America Rising Up in Historic Protest: "What Part of ’Bush Lied’ Don’t You Understand?" PHOTOLOG

AP January 27, 2007

WASHINGTON — Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.

Celebrities, a half-dozen lawmakers and protesters from distant states rallied in the capital under a sunny sky, seizing an opportunity to press their cause with a Congress restive on the war and a country that has turned against the conflict.

Marching with them was Jane Fonda, in what she said was her first anti-war demonstration in 34 years.

"Silence is no longer an option," Fonda said to cheers from the stage on the National Mall. The actress once derided as "Hanoi Jane" by conservatives for her stance on Vietnam said she had held back from activism so as not to be a distraction for the Iraq anti-war movement, but needed to speak out now.

The rally on the Mall unfolded peacefully, although about 300 protesters tried to rush the Capitol, running up the grassy lawn to the front of the building. Police on motorcycles tried to stop them, scuffling with some and barricading entrances.

Protesters chanted "Our Congress" as their numbers grew and police faced off against them. Demonstrators later joined the masses marching from the Mall, around Capitol Hill and back.

About 50 demonstrators blocked a street near the Capitol for about 30 minutes, but they were dispersed without arrests.

United for Peace and Justice, a coalition group sponsoring the protest, had hoped 100,000 would come. They claimed even more afterward, but police, who no longer give official estimates, said privately the crowd was smaller than 100,000.

At the rally, 12-year-old Moriah Arnold stood on her toes to reach the microphone and tell the crowd: "Now we know our leaders either lied to us or hid the truth. Because of our actions, the rest of the world sees us as a bully and a liar."

The sixth-grader from Harvard, Mass., organized a petition drive at her school against the war that has killed more than 3,000 U.S. service-members, including seven whose deaths were reported Saturday.

More Hollywood celebrities showed up at the demonstration than buttoned-down Washington typically sees in a month.

Actor Sean Penn said lawmakers will pay a price in the 2008 elections if they do not take firmer action than to pass a nonbinding resolution against the war, the course Congress is now taking.

"If they don’t stand up and make a resolution as binding as the death toll, we’re not going to be behind those politicians," he said. Actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins also spoke.

Fonda was a lightning rod in the Vietnam era for her outspoken opposition to that war and her advocacy from Hanoi at the height of that conflict. Sensitive to the old wounds, she made it a point to thank the active-duty service-members, veterans and Gold Star mothers who attended the rally.

She drew parallels to the Vietnam War, citing "blindness to realities on the ground, hubris ... thoughtlessness in our approach to rebuilding a country we’ve destroyed." But she noted that this time, veterans, soldiers and their families increasingly and vocally are against the Iraq war.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers, threatened to use congressional spending power to try to stop the war. "George Bush has a habit of firing military leaders who tell him the Iraq war is failing," he said, looking out at the masses. "He can’t fire you." Referring to Congress, the Michigan Democrat added: "He can’t fire us.

"The founders of our country gave our Congress the power of the purse because they envisioned a scenario exactly like we find ourselves in today. Now only is it in our power, it is our obligation to stop Bush."

White House spokesman Trey Bohn responded that Conyers "needs to learn the difference between fact and fable, between a soundbite and a slur." He said Conyers’ "assertion that the president fires generals with whom he disagrees is flat wrong."

On the stage rested a coffin covered with a U.S. flag and a pair of military boots, symbolizing American war dead. On the Mall stood a large bin filled with tags bearing the names of Iraqis who have died.

A small contingent of active-duty service members attended the rally, wearing civilian clothes because military rules forbid them from protesting in uniform.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Tassi McKee, 26, an intelligence specialist at Fort Meade, Md., said she joined the Air Force because of patriotism, travel and money for college. "After we went to Iraq, I began to see through the lies," she said.

In the crowd, signs recalled the November elections that defeated the Republican congressional majority in part because of President Bush’s Iraq policy. "I voted for peace," one said.

"I’ve just gotten tired of seeing widows, tired of seeing dead Marines," said Vincent DiMezza, 32, wearing a dress Marine uniform from his years as a sergeant. A Marine aircraft mechanic from 1997 to 2002, he did not serve in Iraq or Afghanistan.

About 40 people staged a counter-protest, including Army Cpl. Joshua Sparling, 25, who lost his leg to a bomb in Iraq.

He said the anti-war protesters, especially those who are veterans or who are on active duty, "need to remember the sacrifice we have made and what our fallen comrades would say if they are alive."

Bush reaffirmed his commitment to his planned troop increase in a phone conversation Saturday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The president was in Washington for the weekend. He is often is out of town during big protest days.

"He understands that Americans want to see a conclusion to the war in Iraq and the new strategy is designed to do just that," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

Protest organizers said the crowd included people who came on 300 buses from 40 states.

On the Web:

Families, activists, celebrities protest war

An icon of the Vietnam War peace movement — Jane Fonda — joined protesters who rallied in the nation’s capital against the U.S. military presence in Iraq

Washington Post Service
Sun, Jan. 28, 2007
WASHINGTON, D.C.

WASHINGTON - A raucous and colorful multitude of protesters, led by some of the aging activists of the past such as Jane Fonda, staged a series of rallies and a march on the Capitol on Saturday to demand that the United States end its war in Iraq.

Under a blue sky, tens of thousands of people angry about the war and other policies of the Bush administration danced, sang, shouted and chanted their opposition.

They came from across the country, and across the activist spectrum, with a wide array of grievances. Many seemed to be younger than 30, but there were others who said they had been at the famed antiwar protests of the 1960s and 1970s.

They came to Washington at what they said was a moment of opportunity to push the new Congress to take action against the war, even as the Bush administration is accelerating plans to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq. This week, the Senate will begin debating a resolution of disapproval of the president’s Iraq policy, setting up a dramatic confrontation with the White House.

Some protesters plan to stay and lobby their representatives in Congress. Other antiwar activists intend to barnstorm states this week urging senators to oppose the troop escalation.

GROWING MOVEMENT?

While Saturday’s crowd was large and vociferous, its size was unclear because there was no official crowd estimate. It was filled with longtime opponents of the conflict and the administration.

’’Its primary value is that it keeps up the pressure,’’ said former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, of South Dakota. There is a sense that, by summer, a march like this will be two or three times as large.'' Many of the demonstrators Saturday were garbed in clothes of many colors -- pink, green, red and black -- and T-shirts and buttons of many sentiments. ''Think,'' read one shirt. ''It's not illegal yet.'' A button read: ''Is It Vietnam Yet?'' Another read:Cheney/Satan ’08: ’Cause Oil Companies Aren’t Rich Enough.’’

But the overriding complaint was the U.S. prosecution of the war in Iraq.

’’Peace is controversial,’’ civil rights and community activist Jesse Jackson, 65, said in a rousing address to the crowd gathered at the east end of the Mall. But so is war. The fruit of peace is so much sweeter.'' Some came on behalf of relatives who were in the service. A New York woman came on behalf of her younger brother, who she said was about to be deployed to Iraq. She had a framed picture of him in a knapsack. An Akron, Ohio, woman came with her infant son, saying his father, in the Navy in Kuwait, had yet to see him. </strong><a href="http://infoshop.org/iportal/antiwar.php" target="_blank"><strong><img alt="One Planet One Humanity All OUR Children: Shut Down the War Machine!" src="http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/ap/Iraq_Protest_Calif.sff_LA113_20070127203918.jpg" border="0" /></strong></a><strong> Among the celebrities who appeared was Jane Fonda, 69, the actress and activist who, during the Vietnam War, was criticized for sympathizing with the North Vietnamese. She told the crowd that this was the first time she had spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years. ''I've been afraid that because of the lies that have been and continue to be spread about me and that war, that they would be used to hurt this new antiwar movement,'' she told the crowd.But silence is no longer an option.’’

Members of the conservative Free Republic group picketed an antiwar rally at the Navy Memorial where Fonda spoke earlier in the day. ’’Hanoi Jane,’’ one sign read. Wrong then, wrong now.'' The day's events unfolded peacefully. And after a cold morning with temperatures in the mid-20s, the day quickly warmed, and protesters were unzipping jackets as the mercury topped 50 degrees. The day's events were organized chiefly by a group called United for Peace and Justice, which describes itself as a coalition of 1,400 local and national organizations. Among them are the National Organization for Women, United Church of Christ, the American Friends Service Committee, True Majority, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Farms Not Arms, CODEPINK, MoveOn.org and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. The day began with a 10 a.m. rally at the Navy Memorial sponsored by the peace group CODEPINK. There, several thousand activists heard speeches by actor Sean Penn, presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters and Lynne Woolsey. Laura Sinderbrand, 79, and her husband, Alvin, 84, of New York City, said they attended dozens of Washington protests against the Vietnam War during the 1960s and early 70s. ''The biggest difference back then, of course, was the draft,'' said Alvin Sinderbrand, a retired patent attorney.That made everything much more emotional. There was a sense that everybody was vulnerable.’’

The Sinderbrands opposed involvement in Iraq from the beginning, they said, attending a 2003 protest here. The couple made the protest a day trip. ’’We’re doing it with the hope that it’s going to be the last time we need to protest this,’’ said Laura Sinderbrand, a retired museum director.

Special Performance by
Steven Tyler
of Aerosmith
With

Members of Congress, including
Rep. Keith Ellison,
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Rep. Dennis Kucinich & more
and
Marianne Williamson
Plus Special Appearance by Joaquin Phoenix

Monday, February 5, 2007
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
The George Washington University
Lisner Auditorium
730 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Tickets: $25 General Admission
$10 students, seniors and Congressional staff ($10 rate use code ’TPA’, I.D.’s checked at door).

BUY TICKETS NOW!
Tickets included with conference registration, or order online, visit any Ticketmaster location or call the GW Lisner Auditorium information line at (202) 994-6800. Day of ticket sales at box office are cash only. On Monday February 5th, box office is closed until one hour before program.

Transportation and Parking: The GW Lisner Auditorium is three blocks from the Foggy Bottom/GWU Metro stop (orange/blue line). Parking is available in the University Garage, located on Eye and 22nd Streets.

This event is the 2007 Department of Peace Campaign National Conference Grand Finale. REGISTER FOR CONFERENCE (Monday night tickets included in conference registration.)

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) - The Sundance Film Festival drew to a close on Sunday with organizers calling it a landmark year for independent filmmakers who added breadth and depth to movies dealing with global issues, war and family.

"Padre Nuestro" on Saturday won the jury prize for best film drama by a U.S. filmmaker with a tale of a young illegal immigrant from Mexico who travels to New York seeking a father he never knew.

"Manda Bala" earned the jury award for best U.S. documentary with a tale of crime and corruption in Brazil.

"Grace is Gone," starring John Cusack as a father of two whose wife dies in Iraq, picked up the audience trophy for favorite drama and a writing award for filmmaker James Strouse. "Grace" also was among the movies whose distribution rights were sold in one of the most active markets in years at Sundance.

"For so many different reasons, this work is exceptional in terms of how much of it will get into the marketplace, and the range of issues and maturity of the filmmakers," said festival director Geoffrey Gilmore, who hailed 2007 as a "landmark year."

Sundance, which is backed by Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, is the top U.S. gathering for movies made outside Hollywood’s mainstream studios, and each year festival favorites top movie marquees worldwide.

With wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and African nations making headlines, "indie" filmmakers at the 2007 edition were looking outward for their subject matter as opposed to the insular and more personal movies that often played here in the 1990s.

Yet, even as that world view seemed to dominate Sundance 2007, many festival movies were grounded in the idea that family is where people seek safety in troubled times.

"Padre Nuestro" and "Grace" were both examples of tales of family bonds set against issues of illegal immigration and death during wartime, respectively.

But those movies were not the only ones. The audience award for best documentary went to "Hear and Now," in which filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky detailed a year in the life of her deaf parents who decided to undergo surgery so they could hear.

Sundance juries also handed out honors for international movies, and the World Cinema drama prize went to Israeli movie "Sweet Mud," about a boy dealing with his mentally ill mother on a kibbutz in the 1970s.

Denmark’s "Enemies of Happiness," which details the life of an Afghani woman politician, earned the World Cinema jury prize for best documentary, and a special jury prize went to non-fiction film "No End in Sight," about U.S. policy mistakes in the Iraq war.

Like many award winners at Sundance, "No End" director Charles Ferguson took the opportunity to address the U.S.-led war in Iraq with an eye toward the future, not the past.

"It might be too late for Iraq, but I hope it isn’t too late for this country to conduct itself differently in the future," he said.

World Cinema audiences gave "In the Shadow of the Moon," an emotional tale of the Apollo astronauts from Britain’s David Sington, the trophy for top documentary, while Irish musical "Once" earned the audience award for best drama.

Husband-and-wife Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine won the documentary director’s award for "War/Dance" about child soldiers in Uganda — an issue they said they had no idea existed until they began their work.

Finally, the directing award for film drama went to Jeffrey Blitz for "Rocket Science," about a high school stutterer who learns lessons in love while on the debate team.

Sundance Festival Eyewitnesses Suggest Celebs Are Boring

HecklerSpray.com
24 Jan 2007 08:00 AM CST

If you ignore those pesky rumours that films are shown at the Sundance Film Festival, you can really score some useless star-gazing. Although we keep a chateau just a short jaunt from the annual event taking place in Park City, Utah, we’re too lazy to get the first hand experience for ourselves. As tempting as it is to circle narrow, packed city blocks for hours to find parking only to battle the mania of everyday average nobodies dying to catch a glimpse of anyone remotely famous, we’ve decided to continue with our high standard of journalistic integrity and mooch celebrity info from other sources. Interestingly enough, these voyeurs are consistently reporting that celebs are, in fact, boring. It seems stars only do things like disarm nuclear bombs, leap buildings with a single bound, and engage in Kung-Fu fights with mortal enemies when they’re on screen. Instead, they drink their way from party lounge to party lounge, gathering obscene amounts of free swag (because they are truly in need of financial assistance), which will for sure be properly reported on their tax forms.

because reverence has never been america’s thing,
this verse in your honor will not begin "o thou."
but the great respect our country has to give
may you all continue to deserve, and have.

* * *
here at the fulcrum of us all,
the feather of truth against the soul
is weighed, and had better be found to balance
lest our enterprise collapse in silence.

for here the million varying wills
get melted down, get hammered out
until the movie’s reduced to stills
that tell us what the law’s about.

conflict’s endemic in the mind:
your job’s to hear it in the wind
and compass it in opposites,
and bring the antagonists by your wits

to being one, and that the law
thenceforth, until you change your minds
against and with the shifting winds
that this and that way blow the straw.

so it’s a republic, as Franklin said,
if you can keep it; and we did
thus far, and hope to keep our quarrel
funny and just. though with this moral:—

praise without end for the go-ahead zeal
of whoever it was invented the wheel;
but never a word for the poor soul’s sake
that thought ahead, and invented the brake.

26 ii 89

by Howard Nemerov, from The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov.
© Swallow Press

LOVE, WAR & MORAL INDIGNATION

By Robin Meyers
Senior Minister of Mayflower Congregational Church

I am angry because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.

We’ve heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush IN 2004. Well, I’m a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value. I mean what are we talking about.

Because we don’t get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does.

Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:

1. When you start a war on false premises and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God’s will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us . . . who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.

2. When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war and built the United Nations on its own soil to enforce them, if you then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.

3. When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teachings, or turn them on their head (the Sermon on the Mount says we must never return violence for violence, and those who live by the sword shall die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.

4. When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse even to count them, you are doing something immoral.

5. When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and then came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.

6. When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the Gospel (which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate test) by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so that the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.

7. When you wink at the torture of prisoners and deprive so-called “enemy combatants” of the rules of the Geneva Convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.

8. When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evildoers, slice up your own nation into those with you and those who are with the terrorists, and then launch a war that enriches your friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.

9. When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.

10. When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act as if it doesn’t matter what others think of us, because God thinks well of you, you have done something immoral.

11. When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.

12. When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the Kingdom, you are doing something immoral.

13. When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth, God’s gift to all of us, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something evil. The earth belongs to the Lord, not to Halliburton.

14. When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous while theirs is evil, you have made us resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

15. When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a “compassionate conservative,” using the word that is the essence of all religious faith, and then show no compassion for those who disagree with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.

16. When you constantly talk about Jesus, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn’t have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.

17. When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.

I’m tired of people thinking that because I’m a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I’m tired of people saying that I can’t support the troops but oppose the war — I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong — the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power.

This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you — young people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It’s your country to take back. It’s your faith to take back. It’s your future to take back.

Don’t be afraid to speak out. Don’t back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists — so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith.

And war — war is the greatest failure of the human race — and thus the greatest failure of faith.

There’s an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for — absolutely nothing.

And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb, indeed? How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out.

Time to march again my friends. Time to commit acts of civil disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to participate in the madness. My generation finally stopped a tragic war. You can too!

"Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” —Martin Luther King.

Dr. Robin Meyers is Senior Minister of Mayflower Congregational Church (an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City) and professor of rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. He is also a columnist for the *Oklahoma Gazette* and a commentator for National Public Radio.

Beyond Doomsday: the Distant Shores of Survival

When you become aware that madmen are running the governments & militaries, armed with planet-scorching doomsday weapons, and on top of that the climate and atmosphere are degrading by the minute as solar flares are about to increase to maximum... don’t you think every living human should be taking emergency measures?

The truly crazy-making realization one comes to when addressing the mass extinction event underway is that most humans are completely oblivious, confused, or too desperate or drugged to care. Entire societies are obsessed with celebrity & entertainment, sports & economics— while outside the weather is battering at the roof & walls.

You end up asking yourself if this is the sad, tragic, ridiculous end of the planet Earth as we know it? And what will the survivors be reminiscing about, in their underground hovels? Snack foods once in abundance, the great films once playing at the megaplexes, the myriad strange & beautiful creatures which millions of years of evolution unfurled upon the world? All wiped away by human hunger & stupidity... while the society partied & hurried along after money & entertainments.

I feel obligated to pass on the 3-point salvation plan from Haidakhan Baba: Truth, Simplicity & Love can save the world. Truth as in "The Truth shall set you Free." Simplicity as in the scientific rule that the simplest solution is usually the correct, and most practical one. Love seems self-evident & world-reaffirming, yet appears to be the most elusive, in a world filled with murderous disappointment.

I must add the sage advice of Terence McKenna, who believed that only psychedelics ("Visionary Plants") could liberate the human chains of habitual doom in time to avert "Eschaton"— the end of the world as we know it— scheduled for the end of 2012. Unfortunately, these plants are mostly deemed illegal in the industrial society of citified folk.

Another avenue of addressing the epic endtime is questioning who benefits from the devastation & suffering? I suggest searching: Weapons, Drugs, Oil. All of which you will find leading the current US administration in the White House, whose friends are making billions upon billions of profit dollars while most of the world is going to hell.

Let us all pray that the changes in political sensibility in the new year will awaken a radical shift toward planetary survival. Otherwise, enjoy the luxuries & creamy essence of the world we are are witness to rapidly disappearing from under us. Shake up your community, go postal, make a scene. What do you have to lose? Only the livable planet & all its wonders...

Aloha from Mauna Kea

"There have never in history been so many opportunities to do so many things that aren’t worth doing."
— William Gaddis

"God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars."
— Elbert Hubbard

Posted Sunday, January 28, 2007
The News Journal/SUCHAT PEDERSON

June Eisley has spent most of her life protesting war.

In the 1960s and ’70s, she marched on the Capitol, attended rallies at the University of Delaware, and even organized a local chapter of Mothers United for Peace.

With millions of other Vietnam War protesters across the country, she hoped to make a difference, and prevent the United States from engaging in any such conflict again.

Fast-forward to today. Eisley, of Wilmington, has watched with dread as the United States has enmeshed itself in another unpopular war.

"I had hoped Americans had learned their lesson not to believe the government about their reasons for getting into a war," she said. "More people should have been paying attention at the start of this war."

Many have drawn parallels between the war in Iraq and the Vietnam War — both guerrilla wars in unfamiliar countries with histories and cultures the United States knew little about; both long-term conflicts with conflicting views about when to withdraw troops.

But peace activists, war veterans and historians all note one major difference — Saturday’s march in Washington aside, Operation Iraqi Freedom has not generated nearly the same level of anti-war demonstrations that were sustained throughout much of the Vietnam era. And without protesters pressuring politicians, they say, policy is unlikely to change.

"There’s not the same kind of groundswell today," said Rudi Matthee, a University of Delaware history professor specializing in the Middle East. "Which is exactly why Bush has been able to push through his plans and vision. ... The Bush administration hasn’t gotten the same kind of pressure from the populace as the administration did during the Vietnam era."

Keith Pluymers, a sophomore at the University of Delaware and co-president of the campus Civil Liberties Union, called the political activism on campus "comatose."

"During the Vietnam era, there was the very pressing concern of the draft that was making young people concerned about what was happening with the war," he said. "Today, people are concerned solely with getting a job and securing that middle-class lifestyle. Politics aren’t that big a concern."

Back then, the resistance was about more than just protesting the war, said Darlene Battle, campaign director for Delaware ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"It was about peace, and women recognizing their empowerment," she said. "We were finding ourselves, so it was a lot different then."

Until the war hits home — such as with the delivery of a letter ordering someone’s child to report for duty — parents and youths alike aren’t likely to take to the streets in protest, said Susan Mangini of Newark, who as a child in the 1960s and ’70s accompanied her mother to demonstrations.

"It would be over my dead body before they ever took my son," she said. "You’d see me out there protesting then."

Alan Muller, who heads Green Delaware, was in his early 20s during the Vietnam War.

"People were being forced to go to Vietnam against their will. They were being taken out of college and forced to go and fight," said Muller, who said he wasn’t a pacifist and had been in the ROTC program. "If the government were to tell students today they would be drafted, their interest in opposing the war would perk up greatly."

’The draft is inevitable’

Tom Daws, president of the New Castle County and state chapters of Vietnam Veterans of America, said he believes the Iraq war is as unpopular as the war in Vietnam.

"I don’t know why more young people aren’t protesting, because I think the draft is inevitable," Daws said. "And it’s not going to be just young men, but young women, because the troops already in the military are spent. They’re worn out from serving two or three tours and not having any new replacements."

And with the president calling for more than 20,000 additional troops, more bodies are going to have to come from somewhere, he said.

Young people should be the ones questioning this war, Daws said, because they’re the ones who can do something about it.

Andrew Christy, a University of Delaware sophomore and president of the Men Against Rape Society, said he thinks students are cynical, and don’t believe protesting would accomplish anything.

And while the Princeton Review recently rated the university as the fourth-most apathetic campus, he said he believes the problem isn’t unique to Delaware.

"People care, but they’re not motivated to get involved," he said. "They don’t pay attention to what’s going on in the world or how it will affect them in the long run."

Matthee said it’s easy to blame the lack of constant protesting on an apathetic public in an age of consumerism.

"In the ’60s, there was this notion of a new utopia, and high ideals," he said. "Not all idealism is gone, but some of the energy has gone out of it. A grand vision is lacking. Capitalism absorbs everything."

Peter Jackson, a senior at the Charter School of Wilmington, said many students are more focused on school than activism.

"A lot of kids don’t really think the war’s affecting them," said Jackson, who said he was the only one of his friends to protest during Bush’s visit. He wore a homemade sign that read, "Send me to college, not Iraq."

"They don’t expect a draft, so they don’t really get involved," he said.

Emily Taylor, a University of Delaware sophomore and chairwoman of the Delaware Federation of College Republicans, said there aren’t as many protests now because today’s generation came of age after Sept. 11, 2001.

"That shaped the way we look at things, and I think a lot of people understand that if we want to be successful in the war on terror, we have to be successful in Iraq," she said. "We support our soldiers and we want them to do well."

Vivid memories of Vietnam era

Mangini was only 10, but she remembers the Vietnam protest skits enacted on the green at the University of Delaware.

Like the time she played a Vietnamese child, beaten and killed in a simulated jungle massacre.

Other times, she marched with the demonstrators — she still has the buttons and patches to prove it.

"I understood what was going on because there was something on TV every night, and in the paper, there were these horrible pictures of people with napalm and people getting shot in the head," she said.

Sally Milbury-Steen, executive director of the local peace organization Pacem in Terris, was in college during much of the Vietnam era.

She recalled one protest in the nation’s capital in 1972 that had a "picnic-type" atmosphere.

"It was a combination of a protest and a love fest," she said.

Although the University of Delaware wasn’t a hotbed of political activism, Muller said, the campus wasn’t as "dead" then as it is today.

"When I went away to the University of Delaware, I had no political consciousness, but I developed some, even in Newark," he said. "The administration was afraid of the students. There was this tremendous anger, and tremendous determination that the war had to stop. There was also fear of being sent to a remote place to be killed."

Protest, treason not synonymous

Before the Iraq war started, massive protests and marches conjured up images of the activism of the 1960s and ’70s. But that activity quickly died out.

"It was like treason to oppose the war, like we were anti-American," Battle said. "People were scared to speak out."

As the war has worn on, Milbury-Steen said, people have come to understand that one can oppose the war and still support the soldiers.

After nearly four years now, the war has been going on for too long without accomplishing anything, Muller said.

"People were willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt," he said. "American people will give you two or three years, but then if they don’t see a result, they will call it off, and I think that’s what’s been going on."

"It was the people on the streets who got us out of Vietnam," said Fred Sinton of Unionville, Pa., who protested President Bush’s visit to Wilmington on Wednesday.

If demonstrators can mount the same type of pressure against the Iraq war, it could help shape policy. Without a groundswell, Eisley said, the government won’t act.

"There has to be a public outcry if you want to make a difference," she said. "That’s why things are changing now, because people have had enough."

Pluymers said a lack of people in the streets means the administration isn’t forced to be accountable. And young people need to realize they are partly to blame, he said.

"It hurts progressive movements when no young voices are behind it," he said.

"Young people are more concerned about where they’re going to get their illegal booze for the weekend or where they’re going to get their new-technology toy. Whether we realize it or not, everything we do, from the toys we buy to the protest this Saturday that people won’t attend, it makes an impact."

If Bush succeeds in sending more troops to Iraq, Milbury-Steen said, she expects to see demonstrations become more common.

"People are suspect of what’s going to happen with this surge, and the question of whether the current administration wants to let time run out so a new administration will have to deal with ending this thing," she said.

Just as was true during Vietnam, Americans are doubting the Iraq war, said Matthee, the history professor.

"For Vietnam, the tipping point was the early ’70s, and from there they were just trying to rescue and salvage a mission," he said.

"I think we’re very close to the same place in Iraq. I think we’ve reached the point of no return and America will have to leave, probably ignominiously."

With reservists being called up repeatedly, resentment is growing among the public, Matthee said.

"Especially since it’s been made clear this war is not winnable and body bags are coming home for perhaps no reason at all," he said.

Pacem in Terris — Latin for "peace on earth" — organized three 47-passenger buses to transport protesters to the Capitol on Saturday.

"People are coming out because they see this is a pivotal time and they want to prevent the surge and call for the war to end and bring the troops home," Milbury-Steen said.

"This is an important time because a new Congress is just getting under way, and people are holding their feet to the fire."

Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the US House of Representatives, is in
Afghanistan where she has held talks with President Hamid Karzai.
Pelosi and her congressional delegation earlier paid a visit to US
troops at a base in Bagram, the largest US base in Afghanistan. The
trip to Afghanistan followed a stopover in Pakistan on Saturday,
where Pelosi met with President Pervez Musharraf to discuss the
situation in Afghanistan and cooperation in countering terrorism.