Why are not more Americans protesting?

This is a long article that in later parts has a lengthy analysis of the reasons why Americans are not protesting in larger numbers given the number of people opposed to the Iraq war. Among the reasons he lists are a lack of faith that they will be able to influence the system, that anyone in Washington will listen to them. There is also the bread and circuses factor. Of course he does mention the lack of the draft as important but other issues he lists are probably just as important. The whole article is here.
Tomgram: Americans in the Opinion Polls, Not in the Streets


Demobilizing America
Outsourcing Action in an Imperial World
By Tom Engelhardt

Excuse me if, at 62, and well into my second era of protest against yet another distant, disastrous, and disabling American war, I express a little confusion. Was it actually like this in Rome while the legions were off fighting on the German frontiers? Was this the way it felt in London while the imperial forces conducted their frontier wars in Afghanistan, or Paris when the Foreign Legion was holding down North Africa? Was this how it felt in Washington when Douglas MacArthur's father was suppressing the Filipinos and General Jacob Smith was turning the island of Samar into a "howling wilderness"? Is this the way it usually feels in the heartlands of great empires until the barbarians actually do come knocking at the gates?

I went marching against the President's Iraqi war of choice in my hometown last Sunday. I found myself in an older crowd, many visibly from the Vietnam era. It was relatively quiet, small-scale, and lacking in energy; all in all -- for me at least -- a modestly dispiriting experience, given the crisis at hand and the disillusioned state of public opinion here in the U.S.

I came home wondering whether some Bush-era version of the old Roman formula had indeed been working. Had bread and circuses become croissants and iPods, or Bud and American Idol, or Sony PlayStation 3 and 24? I couldn't help puzzling over the gap between public opinion on the President's war and public action, or between the conclusions opinion polls tell us so many Americans have reached and those generally reached in Washington as well as in the mainstream media.

I know I'm not alone in wondering about such things, so here's my provisional exploration of some of what's puzzled me most. I don't claim to have the answers, only perhaps some of the questions. Think of this, then, as a guided tour of a few of the trees on our landscape -- with the hope that you'll be able to spot the forest.

An Imperial Frame of Mind

For four years now, journalists have reported on Iraq; editorial pages have editorialized; and pundits -- that special breed of Ciceros -- have opined; while the retired generals who fought our last frontier wars have trooped onto FOX, MSNBC, and CNN to analyze this one; and experts and political figures of every expectable sort have appeared again and again on the Charlie Rose Show, Meet the Press, and their ilk, without our general fund of wisdom seeming to improve appreciably.

The same people who once thought Bush's war was a great idea, or a good idea, or at least an okay idea, or something we should all support no matter what, are still at it. Now, some of them claim the war was a lousy idea but, following Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule, are convinced that, since we "broke" Iraq, it's "ours" anyway. Some, like the Washington Post editorial page's editors, still think the invasion was a good idea, just somehow poorly -- the word you always see is "incompetently" -- carried out, making the mess the Iraqis are in still ours.

Of course, many of those who once praised the war have revised their opinions and judgments somewhat (and were usually exorbitantly praised for doing so). Still, just about all of them, not to speak of just about everyone in Washington who hasn't gone numb or mum, seems to agree on one thing. As the Washington Post put it in its fourth-anniversary-of-the-war lead editorial, "It's tempting to say that if it was wrong to go in, it must be wrong to stay in. But how Iraq evolves will fundamentally shape the region and deeply affect U.S. security. Walking away is likely to make a bad situation worse."

Under the many conflicts between George W. Bush and most of his opponents in the Democratic and Republican parties lies an area of agreement seldom challenged in the mainstream political or media world (or, when challenged, given remarkably little attention). On the deepest points, major politicians and the most influential parts of the media are actually in remarkable accord. In fact, you could say that, in the world of our media gatekeepers, there's just another version of the sort of accord that existed before the invasion of Iraq.

That country, it is said, is crucial to "American interests" -- "vital national security interests in Iraq" was the way, for instance, Hillary Clinton put the matter recently. There is also agreement (as there was about such things in the Vietnam era) that if we were to leave Iraq totally or "precipitously," American credibility would take a terrible hit, that the terrorists would be "celebrating." It is similarly agreed that, while all sorts of partial withdrawals from Iraq might sooner or later be possible, actually withdrawing from the country is hard to imagine, even if staying seems hardly less so. This is why, as in the recently passed House legislation, withdrawal of all American forces has been replaced by the withdrawal of all, or most, American "combat troops" (or "combat brigades"), a technical term that actually accounts for less than half of American forces in Iraq.

Christian Anti-War Protesters arrested

I just wonder what is the actual split between Christians who favor and those who oppose the Iraq war. Most of the time we hear of the Christian right whereas even some evangelical Christians oppose the war.

Hundreds Arrested At White House Christian Anti-War Protest
March 18th, 2007 ·
SARAH KARUSH
AP
Saturday, March 17, 2007

WASHINGTON — Thousands of Christians prayed for peace at an anti-war service Friday night at the Washington National Cathedral, kicking off a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

Afterward, participants marched with battery-operated faux candles through snow and wind toward the White House, where police began arresting protesters shortly before midnight. Protest guidelines require demonstrators to continue moving while on the White House sidewalk.

“We gave them three warnings, and they broke the guidelines,” said Lt. Scott Fear. “There’s an area on the White House sidewalk where you have to keep moving.”

About 100 people crossed the street from Lafayette Park _ where thousands of protesters were gathered _ to demonstrate on the White House sidewalk late Friday. Police began cuffing them and putting them on buses to be taken for processing.

Fear said 222 people had been arrested by Saturday morning. The first 100 were charged with disobeying a lawful order, and the others with crossing a police line. All of them were fined $100.

The windows of the executive mansion were dark, as the president was away for the weekend at Camp David in Maryland.

John Pattison, 29, said he and his wife flew in from Portland, Ore., to attend his first anti-war rally. He said his opposition to the war had developed over time.

“Quite literally on the night that shock and awe commenced, my friend and I toasted the military might of the United States,” Pattison said. “We were quite proud and thought we were doing the right thing.”

He said the way the war had progressed and U.S. foreign policy since then had forced him to question his beliefs.

“A lot of the rhetoric that we hear coming from Christians has been dominated by the religious right and has been strong advocacy for the war,” Pattison said. “That’s just not the way I read my Gospel.”

The ecumenical coalition that organized the event, Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, distributed 3,200 tickets for the service in the cathedral, with two smaller churches hosting overflow crowds. The cathedral appeared to be packed, although sleet and snow prevented some from attending.

“This war, from a Christian point of view, is morally wrong _ and was from the beginning,” the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, one of the event’s sponsors, said toward the end of the service to cheers and applause. “This war is … an offense against God.”

In his speech, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, lashed out at Congress for being “too morally inept to intervene” to stop the war, but even more harshly against President Bush.

“Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord,” he said. “We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling.”

Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia recounted how she learned of the death of her son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, who served in the National Guard. When a uniformed man came to her door asking if she was Baker’s mother, she said yes.

“‘Yes,’ and then I fell to the ground and somewhere outside of myself I heard someone screaming and screaming,” she said.

The Friday night events mark the beginning of what is planned as a weekend of protests ahead of Tuesday’s anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, which began on March 20, 2003.

On Saturday morning, a coalition of protest groups has a permit for up to 30,000 people to march from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial across the Potomac River to the Pentagon. Smaller demonstrations are planned in cities across the country.

Why are there few mass US anti-war protests?

It would seem that the lack of the draft plays an important part in the lack of a mass movement against the war. The voluntary armed forces allows those with limited economic opportunities, often minorities, to "get ahead" -or killed or wounded.
The huge change in priorities of the young and well-educated is another factor no doubt. I was quite surprised to find that so many young people nowadays are so focused on financial success. The consumerist society is still around with a vengeance. All the concern about the environment, food safety, organic and green production doesn't really seem to change the fight for the dollar and more goodies.

Missing in Antiwar Action

By John McMillian

Saturday, January 20, 2007; 12:00 AM

Recently I finished teaching a freshman seminar at Harvard called "From
Reform to Revolution: Youth Culture in the 1960s." When I built the
syllabus, I asked students to ponder a single, overarching question:
"How did the youth rebellion of the 1960s happen?" That is, what caused
millions of young people to pierce the bland and platitudinous din that
characterized the early Cold War years? Why did so many youths -- many
of them affluent and college-educated -- suddenly decide that American
society needed to be radically overhauled?

But as the semester progressed, my students frequently turned the
question around: Why is there no rising protest movement among young
people today? At the very least, they asked, shouldn't we be seeing
more
antiwar activity? According to a CNN poll this month, 67 percent of
Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and more than half would like to see
all U.S. troops home by year's end. Given that it was not until August
1968 that a majority of Americans began calling the Vietnam War a
"mistake," this is a remarkable statistic. By 1968, of course, antiwar
teach-ins, sit-ins and marches were commonplace on many campuses;
demonstrators had violently clashed with soldiers on the steps of the
Pentagon; and the Democratic National Convention had descended into
chaos over the war.

Today, grass-roots antiwar activism has not been entirely absent. But
one would be hard-pressed to argue that we're on the cusp of a rising
protest movement. Why not?

First, the civil rights movement exerted a forceful influence on
left-wing protesters in the 1960s. When African Americans bravely stood
up against attack dogs, cattle prods and fire hoses, they dramatically
demonstrated the power of collective action to foster social change.

Second, the draft personalized the Vietnam War not just for the
hundreds
of thousands of young men who were conscripted but also for their loved
ones. No matter how strained the U.S. military becomes, our
all-volunteer army -- widely regarded as a lethal "third rail" in
American politics -- isn't going away anytime soon. As a result, too
many of us enjoy the luxury of regarding the Iraq war as an
abstraction.
Among my 12 students, only two personally knew someone serving in Iraq.
One is a medic, the other a chaplain.

But my students suggested some other reasons today's youth seem so
passive. Although this high-achieving group was hardly representative,
many of them spoke plaintively about being pressured from an early age
to begin building their credentials for college. "Students are expected
to get perfect grades, excel in extracurricular activities, save the
world and be home before dinner time," quipped one freshman. These
demands seem to be common nationwide. The American Academy of
Pediatrics
warned this month of the physical and mental health problems that may
arise from the competitive and hurried lifestyles of many youths. In
such pressure-cooker environments, students are unlikely to become
committed organizers.

Nor are many students likely to be socialized into antiwar activism.
Every campus has its left-wing organizers, but today the gauzy idealism
that circulated among teenagers in the 1960s seems almost freakishly
anomalous. According to a recent U.S. Census report, 79 percent of
college freshmen in 1970 said that "developing a meaningful philosophy
of life" was among their goals, whereas only 36 percent said becoming
wealthy was a high priority. By contrast, in 2005, 75 percent of
incoming students listed "being very well off financially" among their
chief aims.

Some of my students suggested that they might not even be capable of
experiencing the kind of indignation and disillusionment that spurred
many baby boomers toward activism. In the Vietnam era, the shameful
dissembling of American politicians provoked outrage. But living in the
shadow of Vietnam and Watergate, and weaned on "The Simpsons" and "The
Daily Show," today's youth greet the Bush administration's spin and
ever-evolving rationale for war with ironic world-weariness and bemused
laughter. "The Iraq war turned out to be a hoax from the beginning?
Figures!"

The students who took my seminar were a particularly serious-minded and
delightful bunch. Most of them came to admire the pluck and panache of
the New Leftists we studied, and they were quick to recognize how
frequently the concerns of Vietnam-era protesters dovetailed with their
own complaints against the Iraq war. Some even wistfully remarked that
they would like to be part of a generational rebellion.


But they doubt that this is likely to happen. "Just like [in] the
1960s,
we have an unjust war, a lying president, and dead American soldiers
sent home everyday," one student wrote me in an e-mail. "But rather
than
fight the administration or demand a forum to express our unhappiness,
we accept the status quo and focus on our own problems."


The writer is a lecturer in history and literature at Harvard
University. He can be reached atmcmill@fas.harvard.edu.

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