Home > Why the Current Antiwar Movement is So Impotent by Ralph Nader (COMMONDREAMS)

Why the Current Antiwar Movement is So Impotent by Ralph Nader (COMMONDREAMS)

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 12 June 2007
2 comments

Movement Wars and conflicts USA

Published on Saturday, May 19, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

Why the Current Antiwar Movement is So Impotent

by Ralph Nader

The current issue of the UTNE Reader (May - June ‘07) carried a short but sensibly provocative article protesting the stagnation and the cul-de-sac nature of street protests that involve nonviolent civil disobedience.Joseph Hart, the author, asks why the current antiwar movement is so impotent, despite “a staggering 67 percent disapproval of President Bush’s handling of the war - a level that matches public sentiment at the tail end of the Vietnam War, when street protests, rallies, and student strikes were daily occurrences.”

He believes it is because, quoting Jack DuVall, president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, that “a street demonstration is only one form of protest and protest is only one tactic that can be used in a campaign. If it’s not a part of a dedicated strategy to change policy, or to change power, protest is only a form of political exhibitionism.”

Both gentlemen are being incomplete. Even without a military draft in place to arouse a larger public, the protestors against the Iraq war have affected the 2006 elections, performed sit-ins in Congressional offices, filed lawsuits against Bush’s violations of people’s civil liberties, brought Iraqi spokespeople to meet with influential Americans, worked with Iraq veterans against the war as well as with numerous former high ranking military, diplomatic and intelligence officials now retired from service in both Republican and Democratic Administrations who openly opposed the invasion at the outset.

Clearly all this has not been enough to move the Democrats to decisive action.

The obstinate, messianic militarist in the White House remains unmoved. With his ignorance of history itself becoming historic, this latter day obsessively compulsed, King George thinks he’s a 21st century Winston Churchill.

Through the wide arc of his persistent lawlessness, Mr. Bush has done the country much damage here and abroad. But he has also demonstrated how variously the rule of law can be swept aside with impunity. He is both outside and above the Constitution, federal statutes, international treaties to which the U.S. is solemn signatory, and the restraints of the Congress and the federal courts.

A major restructuring of our laws to embrace the outlaw Presidency under Mr. Bush, or any like-minded successors, now has a solid empirical basis from which to move forward. Presidential outlawry did not start with Mr. Bush. It has been building up for a long time going from the episodic to institutionalized forms.

For example, it is now routine for the courts to opt out of giving any citizen, group or member of Congress legal standing on matters of foreign and military policy even to plead their cases against the President. Here the courtroom door is closed.

For Mr. Bush, what would be repeated criminal negligence by anyone else, there has been immunity from lawsuits by families of soldiers - and there were hundreds of them - who died because they were not provided with body and Humvee armor over three years of more in Iraq. Immunity even from equitable lawsuits seeking a mandamus for obligated action ignored by the President.

The Bush officials had the funds with which to procure these shields but somehow the Halliburtons got more of their urgent attention.

Clearly, the diverse opposition to Bush’s war needs to move to higher levels. More meticulous lobbying in Congressional Districts, more pressure to initiate impeachment hearings, more exposure to what the Iraqi people, suffering so terribly, want, much more organized focus by the retired, established military and civilian officials whose previous courage and experience give them great credibility today.

The number of active duty soldiers petitioning their member of Congress to end the war now exceeds twelve hundred. Since 72% of the soldiers in Iraq wanted the U.S. out within six to twelve months in a Zogby poll released very early in 2006, there is more potential from this source of actual military theatre experience.

The timid, anti-war members of Congress require more than all this opposition. Apparently they are looking for intensity, for more people having the war on their minds, demanding that the huge monies for this overseas destruction be turned into providing necessities for their communities.

These lawmakers seem to need to be buttonholed whenever they return to their Districts. In Washington, they keep saying things like, “Yeah, I know the polls but Americans are more interested in American Idol and their iPods.”

So, Americans, start the buttonhole movement - at their Congress members’ town meetings, at the clambakes they attend this summer, at the local parades where they strut, over at their local office (see the yellow pages listing under U.S. Government for the addresses and phone numbers) and through letters and telephone calls. You count when you make them count you.
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Forum posts

  • I think the problem is American is addicted to war. Way too many members of congress are pro war and pro business. A lot of big businesses that finance these politicians benefit from war. The Defense contractors and weapons makers, the coporate news media, the gas and energy companies all benefit from war. All of these forces together do have an impact on the political dialog in the US. It’s sad to to say being an american but America need a war every few years to sustain it’s economy.

    Peace

    Pat Turner

  • Someone once said "The business of America isn’t business-the business of America is war", and they were right.

    The economic/political/social fabric of America is geared towards sustained war fever. The creators of the capitalist system designed it that way and their present day descendants wish to keep it that way for as long as possible. As long as the world is ruled by a system run by people who are addicted to wars for profit and power and populated by people who are too ignorant or fearful to learn the truth about it, there will never be any peace or healing or prosperity for the general human populace.

    And as long as human beings are strongly motivated by fear of terrorism/sudden death and religious beliefs that are based upon the worship of a vengeful and punitive god and the dread that their gods will punish them severely for failing to adhere to strictly laid down religious tenets, unscrupulous criminals and would-be dictators will always step in to take advantage of these naive people and manipulate them into taking courses of action that are extremely harmful-such as voting to give a leader/dictator imprimatur to launch a war of aggression.

    The only kind of peace that can occur (a short lived one at that)is when a power mad and wealth obsessed empire/emperor becomes too arrogant and oblivious to the natural limits that reality imposes upon their ability to seize and control territories and resources and human beings and hits the proverbial "brick wall". When that happens, empires implode in on themselves because they had sacrificed their own domestic internal economic/political/industrial/legal/social systems for the sake of creating empire.

    The Afghanistan/Iraq/(soon to be)Iran wars were not a response to the 9-11 attacks. The 9-11 attacks were instigated for the purpose of removing any objections to launching these wars. They are the opening acts in the creation of an Amerikkkan empire and the death and destruction and suffering will get far far worse than anyone can imagine. The bush/neocon regime sees terrorism/war as opportunities to reap incredible profits and power for themselves and they are not above manufacturing these events in the absence of any pre-existing situations because they are motivated solely by dreams of absolute wealth and power and will let no one and nothing stand in their way.

    The belief that bush and cheney and their henchmen will step down at the end of their second term is basically an illogical and foolish belief. How can anyone still believe that these psychopathic criminals/terrorists making up the bush regime will obey this law when they have ignored every other law that is applicable to them?
    And as long as americans are held prisoner by their obsolete belief systems that cause them to remain convinced that the political/justice systems and protests alone in this country will be enough to heal the traumatic wounds that have been inflicted upon this nation and its people by the bush terror regime, they are sadly mistaken. It will take a concerted and wide-spread united front by the american people to do this. Unfortunately, there are no visible signs at this time that this is taking place.

    Americans are too busy obsessing over having perfect hair/bodies/teeth/ and large bank accounts and the Paris Hilton episode to care very much about taking back their country from the villains that have hijacked it. The american people are acting just like the Proles did in George Orwell’s poignant and prophetic story of tyranny called "1984". Because the Proles were too obsessed with cheap trinkets and baubles and trivial matters to see the destruction that was being inflicted upon them by their totalitarian government called "Big Brother", they never united and fought together to bring down their government the way that the protagonist of the story had hoped that they would. The reason for this was that Big Brother knew how to appeal to the Proles basest desires and needs so that they were focused exclusively on earning the meager rewards that were allowed them by their overlords and ignored the fact that they had the collective power to change things. In the end, comfort and convenience and immediate gratification mattered more to the Proles than freedom and independent thought. Immediately after 9-11, the american people allowed life to imitate art and find themselves in a similar circumstance.

    It may or may not be too late to stop the process of "creative destruction" that was wrought by the bush/PNAC regime, but it would have been infinitely easier to prevent the tragic events that have transpired since bush stole the White House in 2000 and instigated 9-11 if the american people had been duly suspicious early on and had not surrendered their basic freedoms to their illegitimate "leaders" fighting a war on non-existent Al Qaeda terrorists.

    Once the car has plunged over the edgeof the cliff it is too late for the inattentive car driver to step on the brakes or put the transmission in reverse or to turn the steering wheel to save himself from being smashed flat on the ground below. It would have been far better had he paid attention to the signs posted warning of the imminent danger that lay ahead. The american people ignored the obvious signs warning them of what bush and his mafia regime would wreak in the near future and they chose to treat them as harmless jokes or dismiss them as if they were mirages with no substance at all and no negative consequences for America.

    Richard M. Nixon was a scary man and a frightening president and did many illegal and dangerous things in his time as president, but he had nothing on the current squatter in the White House and his band of murderous thugs. At least Nixon knew when it was time to cash in his chips and call it a game and fade into the background. I fear that bush and cheney and the neocons will not be so willing to capitulate and will seize as much wealth and power as possible and inflict death and destruction and chaos such as the world has not been witness to before in their mad rush to become ultimate emperors of the world.

    I hope that I am wrong about this, but I do not believe at this time that isolated and disorganized peace protests and "non-binding resolutions" by the spineless democratic controlled congress (that seems more content to be bush’s water boys/girls than to serve the best interests of the country and the american public) will be enough to stop the bush regime from taking this insane and deadly process to its terrifyingly logical conclusion.

    Cindy Sheehan had tried heroically for these last few years to create an overwhelming wave of increased public consciousness of the illegal nature of the war and the tragic and needless human costs that are its inevitable outcome, but the apathethic reaction of the general public and the relentless attacks on her by bush’s hatchetmen and mindless supporters wore her down until she had nothing left to give anymore. She told the american people that it was now up to them to decide whether the lives of their children and loved ones were more valuable to them than continuing to believe that just ignoring the mounting costs of the war will enable them to live their lives as if everything were normal.

    History is replete with examples of nations that became empires and were destroyed-not by external enemies-but from within from leaders/politicians and their disciples who took advantage of dire situations (or created them) in order to grab more wealth and power for themselves and to exert absolute control over people. The bush regime is no different from their predecessors of the past in this respect and there is no justifiable reason to believe that america will be exempt from suffering the same fate-unless the american people are able to work up enough righteous anger within themselves to oppose the criminal bush mafia that is presiding over this present day bread and circuses freak show.