Posted on 01/23/2005 1:37:40 PM PST by gopwinsin04
'Were at a difficult phase,' concedes Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, a women's peace group. 'It was easier to mobilize people before the war. Now many people have fallen into the thinking that we just cant cut and run.'
John Kerry, the democratic candidate, thew a monkey wrench into activist plans by not calling of immediate withdrawal or even opposing the war outright.
Kerry argued he could prosecute the war more effectively than Bush, which opponents of the war took to mean a quicker exit.
But Kerry's approach essentially removed the anti war agenda from the election campaign debate, robbing war opponents a great deal of valuable 'buzz'.
'The elections stole everyone's last ounce of energy, says Gene Buskin, of US Labour against the War, the leading union antiwar group.
'In the end Kerry was not able to ignite any opposition against the war, and the election proved to be a missed opportunity.'
Antiwar leaders are quietly accepting that opposition to the Iraq War is taking a different, and probably less fervent form than the mother of all antiwar movements, the opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1970's.
'The war is controversial, but it isnt touching people as much as Vietnam, says James Lafferty, director of the National Lawyers Guilds Los Angeles Office.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
That's because most people are intelligent enough to realize we can't just "cut and run". Sadly, many lefties don't realize that, or don't care about the consequences, because this is really all just a game and a pose for them. They really don't care about what happens to Iraq. They just want to relive the "glory days" of Vietnam War protests.
From FrontPage
Like any other group, Communists come in a lot of shapes, sizes and colors. This time they’re wearing pink, they’re on the nightly news, and more than anything, they want the mothers and grandmothers of America to identify with them.
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the leaders of the women’s anti-war group Code Pink got lost on their way to the carpool line. Since October, these hot pink-clad "marching moms" have been spinning the same tale to reporters from coast to coast, the one about how concern for their families moved them to trade their oven mitts for placards and take to the streets in protest of an unjust war on Iraq.
They’ve played the part so convincingly that over the last six months, they’ve become the media darlings of war protest movement,..........
Meanwhile, other Code Pink organizers were making a name for themselves in domestic and eco-terrorism in the 1990s. Code Pink Co-Founder Jodie Evans also sits on the board of directors of Rain Forest Action Network (RAN), a radical anti-capitalist, anti-corporate coalition of environmental groups co-founded by Mike Roselle, who also founded the domestic terrorist organization Earth Liberation Front (ELF), which along with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is ranked the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat by the FBI. The FBI attributes over 600 criminal acts and $43 million in damages to the two groups since 1996. Wherever RAN pops up, you’ll also tend to find the Ruckus Society, which has trained activists for ELF/ALF. Ruckus Society organizer Steve Kretzmann, also a Code Pink coordinator, has helped train activists in the agitation tactics that have earned the Ruckus Society its reputation. The Ruckus Society, it’s also worth mentioning, is a coalition member of Benjamin’s United for Peace and Justice.
Great article! The anti-American wackos are admitting that they can't get the public emotionally worked up to oppose the liberation of Iraq. And that means they're admitting defeat -- since emotion was all they ever had on their side anyway.
Medea gave the Chronic an interview from jail in Washington, DC?
It certainly looks like that is the case, once they lose the emotion display for the tradegy cable TV networks..it is all over for them!
Someone linked on another portest thread about Code Pink's direct financial support of the insurgency..
I dare a group of them to travel to Iraq and seek out Zarqawi for a peaceful anti-war meeting, expecting to return with their heads attached. Put your money where your mouth is!
In Michael Medved's autobiography he makes it very clear that the antiwar movement was no more than a campus curiosity until LBJ tightened up on the draft deferrements (eliminating the exemption for graduate students) then it exploded. He also stated that the "movement" ended virtually overnight when Nixon ended the draft in late '71.
That's the real reason Rangle and co. wanted to bring back the draft (while at the same time Kerry and Fat Bastard were screaming that Bush wanted to bring it back).
The incoherent loons I saw at the inagural parade did not strike me as terribly persuasive at bringing people to their cause. They could not even specify their cause beyond "Bush is Hitler" etc.
What is wrong with people today. You can't get a good demonstration going. With Princeton and probably all the other Ivy's not giving out the automatic A's as in the past most of this crowd will have to spend time in class. So the only people on the picket lines will be the real losers who don't work and don't go to school.
Interesting, I'll have to read Medveds book, been meaning to for a while.
I think there was an article in the NY Slimes today that said 91 percent of students graduated Harvard with some kind of academic honors..91 PERCENT!
Them first..lol!
Yep, that's the other issue - the anti-war base is nothing but a rag-tag collective of neo-Comm social misfits. Otherwise scorned by society until they gather for an anti-war/Bush demo, then they're laughed at. WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!
Interesting, I'll have to read Medveds book, been meaning to for a while.
You really ought to, the man had a dozen careers and seemingly knew everyone to come out of the roaring sixties. Think of him as a geeky Forrest Gump.
By the way, he can write too.
Without a draft to scare upper-middle class college kids, there *is* no anti-war movement.
CODE PINK! CODE PINK!
Without knowing it she gave away her agenda. Obviously they are trying to make America weaker, the world more dangerous, and they are terrorist sympathizers. Simply speaking they are on the other side.
In the end I think there is a damned good chance that we can win the fight in Iraq if we keep our nerve and hold the course.
What I would really like to know is who funds these groups like Code Pink and ALF. Please don't insult me with a "bake sale" type answer. Manyh of these people have no real visible means of support and yet they afford TV time, salaries, cars, travel... etc.
>p?
Its interesting that during the Cold War the Soviet KGB funneled hundreds of millions to anti war and anti nuke groups. Now there's a real investigative story. Can someone tie Code Pink et al to petro-dollars or Soros? There'd be no Pulitzer but it'd be a major nail in the coffin of the leftist-libs.
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