Reflections on the DC protest and the probable war..

 

 

The protest in Washington, D.C. was huge.  While I doubt that it approached the half-million number estimated by some in the anti-war movement , I would estimate that it was well over the 100,000 estimated by some government officials -- possibly 200,000 or more, which would nevertheless make it the largest anti-war activity since the Vietnam War. In fact, there may have only been three or four protests during the Vietnam War which were larger....

 

 

A very large turnout, especially considering the 15-20 degree weather that blanketed the East Coast and also considering the fact that some colleges had not started yet, and most others had only been in session about a week, hardly much time to build support.  There were also quite large demonstrations around the U.S., including large demonstrations in unlikely places such as New Mexico, Tucson, and Salt Lake City. And the war hasn't begun yet!

 

At this stage in the 1960's anti-war movement, the largest demonstration was only a few hundred, if that, in 1964. The April, 1965 SDS demonstration, after the bombing and troop buildups had begun drew between 15,000 and 25,000, itself an unexpectedly large number. I was there on that warm spring day with 250 students from the University of Wisconsin, which sent about 750 people to this latest protest, in the dead of winter before school had even started up yet after X-mas vacation.

 

This march did not have nearly as much of a leftist political nature as many of the 1960's marches, but this brings to mind a complex set of issues. One could say that it would have been even better if it were 200,000 committed leftists with an understanding of imperialism -- that would probaby mean that there are many hundreds of thousands of more moderate opponents, meaning an even larger anti-war movement.

 

But on the other hand, this crowd was truly rooted in the mainstream of U.S. society. From Unitarians in Illinois to Catholic churches in Brooklyn, to NYC hospital workers' unions  and retirees from Maine, small business owners from Vermont, college and high school students from everywhere.....Indiana and the Carolinas, etc.----well, maybe the reality that they were rooted in their communities, with many relatives and friends among mainstream U.S.A. folks means that this march may have been more significant than some of the 1960's marches which were overwhelmingly college students. In any case, it is what it is, and it was pretty profound.  There was a general understanding that the issue is oil, although not as widespread an understanding that the issue is reselling Iraqi oil for profit and influence over Germany, France, Japan, and perhaps China. Hence some confusion about how the U.S. population is supposedly partly to blame for having big cars -- even though the Iraqi oil would not go towards those big cars, but rather the coffers of the oil companies who resell it.

 

The age distribution was similar to what I have seen recently even including a mass march honoring Martin Luther King a few years ago -- the vast majority were under 25 years old or over 45 years old. Maybe the in-between group represents that more conservative "half-generation" that came to adulthood during the confusing/bipolar 1980s, where extravagance and hedonism seemed to merge with patriotism and Puritanism -- a generation halfway between those who came to adulthood in the late 1960's-early 1970's and their physical and/or cultural offspring, those coming into adulthood now.  Or maybe more of the 25-45 year olds are just too preoccupied now with the responsibilities of starting families. Who knows? (I think Ted Goertzel mentioned something about studying "generations" and politics, but I'm not sure about that....)

 

The crowd had relatively few African-Americans....thousands, to be sure, but relatively few, especially from outside NYC. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton both spoke, but neither seemed to have mobilized their bases of support to attend. I thought that most of the speeches were pretty weak, politically, but the spirit of the crowd was very determined.  There appeared to be lots of female leadership. While the march was organized by ANSWER, it clearly was much, much larger than ANSWER, as evidenced by the fact that no one group seemed to dominate the march in terms of signs. Students that I know who attended were quite inspired.

 

The media is doing its usual "edu-tainment"--with the Chicago Tribune showing a photo of a man in a tight bathing suit who had people "sign" his body, and with Reuters using a headline:

 

Americans Rail Against Washington War Plans

 

with the following in the third paragraph, a pathetic attempt to take an isolated incident out of hundreds of thousands of people, and attempt to make the movement appear ridiculous.

 

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In San Francisco, a group of nude women demanded that the Bush Administration restrain what they called its "naked aggression" toward Iraq.

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Those who lament the fact that the media distorts these events should understand that such is the capitalist media's job description. It is up to the hundreds of thousands who participated to discuss it far and wide--which will result in tens of millions getting the truth as well as learning further to not trust the media.

 

Bush may start this war, but he is on much more unstable ground than was President Johnson in 1965. Johnson had just won the Presidency with the largest majority, until then, in the history of the U.S. -- about 65% of the popular vote. He had support from many southern conservatives as well as northern liberals -- he was pushing through various civil rights laws and promoting more social welfare policies. And with all that, it was only three years later that he was forced to back off from running for a second term.

 

Bush received a half million fewer votes than Gore, has a solid base of perhaps thirty or thirty five percent, is widely regarded as a spoiled, somewhat conniving rich kid, and is enthusiastically cutting taxes for the rich which will result in cut programs and increased expenses for the majority of people in the U.S., including elderly and youth. (Tuition will be going WAY UP in the next few years.....by the way, remind your students about where the Federal Aid has been channeled......directly to the rich, and to wars that benefit the rich.) And the new Police State laws have lots of people worried also. Bush's popularity is "still high" said one newspaper, which then commented that his 54% was about the same as Clinton's was during the depths of the Lewinsky scandal. After years of being told that globalization was better than nationalism, many people in the U.S. are wondering why, then, the Bush is ignoring the U.N. and many of the U.S.' closes allies in Europe.  If this war runs into problems, gets bogged down, I would guess that there will be rallies in D.C. and elsewhere this spring that will dwarf the ones held so far. 

 

The Democrats and the main section of the U.S. capitalist class (Chase-Morgan-Mobil-Exxon, etc.) seem to support this war, and I don't think that "getting Bush out of office" will make any difference in lessening the horrors of imperialist exploitation, terror, and war. I believe many people are naive about that. Some Democratic Party politicians might critique Bush if the war goes badly, but that just reflects hypocrisy on their part.

 

So it is a contradictory situation. But certainly, nobody can claim that the U.S. population, and youth in particular are just "apathetic" and selfish.  While the mood was upbeat, the event in Washington was not a summer festival.....it took a certain amount of time, money, energy, and discomfort for people to attend and participate in the cold weather. This was clearly a turning point, which legitimized protest not just to the participants, but to many of the millions of people who make up their families, friends, and co-workers with whom they will discuss these events. And when people take action, that is when they are most open to considering new ideas that challenge the ways that they used to think about things. It has been a whole generation since the potential for building a strong movement has been this great. But what is needed is a combination of struggle for political clarity and the building of strong, real, flesh-and-blood ties among the students and others in the working class, including blue collar, white collar, the unemployed, and soldiers. And stronger efforts must be made to develop strong multi-racial relationships. It is the personal relationships that develop the trust so necessary to overcome cynicism, which is the main obstacle to activist participation. These protests were a good start. But it is what we do between the mass protests that creates the basis for these actions.

 

Alan Spector

 

 

P.S. -- I could write long critiques of various liberal films such as "The Panama Deception" and "Hearts and Minds" and "Bowling for Columbine." But those films do provide many valuable insights into the nature of U.S. foreign policy and violence, and they provide the basis for deeper discussions. I would strongly encourage everyone who can reasonably do so, to integrate those films (other suggestions are welcome) into courses over the next few weeks. If tens of thousands of more people are stimulated to question the "status quo" of U.S. foreign policy, that can help broaden and deepen the movement against imperialist war and exploitation, against racist oppression, and for social justice and equality for all people who are oppressed in so many ways.