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"Nothing"
Posted on 11/15/2007 2:54:02 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
ANALYSIS: Protesters took to the streets in past conflicts; today their presence may be strongest online.
In May, saddened that she had failed to stop the war in Iraq that took her son's life and made her the face of opposition, Cindy Sheehan tearfully quit the anti-war movement.
She had concluded that her son Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist killed in an April 2004 battle in Baghdad, had "died for nothing."
"Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next 'American Idol' than how many people will be killed in the next few months," Sheehan wrote in her online diary.
Those next few months will reach a red-letter day soon when the official death toll of American troops in Iraq is certain to reach 4,000 - the tally stood at 3,861 as counted by the Associated Press as of Sunday afternoon - a gloomy milestone in what has become an overwhelmingly unpopular war at home and a polarizing issue in Congress as well as in the presidential campaign.
But as the death toll rises in what has been the deadliest year for American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion - and despite polls showing that most people oppose the war - Sheehan's departure from the peace movement raises questions about today's anti-war effort.
If the war had been fought during an era like the 1960s, there would be sit-ins, protests and palpable outrage. So is Sheehan right? Is this era's peace movement weaker, or just waged with different tools and messages?
The perception is that "people aren't in the streets protesting in outrage because they are too busy sipping Frappucinos at Starbucks and watching television - so long as it's not anything about the rising death toll," said psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, who studies pop cultural trends among Americans.
But peace activists say that isn't necessarily the case, that in fact the movement against American involvement in Iraq today is significantly further ahead of the anti-war movement against Vietnam at the same time in the 1960s.
"Vietnam had a draft but it still took about 20,000 body bags before American opinion turned against that war," says Jim Lafferty, a Los Angeles-based steering committee member of the anti-war group ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). "A clear majority (of Americans) has opposed the war in Iraq for some time now, and thank God it hasn't taken 20,000 body bags."
Also, Lafferty and others in the peace movement note today's movement is ahead of the pace set by protesters during the Vietnam era.
"Actually, we've had more people in the streets at an earlier stage than we did in Vietnam," says Lafferty, an expert on Vietnam who taught a course on that war at the New School for Social Research in New York.
Independent polls, in which opposition to the war is now over 70 percent, also support that view. According to Gallup surveys, a majority of Americans came to view Iraq as a mistake quicker than they came to oppose the Vietnam War more than three decades ago.
And the anti-war movement's impact on national politics cannot be understated. Opposition to the war last year produced the historic backlash against President Bush and the Republicans, leading to a Democratic takeover of Congress and a resolution setting a timetable for a troop withdrawal - a resolution Bush vetoed.
The war arguably has also become the major issue in the upcoming presidential election year - a campaign that is fueling the peace movement, though not necessarily always on the streets.
"All of us in the American culture have the peace movement image in our heads that is out of the '60s: images of someone burning their draft card or bleeding from (a beating from a) police club," says Tom Hayden, who gained infamy in the late 1960s as a Vietnam War protester who was one of the Chicago Seven anti-war defendants, and later went on to become a California state senator.
"But the image of the Iraq war peace movement is something entirely different. It may be something as (simple as) somebody blogging."
"The movement has moved from the streets," said Brad Parker of Sherman Oaks, a political activist involved in the anti-war, progressive movement. "The new street is the e-mail."
Hayden and others argue that much of the anti-war movement today might be no louder than keyboard pecks - not only blogging on the Internet but the millions of words in e-mails and newsletters transmitted electronically, carrying the peace message daily.
"It's about communications, and in protesting the Vietnam War the main source of communications was television," says political consultant Bill Orozco, who has worked with anti-war activists since the 1970s. "You needed big demonstrations in the streets to carry the message on television. But today the main source of communications has become the Internet."
According to political strategists, it was the peace movement's mobilization of the Internet that stoked the anti-war protest fires and led to last year's historic mid-term repudiation of the Bush administration and the Democrats' takeover of Congress, as well as calls for troop withdrawals in many cities.
In Los Angeles earlier this month, the City Council adopted a resolution calling for an end to the war, making it the largest city in the nation to take such a position.
Still, low turnouts at some rallies, like at the Oct. 27 anti-war protest in downtown L.A., leave the impression that the movement is marginal and without impact, even as they produce a theater of radical sloganeering and grandstanding.
Sheehan is now on a grassroots campaign as an independent to unseat Pelosi from the San Francisco congressional seat she has held since 1987.
It is a quixotic venture that has saddened many anti-war activists. When Sheehan resigned, she lashed out at the peace movement group MoveOn.org for not doing enough to oppose the war. Most anti-war activists are also loyal Democratic supporters, especially of Pelosi.
"(Sheehan) did a tremendous thing in that she took her personal loss and made it public so that people could understand the cost of the war," said Nita Chaudhary, an organizer for MoveOn.org. "The anti-war movement is now the person next door. It's not just Cindy Sheehan."
Equating blogging with actually physically demonstrating is silly, IMO. Comments?
If no one visits the sights online, do they really exist? If a tree falls in the forest....kind of thing.
“ANALYSIS: Protesters took to the streets in past conflicts; today their presence may be strongest online.”
What a blessing.
I realize, of course, that one cannot effectively refute a point by simply associating it with its adherents (or, as the old saying goes, no idea can be responsible for those who hold it). That said, however, I find it instructive that the author of this propaganda piece would quote a representative of the far-left group, ANSWER, to support his conclusions.
But let me rephrase. At some time in their lives, even Hitler and Stalin must have said something that would qualify as a good observation. But I would still not consider quoting either one of them, even if I happened to agree with him on some narrow point. For it might seem to imply (however mistakenly) some broader agreement with him.
It appears that the author, Tony Castro, is untroubled at the thought that others might see his approving quote from an ANSWER representative as an endorsement of that radical group's agenda.
Which makes me think that he probably does approve of it.
What a blessing."
Especially since they seem to be allergic to soap & water as well as deodorant. Oh well, just throw on some patchouli oil to cover the stench and "Keep on Truckin'!"
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
ping
I don’t understand why she thins her son died for nothing. Jeez anyone fighting for our saftey and freedom did not die for nothing. Get real
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