Convicted nazi war criminal Hermann Goering had this to say during the Nuremberg trials:
Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, is is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
The list of US allies is less than impressive:
Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan.
One of them the US is currently occupying. Two others are hosts to US “military advisors” directing the war against terrorism and the war on drugs. Thirteen were members of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Bloc. Two were Axis powers in WWII, another in WWI. At least three had fascist regimes. One was part of the former Yugoslavia. One has nuclear weapons. None are Arab. None are members of OPEC.
From the New York Times:
Now that U.S. strikes against Iraq have begun, we should get rid of one canard immediately, and that’s the notion that criticism of the Bush administration and opposition to this invasion imply in some sense a lack of support or concern for the men and women who are under arms.
MoveOn.org encourages all who work for peace to place candles in your window:
One simple way to show your continued commitment to this
vision is to put a light in your window. It could be a Christmas string or candle, a light bulb, or a lantern. It’s an easy way to keep the light of reason and hope burning, to let others know that they are not alone, and to show the way home to the young men and women who are on their way to Iraq.
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) — An airline passenger who had two “No War with Iraq” signs in his suitcase says the federal security agent who opened his luggage inserted a note criticizing his “anti-American attitude.”
“I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have received this message,” said Seth Goldberg, 41, of Cranbury, New Jersey.
Federal Transportation Security Administration officials are investigating.
Goldberg says that after a March 2 flight from Seattle to San Diego, California, he opened his bag and found a card notifying him that TSA had opened and searched it.
A handwritten note on the card said: “Don’t appreciate your anti-American attitude!”
Mar. 16, 2003" href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/03/15/baggage.inspection.ap/index.html">More (via CNN).
There are literally dozens of ways to do nonviolent social action, and the Einstein Institute has gone to the trouble list almost 200 of them. I’d like to add another: buy a Dixie Chicks album. And apparently both sides are engaging in nonviolent action, as I was forwarded this email earlier today:
Click to continue reading “Winning without war (but not without warriors)”
Salon is reporting that the February 15 peace protests may end up looking like Antiques Road Show in comparison to what’s planned for the day war breaks out in Iraq. Different organizations are planning to shut down financial districts, stage sit-ins in Congressional offices, and even disrupt the Air Force’s command and control center. The rationale is to make it as difficult as possible for the White House to carry out the war.
But Anti-Vietnam peace activist Paul Berman had this to say:
“At the time I did some of that myself and thought it was doing good, but now it’s apparent to me that all that stuff just fell into a trap laid by Richard Nixon,” he says. “That kind of stuff allowed Nixon to win in 1968 and again in 1972, and a Democratic president would surely have withdrawn sooner. And so in effect, although it’s painful to say so, I think that kind of stuff had the effect of prolonging the war. It played into Nixon’s hands. There were famous scenes where Nixon specifically ordered that his entourage drive through streets where he knew he’d be attacked by demonstrators because he wanted the right scenes to appear on TV. He presented it to the public: You had to choose between Richard Nixon or some long-haired marijuana-smoking lunatic communist. Guess what. The public chose Nixon.”
The protests I have seen so far in Atlanta have been small, sincere, peaceful, quaint, and encouraging. Like many others, I “honked for peace” as I drove past. I made out several families protesting together. I judged them to be a symbolic marker of much larger wells of opposition and hesitance to a Gulf War II, views expressed in the massive worldwide protests I saw on TV. They reminded “the rest of us” on our way home where we stood and what that meant.
If day-of US peace protests turn violent, that political capital will be spent. All CNN needs is one three-second clip of “some long-haired marijuana-smoking lunatic communist” doing something stupid and violent, and then to play it over and over and over. (In slow motion, no doubt.) Americans who are merely hesitant to go to war (and not in decided opposition) will find themselves with a new hesitation: this time about the peace movement. Given a choice between hesitant support of a White House at war and “some long-haired marijuana-smoking lunatic communist,” most will choose the White House. When Americans’ lives are on the line, they will easily side with President Cowboy over Hacky-Sack Hippy With a Violent Streak.
If you’re going to play politics, you may as well play to win. And to win in America, you have to carry the center. The down side of having such an enormous peace movement already (before the war has even started) is that there will inevitably be some bad eggs from the get-go. To counter this, the peace movement must do whatever it can beforehand to shut these folks out of the process, and then disavow them if and when they choose violence over peaceful protest. If the American public can see an easy division between the “good protesters” and the “bad protesters,” it won’t feel so forced to choose between a violent Bush and violent hippies. Why not give them a genuinely peaceful protest movement instead?
To quote a writer I don’t ordinarily put much stock in, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Disrupting military operations will not win the day. Winning over the hearts and minds of the American public will.
