Anti-warriors then and now
By Lisa Fabrizio
web posted August 23, 2004
With the advent of the Republican Convention close at hand,
much has been made of the various protest groups that will
descend on the Big Apple to wreak havoc on that great city.
Threats of violence call to mind the days when the anti-war
movement was young and the similarities and differences
between then and now.
It started out small with a cadre of college students whose heads
were filled with Communist dreams by professors who'd sat at
the feet of those who worshipped at the shrine of Uncle Joe
Stalin. That earliest movement lie dormant during and
immediately after WWII, but sprung into action when the Cold
War suddenly turned hot. An America at war in Vietnam and
enduring casualties was ripe for the taking.
Seeking to capitalize on the civil rights struggle, they often aligned
themselves with radical groups like the Black Panthers, willing
partners in violent class warfare. They stoked the flames of
racism, portraying minority Vietnam veterans as pawns of
whitey's military industrial complex. And after Watts burned,
smoke from the pipes of a rising drug culture fit in nicely with the
aims of the revolutionaries and their message was clear: America
as we know it must go.
In any other era, these types of fringe groups would be ignored
into obscurity or eliminated altogether. In the confluence of
insanity that was the '60s however, they were embraced and
abetted by like-thinking types in the media. Members of the
'silent majority', weary of weathering the Great Depression and
fighting WWII, were unable to withstand their children's assault
on the establishment and the revolution was on.
Time, common sense and the fall of the Soviet Union brought
peace and prosperity and sent this movement underground for a
time, but now they and their progeny are back. With the nation
once again at war and with some of the casualties on our very
shores, they once again seek to use our vulnerability to their
advantage. And it is despicable.
I happened to be in New York on October 7, 2001 when the
first bombs dropped in Afghanistan, less than one month after
that city suffered untold horror. Yet there were thousands in
Bryant Square Park protesting the fact that President Bush was
striking back at the monsters that had slaughtered their
countrymen.
Their reaction? A charming group called ANSWER (Act Now
to Stop War and End Racism) chanted "One, two, three four,
we don't want your racist war." Extremists equating racism and
war again proves that if you have no new ideas and your only
agenda is the subversion of American Capitalism, you can go
home again.
Many of the leaders of the current "anti-war" groups share the
same tactics of those who used opposition of the Vietnam War
to support Communism. But give the earlier version this: at least
they thought the Reds' idea of Utopia was worth fighting for.
Those black-masked young thugs coming to New York next
week surely wish for our defeat, as they carry signs like: "We
support are troops - when they shoot their officers." But whom
do they support?
I asked one college-aged girl just that at a rally in Washington
DC last year. Youthful eyes should be filled with curiosity, hope
and innocence. Peering through a black kerchief, hers were
devoid of anything but white-hot hate. Her answer that she was a
"socialist anarchist" filled me with sadness that her parents were
wasting a vast sum of money on her 'education'.
So they will come to New York brandishing their own special
brand of anarchy, complete with profanity, violence, flag-burning
and hate. And their absence in great numbers last month in
Boston, coupled with the vitriol directed at the Republicans will
be implicit evidence of which party they support.
Here's hoping that the media gives them all the attention they
deserve.
Lisa Fabrizio is an
internet columnist from Connecticut. You may write her at
mailbox@lisafab.com.
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