Is it my imagination, or is the anti-war movement losing steam?

Maybe it is sheer exhaustion, or possibly dissalusionment?

I'm not sure.

It just seems unlike the early days of this fucked up war - or even the first 2-3 years, that the voices of protest and even the crowds shouting out in unison are becoming less frequent.

On the first anniversary of Shrub's war I joined over 10,000 people marching in the streets of downtown Portland Oregon - downtown was SHUT down for this march! Year 2 was very similar. Though now as we enter year 6, I'm just not seeing the same energy or the same numbers in protest.

In no way do I fault the anti-war movement; rather I wonder if the Democratic complicity and enabling on The Hill (see last weeks 92-3 vote) has simply let some of the air out of the balloon.

I know here on DU and among activists, the PASSION is the same - the RAGE against the BushCo war machine is the same; yet we also have lives outside the effort. And now we have Dem candidates in the top tier talking about troops chilling on Iraq soil for at least another 4-5 years.

Is it a case of anti-war fatigue?

Or then again, maybe I'm just outta the loop here in rural Washington....?




On Edit: that's dissalusionment with one L


peace~:)

The people in congress are playing their games and ignoring our horror at the blood and money spent for an illegal war.

I'm only making a token effort anymore- The powers that be have told us that there will be war, suffering, poverty, healthcare too expensive for us...and what we want doesn't matter.

And you know what- most people don't care. I'm thinking of emigrating someplace sane if I can scrounge enough money.

I'm thinking of emigrating someplace sane if I can scrounge enough money.

Isle of Man

It's someplace that I'm seriously considering...

I'll look into it.

We've been screaming in their faces non-stop for the past four years to stop the war, and all we've been getting from our own party is meaningless promises, followed by capitulation and betrayal. All we've been getting from the GOP is "Shut the fuck up, peasant!"

They are not listening to us. At all.

Protests do not work.

Let me say that again.

Protests do not work. Not against a system with no conscience, no sense of shame, that refuses to listen.

What we need is force. I don't care if it's force at the point of a gun or some other means, but that's all they understand.

no power = no voice

you tend to realize that no matter what you do -- letters, petitions, demonstrations, voting, whatever -- isn't going to make any difference whatsoever . . . if the "powers that be" want war, then by God war it is! . . .

that our country has devolved to this state is beyond disheartening . . . it's downright disgusting . . .

Free Mumia/Viva Chavez/Castro Si! shit that accompanies these major antiwar efforts.

In other countries, people just turn up and march, like we did in the old days. Now, it's United For Peace and Justice/International Answer that run around and get the permits, thus, they own the stage, the sound system, and the agenda.

And most people don't like a good seventy percent of their agenda. And find their speeches jarring, off-putting, unrelated to their purpose, nannyish, and hectoring. They don't want the association with that shit when they are there for the war. It just ain't FUN, either. And there's nothing wrong with going to a protest for a good cause, AND having fun.

If they bring back the draft, we'll see interest go up again.

Hell, most of the college Republicans think that the Peace And Love generation marching to keep their well fed asses out of combat are a bunch of Kumbayah fools. I'll bet they'd change their minds if they actually revved up those draft boards again....

and you see not only that people are sick of their outlying crap (the Free Mumia stuff), but also that the movement itself has fragmented.

I think the OP is mistaken in not blaming the movement itself. The fragmentation and generalization of the umbrella groups leading the antiwar movement is largely to blame for the movement itself stagnating, despite the fact that more people than ever are against the war.


Well, that and the Internet. Time was, you had to get out in the streets to get yourself heard. Now, people can just bang out a blog entry, or even just throw up a post at, say, DU, and they feel their opinion has been given voice.

On edit: I was looking for a Reuters story on this exact phenomenon that I read recently. Here it is. Definitely worth a read:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071003/ts_nm/usa_iraq_protests_dc

I think the OP is mistaken in not blaming the movement itself.

Or maybe... it is just hard to blame those who protest a regime who deserves the blunt of ALL the blame. Kinda like don't shoot the messenger.

But you may be right.

But, you know, the fact that the antiwar movement is right doesn't make it strong, and certainly doesn't make it infallible. Check out that Reuters story I added to me previous post. Sums up all the salient points nicely.

Sums it up beautifully.

And there's this icing on the cake:

Largely absent from the actions are young people, who were the majority of Vietnam-era protesters -- perhaps because they do not risk being drafted into the military or from a sense that they can express their opposition to the war on the Internet, rather than on the streets, Isserman said.

If there was no draft during the Vietnam War, you can bet the farm that there wouldn't have been a huge youth movement then either.

Of course, being a Generation Y member myself (God I hate that term. Can we not get our own moniker instead of just being "That one generation that follows X"? The only thing worse is "echo boomers." BLECH! But I digress...) I could just be rationalizing my generation's failure to act. On the whole, though, I think it's really more wrapped up in the draft than the Internet. If there were a draft today, and college-aged people had an actual risk of being shipped off to die in the desert against their will, there would be mass participation on a level the 1960s could never hope to achieve, given the organizing power of 21st Century mass media.

Back in the older days of the sixties, one didn't necessarily need a college education to live out a middle class lifestyle. College wasn't nearly as expensive then as it is now (heck it was free while Jerry Brown was governor in California). Therefore, as far as running the risk of "blowing" one's investment in college if the college or the law takes punitive measures against those who protest, there's a LOT more risk today for students than there was then. Even for other people too, since families now usually need two incomes to survive instead of one like they did then.

There may have been less rights without the voting rights act passed yet, or without the ERA, etc., but there was a lot less to lose those days in being active. Hartmann pointed out that part of the Republican strategy was to destroy the middle class to becoming a "survival mode" segment instead of one that had more time and resources to do other things than survive to limit the ability to have resistance like we did in the 60's.

Nowadays, the one group that you'd like to think have less to lose in protesting (the young people) have a lot more to lose. They also have a lot more distractions than we did then. We only had over the air TV and radio, our phonograph players or we had to go outside to do things or read a book. Today there's videos, video games, the internet, tons of satellite or cable channels that don't get forced to air any hearings like Watergate was on all TV channels then, etc.

Not a whole lot of college kids are thinking, "You know, if I speak out here, I may not be able to complete my college education, and then I won't be able to provide, and then..." and so on, and so on. Rare is the college student who has a 5-year or 10-year plan.

I think it really does go back to the draft. If we had one now, it'd be a whole different ball game. Not that I want one, of course. I'd prefer less people get killed for no reason than more.

That's one huge reason I don't join protests, not that there are a lot of protests happening anyway. There is no way I'm going to risk getting expelled for some BS reason convenient to the administrators, or lose my student loan, because of a protest that won't make an impact anyway.

But when I was in college (and I only graduated a few years ago) getting kicked out of college was pretty much the last thing on my mind. :shrug:

Not that I did a lot of protesting back then, but hey, that was before the Iraq War.

... this time around.

Back in school I still knew people that had hung around in college since the 60's and what some people today might call "bums". There's not a lot of tolerance today for people just going to school to better their education and understanding of the world. Most people go there now as it is a requirement to get a decent job afterward, and their curriculum is increasingly reflecting the kind of classes they feel they need to get a job, rather than just have a "liberal arts" upbringing. Not as much philosophy, sociology, etc. or such classes today as their used to be.

I myself switched from a communications degree when I found that it didn't give me a decent job that paid the bills (the TV station I worked for a while yet with a degree could basically staff itself on interns if it wanted to, and many of us were just getting minimum wage or not much more than that).

I then went for a comp sci degree after that (which many kids today wouldn't have the option of pursuing a second degree). In those days, it was definitely a worthwhile investment. Not as much money, and the jobs weren't getting outsourced, and places like HP and Sun had a reputation for not doing ANY layoffs then. Today it's a different equation, and an even riskier investment. People today can ill afford to take chances of losing their investment through punitive measures from school as they are already at risk of losing their investments with outsourcing, etc.

Before 1980, CEOs only made 40 times as much as the average employees in their firm. Now it's about 10 times that ratio at over 400 times as much. Average people's salaries haven't kept up with inflation. The wealthy elites' have soared ahead of inflation. Average people have less risks with the resources they have available today than they did then.

Unfortunately, that is a problem we aren't going to solve overnight. I do think that one could focus on trying to keep the kids from signing up in the military. That is partly what stopped it in Vietnam too. When the military itself was a source of active resistance. With the all volunteer army now, we can boycott them. Make sure though, that if we do that, that we also make sure that our taxpayer money isn't being spent instead on more troops from firms like Blackwater and KBR to make up the difference. That both works against the troop boycott effectiveness as well as breaks our treasury that much sooner too and makes "private security" firms that much more powerful if unchecked.

We need to really focus on areas where Blackwater is trying to get a foothold here in this country (like Protrero Hills here in San Diego) and do our damndest to keep them out of those areas.

The bottom line is that we need to find some ways that we can directly act to make the "chain of success" for the neocons get hurt, that hopefully isn't illegal or anything like that:
Boycotting troop enrollment is one of those things.
Pressing congress to take away funding is another.
Exposing the truth of abuse by firms like Blackwater is another.
Boycotting companies that help the neocon crowd and shopping at more blue companies like Costco is another.
Helping activists such as Sibel Edmonds, Casey Sheehan, etc. when they are doing the right things is another.
Finding ways to shut down the DLC control over the Democratic Party is another. We have to fix the party first before it can represent us well.

There are probably other things too that are more illegal that I won't suggest here, as I'm hoping that we can find a truly democratic way of fixing the system before we resort more to acts of desperation.

I had everything to lose when I protested Apartheid as a single working mom in grad school who counted on scholarships to make my tuition. We did it anyway. I think it's always been that way, sort of like Skinner's law of The Golden Age of DU.

I'm not going to protest for any of those things you mentioned in your post.

The peace movement stayed strong and turned around the majority's view of the war, which has predictably turned into the disaster the peace movement said it would be. This was the main factor in getting the Democratic Congress. Around half of the Democrats then turned around and voted with the Republicans to fund the war. Most of the Democrats also endorsed war on Iran, joined in the insane attack on Moveon.org, and have done nothing to investigate or reverse let alone impeach the plainly criminal Bush administration because it's supposedly practical to keep your mouth shut until 2008 brings Hillary or Obama, who refuse to pledge to end the war.

I can see where that is discouraging!

You also have so many sincere liberals getting caught up in the propaganda around Iran, Venezuela, etc. being so bad (Venezuela certainly isn't) and falling for the "pox on both their houses" equivalent moralism, which ignores that they are not citizens of Iran, Venezuela, etc. They are in the U.S., the government which wants to wage unprovoked aggressive war upon Iran and is attacking Iran, Venezuela, etc. in various ways designed to damage the peoples of these countries.

The artificial divides this causes can also be discouraging, though I'm sure it's secondary compared to the first point.

going on 10 months since Dems took over congress we're still in Iraq with no plan no accountability, new batch of presidential candidates with nothing to offer but a promise that at some point IF they are elected they may bring troops home by the next election in 2012

Common sense Democrats see progress.

whether you like it or not.

She looked lovely, rested and ready. :)

Not completely fruitless, because protesting and activism get people thinking, at least. But what good does it do when government representatives don't listen to us?

I know myself, I've got so many other things that need my attention now in my life. Going to protests that likely don't do any good now have been a lower priority (UNFORTUNATELY). If I knew they'd do some good, I'd make a point to be there.

But I think unfortunately what we are going to see is people resort to more extreme forms of protesting soon to get their point accross and not beat their head against the wall (aka Weathermen or Black Panther style). If and when we get another Kent State type of incident now, that perhaps will draw attention of the masses and be something that the MSM can't ignore. I'm sad to say this, because I'd really like to think that most Americans would have a lower barometer to be pushed into action, but I think that this is how ultimately it will work out.

Then the Bush administration will find some ways of calling any such incident an act of terrorism, and use that as a means to call into effect his executive order 50/51 to declare martial law and then a real mess (potentially violent) will ensue after that. I really hope that it doesn't get to that, but I'm not sure what else will prod the American people into constructive action before that happens.

We've already had the "eco-terrorists" (the ELF "Earth Liberation Front") firebomb a new building complex here in La Jolla a year ago or so. I'm guessing that their ranks might do something more extreme soon. I just hope that it never gets to that, but that's the way revolutions start I guess!

and your vote and voice doesn't matter.

The entire point of a protest or any social movement is to get the idea out before the people. But we do not live in a society where two way communication exists any longer. The media has the ability to determine what is or is not noticed. They can make sharks the current frenzy or they can strangle a social movement in its bed.

We no longer live in a society where We The People have any meaningful input into the conversation. The media plays us endless snippets of Brittany and then throw their hands up in the air when asked why they aren't reporting real news. They insist that Brittany is what the people want and they are just serving them what they demand. But who in the hell is asking for 24/7 Brittany? No one. People are just lapping up whatever scraps the media decide to give them. And of course they sizzle it up with all the pizzazz the media can cook up.

The end effect of what the media is doing to us is to isolate and cut us off from each other. The TV has become our simulated friend and confidant. It seeks to provide us with all the distractions we can take in order to hold us in place while the marketers try to spray paint our eyeballs with a continuous stream of psychologically backed advertisements. The media knows more about what makes our brains tick than we do and uses every tool it has to manipulate us into sitting there dumb and stupid.

If things continue as you suggest Az, then I see only two choices. Comply or revolt.

We The People will eventually have to make a choice.

We are suffering under the new Feudal Lords. Humanity tossed off such a system once before. It will become necessary to do so again.

Having been to a few of the protests in which it was reported that "tens of thousands" of protesters protested (assuming even that was reported) and knowing from being on the ground, that the tens of thousands was actually somewhere just shy of a million makes one very, very cynical and more than just a little mortified. I still do the protests because they are the right thing to do, but I no longer harbor the belief that they do any real good. Does a protest actually happen if nobody hears about it?

memory hole.

They general betrayed us.
(bad pun intended)

And the system has been corrupted by money, power, and Corporate interests. What candidate can get elected without the blessings of the media and Corporations? Anyone that is not on board with them ceases to exist. Its very easy to snuff out anyone political that the media does not want to win. Just crop, edit, and ignore.

IMHO....that's my enemy.

Till then any candidate seeking a post of significant power is going to be beholden to the Corporations or they simply will not exist on the playing field. The most anti-corporate candidate running is Kucinich and people still have no idea who he is. Say the name Kucinich and people will ask "Who?"

Here in DU we have sources of information that other people do not avail themselves of. So we are a bit more informed. But the general population only knows what the Corporations tell them. And its a constant drone of smaller government is better. Less regulations are better. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. etc.

There never really was an anti-war movement, at least on a national level. Look at the Dems! We have one, maybe two if you include Mike, Peace candidate running.

The Draft is what ran the Anti-War movement in the 60's/70's. With all of these college students with nothing hanging out there to chop off, well you get the picture.

The only thing that got most of my fellow activists to pull the joint out of their mouths and get up off of their asses was the outside chance that one of them (or their boyfriend) might end up in Vietnam.

If everyone is SAFE, then why should the majority of students (ALWAYS the revolutionaries, or their soldiers) have anything to yell about. Ideals are a dime a dozen, but I've only got ONE ASS.

No reason for people to protest if they don't have anything on the line.

When sacrifice consists of "shopping" more, why bother?

..."I don't have pets. I don't want to get involved."

not on their beautiful minds etc.

It has become also impossible to justify. Now the nation is searching for a way out without losing face.

Because Americans have no voice anymore. We voted and worked to get democrats elected in '06. I personally had no hopes of them ending the war but I had hoped that they would nail this administration to the wall with congressional hearings. Instead they seem to give BushCo anything they want. I'm very disappointed in our elected officials and I think most Americans Republicans and Democrats feel the same way.

I really don't have answers anymore other than vote for a Non DLC candidate in the Primaries. Hopefully Hillary won't win but if she does I hope I'm wrong about her and she gets us out of Iraq quickly.

was that the media wasn't presenting the administraion's lies about the war and the rest of us were trying to get those facts out there. Now that the whole country knows what happened now -- although they certainly still aren't aware of everything -- and most people are against the war, I think a lot of us are wondering, "What now?"

Afghanistan, and certainly before Iraq, but what happened?

Without a compliant White House, this war will not be stopped no matter how much we complain or elect anti-war candidates. So, we have to wait until we get one-- these guys are out in less time than it would take for an orderly withdrawal.

When the Squeaker of the House proclaims that, thereby throwing in her towel, it takes the
steam out of the movement.

turn over control of the war to bush -- Congress controls the purse strings. It was an abdication of responsibility. The Democratic Leadership needs to make this priority #1.

I actually talked to my liberal Democratic congressman, not some anonymous bloggers, who admitted that it would take a while to wind down the war and that money is fungible.

Any legislation to end the wsr would be doomed-- Shrub has warned that he would ignore it and find the money to keep going elsewhere.

Congress does not run the Pentagon or order generals around-- that's the President's job, and if he starts a war, he has to finish it. Pelosi is spot on that only Shrub can and the war and any attempts by the House to end it will just add to the mess.

There's no news coverage of these massive protests, no interviews with the leaders, no name recognition for the anti-war groups.

Without media coverage, you might as well be marching on the steppes of Mongolia.

...by their use of divisive rhetoric and tactics. (Just think of Cindy's "party of slavery" comment. That really helped pull us together, huh?)

The anti-war folks did little other than attack the Democrats. This was their idea of a brilliant strategy!

They also had a tendency to repeat media disinformation and Republican memes about the Democrats in Congress. The anti-war movement essentially screwed itself--as did the impeachment movement.

of holding their feet to the fire.
I think Cindy and Code Pink already knew the Dems were going to rubber stamp the war.

after being elelcted with their help is a little deflating and seems to indicate futility.

Peace has become the butt of a joke.

They were talking about whether it could be GUARANTEED that ALL US troops would be out of Iraq, and the hesitation was voiced in the context of protecting an embassy and strategic counter-terror missions. At NO TIME have ANY of the candidates said anything other than that they would end the war, and people constantly repeating otherwise does nothing but to help out the Republicans in their attempt to make the continuation of the war the Dems fault.

I don't mean to yell at you, but I'm very sick of people around here swallowing talking points whole and attacking the Dems more than they do the Republicans.

In other parts of the world, when a country becomes so much of a basketcase that diplomats and workers at the U.S. embassy are unsafe, they evacuate the embassy, rather than sending in troops. Diplomatic functions then take place in neighboring countries or neutral nations like Switzerland.

Not only should we be bringing ALL the troops out, we should also be evacuating diplomatic personnel. It's clear that Iraq's not a safe place, not even for diplomats.

How could we ever know it was losing steam?

The press is less likely to cover us but we're finding ways to work around that.

Those of us in it from the beginning do have periods of burn out, but there are more younger people at our actions than when all this started. And that is worth it, all by itself.

The MSM often reported tens of thousands of war protesters when event organizers claimed hundreds of thousands. This discrepancy has been more or less universal since the start of the war. Yet at the most recent DC protest, at least one MSM story commented that the hundred thousand or so protesters was a drop in attendance compared to earlier gatherings.


Hmmm....

Something has to give though, we're heading to a point where we'll either be all of one or another. Sadly, I don't see marches and protests as the answer to our problem, it's time to develop new tactics and strategies, this is the same beast, but different. Without sacrifice nothing will change, we're not to the point where people are willing to make sacrifices, so probably we are running out of steam. Let's see what next spring brings.

and no representation (not enough) in government.

The photos and videos of people marching and protesting are good for the morale, and it shows the width of the movement.
Anti-war pictures, or peace pictures as I prefer to call them, is made for the internet. It should be much more of that here.

Here's some from the past


Encinitas, California


Silver Spring, MD


Minneapolis/St Paul

From this archive:
http://www.iterapi.com/americaforpeace/index.php

Could also be economics. The bulk of the working and middle classes are living paycheck to paycheck.
Carrying a sign in the street doesn't bring the money in.

This will hopefully have more of an impact than one major event.

http://www.oct27.org/

When the people that WE pay to represent us do not have a spine and those that occupy the Hill do whatever the fuck they want, after a while some people are just going to say "Fuck it, I quite!"

Pelosi and the Democratic Congress, that we elected to create major Government directions, has caved into BushCo. If they had a spine and did the right thing, those goon bastards would be kicked off the Hill faster then Clinton was or Nixon for that matter. Bush has done crimes aganist humanity, the Worst adminestration in US History and yet the ones the deserve to be fired, remain.

now that some Dems in the race ain't all that anti-war, i guess some are thinking it may not be Such a bad idea.... after all.
I'm quite surprised at the buckling under by some people here. I assume that 2 years ago or so (or before that last 'win' by the dems in Nov.) there would not have been one pro-war person here that would make it out alive but now candidates that refuse to take a strong anti-war stand are quite 'acceptable'.

but I dunno - I still think there is a building up big undercurrent under-reported anti-war feeling. Just can't get the air time to express it.

As the country turns more and more against the war, and the congress fails to do anything to stop the administration, perceptions from the anti-war base can change. It is in part because people can get tired. But the anti-war movement is becoming far stronger.