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My suggestion to the effort to re-new the peace movement is that they begin calling the current middle east conflagrations "Obama's Wars". Every time George W Bush is blamed, all sense of personal responsibility for the current foreign policy disaster's by the Obama administration is lost & confused in the minds of his supporters. <br><br>****************************************************<br><br><br>> Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:36:21 -0600<br>> From: galliher@illinois.edu<br>> To: peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net<br>> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Pleonastic Anti-War Peace Movement?<br>> <br>> January 25 2010<br>> The Anti-War Peace Movement Needs a Re-Start<br>> <br>> America Needs a Patriotic, Broad-Based and Politically Independent Opposition to <br>> War. By Kevin Zeese<br>> <br>> In his first year President Obama broke several war-making records of President <br>> George W. Bush. He passed the largest military budget in U.S. history, the <br>> largest one-year war supplementals and fired the most drone attacks on the most <br>> countries. He began 2010 asking for another $30 billion war supplemental and <br>> with the White House indicating that the next military budget will be $708 <br>> billion, breaking Obama’s previous record.<br>> <br>> While some commentators on MSNBC hailed Obama as the peace candidate, he has <br>> done more for war in a shorter time than many other commanders-in-chief. U.S. <br>> attacks on other countries are not challenged in any serious way even if they <br>> result in consistent loss of innocent civilian life. It is not healthy for <br>> American democracy to allow unquestioned militarism and put war budgets on a <br>> path of automatic growth despite the U.S. spending as much as the rest of the <br>> world combined on weapons and war.<br>> <br>> Anti-war opposition has failed and needs to begin anew. The peace movement which <br>> atrophied during the election year now must re-make itself.<br>> <br>> What would successful anti-war peace advocacy look like?<br>> <br>> The vast majority of Americans widely opposes war and wants the U.S. to focus <br>> its resources at home. Their initial reaction to wars and escalations, before <br>> the corporate media spin propagandizes them in a different direction, is to <br>> oppose war. But, these views are not reflected in the body politic and certainly <br>> not in the DC discourse on war. Rather than anti-war opposition being <br>> broad-based, it has been a narrow. It is a leftish movement that does not <br>> include Middle America or conservatives who also see the tremendous waste of the <br>> bloated military budget and the militarism of U.S. foreign policy.<br>> <br>> Being opposed to war is not considered mainsteam in American politics. <br>> Opposition to war and support for peace needs to become a perspective that is <br>> included in political debate on the media and in the Congress. It is currently <br>> excluded. Successful anti-war advocacy needs to be credible and well organized <br>> so it cannot be ignored. This begins by recognizing the broad, legitimate <br>> opposition to war and the long-term anti-war views of Americans across the <br>> political spectrum.<br>> <br>> There is a long history of opposition to war among traditional conservatives. <br>> Their philosophy goes back to President Washington’s Farewell Address where he <br>> urged America to avoid “foreign entanglements.” It has showed itself throughout <br>> American history. The Anti-Imperialist League opposed the colonialism of the <br>> Philippines in the 1890s. The largest anti-war movement in history, the America <br>> First Committee, opposed World War II and had a strong middle America <br>> conservative foundation in its make-up. The strongest speech of an American <br>> president against militarism was President Eisenhower’s 1961 final speech from <br>> the White House warning America against the growing military-industrial complex.<br>> <br>> In recent years the militarist neo-conservative movement has become dominate of <br>> conservatism in the United States. Perhaps none decry this more than traditional <br>> conservatives who oppose massive military budgets, militarism and the American <br>> empire. Anti-war conservatives continue to exist, speak out and organize. Much <br>> of their thinking can be seen in the American Conservative magazine which has <br>> been steadfastly anti-war since its founding in 2002 where their first cover <br>> story was entitled “Iraq Folly.”<br>> <br>> Of course, the left also has a long history of opposition to war from the Civil <br>> War to early imperialism in the Philippines, World Wars I and II through <br>> Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes socialists, Quakers, social justice <br>> Catholics and progressives. Indeed, the opposition to entry into World War I was <br>> led by the left including socialists, trade unionists, pacifists including <br>> people like union leader and presidential candidate Eugene Debs, Nobel Peace <br>> Prize winner Jane Addams and author and political activist Helen Keller. This <br>> movement was so strong that Woodrow Wilson ran a campaign to keep the U.S. out <br>> of the Great War (but ended up getting the U.S. into the war despite his <br>> campaign promises). Opposition to Vietnam brought together peace advocates with <br>> the civil rights movement, highlighted by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s <br>> outspoken opposition to the war.<br>> <br>> Uniting anti-war opposition is an urgent initial step to developing strong <br>> anti-war, peace advocacy. The cost of U.S. militarism in lives and dollars has <br>> become so great that Americans who oppose U.S. militarism need to join together <br>> to create an effective opposition to the military industrial complex that <br>> profits from war. Yes, there will be disagreements on other issues but when it <br>> comes to war and American empire there is broad agreement that needs to be built on.<br>> <br>> A successful anti-war peace movement cannot give up the flag of patriotism. It <br>> needs to grab hold of America’s patriotic impulses and show the United States <br>> can be the nation many imagine us to be – leading by positive example, helping <br>> in crisis, being a force for good, rather than propagating military dominance <br>> and hegemony. A successful anti-war movement needs to be a place where veterans, <br>> from grunts to generals, can openly participate, share their stories and explain <br>> the lessons they learned from American militarism. While the left has been able <br>> to include the lower level grunts and officers, it has not been a safe haven for <br>> generals and admirals who have become opposed to extreme militarism. A safe <br>> place, a patriotic, broad-based anti-war movement, will allow more former <br>> military to speak out in a cohesive and effective manner.<br>> <br>> And, a patriotic anti-war peace movement will also be able to attract the <br>> support of business leaders who recognize that war undermines the American <br>> economy as well as hurting national security, undermining national and <br>> international law and weakening the U.S. economy. When the United States is <br>> spending one million dollars per soldier in Afghanistan it is evident to anyone <br>> focused on the bottom line that a teetering U.S. economy cannot afford the cost <br>> of war.<br>> <br>> Indeed, a well organized anti-war movement will have committees not only <br>> reaching out to military and business, but to academics, students, clergy, <br>> labor, nurses, doctors, teachers and a host of others. Outreach and organization <br>> needs to be an ongoing priority. And, organization must be designed around <br>> congressional districts so it can have a political impact. This demonstrates one <br>> reason for the need for a right left coalition; the anti-war movement cannot <br>> allow “red” states or districts to go unorganized.<br>> <br>> Successful anti-war advocacy will also need new tactics. The government and <br>> media have adjusted to 1960s tactics. Mass marches and disruption of Congress <br>> reached all time highs during the build up and fighting of the Iraq war but with <br>> little effect. The government has learned how to handle these tactics and avoid <br>> media attention. There certainly will continue to be roles for these tactics but <br>> they cannot be central and more is needed.<br>> <br>> Anti-war advocates need to use voter initiatives and referenda to raise issues <br>> that legislators will not confront. This strategy is a way to break though the <br>> power of the military industrial complex and bring issues to the people. It <br>> forces a public debate and pushes voters to confront how extreme militarism <br>> affects their lives. The U.S. has already spent a trillion dollars in Iraq and <br>> Afghanistan when care for the wounded and lost productivity is included the cost <br>> is more than doubled. In a decades long “Long War” military expenditures will <br>> cripple the U.S. economy. Effective opposition to war will show how the cost of <br>> war affects every American’s life.<br>> <br>> Around the world other tactics have been successfully deployed on issues that <br>> U.S. advocates are not well organized enough to deploy. These include general <br>> strikes where people take off work for hours or days to send a message that the <br>> people are organized in opposition to government policy. Similarly slow downs in <br>> the nation’s capitol that bring the business of government to a halt demonstrate <br>> that the people will not let the business as usual go on without interruption. <br>> We can see the beginnings of such efforts in the U.S. peace movement in Cindy <br>> Sheehan’s “Peace of the Action” that recently protested drones at the CIA and <br>> seeks to block the business of Empire in the nation’s capitol in 2010.<br>> <br>> Finally, and of critical importance, is for the anti-war peace movement to be <br>> truly non-partisan and politically independent. Recently peace activists have <br>> been drawn into silence when John “Anybody but Bush” Kerry ran a campaign where <br>> he called for escalation of the Iraq War and expansion of the military. And, <br>> when candidate Obama promised to escalate the Afghanistan war, attack Pakistan, <br>> only partially withdraw from Iraq and expand the U.S. military – many in the <br>> peace movement remained silent or criticized his policies but promised to <br>> support him anyway. The peace movement needs to protest candidates from any <br>> party who call for more militarism, larger military budgets and more U.S. troops <br>> and demand real anti-war positions for their votes.<br>> <br>> Movements cannot stop and start for elections, nor allow party loyalty to divide <br>> them. They must continue to build through the election. Indeed, elections can be <br>> prime opportunities to build the movement and push candidates toward the <br>> anti-war peace perspective. Peace voters must be clear in their demands: end to <br>> the current wars, no more wars of aggression and dramatic reductions in the <br>> military budget so that it is really a defense budget not a war budget. This <br>> does not mean leaving the U.S. weak and unable to defend itself, but it should <br>> not be a budget that allows aggressive misuse of the U.S. military as the <br>> primary tool of foreign policy.<br>> <br>> Developing an effective anti-war peace movement is a big task that will take <br>> years. U.S. Empire can be traced back to the late 1800s and President Eisenhower <br>> warned America of the military industrial complex fifty years ago. The U.S. is <br>> currently engaged in a “Long War” supported by neocons, neo-liberals and <br>> corporatist politicians. The pro-militarist establishment has deep roots in both <br>> major parties and undoing the military machine will take many years of work. <br>> Advocacy against war and militarism needs to be persistent; constantly educating <br>> the American public that war undermines national security, weakens the rule of <br>> law and contributes to the collapsing economy. We need to show how investment in <br>> militarism rather than civil society undermines livability of American <br>> communities, weakens the economy and puts basic necessities like education and <br>> health care financially out of reach.<br>> <br>> The facts are on the side of the anti-war peace advocates, now we must build <br>> organizations that represent the patriotic, anti-militarist impulses of the <br>> American people.<br>> <br>> Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters for Peace (www.VoterForPeace.US).<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> -- <br>> This message has been scanned for viruses and<br>> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is<br>> believed to be clean.<br>> <br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Peace-discuss mailing list<br>> Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net<br>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss<br> <br /><hr />Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. 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