Posted on 07/04/2003 3:08:35 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
You can see the creator of the banner in the photograph; hes the one on the right wearing the black ski-mask (being assisted by activist Kevin Keating). He recently spoke with me about the mythology thats grown up around it. As much as Mike would have liked to show the human face behind the ski-mask, he couldnt allow his real name or any other personal information to be published because hes going through a background check. (And if he passes, the system is definitely broken.)
Mike places himself on the political spectrum as a class-war anarchist, and member of a 25-strong Bay Area collective named Class War. Think of class-war anarchists as Leninists without Lenin; their ideas come more from the printed word than from lived experience and they read the old turn of the century anarchists; Bakunin, Kropotkin, Emma Goldman and the like. They tend to be young, college-age rich kids, with the occasional social workers or teachers kid like Mike at the low end.
Theres a theory why teachers kids, psychiatrists kids and social workers kids are over-represented: Child professionals think they understand children and can get children to understand them in return, so they explain everything, starting at a very young age. The meta-message is, "All things should make sense to you. If they don't make sense to you, you don't have to accept them.
Unburdened by careers, children and non-political friends, politics is the second generations full-time pursuit, and theres a psychological effect that comes out of living in a highly-charged bubble. The isolation and mutual reinforcement compounds their ideas. Most of them had the most radical ideas in their high school and freshman classes and loved it. Now in an environment where everyone is radical, they have to be a lot more extreme to stand out. Mike is a prime example.
Lines tend to be drawn by both hawks and mainstream doves that assume everyone within the same national boundaries has the same interests, Mike began in our interview We say that common interests are defined by class. The rich benefit from war in all countries. The real enemy of a poor American volunteer isnt the poor Iraqi conscript on the other side. Its the people in his own, military and political, who give him his orders.
In the run-up to the war, his group coined a number of other slogans aimed at the antiwar crowd, none of which got the same national play as We support our troops. Another War is Possible was a play on the anti-globalization idealism of Another World is Possible. Peace is Patriotic and thats the Problem was a direct attack on the liberal wing of the movement. Perhaps aware of the distinction between advocacy and incitement, Mike wouldnt specifically identify a target audience for his best-known aphorism, saying only, We were trying to push a strong class position, inside and outside the peace movement, inside and outside the army.
Mike became politically active in 1999, at the Seattle anti-WTO riots. He has since followed the course of many of his fellow activists. The anti-trade movement was one of a number of things that went up in smoke on Sept. 11th and the survivors were quick to file off the serial numbers and re-invent themselves as the anti-capitalist wing of the peace movement, without bothering to reinvent their rhetoric. In their world, the Talibans (never proven) objection to an oil pipeline, not the smoking crater in lower Manhattan, provided the motivation for attacking Afghanistan. Now that the war has moved off the front pages, theyve slowly filed back to anti-trade rallies. The common thread of course, is what they identify as the common source of both globalization and war: the American way of life.
He laughs at the idea that the antiwar movement as a whole shares his radical views. People on the Right are using [my banner] to show that all of the Left is anti-American. If the idea is getting out there, great. Id be glad if the rest of the movement agreed with it and the class analysis behind it, but right now they dont go as far as we do. On one side, youve got the Stalinist and Maoist crazies walking around with their North Korean flags. Then you have liberals saying things like Peace is Patriotic and Let the Sanctions Work or even worse, Regime Change Begins at Home Vote Democrat. Theyre the conscience of capitalism. Theyre one side of a debate between rich people about whats best for rich people. We want an end to the war, too. But we don't have any illusions that were fighting for the freedom that America really stands for. We stand in open solidarity with the front lines of resistance across the world.
He ducked the inevitable question of whether he hates the United States. Clearly, hed been expecting it and had an answer ready. Im against the American government. Im not against the vast majority of working Americans, he explained, leaving aside what the vast majority of working Americans might think of him. Im against every government in the world, from Canada to Cuba theyre all capitalist and they all serve their own ruling class. Good old laissez-faire Cuba. Im also in favor of Iraqi soldiers shooting their officers, just as American leaflets called on them to do. But the American government is the strongest ruling class in the world. Im an American citizen and I live in America so I focus on that.
Mike never expected the media frenzy around his banner, and it most likely would have remained but for an incident one week later in Camp Pennsylvania near Kuwait City. Muslim sergeant Asan Akbar killed two officers and wounded 14 others with fragmentation grenades.
I dont remember if I cheered or not, said Mike. I know I wanted to find out more about Akbars motivation. I didnt believe his action was caused directly by the banner I carried, but it shows that the conflict were talking about does exist inside the military. There are those who give orders and those who take them. Look, if Asan Akbar had died carrying out his captains order we wouldnt know his name. Hed be a statistic.
I dont want to speculate too much on that one incident because I dont have all the information, he continued. In general, if a fragging is done for class reasons I would support it and the movement as a whole should support it. If it was purely religious Look, Im an atheist. Im against Islam and Christianity and all religions. Theres another guy I heard of I cant say too much on the record about this a soldier in Gulf War I who was ordered to shoot Iraqi civilians and shot his CO instead. Hes now living underground and movement people are helping him out. This claim could not be confirmed, and the armys official position is that no such incident occurred between Vietnam and Gulf War II. Despite the storys dubious veracity, the fact is that Mike believes it happened and advocates being an accessory after the fact, should it happen again.
Mike said he was reading up on the history of fragging and mutiny in the army before the March 15 demonstration and that served as his inspiration for the banner. Peace movements alone cant stop wars. The only way wars stop is when the army refuses to fight, he said. People think its far-fetched, but there are hundreds of examples. Everyone knows about Vietnam but it happened in WWI and the Mexican War, as well. The movement needs to understand this. In the 1960s the peace movement wasted six years spitting on soldiers and calling them baby-killers. We cant afford to make that mistake again. What we can do is escalate the class war here at home and bring about a situation in which the government cant fight wars abroad, because theyll be spending all their time and energy trying to keep us under control here at home. Its in periods of intense social struggle that the armys tradition of mutiny comes out. The question for us shouldnt be whether we go to war were already at war. The question should be whether we fight back.
Mike is surprisingly sanguine about the media attacks on him and his beliefs. He believes, The representations in the capitalist press are fair. From their point of view, we are the enemy. We are scary. The kind of people who lead the Republican Party should be afraid the Democrats, too because our goal is not just to end the war. Our goal is to destroy capitalist society and that doesnt fit nicely into the rules of the proper, patriotic, political channels. Ultimately, its a struggle against them as well. You might say were against capitalist peace just as much as capitalist war. Even if that means advocating a war of their own.
"FOR SALE: ONE SET OF ENCYCLOPEDIAS. HAVE COLLEGE STUDENT THAT KNOWS EVERYTHING."
The banner was posted here on FreeRepubic many times before the incident in Kuwait. And many of the SF Chapter members were counter FReeping at the rallies were these scum showed their true patriotism...
I agree. Extrapolating a bit further, according to Mike's ethics, it would be ok to infiltrate Mike's organization, and as one of Mike's troops, rub out Mike, no?
Or ...
I support Liberals, when they spend their own money.
Barbra Streisand. He's a coward who's convictions end the moment they become personally inconvenient or risky.
/john
Because you have a clue?
/john
They certainly are that.
And since what he is advocating is mutiny, that makes his speech sedition. Our Constitution allows the United States to act against such speech. Wanna bet the FBI or SS has pictures of the skid marks in his panties?
/john
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