Evelyn Nieves of the The Washington Post reports on Antiwar Effort Gains Momentum: Growing Peace Movement's Ranks Include Some Unlikely Allies
Most members of Mothers Against War are grandmothers in their seventies whose lives are already full. Yet they spend hours a day on the Internet, reading and spreading information on Iraq and the United States and planning for marches, e-mail campaigns and teach-ins. Having lived through the Vietnam antiwar movement, which took years to build, the Mothers Against War are buoyed to find themselves part of a fast-growing movement of people from every walk of life, from every political stripe.
The extraordinary array of groups questioning the Bush administration's rationale for an invasion of Iraq includes longtime radical groups such as the Workers World Party, but also groups not known for taking stands against the government. There is a labor movement against war, led by organizers of the largest unions in the country; a religious movement against the war, which includes leaders of virtually every mainstream denomination; a veterans movement against the war, led by those who fought Iraq in the Persian Gulf a decade ago; business leaders against the war, led by corporate leaders; an antiwar movement led by relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; and immigrant groups against the war.
We CAN make a difference, even with some folks in the anti-war movement trying to divide us through ideological litmus tests. I'm a libertarian, not a liberal or a conservative. Left vs. right arguments don't work on me. I served six years in the USMC, part of it in Saudia Arabia during Desert Shield/Storm. I'm against this war. I don't answer to anyone on the left or right and I damn sure don't give a damn for the petty squabbling and scorched earth tactics of some of those on the far Left that seem to be dominating the comments sections here lately. My significant coalition experience tells me we CAN oppose the war here, and fight each other on other issues elsewhere.
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This entry also posted at Stand Down.
There was an article on Glenn’s site today to the effect that women’s support for the war has gone up tremendously and there is a generational divide – younger women tend to be more for it. Glenn also pointed out that Neives’ articles are solely impression pieces with no independent data.
Posted by Yehudit on December 3, 2002 01:34 AM
I’ve started a Webring (see below if you don’t know what I mean by this) devoted to Anti-War themes. I’ve started other rings (such as the Vote Green Webring) before, and I feel that at the present time it would be possible to build the critical mass that is necessary to make a web ring successful. I encourage any of you who have pertinent websites to either join the ring or send this announcement along to someone who might. http://artcontext.org/antiWar/
For those of you who are not familiar with web rings, the idea is that a group of thematically related sites are connected together with small scraps of HTML code that each member includes in his or her site. Additionally, these sites become part of a database that is searchable. This strategy is demonstrably effective in attracting attention to the sites in the ring because search engines like Google take into account the number of links they find leading to particular pages. The purpose of the ring is therefore to provide a highly visible media presence for the member sites vis-a-vis the most popular search engines. And of course, in the case of this ring, the Anti-War Web Ring, he purpose is to stop senseless wars before they happen.
Sincerely,
Andy Deck
Posted by Andy on January 9, 2003 08:07 PM