own reasons. Before Iraq, they have engaged in offensive conflicts in Kashmir, Yugoslavia (Bosnia), Chechnya, Afghanistan, Somalia and the Sudan. But these were satellite conflicts in the islamofascist exponsionist theology. When they engaged us in our homeland, again offensively, we went straight to the heart of their homeland (after running them out of afghanistan).
They are fundamentally integrated.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Fri Oct 07, 11:17:00 AM:
I don't think I could disagree more. Bush created the Iraq mess. Terrorism is a world problem and will only be defeated in a global way. With the help of other countries. The Iraq war is not the core battleground for the war on terror. It's a misconception that to me puts us a couple of steps in the wrong direction.
By 
, at
Fri Oct 07, 01:21:00 PM:
Iraq IS central to the Global War on Terrorism. Don't forget that it was just released that the US intercepted a letter from Al Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. This letter includes a detailed plan to create an Islamic state centered in Iraq. You can't ignore that letter; however it started, Iraq is currently VERY important in the overall war on terror (or should I say Islamofascism....).
Lisa in Texas
By Solomon2, at
Fri Oct 07, 01:47:00 PM:
The U.S. military is the biggest "anti-war activist" of all:
On Gamma-Ray Astronomy and Nuclear War
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Fri Oct 07, 01:52:00 PM:
Let me ask this then. When (many ask if...) we win in Iraq and a stable democratic govornment is created, will Al Qaeda go away? Will terrorism end? Will Muslims stopped hating America? Will the terrorists not simply move? I know the long-term strategery that the Bush administration has been pimping, but I don't buy it as a long-term strategy for winning the war on terror.
By Solomon2, at
Fri Oct 07, 02:27:00 PM:
History of the past 1400 years suggests that violent expansion of Islam only ceases when it is met by resolute resistance, defeat, or a very large meal that takes time to digest.
By Cardinalpark, at
Fri Oct 07, 02:51:00 PM:
Catchy:
Islamofascism will recede, at least as a violent, expansionist ideology, when the nations of the middle east provide their people with freedom, and they can then construct a life for themselves that includes the chance to improve their economic lot in life. It will never completely vanish -- there exist today neo-Nazis after all -- but it will become a fringe, marginalized bit of lunacy...
Iraq, in my view, is a first, vital step in that direction. It was the most appalling example of middle eastern tyranny and it was in the heart of arabia. Success in Iraq will beget liberalization in Egypt, Jordan and hopefully Saudi Arabia and Libya. It will also demonstrate most vividly to islamic terrorists that American soldiers are exceedingly brave and capable, and are supported by the political will of a free people.
Nothing could be more important in the war on terror. Nothing.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Fri Oct 07, 02:58:00 PM:
I wasn't aware that the war on terror was about containing the "violent" expansion of Islam. It's the fastest growng religion, but it's not growing because the terrorists are blowing things up. A statement like that only highlights that people seem godawfully clueless about the war on terror, and that the only method for defeating the terrorists that simple minds can concieve is to go blow some shit up. Very redneck, very dangerous and ultimately useless.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Fri Oct 07, 03:04:00 PM:
Cardinalpark, I hope you're right. That's a lot riding on the success of this Iraq endeavor. I just hope this administration has the ability to pull it off. They've very much shaken my confidence. But I also remphasize that I believe that this is a global war and I wouldn't put all my eggs in the Iraq basket.
By Cardinalpark, at
Sat Oct 08, 10:54:00 AM:
Catchy:
Where have you been? Of course it's a violent expansionist ideology. Have you heard about their desire to create an islamic caliphate across arabia, sotheast asia and north africa? And they're trying to do so using violence, terrorism (since they don't control a nation state and a standing army).
If Hitler hadn't gotten political control of Germany, he and his brownshirts would have used similar tactics (a putsche, thuggery, terrorism).
By , at
Sun Oct 09, 06:17:00 PM:
interesting post at barone's blog. if you go to rasmussen's article, you will note the anti bush sentiment being stronger than actual stances. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneblog/columns/barone_050930.htm
9/30/05
Who's in the antiwar movement?
Pollster Scott Rasmussen, who had an excellent record in the 2004 cycle and who asks interesting and innovative questions, asked respondents if they consider themselves part of the antiwar movement. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Anti-War%20Movement.htm
Some 23 percent said they did, and 61 percent said they did not. Among Democrats, 36 percent said they were part of the antiwar movement and 40 percent said they were not. Among Republicans, only 7 percent said they were part of the antiwar movement and 84 percent said they were not. So Democrats are closely divided and Republicans are clearly united on this question, as is the case on questions Rasmussen asked last year—like whether this is basically a fair and decent country—that tested Americans' belief in American exceptionalism, the idea that this country is different and special. The Democrats' division poses a problem for Democratic politicians; the Republicans' unity makes handling the antiwar movement easier for them.
Posted at 3:00 PM EST by Michael Barone
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Mon Oct 10, 09:50:00 AM:
I guess I should have said that I don't view Islam in it's entirity as using a "violent expansionist ideology." Just the terrorists. They're bastardizing the religion. So when you state things like the "1400 years of history" and don't differentiate between the terrorists and the normal day-to-day followers of Islam, you kinda sound like you believe Muslims as a whole need to be dealt with and are the problem, which I don't agree. So yes, Terrorists blow up, average Muslim work with.
