If I never go to another A.N.S.W.E.R. anti war rally it’ll be too fucking soon. Yesterday thousands of us gathered in San Francisco for a march and rally against the war. I was under the impression we were there to protest against the war in Iraq, but apparently I was wrong. According to the people addressing the crowd, we were really there to protest against the war taking place against the oppressed people of the Phillipines. We were also marching in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Union Local #2 in their contract dispute. We were there for the victims of Katrina, to support a living wage, to free Mumia, increase funding for our schools, protest deforestation, speak out against racism and homophobia and take a firm stand against the genocide of Native Americans. In what’s become the ethos of Wartime America, even in our anti-war rallies you can’t tell there’s a war going on.
And like every protest I’ve been to since El Salvador, every speaker sounded exactly the same: the same shrill, strident diatribes, the same spicerack of grievances and calls to action with no ideas whatsoever as to what those actions might be. And rhetoric designed to stir the souls of each and every neo-marxist post-doctoral Maoist intellectual in the crowd. At some point somebody in the anti-war movement is gonna have to bring up the obvious: using opposition to the war in Iraq as a way of promoting The Glorious People’s Socialist Revolution ain’t gonna end the war, and it sure ain’t gonna spark a revolution… at least not until they come up with better speakers.
I don’t know if sticking signs on the freeways is going to end the war either, but at least they say what I want them to.
6 comments:
But poor Mumia!!
Nonetheless - be that as it may - it was a lovely day for gyros, sunshine, and taunting Protest Weenies. Good times!
Yours in Local #2,
~Annie
good for you. keep your voice clear, free, and under your own supervision. what i love about your movement is its individual authority. that ethic breeds its own eloquence. keep painting and posting. let others make speeches and march. keep doing.
Too true. All you need is one, maybe two words to convey your message. They need a guidebook to explain the reasons behind their protest. Even if the message is a good one. . . if you can't explain your position in two or three words, or less, you ain't gonna catch anybody's attention in this day and age.
I have to disagree with Static Brain that protest is what ended the Vietnam war - the bombing of Hanoi was what brought everyone to the table to negotiate an end to the violence.
The US should never have been there, any more than we should be in Iraq now.
We could've won in Vietnam, easily. All we needed was for forty or fifty million Americans to learn Vietnamese and move there... but NOOOO... learning Vietnamese and moving there would've been too HARD...
What's so tragic though is that we have the same chance for victory in Iraq, all we need is for the people who support the war to simply learn Arabic and move there... But NOOOO...
youre asolutely right.i live on a college campus where half of the "opposition" are stoodents who are 'into protesting' really cause it gets them chicks.(i say stoodents because i can spot a phony a mile away.actual students are AOK with me)and if they fight for the cause most far removed they have a better chance with that sorostitute daughter of wealthy parents whose 'tuned in' and wears horn rimmed glasses.so sweeet
I went to lend my musical support at a gathering in cincinnati and david rovics basically bashed us to our face for a lack of lyrical content,i guess, and went on to give us a history lesson on the st. patti's battalion.
maybe if 'helping to organize' wasn't such an exclusive club of the tragically hip there might be a few more bodies out in the streets.
keep in mind bush's "base" demographic is grandma millie in the midwest who's still afraid of the communists and the rock and roll.they've been psychologically conditioned to hate protesters since they were told that if they hide under their desk at school it might save them from nuclear fallout.
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