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Posted by Nightraid on April 28, 19103 at 16:38:12:
Over the past few months, I've watched opinion polls concerning the war in Iraq on the internet, newspapers, magazines and television, and I've wondered how different the numbers would be if anti war movement, in essence, wasn't an anti-Bush, anti-Republican movement. Being a avid conservative activist (Yes, conservative activism exists) and arguing for war in Iraq over several message boards across the web, I have received dozens, if not, hundreds of replies; shrieks, rants and raves from people who only claim that "Bush only wants to grab Middle Eastern oil"; the idea that he is "fixated" and "obsessed" with "world domination"; the idea the he is a "racist" and "imperialist" who "plans to kill 500,000 Iraqi children" and other remarks of the like. There were even a select few who thought we were fighting this war "for the sake of Israel" somehow.
None of this rhetoric appeared in response to former President Clinton's attacks against Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, East Timor, Yugoslavia, Kosovo or Cambodia. There was some back-talk from the Libertarians in this country, but after all the research I've done, I haven't learned of a single congressman showing up on TV to tell us that war never solved anything, or to ask how many children must die to satisfy the president Clinton. I believe that if Bush SUPPORTED abortion, and OPPOSED school prayer and capital punishment, many of the anti war voices would have willingly silenced.
One of the main problems with the antiwar movement is that if refuses to seperate itself from extreme left-wing sentiment. Having observed 2 live protests, the leaders of these public demonstrations are mostly Communists, Socialists and Anarchists who are using the protests against the war in Iraq (which was an extremely fascist and brutal dictatorship) as a new way to endorse their own politics, and even as an exhilarating new way to combat Capitalism, the Republican Party and the Government. In fact, one of the main speakers at the February 15 protest in Washington DC, which gathered over 300,000 people, used the war as justification for a revolution! Now, we all know about March 15, and how thousands of students walked out of cl to protest the war. It happened at my school, but one of my friends, who happened to be anti-war, decided not to attend. I asked him why, and he said because the "A" in the word "Anti-war" was replaced with the Anarchy symbol on the flyers, and they felt that by attending the protest, they would be endorsing Anarachism. After speaking with some students, who shall remain nameless, at the March 15 sit-in-protest at my school, I asked some people what kind of wars they would support. Of course, the American Revolution and World War 2 were some of the answers, but one of the students even answered to Lenin's and Castro's Revolution. Ofcourse, this person didn't know about Lenin's secret police that hunted down Muslims and Orthodox Christians after his revolution, or the Rocco, the Cuban version of the Goulag. The idea of walking out of high school and college cles to protest a war is nothing but a protest again established-institutionalism or just the unwillingness to go to cl, using the current war as an excuse.
Another deterrent to the anti war movement is it’s own methods of protest. These “shut down the city” activities, unfortunately, were successful once in San Francisco and partially successful in Wall Street, New York, in which activists intentionally blocked roads, highways and other transportation routes to several area’s around the city, disrupting the activities of pedestrians, motorists and several business, causing an entire work day to waste away. Now, this may not be a trouble to a Socialist, who believes in a No-corporation, money-less economy, but this is a big problem for the people trying to get to and from work or for people who just want to go out. In a way, the protestors only shot themselves in the foot by resorting to these kinds of protests. These protest tactics did nothing to help the antiwar movement, but only drew more scorn and mistrust to itself by further aggravating mainstream Americans. They have the right to protest, but they do NOT have the right to disrupt the activities of private citizens.
But not all of the anti war crowd are radical leftists or naive rs. One of the most powerful voices against the war has been Ted Kennedy and Ted Coppell, and quite a few of mainstream, non-reactionary Americans behind them. Though I do not agree with their stance on the war, I do have respect for Kennedy's efforts to promote peace, equality and human dignity in the past, and Coppell's integrity and his contributions to journalism. However, people like Kennedy, Coppell and their followers are being shouted over by a little mob of Hollywood stars who thing that the way to stop the war is to get their fans to jam congressional communications networks with anti-war spam email and phone calls, thus relieving the stars of showing in person to justify their stance. When 2 Los Angeles radio talk show hosts urged their listeners to retaliate by doing the same thing to the homes and offices of these self-proclaimed intellectuals, they were threatened to be shut down by the FCC and with legal action from the agents of these celebrities. If this isn't proof that the media is owned by leftists rather than the "greedy, power-hungry capitalists" the radicals claim, then I don't know what is. These Hollywood elitists their fat wallets give them the right to protest, but crush anyone who protests against them. Hypocritical indeed. And who's the leader of these self-proclaimed intellectuals? Gore Vidal.
Now, I'm not going to stoop to the level of most extreme right-wing hawks and instantly dismiss Gore Vidal as un-patriotic or anti-American without reading any of his work, but having read the first 44 pages of his book "Perpetual War, Perpetual Peace" I think I'm more than qualified to judge this man, and I will say this; He does not deserve the respect people have for him as an essayist. He's a man stuck in the past who constantly blames the government for the mistakes of leaders who've been out of power for years. Even decades! He might as well blame Gerhardt Schrodder (Chancellor of Germany) for the Holocaust, or Junichiro Koizumi (Prime Minister of Japan) for the of Nanking. And his conduct during a March 1 intervue with radio talk-show-host Alan Colmes is nothing short of unacceptable. Now, Alan Colmes is a liberal opposer to the war, but as Gore Vidal kept ranting on and on about the "evils" of George Bush, the Republican Party and the US Government, even Alan admit that Vidal was being a bit extreme. Vidal responded with the "I've written books, so ofcourse I know what I'm talking about" attitude that so many left-wing authors have. Colmes struck back saying that trivial knowledge in US political history didn't make Vidal any wiser. Vidal'a retaliation was inexcusable; he claimed that he himself was a "better" American than most people in this country were, and then proceeded to call Colmes ignorant. Colmes accused Vidal of arrogance, rightfully so, and the mindless pratter went on from there.
In short, the anti war movement has failed because it isolated itself from mainstream America, and became a platform for the extreme, radical left, who could only fuel the anti war movement with trite cliches and anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-Government slander that only annoyed and aggitated the majority in this country. With people like these running the anti war movement, it's no wonder why most Americans choose to be pro war, or in essense, anti-anti-war.