Joshua Lawrence Breslin
comment:
Several months ago Peter Paul
Markin, my old merry prankster pal from the 1960s who has been through many a
political struggle with me, compared notes about the condition of the struggle
against Barack Obama’s Afghan War policy and the “beneath the radar” opposition
to that policy. This past weekend (October 7-8-9, 2012) we attended a couple of
events in Boston that have only reconfirmed the initial appraisal (see repost
below).
The first event was the now
monotonously familiar 11th annual anti-war commemoration of the
start of the war in Afghanistan. The most noteworthy aspect of that event was
that, with the demise of the Occupy movement that energized the larger crowds
seen last year, we are back to the hard core political activists.
(Unfortunately hubris, and about ten other factor contributed t to that result
but I would only add here it did not have to play out that way).
Second was our participation
in the Honk! Parade that ran from Somerville to Cambridge, two liberal-oriented
cities just outside of Boston. For those not familiar with a Honk! Parade (as I
was not before this year) this is an event where every known band, faux band,
pick- up band, finger clapper or stick
beater around puts on some kind of costume (the more outlandish the better) and
makes music for the people along the route. Great color, great costumes, great
fun, dare I say it, great people’s fun in the older medieval sense. I will give
Peter Paul the last word though, since he marched with the Veterans for Peace
contingent. The same great respect for
VFPs as vets was exhibited (as elsewhere, see below) but also the response to
the slogans of no more war, no more war especially as Iran looms on the
horizon. The people are weary, very war-weary. Let’s stop the madness.
*********
Repost from the American Left
History blog, June 2012:
Recently my old back in the
1960s days friend, Peter Paul Markin, himself a war veteran, were comparing
notes about the virtual “under the radar” place that American imperial war
policies (there is no other name for it with over 1000 bases in the world and
over 700 billion plus dollars eaten up by the war budget each year) has taken
in this year’s presidential campaign. And, additionally, the almost total lack
of organized public outcry about those policies, most notably the lingering
death sore of Afghanistan. That despite the fact that some far-sighted, hell,
even some jaded bourgeois commentators have placed the odds of civil war in
that benighted country (I will not even dignify such a war lord and mercenaries
run place as a state) after the alleged American troop draw down scheduled now
for 2014 at two to one in favor of civil
war. Even by the American government’s own self-serving estimates the forecast
is almost as grim. I ask; what gives? Where are the mass rallies against the
beast?
The reason for Peter Paul and
me comparing notes on this subject was simple enough. Between the two of us we
have attended over the past several months in various capacities a whole series
of parades and marches only one of which I will mention more on later that was
specifically a peace parade. I will describe our purpose in using those
settings as a way to bring the anti-war message home below. However right now I
can state that we have come to agree, without a doubt, there is a vast
war-weariness that if not organized in a public way runs pretty deep just under
the surface among the plebeian masses of this country.
For those who do not know,
Peter Paul, over the past decade going back
before the beginning of the Iraq War
in 2003 has attempted to move might and main along with his fellow
Veterans For Peace (VFP)to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and lately to
urge no war with Iran) to no avail. I, although not a veteran, have attempted
in various journalistic endeavors and on the streets to make those same basic
points to no avail as well. Those “no avails” though have never stopped us from
continuing to push the rock up the mountain when the cause is righteous. And
the struggle against these particular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is righteous
and has brought us closer together of late. That has not always been the case,
as Peter Paul tends to take a harder anti-capitalist look at the wars as systematic
of the need to bring down the whole damn American house of cards and I more
from a more anti-imperialist perspective of just trying to hold the American
military monster in check. We united on one idea earlier this year and that was
the need to continue to get the anti-war message out to the general public. By
any means necessary.
That is where the parades
idea came in play, although we claim no originally for the idea, none at
all. The parades notion actually kind of
hit us in the face as a way to bring any kind of peace message to the folks
whom we do not normally run into in our rarified big city radical circles. Of
course the original focus started out last year in 2011 with Peter Paul’s
chapter of Veterans for Peace in Boston, the aptly named Smedley Butler Brigade
(“war is a racket”), attempts to march in the “official” South Boston Allied
War Council’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. Without going into all the
particulars of the denial of permission for VFP to march (involving reams of
material from a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision permitting such exclusions for
“private” parades) that organization was shut out of the official parade.
Needless to say these resourceful vets (mainly long-in-the-tooth Vietnam era
vets who cut their teeth on such symbolic actions) just created their own peace parade to follow
the official parade to let those who came to South Boston know there was
another voice to be heard from on the questions of war and peace.
That parade in 2011 is where
a first tentative recognition of war-weariness came in. Now for those not
familiar with South Boston (“Southie”) this is, or was, according to Peter
Paul, the last bastion of Irish-centered
working class pro-war (or at least don’t question war policy) sentiment left in
the world ( a little hyperbole from him,
but I am used to it). His family roots stem from that community and I will
defer to his analysis (although I would argue that my own hometown, Olde Saco
up in Maine filled with grateful immigrant French-Canadians and old time Down
East Yankees, would give his Irish a run for his money on unquestioning
patriotic sentiment). Expecting the worst all were surprised by the positive
reception in Southie.
This spring when we marched
(yes, I marched with Peter Paul and his VFP brethren like in olden VVAW times)
the response by those same plebeian masses was even more cordial to say the
least. Not in the “down with the war, slay the dragon, down with the war
budget, take care of things at home” sense that we have “preached” to high
heaven about in this space, and others but in the tap of the fingers to the
head salute, the ubiquitous throwing up of peace signs, the response when we
called for troops out, and enough is enough, as we passed by. Salutes of the
VFP flag by hoary old war veterans decked out in their military attire just put
icing on the cake. And that is how the Breslin-Markin antiwar “spring
offensive” (with, ah, a little help from VFP and others obviously) took off.
A Dorchester Day Parade just
south of Southie in one of the more ethnically diverse Irish/Vietnamese/Latino/
Brazilian you name it neighborhoods of Boston (although neighborhoods like
Southie that have provided more than their fair share of troops to America’s
imperial adventures) produced an even more cordial response. Here some even
took up our chants from the sidewalks, shook hands, and offered vocal support
as we passed by. Ditto at several Memorial Day services in the area where there
was much gnashing of teeth by those who have lost loved ones in the last
decade’s wars (and over the post-service stresses that are only now coming to
light in huge streams). More recently parades in affluence Rockport and
working- class Portsmouth, New Hampshire have only confirmed the cordiality,
openness to anti-war messages, and the war weariness. That last one,
Portsmouth, by the way, held in a town that depends (read: would not survive)
substantially for its local economy on naval appropriations for the huge
shipyard there.
So the disconnect between
American governmental war policy and the genuine war-weariness of the masses is
real enough. But real enough as well, despite the openly expressed sentiments,
is any sense of one being able to do anything about it other than patiently
waiting for withdrawal due dates. And that is where my simple suggestion comes
in.
I, as well as other honest
and knowledgeable anti-warriors, have recognized that we did not have any
serious effect on Bush-Obama war doctrine in Iraq and have had precious little
thus far in Afghanistan. There is one place, and one thing that we can do to
turn that around right now. Call on President Obama, who has the built-in
executive constitutional power to do so, to pardon Private Bradley Manning now
being held in pre-trail detention in Fort Leavenworth Kansas pending charges
that could amount to a life sentence for the young soldier. For the forgetful
Private Manning allegedly passed sensitive information about U.S. atrocities
against civilians and other cover-ups in Iraq and Afghanistan to Wikileaks who
then passed it on to a candid world. Thus Private Manning is the “poster
person” for opposition to all that has failed, all that is wrong, all that was
(and is )atrocious, and all that was (and is) criminal in Bush-Obama war
policy. So raise the cry with us-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All
U.S./Allied Troops From Afghanistan! President Obama Pardon Private Manning!
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