Support Your Protesters!

Support Your Protesters!
by Saab Lofton

"Although publicly I continued to ignore the raging anti-war controversy … I knew, however, that after all the protests and the Moratorium [the nationwide protests of October 1969] American public opinion would be seriously divided by any military escalation of the war."
--The Nixon Memoirs

In February of 2003, ten million people in 800 cities around the world (including the U.S. McMurdo Station in Antarctica) hit the streets to protest America's impending invasion of Iraq and history was made as a result. Not only did the Guinness Book of World Records list it as the largest anti-war rally ever held, but it also marked the first time such a massive undertaking occurred BEFORE a war even began! To top it off, The New York Times stated the following: "The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion."

One month later, Emperor Cheney invaded Iraq anyway. Unfortunately, since Americans are infamous for their affinity for instant gratification, all too many now ass-u-me protesting must no longer be "effective," and boy, am I sick of hearing that word out of activists! My God, who needs martial law when all you have to do to curb dissent is claim someone ain't effective?!

First, think back to Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life; the difference between Bedford Falls and Pottersville is the difference between those millions protesting and those same people staying at home and playing video games. Ask yourselves one simple question: Would you really want to live in an alternate reality in which no one took to the streets in Feb. '03? As bad as things may seem in this reality, the alternative would be a hundred times worse.

Second, the right-wing WANTS folks to ass-u-me the peace movement is impotent and ineffective -- that (besides OiL, of course) is why Iraq was invaded, for if Emperor Cheney didn't invade after the Feb. '03 protests, HE'D look impotent and ineffective! In an alternate reality in which the invasion never happened, everyone would've credited the movement, and that's the LAST thing right-wingers would want!

Third, patience, grasshopper. Those who took part in India's non-cooperation campaigns circa the 1920s/1930s had to wait decades for independence, there were eight years of protest and more than two million dead before the Vietnam invasion/occupation finally came to an end ...

... and don't get me started on how long it took for white folks to finally begin to grasp that blacks weren't subhuman ...

Fourth, acknowledge the David and Goliath disparity! The bottom line is -- seeing as how Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! reaches thousands and FOX News' The O'Reilly Factor reaches MILLIONS -- the peace movement is doing the best it can, all things considered. Free speech ain't just a quality, it's also a QUANTITY. This means it's not just a matter of whether you're allowed to have free speech, it's also a matter of HOW MUCH free speech you have. How does that old expression go? "A lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on."

And speaking of lies, read what's in the Saturday, February 11th, 2006 issue of The Los Angeles Times, "… huddled with aides at the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were not sure there was enough evidence to convince the Security Council. Without the council's explicit authorization, their plans for an invasion to depose Saddam Hussein could be difficult to defend under international law. Bush proposed an alternative: paint a U.S. spy plane in United Nations colors and see if that didn't tempt Hussein's forces to shoot at it. In any case, he said, the war was 'penciled in' for March 10 and the United States would go ahead with or without a second U.N. resolution. Blair replied that he was 'solidly with' the president."

"He was deceived by a lie -- we all were. It appears that the Chancellor was behind everything, including the war."
--Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

What kills me is how the same fools putting down protests are claiming THE answer is to put Barack Obama in the White House -- as if he's a prince out of a fairy tale who'll revive Lady Liberty from her slumber with a magic kiss and we the people will all live happily ever after. Yeah, right! It's quicker, easier, more seductive to vote once every four years and hibernate the rest of the time than it is to pay the price of liberty by remaining eternally vigilant, hence the appeal of Obama-mania and the claim that street protest supposedly went out with the '60s. Well, styles change, values don't. Read these wise words from Professor Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: "It was a time, as election times have often been in the United States, to consolidate the system after years of protest and rebellion ... And where a threatening mass movement developed, the two-party system stood ready to send out one of its columns to surround that movement and drain it of vitality."

To paraphrase Professor Alexander Theodore Callinicos of the Socialist Workers' Party, applying pressure on governments not to join the American Empire requires large numbers of people and big national demonstrations are also essential in sustaining the momentum of the movement. David Brower helped shape the face of environmentalism, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times and is famous for having said the following: "Politicians are like weather vanes; our job is to make the wind blow."

So blow, already! BLOW!

SOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902E0DC1E3AF934A25751C0A...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0211-02.htm