Posted October 30, 2002

It's the War, Stupid

Regarding "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" by Justin Raimondo:

My Saturday antiwar rally experience in Sioux Falls, South Dakota left me with somewhat the same feelings Justin had about his in San Francisco. About 40 of us stood at the intersection of 41st street and Louise avenue (it's the busiest intersection in the state – on the south side is the Empire Mall, on the north is a huge Wal-Mart/Sam's Club complex – a lot of people drove past us) for a couple hours.

There was a young guy with our group who was waving an upside down American flag. He said that the message he wanted to get across was that the Bush administration had stood American ideals and principles, like minding our own business and not throwing the first punch, "on their head." I told him I got it, but all most people driving by on their way to do their Saturday shopping would see was some a** hole disrespecting the flag, and that antagonizing people is not going to win them over to your way of thinking.

Then there were the signs eulogizing Paul Wellstone – "We Miss You, Paul", etc. The one TV station that came down to check us out made it sound like the whole reason we were down there was to grieve Wellstone's death (that was not the reason I was there). The two rally participants who were given time to say something for the camera went on about what a tragedy it was that Wellstone died. It might be that their more pertinent, anti-Iraq war comments were edited out by the TV people, I don't know. In any case, an opportunity to get out the antiwar message was largely wasted. I'm not ready to give up yet, but people have to be more focused. We all need to put aside our other political causes, as important as they are to us. Maybe we all need to write a crib note on our hands: "It's the war, stupid."

~ Lloyd G.

We Must March

Regarding "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" by Justin Raimondo:

I agree with Justin that the rhetoric of the speakers undercuts the issue we gathered to protest. On the other hand, since political elites refuse to organize political protests, this is what remains-the radical fringe. I look forward to the next Antiwar Rally organized by the Libertarians. After all, with next to no money, the radical fringe got thousands of people into the street nationwide. Surely the college educated libertarians have the money to hire political organizers and find motivational speakers like Pat Buchanan to articulate the minimal demands of their political sect?

~ Charles Stegiel

Channel Surfers and Mall Rats

Regarding "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" by Justin Raimondo:

I am about as fire-breathing a radical as one can be as a quick visit to my website will reveal. Yet, Justin hits the nail on the head concerning the buffoonery and stupidity of the so-called "antiwar" Left. We need to be making arguments that channel surfers and mall rats can understand. Americans need to know the difference between chemical and biological weapons on one hand and nuclear weapons on the other. They need to hear the arguments of General Zinni and other professional military who oppose the war. They need to understand the economic hazards of war with Iraq. Above all, they need to know that this war is not in their nation's interest but is being pursued for the benefit of politically connected special interests like Big Oil and the Israeli lobby. When World War III (or IV, as that scumbag Norman Podhoretz would say) is looming on the horizon, who the hell cares about Mumia and transgendered rights? I loved Justin's description of the commies providing a platform for Democratic politicians being cheered by anarcho-leftoid kiddies. I've written about such phenomena myself. To hell with all of this leftist bullsh*t. What we really need is a revival of the America First movement of the pre-World War II era.

~ Keith Preston, AttackTheSystem.com, Richmond, Virginia

The Point

Regarding "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" by Justin Raimondo:

For what it's worth, Cynthia McKinney quoted the same George Washington speech you did at the Washington rally.

In the end, the real point of all this is not what was said at the rally. Nobody really cares. You and I and everyone else at the rally already know why we oppose the war. And the people who don't attend only hear a couple of quotes in the media from the most famous speakers (Susan Sarandon, for example).

The point is just to get lots of people to show up. The fact that the D.C. rally was the largest antiwar rally in 30 years is really significant, and it happened because people put aside their differences to just be together. Yes, we need to do more, and it would help if the tone changes, but until it does, these are the only game in town. It certainly got a lot of positive attention.

So I hope you reconsider your future support of mass rallies, and put up with them for the sake of the broader movement.

~ Steve P., Pennsylvania

Raimondo's Lonely March

I agree with Raimondo about the antiwar demonstrations of October 26 ("I Ain't Marchin' Anymore") – in particular concerning the failure to include conservatives and the lack of a focused message. But I also think there's more to it than sectarianism.

For starters, if there's so many conservatives and libertarians against the war, where are their antiwar rallies as an alternative? Or if they're not the rallying kind, why not other large-scale antiwar events? Let a thousand [sic] flowers bloom, indeed! Leftist groups cannot work in coalition with a ghost, and America-First-style opposition to the war remains confined to a handful of pundits and marginal politicians like Bob Barr, Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Yeah, they could and should have those guys speak, and it's a disgrace to exclude Mr. Raimondo, who I admire, but it's not as though you'd get another 100,000 people in DC if they did. Conservatives and libertarians haven't organized themselves on this issue. They haven't constructed the mechanisms required to put feet in the street. If they had, the liberal antiwar movement would have more incentive to collaborate, and that collaboration would be on a more legitimate basis between equals – not just a question of a couple of token libertarian speakers.

Second, and just as importantly, the whole spectrum of antiwar factions right now suffer from blinders imposed by the limits of their own ideologies in the new context of 21st century American imperialism and the 'war on terror,' which between them wipe away most of the fault lines that dominated global 20th century politics. On a variety of topics including imperialism and war there are areas where 'left' and 'right' agree (or, rather, where those terms no longer really apply). But it actually requires a fairly deep and sympathetic understanding of a variety of ideologies besides your own to identify where those specific points of agreement actually exist. Save for a few full-time intellectuals (Mr. Raimondo is making a respectable career of searching for these connections on war topics), very few Americans are that politically sophisticated. While it's a commendable thing to advocate pioneering that new territory, it's a lonely path where most folks will never instinctively follow. While frustrating, it's just not constructive to spend much time blaming them for that.

Organizing for criminal justice reform in Texas, I find just that sort of ideological matchmaking is required to come up with messages that left and right can agree on, and it's a pretty tricky proposition – doable, but treacherous. And the worst part is, because of those ideological blinders, as you build those coalitions, all sides mistrust you because they don't really understand why their usual opponents agree with them on a given topic, and fear some sort of trick or ambush. That post-911 antiwar organizers have not been able to pull off such a Herculean feat is unfortunate, but not surprising.

Perhaps libertarians can, by their actions, provide an alternative to leftist 'sectarianism' when they put 100,000 of their own folks on the streets of Washington DC in opposition to the War Party. ...

(I just gave an online donation to support your fine work, and to pay for the right to voice this modest criticism of my favorite web site.)

~ Scott Henson, Austin, TX

Dispensational Premillenialism

Reading Eric C.'s letter [of October 25] concerning Morgan Strong's piece on evangelical Christians ["Armageddon"] and seeing the piece for the first time myself, one wonders how Strong manages the equanimity to speak cogently about the all-too-clear danger of war. As a Catholic with no particular soft spot for dispensational premillenialism and as a pro-lifer with a keen sense of disappointment over the abandonment of principle by James Dobson, Chuck Colson and other evangelical bigwigs at the time of the Bush stem-cell decision in August, 2001, I nevertheless can spot a Christian hater a mile away and Strong is just that. To say that evangelicals find nothing wrong with the killing of doctors that perform abortions is a Julius Streicher type of lie. Would it fit you, Mr. Strong, to be included with the thugs that desecrated Masses at St. Patrick's some years ago or with those who find art in immersing crucifixes in urine?

While I share Strong's concern about foreign policy attitudes driven by questionable theologies, surely this web page can do better than his kind of hate in giving expression to those concerns. And as to his enthusiasm for a so-called "woman's right to choose," lets just say he's a phony when it comes to questions of violence. A very substantial reservoir of support for resistance to George Bush's war resides among Catholics. If Justin Raimondo is serious in calling for an alliance of serious people against the current bellicosity, he'll keep his website free of trash like Strong's.

~ John Lowell

Morgan Strong replies:

I would like to remind Mr. Lowell that the issue of abortion is not a political issue. Mr. Lowell is, like the millions of other deluded, a victim of political flim flam by people like Falwell. The Christian right simply wants to acquire as much political influence as they can. They use the fraudulent emotional appeal of abortion to suck fragile people like Lowell into their ranks. I would like to point out to Mr. Lowell that we live in a secular society, at least I do.

As for the Catholic Church. I'd like to see the Catholic Church give some of the money they spend on those outrageous costumes the Priests, Bishops, Cardinals and yes the Pope wear, to the poor. If they cut back a little on the sequins, and gold trim, they could feed hundreds of their destitute flock in South and Central America alone.

Gassed

It's worth drawing attention to the fact, in this buildup to war with Iraq, premised in part on the allegation that Saddam Hussein "gassed his own people," that the Russians just did the same thing a few days ago. In the name of saving hostages, they exposed these same hostages to a very powerful and toxic chemical called BZ, or 3-quinuclidinyl benzillate. While this has been uncertainly reported in the media, no other agent could have caused the reported effects with the immediacy that they occurred. BZ was also used by the US government in Vietnam, and is the substance that was portrayed in the movie, Jacob's Ladder. The lethal dose is very close to the effective dose. We can be sure that those who manage to survive gas exposure to this agent will suffer terrible effects, possibly for years to come or even the rest of their lives.

~ Mike G.