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A pre-war blog entry from Josh Marshall about "the right and wrong kind of antiwar protests": "It’s not about stopping the war. It’s about what comes afterwards."

My local alternative newsweekly on mainstream dissent: "And while protesters by the thousands get arrested in San Francisco and elsewhere, and Code Pink keeps beating its drum to rally the young and the progressive, it is this movement, the one gaining momentum among the middleweights of the political and military establishment, that has the greatest potential to put mainstream America on board the antiwar wagon."

And a health article on home front stress: "Regardless of what's driving a person's need to watch the war, experts say it can be helpful to turn an obsession into a constructive motivation, by looking for other ways to express your feelings. 'Taking action -- no matter how small -- is one way to overcome fear and anxiety, and make you feel that you can make a difference,' Cooke says."

Current Music: Echo, "Sparks from a Wheel"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

greyaenigma.livejournal.com

Raimondo nails it perfectly: all the plans for direct action that involve “no business as usual” gimmicks like blocking traffic, chaining oneself to fences and the like are pure, unadulterated narcissism. They’re about anointing yourself a virtuous, righteous person and performing your virtue on the public stage.

The first block of the Josh Marshal entry had me nodding and agreeing with stuff like this.

More importantly, if something dire happens involving chemical weapons or terrorism it means that an antiwar movement is going to have to be generous in conceding some of its own faults and errors, because it’s going to mean that Bush had some legitimate reasons to go to war.

Then he takes a 180 detour into crazy sugared gum land. We know there are terrorists out there, and we know there are even more people out there that want to spill American precisely because our government is starting this war. Marshal seems to be saying that if there's a terrorist attack triggered by the war, then Bush was right all along -- regardless of a lack of evidence that the Iraq regime actually has any ties with Al Qaeada or any other organizations that have been attacking the US? Even if a terrorist attack happened with a few weeks of the onset of the war, as he implies, that only means that had Hussein been giving weapons to terrorists, he'd already done it, and the war did nothing to prevent it, only trigger it.

I, for one, would feel a stomach churning sense of vindication if any terrorist attacks happen during this war. Or after. It's what Bush is provoking, aggravating, practically begging for with the war. I just can't imagine any terrorists striking at the U.S. crying "this is made possible by those antiwar protests!"

From:

jfb.livejournal.com

Mmm, gum.

I'd nod to the "chemical weapons" part of that paragraph (since the context was "used by Iraqi troops"). You're right that the "terrorism" part of it is kind of twisted.

From:

greyaenigma.livejournal.com

Well, even if they are used by Iraqi troops on American troops, the American troops wouldn't have been there to be victims if we hadn't invaded.

Granted, it would prove he had chemical weapons, but there were precious few protests saying, "No, Saddam is innocent, don't hurt him!"

From:

jfb.livejournal.com

Right. But there have been people saying there's no evidence that Iraq has chemical weapons. If Iraq has chemical weapons, I'm sure Marshall would agree, that doesn't make the war right. But it is something that anti-war movement will have to deal with.