THE WAR IS ON

Apparently it has become obvious that our protest signs, banners, marches and demonstrations have yet to make an impact on those in power as they proceed with their imperialist agenda for war. Picket sign after picket sign, chant after chant, we've continuously asked George W. Bush and the Gestapo power structure to stop it's war. Our anti-war protests have obviously become repetitive and ineffective. This is because the anti-war movement is trapped. It is trapped within the legitimized false-hood of social patriotism and interventionalism. We have become counter-productive as we continue to confine ourselves within the white liberal doctrine of non-violence and reform.

So far the peace or anti-war movement in this country has mirrored the same strategies and tactics of past historical anti-war causes. By far the most important example to reference is that of the Vietnam anti-war movement in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Well over a million people participated in this effort, engaging in a variety of tactics and strategies in an attempt to stop the war, or even to prevent its further escalation. From public education to picketing, boycotts to lobbying, marches to massive civil disobedience, to even outright suicide in the numerous cases of individuals lighting themselves on fire in protest, the Movement was extremely diverse. There was even a decent contingency of property destruction that occurred, no doubt condemned by the mainstream corporate peace organizations.

With all this activity, with the incredible amount of participation, one would assume this would have been more than enough to stop the war, to pressure the federal government to pull out of Southeast Asia. Furthermore, when soldiers such as Ron Kovic, returned from the war angry and disillusioned and formed organizations such as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, even more intense pressure was placed on the U.S. government. But it was not enough. None of the strategies and tactics applied during the Vietnam anti-war movement in the United States were enough, either individually or combined, to stop the U.S. government’s military horrors.

Each of the anti-war movements that have surfaced in the United States since then have attempted to mirror, to an absolutist extent, the strategies and tactics that failed during the Vietnam anti-war struggle. In fact these same strategies and tactics have been used in nearly all U.S. anti-war movements throughout history and the fact remains, never in U.S. history has any anti-war or peace movement actually prevented or ceased a U.S. military operation or war. And yet continuously, anti-war movements in the United States fall into the same mold of ineffective activism that stands absolutely no chance of threatening or challenging the power structure of the U.S. government.

There is war in Iraq, war in Palestine, war in Afghanistan, war in Nigeria, war in Colombia, war in Argentina, and war right here at home. It has become essential for the U.S to always be at war in order to sustain it's inner circle of wealth. U.S. military operations of war exist not only over sea's, but right here in our very streets. So why do we continuously repeat the same activist tactics that have proven to be counterproductive and defeatist time after time? We've been thought if we simply go out and hold our signs, then we're effectively challenging US military war operations, when in fact all we are doing is letting those in power to continue their massive killings and inhumane acts against people all over the world. This is why the peace or anti-war movement in this country failed to stop war.

If we are going to become serious about stopping this war, and even the U.S. led atrocities of tomorrow, we must be realistic about our strategies and tactics and actually begin to utilize those methodologies which can and will challenge the power structure of the country. We must abandoned the doctrine of liberalism and reform. We must take up new and more direct tactics. Yes, I am speaking of direct action, but not the generalized version spouted freely today and used to describe primarily conscience serving endeavors. An action is direct if it actually gets in the way, prevents, or stops an injustice from occurring. The only possibility of stopping this current military action is to engage in strategies and tactics which severely disrupt the war machine, the U.S. economy, and the overall functioning of U.S. society particularly how it relates to consumerism and the economy.

We all know the U.S is the most repressive governments in the world; repressive in communities all over the world. Therefore we cannot expect such a repressive government to idly stand by while we attempt to move forward with social change. An atmosphere of severe unrest, if manufactured properly, will force the U.S. government to place military resources in the streets of the United States. The military operations currently now being taken in Iraq are simply a continued manifestation of US imperialist wars that have been going on for the past 500 years. They want an occupied military force in the streets of Iraq just like they've had here at home since the day they killed off and raped the Indigenous, snatched the blacks from Africa and sold them as slaves, rounded up the Japanese into concentration camps, and rounded up, targeted, raided and killed countless people from middle-eastern and political descent. If we are in a war situation, then it's time we treat it as one.

We are not gaining anything by asking our leaders and institutions to respect even basic moral axioms. We may be gaining public attention, but we are not effecting social change with our banners and marches. The most effective tool we have is to step outside the boundaries of passive conduct, as illustrated by the dramatic police response to even fairly mild acts of civil disobedience.

It's time that we initiate a more radical struggle built within a diverse array of strategies surrounding self-defense and revolutionary community empowerment. If we want change, then we cannot expect it to come about by limiting ourselves to a political arena confined within the legitimate false-hood of social patriotism, liberalism and interventionalism. Instead of spending countless hours, and money making protest signs, we should put that time and money into creating self-organized, decentralized committees within the community as a political base for direct action, education, and self defense. Not only should we want stop the war on Iraq, but we should stop the entire U.S political and class structure of imperialism all together. Not only should we want to put an end to police brutality, but we should remove the occupying police forces from our communities all at once. Not only should we advocate an end to worker exploitation, but we should completely remove corporate and state jurisdiction from our communities all at once. Through education, and direct action, our communities can become self-sufficient where we no longer have to rely on the current economic or political system as a way of life. Stopping the U.S war machine begins at home, with direct action. Now is the time to intensify this struggle.

Establishing Liberating Territory

We can set up a network of decentralized non-hierarchal committees within the community capable of providing food, clothes, shelter and self defense to the community; self-defense to insure that our communities remain independent from the jurisdiction of the political and class state. Establishing liberated territory in our communities and in the ghettos by taking over work places, supermarkets, department stores, along with kicking out all jurisdiction from the political and class state. If we want the US out of Iraq, Colombia, Palestine, Nigeria, the Congo, S. Korea, Kosovo, etc. then we've got to get them out of our communities here at home.

It's time to spread the battle to the individuals responsible for the war and destruction of life – the very heads of government and U.S. corporations. No longer should these people be able to hide behind their occupations, living their lives in peace while they simultaneously slaughter countless people around the world and here at home.



Large scale urban rioting will cause massive unrest and even state of emergencies declared in major cities across the country causing the U.S to send U.S. troops into the domestic arena thereby taking resources and political focus away from the war. But instead of engaging in disorganized looting, we can begin seizing corporate supermarket stores, declaring them liberated territory. We can use them to distribute food to the community while at the same time effectively hurting the US economic system. Instead of funding corporations, we can begin collectively taking them over, and establishing them as liberating territory from which our community benefits.

Attacking U.S financial centers which regulate and assist the functioning of U.S. economy.by using covert techniques, depending on the situation, such as physical occupation of buildings would help weaken the U.S economic backbone used to finance war.

Attack the media centers of the country. It is the corporate media who has and continues to influence and control the minds of the mass body of people in the United States. These new media outlets cannot be utilized by the movement as they are owned by the very corporations one should be opposing. Using any means necessary, shut down the national networks of NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, etc. Not just occupations but actually engage in strategies and tactics which knock the networks off the air.

Make it known publicly that this movement DOES NOT support U.S. troops as long as they are serving an unjust and horrifying political regime. Create an atmosphere lacking of support to assist U.S. troops at home and abroad in losing their morale and will to fight. If you are supporting the troops you are supporting this war and the very U.S. government that is the primary terrorist regime in the international arena.

Establish a form of revolutionary self-defense within the community with the goal of building the capacity to effectively stand against police state repression, allowing ourselves to eventually kick all state and corporate jurisdiction out of our communities. We cannot establish liberated territory unless we are ready to defend it with ferocity.

Well over 500,000 Iraqi children have died since the Gulf War as a result of U.S. bombing and sanctions – not to mention a total of 1.5 million innocent men and women. As the U.S. led military campaign continues to wage war in Iraq and around the world, the question remains… how far is the anti-war movement in the United States willing to go to stop the U.S. government and its unceasing atrocities? How far are you willing to go, what are you willing to do to stop the massive bloodshed once again caused by the U.S. government?

What you are suggesting for people to do is illegal. I hope if you go through with any of these criminal actions the law will put an end to it.

Oh no darling, we won the hearts and minds of millions, we have not lost. We have the law on our side, and all Nuremberg principles still apply.

The hearts are black and the minds are empty. And all your dreams of judicial retribution are only so much smoke. Iraq is to be liberated - over your objections.

But I lose myself in this partisan bickering when we should together be rejoicing! Come, a drink to Iraqi Liberation!

the country is becoming more and more divided. you can drink and lose yourself if you want. but you'll just be hiding from the truth.

If failed. And you shouldn't call it a "peace movement". It was an appeasement movement. Fortunately, it failed and dictators around the world should be en garde.

Rush Limbaugh was saying that the anti-war movement was collapsing back in January.

you are wishful thinking for more war. what could be sicker?

in the long run, popular democratic movements against tyrannical authoritarian brutality are your only hope. more and more other people will do the work even if you wont.

Read this thread:

The war was just an opportunity to continue the pity-party.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2000/08/2417_comment.php#3330

The 'anti war' movement is dead. Just move on to the next fun cause, kiddies, and leave the heavy lifting to those who know how to run things.

One wonders what the 'activist' community will protest next? Globalization? So 1999. Animal rights? Boo-ring. Global Warming? Too much science, man. Abortion rights is always a winner. Show those girls how much you care, and maybe you'll get a leg over. Hey hey, ho ho, all them babies have got to go!

simon wants us to stop.

does anybody care?

fucking dumbass americans

you're warning dictators everywhere to watch out?

even the middle eastern ones?

u fuck! theyre the ones who are pro-US

if the middle east were to democratize tomorrow

ur gas prices would shoot up so high u'll have to sell ur cheap quality chevy SUV in order to pay for gas for ur hyundai!

America is such a close-minded society.

they are taught to look at the world from a WE/THEY perspective.

naturally they are also taught to hate THEY

americans hate and are afraid of everything that is different. thats why america is not at all diverse. sure there are people with different skin colours but the country is by no means diverse.

also they are taught that democracy is good

communism and dictatorships are evil. period



have they never heard of enlightened pacifist despots who are so much more progressive than their own president?

americans are not taught to look at things with open minds. they are not taught to look at the advantages and disadvantages of things

they are only taught to look at things from a one sided perspective. i.e. DEMOCRACY

is democracy really ALL good?

or is there good things about it and bad things about it?

same goes for dictatorships. are they all bad?

or are there good things bout it and bad things about it.?

i lived under both a dictatorship and a democratic government.

there are both good things bout each of em. and bad thigns about em.

X, I have memorized your post. Now I will go throw my head away.

Dear X,

What a selfish, cruel person. You say you want the US to support dictators in the Middle East - to lessen the threat that the people might elect a non-western-friendly government. They are people too. Throw off their chains. Stop supporting dictatorships just because it pleases YOU. Think of others.

There never was an Anti-War movement. It was just a bunch of juvenile whiner/complainers trying to make trouble for Republicans. They were irrelevant from the get-go. Normal adults, like GWB, just ignored them.

However, lets forgive them for their stupidity and give them a medal for their efforts.

wow

Ha! You leftwingers who have been preaching gun control for so many decades would be utterly destroyed by those of us who have supported the second ammendment. Most of you are scared of pellet guns! I could easily take out 30-40 of you myself. But, be my guest, the world has no need of communists who find themselves so wanting for facts that they have to invent a "legitimate media source" like this to backup their inane ramblings and baseless conspiracy theories. No, you'd best stick to chanting like an idiot and pretending to be dead. You're much better at it.

-How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin. - Ronald Reagan

...was a chance that the Peace Protests would Stop the war from happening. Mores the pity. You are dealing with a CRIMINAL Administration - as evidenced by Bush's Contempt for the Constitution.

Bush's War is illegal under the U.S. Constitution. You have to keep in mind that you are dealing with the Protestant and Jewish Equivalents of Da Mob.

The only way you are going to have an effect is to erode his base. Continuing to demonstrate and to force people to pay attention WILL have an impact. It may not be as quick as you would like but with increasing numbers it makes it harder for them to flaunt the law. You must wake people up. The Mainstream Presstitutes will not do it. You must outflank them.

Handbills, Pamphlets, Protests, Boycotts, all of the weapons in our arsenal must be used. However, overt violence must be avoided because that can be used to generate the call for a "MILITARY Crackdown and Martial Law. I am sure they are waiting for the first opportunity to try and Gut the rest of the Constitution.

“The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without having to fight them”.

- Sun Tzu

i am writing an extensive essay about the Vietnam Anti-War movement and I happened to stumble on your page. I consider myself lucky, for you have truly helped me. Not so much with my essay but more with my own view on activism. The thesis of my essay was, which of all the methods used during the war was the most effective? And when it cam time to conclude, I couldn't find any single one to have truly caused any steps towards peace. We all know Vietnam was a total disaster, but still, so many people together, with the same purpose, should have been able to do MORE. I like your suggestions, I think that we ARE in a cycle, which the government probably wants to keep us in; they expect the signs, the banners, the marches, but the secret is in giving them something they don't expect. I would love to hear more from you, keep in touch.

There's no Walter Kronkite to commit nightly news treason and a fucking dipwad like "President" Johnson who believes everything the iying prick says..

You worthless hippys ruined one country's chance to escape tyranny, so why try for two? The blood of millions of South Vietnamese nationals murdered after the fall of Saigon is on your parents' Jane Fonda dishpan hands.

There's a reason why you lefty fucktards will never see a demoshit president elected for the remainder of your lifetimes, and I'm talking to you 14-yr-old cluleless punks.

The adults are in power, ha ha ha. If you want to live in a socialist nest, move to france.

I see no problem in wiping out cunt-ry after islamofascist cunt-ry of turbaned extras from an Indiana Jones movie. Better they all die before an opium-snorting haji brings a suitcase nuke to D.C.

PEACE----THRU SUPERIOR FIREPOWER.

NEXT TIME THE BULLETS WON'T BE MADE OF RUBBER, HIPPY.

idiot: "The adults are in power, ha ha ha."

...why, how MATURE...

We didn't win Korea or Gulf War 1, either.

Iraq is now free and that just BURNS up the left.



South Korea: capitalism, wealthy, successful democracy.

North Korea (tried the IMC way of government): communist, people starving (except for dictator)

Without the Soviets, there's no one left to fund indymierda but Cuba and Barba Streisand.

Damn you, Ronald Reagan!

idiot: "Iraq is now free...."



....for the taking.

Iraq is now free to be a deathland, day after day.

We have sacrificed a generation of our finest to the slow death of DU contamination and if they ever come back we'll see another even higher mortality rate than the first gulf slaughter. Maybe they aren't coming back. Your empty phrase is laughable.

This is beyond your imagination or current slogan.

Iraq is now free to be a deathland, day after day. We have sacrificed a generation of our finest to the slow death of DU contamination and if they ever come back we'll see another even higher mortality rate than the first gulf slaughter.

Sounds like more bullshit form the same people that produced "The Gay After The Swallow" global-warming hoax propaganda flick.
Where's the scientific proof of "DU Contamination?" Or better yet, proof that DU, which is less radioactive than naturally occuring uranium, causes ANY harm? Oh, that's right. You were so busy protesting the war, there was no time to gather any facts or evidence. Just ridiculous B-movie slogans.

Your empty phrase is laughable.

Glad you find something funny, since you leftists have nothing else to laugh about these days. You're out of power in the US, hopefully for good. Global capitalism is coming and there's not a damned thing you can do to stop it, other than be shot with rubber bullets before anarcho-animals can damage any more property.
This is beyond your imagination or current slogan.

No need to lecture anyone about imagination. Iraq will have self-government in two weeks. There will be problems a-plenty but they won't be the problems of living in the shadow of a tyrant.
Free trade and prosperity are coming to the entire Middle East. Iraq's burgeoning success, not brute force, is what will ruin the shahs and sheiks. People will DEMAND freedom, not bread-line excuses.

We've been hearing empty accusations of imperialism since before this war, mostly from 60s dinosaur professors and Rage Against the DIldo cds. When pressed for answers to world crises or even social issues here at home, the left has nothing value-added to say. That's why it was DIS-missed.

and thanks for the hopping, twirling, back shuffles, flips, dips and dodges.

can you play the piano?

No skin off my dick, pal.

I lose no gas money taking you to school

since

your "politics" are rightfully forgotten and the anti-war movement a-holes will be recorded by history as the traitors and useful idiots they are and always have been.

didn't mean to get you all sore.

next time I'll be more gentile.

I promissss.

Now take the money off the dresser and go home.

I'm dismayed your high school allows so much computer time in the Special Ed. classroom.

I'm emailing your principal now, warning her that you're not qualified to use even safety scissors.

DIS-eased: "Sounds like more bullshit form the same people that produced "The Gay After The Swallow" global-warming hoax propaganda flick."

...yeah...FOX Studios....can't believe anything those liars say....