[Peace-discuss] [Peace] [OccupyCU] Farmer's Market and Demonstration on Saturday; and, another on Sept. 6th for Bradley Manning on eve of Obama's speech?

[Carl G. Estabrook]

If your point is that the anti-war movement could have done more and better in the last decade/last generation, I agree wholeheartedly, and it might be fruitful to consider how we can more effectively hamper the government's war-making today. 

But if you contend that there's been no antiwar movement in these years, you've been misled by American political mythology, the most stultifying in the world. (See e.g. Herman & Chomsky, "The Manufacture of Consent.")

In fact,  the American anti-war movement stretches back through the 20th century to the days when Mark Twain was secretary of the anti-Imperialist League - which, like much of 20th century anti-war activity, has gone down the memory-hole. 

American presidents guilty of "the supreme international crime - launching aggressive war" (Nuremberg) from Wilson to Obama have maneuvered to overcome the antiwar sentiment of the American people, rightly fearing it as the only real check on their war-making ability. (See e.g. Obama's comments in "The Audacity of Hope" on how the anti-war movement of the 1960s should have been combatted.)

Remember that Nixon ran *against* the Democrats' war in SE Asia in 1968: he campaigned on the promise that he had a "secret plan" for ending the war. "By 1969 about 70% of the public had come to regard the war as 'fundamentally wrong and immoral,' not 'a mistake' [from the longitudinal surveys of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations] - largely as a result of the impact of student protest on general consciousness. And that mass opposition compelled the business community and then the government to stop the escalation of the war."

So  the election of 1972 was not a referendum on the war (as again the mythology has it). Kissinger had to provide (mendacious) evidence that "peace was at hand" (as he said in a news conference in October of 1972) and that peace negotiations were under way, before the election. (Once safely re-elected, Nixon further escalated the war, until the mutiny of the US army in Vietnam led to a precipitous withdrawal of US ground troops and the end of the draft.)

Nor did the peace movement end once Nixon was driven into the wilderness as a scapegoat for the "fundamentally wrong and immoral" war (and not just for a "third-rate burglary").  When Reagan became president 7 years later, he modeled his administration on Kennedy's (massive tax cut, military aggression) and wanted to invade Central America as Kennedy had invaded Vietnam 20 years before. But he was prevented from doing so by the persistence of the anti-war movement ("the Vietnam syndrome"). It was now nation-wide and included particularly church groups. US attacks on popular movements in Latin America were driven underground.    

Twenty years on again, and the largest anti-war demonstrations in history preceded Bush Jr.'s invasion of Iraq - which Rumsfeld knew he could not do on the scale of Kennedy's invasion, when the US savaged Vietnam for years before an anti-war movement stirred.

One has to buy a lot of US propaganda to ignore the successes of the US peace movement. But of course they are by no means enough. --CGE   


On Sep 2, 2012, at 10:00 AM, Gregg Gordon <ggregg79 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> "In my experience the anti-war movement has been hearing things like "...make your point strategically and intelligently.  It's likely to improve your effectiveness, etc. etc." for more than 40 years."
> 
> Ignoring the arguable assumption that there even exists an anti-war movement -- I guess our definition of "movement" are different -- I would respond, Yes, and it hasn't listened for more than 40 years.  The assertion that the anti-war drove two presidents from office is also arguable.  My recollection is that Nixon kicked the anti-war movement's ass from here to Kingdom Come in the McGovern campaign (for which we've paid a high price ever since).  Watergate did prove to be a problem - maybe we should rent an office and lure Obama into breaking in.  But even giving you that point, if you have go back to Nixon to find a success story, that's quite a long dry spell, dontcha think?
> 
> PS -- I seem to recall B-52s flying 24-hr missions to drop daisy cutters in Afghanistan.
> From: Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
> To: Gregg Gordon <ggregg79 at yahoo.com> 
> Cc: C. G. Estabrook <cge at shout.net>; Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; ocCUpy <occupycu at lists.chambana.net>; Peace <peace at anti-war.net> 
> Sent: Saturday, September 1, 2012 6:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [OccupyCU] Farmer's Market and Demonstration on Saturday; and, another on Sept. 6th for Bradley Manning on eve of Obama's speech?
> 
> How many Germans died in Poland in say, 1940, after the successful invasion? 
> 
> Iraq is (as Obama says) one 'theater' in the ongoing US war to control Mideast energy resources. (If Iraq's principal product was asparagus, we would never have invaded.) We've managed to install a brutal and repressive puppet government in Iraq, where many people are in fact dying from the conflict, while we try to rule in 19th century imperialist fashion, with a native regime doing our bidding. 
> 
> And the Obama administration if anything is being even more belligerent toward the Russian government than the Bush administration was. It's not just Hillary's sponsorship of Pussy Riot. The Obama administration has been pushing for a deal to build missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe through the NATO alliance, over the strong objections of the Russians. 
> 
> Obama of course has expanded his war of assassination to at least six countries. And the majority of American deaths in Afghanistan have come in the Obama years.  
> 
> In my experience the anti-war movement has been hearing things like "...make your point strategically and intelligently.  It's likely to improve your effectiveness, etc. etc." for more than 40 years. There's no more reason to take such an analysis seriously now than there was then. As to having "an impact on future events," the movement then  managed to drive from office two warmongering presidents, and contribute to the withdrawal of US invaders from SE Asia. It's not clear that it can't do the same for US invaders in SW Asia and Africa.      
> 
> But it is clear that the anti-Vietnam War movement exercised a substantial restraint on the Bush/Obama aggression in the Mideast and Africa. The principal modalities of that earlier (and much bloodier) assault - carpet bombing and a conscript army - were denied to Bush and Obama. (That's why the latter has employed terror attacks by drone.)
> 
> And of course it's not just in C-U that such opposition occurs. The Obama administration is desperately afraid of democracy, when 2/3 of the populace is opposed to its wars (even though 2/3 of an unrepresentative Congress supports them). It can't let the word get out: our job is to make sure it does. 
> 
> --CGE
> 
> On Sep 1, 2012, at 3:15 PM, Gregg Gordon <ggregg79 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > So how many Americans died in Iraq this week?  And how's the missile shield in eastern Europe coming (to cite just two significant differences with the Bush Administration)?
> > 
> > Look -- I'm not saying give anyone a pass on anything.  I'm saying make your point strategically and intelligently.  It's likely to improve your effectiveness.  
> > 
> > Frankly, I don't think there's anything a handful of people in C-U are going to do in the next two months that will make an iota's difference to the outcome of the election or the future of Bradley Manning.  I would guess 95% of the people who drive by any such demonstration will have no idea who Bradley Manning is, and there's nothing you can put on a placard that will inform them.  It won't even be covered by the local newspaper.  So in that respect, I don't care, but the larger point is worth considering.  Do we do these things to fulfill a sense of righteous indignation, or are we trying to have an impact on future events?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From: C. G. Estabrook <cge at shout.net>
> > To: Gregg Gordon <ggregg79 at yahoo.com> 
> > Cc: Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com>; Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; ocCUpy <occupycu at lists.chambana.net>; Peace <peace at anti-war.net> 
> > Sent: Saturday, September 1, 2012 10:23 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Peace] [OccupyCU] [Peace-discuss] Farmer's Market and Demonstration on Saturday; and, another on Sept. 6th for Bradley Manning on eve of Obama's speech?
> > 
> > It's important to assess how important the difference it makes is. The answer seems to be, not much.
> >  
> > Obama - although he campaigned against them - followed Bush's economic and military polices, if in a more brutal and efficient fashion.
> > 
> > That may be some slight reason to vote against him, but it's certainly not a reason to support him.
> > 
> > 
> > On Sep 1, 2012, at 10:15 AM, Gregg Gordon <ggregg79 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> I find it mind-boggling that anyone who lived through the years 2000-2008 really believes "it makes no difference."
> >> 
> >> 
> >> From: C. G. Estabrook <cge at shout.net>
> >> To: Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com> 
> >> Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; ocCUpy <occupycu at lists.chambana.net>; Peace <peace at anti-war.net> 
> >> Sent: Saturday, September 1, 2012 10:10 AM
> >> Subject: Re: [Peace] [OccupyCU] [Peace-discuss] Farmer's Market and Demonstration on Saturday; and, another on Sept. 6th for Bradley Manning on eve of Obama's speech?
> >> 
> >> I think it's wrong to give Obama a pass on Bradley Manning and hold off on condemning his crimes - from the suppression of WikiLeaks to the murders of Americans and others - for ostensible fear of a candidate (Romney) whose positions on economic and military matters are inherently identical to those of the administration. 
> >> 
> >> "Voting for reform-minded candidates should take about five minutes, and then we go back to the important work on the ground to change the conditions in which the mostly farcical election process proceeds" [Chomsky]. --CGE
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Sep 1, 2012, at 1:20 AM, Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> I'm guessing you guys haven't been listening to the Repub Convention speeches, but Romney et al are  FAR, FAR, FAR worse than Obama et al... So how 'bout we save our protests until AFTER the election, and use our energy defeating the LOTS WORSE evils??? It won't significantly affect YOUR lives if the Dems are defeated, but it will be devastating to MILLIONS across the US and the world.
> >>> 
> 
> 
>