Anti-war is a movement dear to my heart for I was a participant in the 1970s after I returned from Vietnam….it pains me to see just how compliant the American people have become to the nightmare of war….but there are some that will not look the other way because they are told to do so…..
Let’s revive the movement on a massive scale….especially now when the government is staring war after war with no clear reason other than their lies and misinformation.
Time for Americans to return to the days of confrontating the war machine….
The war resides mostly in the background here in the aggressor nation. Most of those who think about it at all tend to oppose it and seem to think it’s a task forced on the US by the zealots running Israel. Some take it even further, presenting an argument that blames the relationship between the mad rulers of Israel and the United States for the entire catastrophe. The argument varies, but its essence is that Bibi Netanyahu is the individual responsible for convincing the sundowning Donald Trump to bomb Iran for the sake of Israel. There are those who argue that the reason for this is because Israel’s Mossad has compromising materials on Trump and his escapades with Jeffrey Epstein, while others place Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the role of instigator. Of course, no one has produced a smoking gun for either possibility, even though both have a potential element of truth. It is likely that Epstein had some working relationship with Mossad and it’s an established fact that Kushner’s family have a long-term relationship with Netanyahu. Furthermore, Kushner is financially connected to Saudi Arabia and UAE’s monarchies. It’s an established fact that Israel, the Arab monarchies and the United States all oppose the Iranian government—its support of national liberation and anti-imperialist movements and its existence in general. Furthermore, all of these governments are more interested in maintaining the political situation in West Asia as it is and has been for decades. They are not interested in bringing popular democracy to the region, with some more than willing to maintain a constant state of war and occupation to maintain the current hierarchy of power.
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/oppose-the-war-and-its-machinery/
To build a sustained anti-war movement one must look to the past and its many failures….
Before discussing the strengths and failures of the last major anti-war movement, we need to step back and look at US history. What that history shows is that the inability to build and sustain an anti-war movement or mass presence is directly linked to the absence of what one might call an anti-imperial/pro-democratic foreign policy on the part of progressive movements. As a result, those who adhere to the notion of a need for peace and justice find ourselves in a Groundhog Day scenario on a regular basis, trying our best to ignite or reignite a mass movement against US aggression each time that aggression raises its ugly head.
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/anti-war-movement-history/
The only way to make sure that there is always opposition to any worthless war we need a movement that will be there for the long run and not one we need to rebuild with every war the government decides it needs to fight.
We need this movement now more than ever…..we cannot turn our backs on the opposition to senseless violence in the name of our country.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Wait and see if they introduce the draft again. That will sort out the video gamers and armchair warriors sitting in their parents’ basements raving about MAGA on social media. Let the good old boys waving the stars and bars see their kids conscripted to fight in Iran for the profits of oil companies at the behest of Israel. Let’s see the metal coffins coming home so that Trump and his family can make billions by shorting oil stocks prices. That’s what it’s going to take to see another anti-war movement, chuq.
Best wishes, Pete.
We surely do need a strong anti-war movement in this country right now. Chuq, I’d like to ask you – as a veteran – about your feelings and motivations for opposing the Vietnam War back then. I served in the U.S. Army shortly afterwards, but during high school I joined protesters at the Cal Berkeley campus after the Kent State massacre. Most of the demonstrators were university students, but there were others too including a surprising number of combat vets (some with awful disabilities). The vets I talked with weren’t so much anti-war in general, but were passionately opposed to the Vietnam War. That’s when I first became aware of the Gulf of Tonkin farce and the other lies.