It’s that time of the year again. Six years later, America’s still in Iraq.

America entered its seventh year of war on Iraq---I mean, in Iraq---over the weekend. And once again, those wanting to speak out against the war through rallies, protests, and marches hit the streets for another one of their perennial marches.

We Americans hope you enjoyed this year’s celebration of the anniversary of your liberation and we hope you are not too troubled by the lack of resistance to the inhumane policies being imposed on your people.

Unfortunately, unless this nation’s empire collapses from populist anger, Wall Street bonuses, greed, and corruption, socialism, the end of newspapers, legalized marijuana, atheism, or Burmese pythons in Florida, we will be celebrating your birthday with you until 2011 when we decide whether to occupy you for a few more years or not.

All the distractions from Wall Street and the media delayed this posting, but it’s important to seriously consider how we Americans are going to end this war. Are these wars of occupation ever going to end?

Those in Chicago, who I rally, demonstrate, march, or protest with (usually), went to D.C. for a “March on the Pentagon.” (And, Chicagoans who were unable to travel to D.C. participated in a sixth anniversary event on March 14^th about the same time that tens of thousands of Chicagoans were drinking themselves silly during and after Chicago’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade.)

I’ve organized with members of a group called World Can’t Wait and Chicago peace, justice, and environment activists for quite some time now. My ambivalence grows each time I participate in another rally, demonstration, march, protest, etc with them though.

Six years later, when considering how much more supportive the Internet is to antiwar organizing since the war of aggression in Iraq began and when considering how significantly the Bush Administration rocked the consciousness of the American people, why haven’t antiwar groups or peace, justice, and environment groups found a way to consistently organize effectively?

Why haven’t they capitalized off the various sea changes in American sentiment?

Most importantly, why won’t all Americans know when they go to work a job this week that thousands showed up to “march on the Pentagon” last weekend? What is being done that prevents the antiwar movement from sustaining itself and gaining the attention of the American people?

The questions with complex and unknown answers are unsettling to me.

Having been active for the past two years, I am in a position to rise up and take on higher leadership roles within the movement. But, when I think of that opportunity, I hesitate and spend time thinking about what I should do or can do to make the actions of a few more valuable to the many.

Any criticism I offer will be shot right back at me. Someone will inevitably say, “At least, we are doing something.”

So much of what activists do here in Chicago is habitual, rehearsed, and is mostly done because one would feel guilty if he or she didn’t stand up for the innocents who are having their lives torn apart by murder, rape, torture, and war, which results from U.S. intervention in countries all over the world.

Antiwar rallies and marches are literally a sorry sight to see. The people who show up create a potpourri of those marginalized in politics in America.

Actions are controlled by the police. The police can easily take the life out of a march by arbitrarily arresting anyone perceived to be an anarchist at any point during the march or rally.

 

 

Those standing up for peace all too often (as they did at the RNC) allow the police to impact what they do; they let the police become THE issue and forget what they really came to speak out for or against.

The overarching message which defines the rally/march is muddied by the cacophony created by the clashing of other groups’ messages.

Message discipline rarely exists at the organized rallies/marches I attend. Sorry, Mumia Abu-Jumal, but the running joke is that no matter what antiwar protest you go to, you will always find a “Free Mumia” sign.

 

There’s a Japanese proverb: Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

Now, I feel like I am part of a nightmare when I am out in the streets as thousands of visions collide and create a scene of massive disorientation for all Americans to see.

Meanwhile, as good, passionate, well-intentioned but lost souls fight the good fight, the Great Recession has grabbed a hold and suffocated all thoughts or feelings Americans may have had at one time or another in regards to the wars raging in the Middle East.

The sideshow---whose cast includes A.I.G. and Citigroup executives, Bernie Madoff, CNBC “journalists”, Timothy Geithner, and Congress and then Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, FOX News, and the rest of the pundits from the other news channels---is a mass distraction.

The anger at Wall Street is healthy and worth capitalizing off of. But, the antiwar movement does not know how to channel the anger at Wall Street into an effective strategy to improve organizing against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (After all, the wars cannot possibly be helping the U.S. end the recession.)

In fact, many groups within the movement are uncomfortable with holding nuanced positions on the wars. As a result, they have no strategy to leverage power.

For example, some antiwar groups disagree with employing any tactic or strategy that may connect the economy to calls to end the war. Such groups claim the “moral argument” is what should be used to end the wars; the economy muddies the “moral argument.”

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Strident belief in the power of “moral argument” has created significant dividing lines which impact what the antiwar movement in America is capable of doing for humanity. (For example, the argument over whether to march at the Democratic National Convention or the Republican National Convention or both was an argument which separated the movement significantly.)

United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), a coalition with a network of activists that could be doing much more for the antiwar movement than it has thus far, has traditionally been reluctant to oppose the war in Afghanistan too stridently and has been uncertain about calling for the investigation and prosecution of former Bush Administration officials for war crimes.

UFPJ chose to not mobilize antiwar organizations on the sixth anniversary; instead, UFPJ chose to organize a national mobilization in New York City called “Beyond War: A New Economy is Possible” on April 4^th (which marks the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech).

Look at the “calls to action” side by side; here is World Can’t Wait’s and here is UFPJ’s. What do you think?

Which could use some nuance? Which poorly draws dividing lines? What do both do that could be improved? 

Lack of nuance in organization would be a small problem if it weren’t for the fact that many groups have connections to marginalized parties with manifestos designed to build up support for state power.

Many of the groups who are perennial players in the organization of national mobilizations seek to build radical movements for power; their calls for a Socialist Labor Party, a Revolutionary Communist Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Anarchism,  and even the larger Green Party split the antiwar movement at the seams as a large portion of the movement puts their picket signs down and pick up clipboards for door-to-door campaigns to campaign for the most “electable” Democrat to Congress or the U.S. Presidency.

A broad swath of people quit speaking out while another broad swath frantically try to mobilize other Americans.

The movement cannot, as the tired cliché goes, chew gum and walk at the same time. The Kerry election ripped the growing movement at the seams, then the 2006 election further exacerbated tensions, and then Obama won over conformist lefties and progressives by beating the rhetorical anti-war drum.

I admit it---I am guilty of letting electoral politics get in the way of organizing to end the war. Nothing could be more divisive to the movement than someone advocating that members vote Green or that people who really want peace policies to triumph should vote Nader or McKinney. That draws a line.

But, the entire time I was out organizing I knew that, which is why I was reluctant to campaign for the Chicago antiwar movement’s votes. I didn’t hand out much literature at all for Greens or Nader. The only time I handed out literature was in Chicago’s Financial District when the Wall Street Bailouts steamrolled through Washington, D.C.

War has become, in the past decade, a wedge issue for Democrats much like abortion is a wedge issue for Republicans. Anti-war rhetoric wins voters who are not organized and have no ability whatsoever to make serious gains (although in 2006 they did prove they could make Americans vote for people who will execute war efficiently and not recklessly).

Elections, which come every two years, is the progressive movement’s worst nightmare. Progress for peace, human rights, and justice will never be significant so long as people fail to decide how to organize effectively during elections.

Serious deliberation and synthesis over nuance in organization and ideas must occur. Members of hardcore organizations must ask, “If we get the people to do what we would like them to do, do we need to beat them over the head with a vicious “moral argument” or can we just be happy that we got a response?”

If we truly consider what we do to be part of a movement, each action does not have to occur as if an apocalypse will occur tomorrow if we fail. If a movement is what we aim for, each action is a building block toward a level that will make it possible for the movement to be sustainable and powerful in America.

We need an antiwar movement capable of shifting the American consciousness. That will only come if those vying for state power sit down together, engage in serious deliberation over the state of the movement, and put their radical visions on hold.

For starters, let’s return to the most basic of questions: Do Americans want to wake up one day and hear it’s over? Do Americans want the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq to end? Would they like to keep the wars from expanding into Pakistan and Iran?

I’m not convinced that this country is really against these wars anymore.  

But if Americans are, how do they expect these wars to end? Changing your Facebook status and twittering your thoughts on the war won’t save any malnourished children in Iraq. And that shirt you just bought from the GAP won’t help a village improve its water supply either.

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The movement must be a model for the public. But, the movement’s in such disarray that it has become a cosmopolitan hodgepodge of focus groups, the kind Bush regularly belittled in offhand remarks to the press during his presidency.

So, Happy Birthday, Iraq! Or, should we say Happy Re-Birthday!

Author's Bio: Kevin Gosztola goes to Columbia College in Chicago where he is studying film. He is a YP4 2009 Fellow and is interested in becoming more involved in progressive leadership and using media for social change. Kevin Gosztola is a documentary filmmaker and also an At-Large Senator for the Student Government Association at Columbia College. Currently, he is an Issues Researcher for a documentary being produced by Intersection Pictures in Chicago on housing and gentrification in Chicago. The 2016 bid for the Olympics is accelerating the displacement of residents in areas of Chicago, particularly Bronzeville, and the film being crafted examines Chicago's history and the current housing situation. On Columbia College's campus, he is working to create a Student Civic Collective and increase funding and resources for political and social student organizations on campus. He is working to show students how they can use arts & media for social change and is the leader of Students for Media Reform at Columbia College (SMRCC)

www.opednews.com/articles/Happy-Birthday-Iraq-Amer-by-Kevin-Gosztola-090324-79.html