Daniel May at The Nation writes—How to Revive the Peace Movement in the Trump Era:
Over the past 75 years, the United States has built the greatest war-making force the world has ever known. Today, our country boasts an infrastructure of global surveillance, flying killer robots, and floating aircraft carriers, all administered from a network of more than 800 military bases in over 70 countries. In recent decades, we decided to erase from that infrastructure any semblance of democratic accountability, allowing the president to make war almost anytime, anywhere, for any reason.
This year, we put at the helm of this global killing regime a reality-TV star who has promised to “bomb the shit” out of our enemies, attack the families of terrorists, and reinstitute torture—and who, in February, proposed increasing the already bloated military budget by $54 billion. Imagine the response of this president to a significant terrorist attack, the damage to our democracy and our world that he might unleash. It helps clear the mind.
In the face of such a nightmare, how do we build the peace movement we need? This is not a new question. Over the past decade, many thoughtful and talented organizers have been working to strengthen the antiwar movement. I came to these conversations a year and a half ago, when I was asked by the Colombe Foundation to help it determine how best to support new organizing against militarism. I began speaking with various organizers and leaders, both longtime antiwar activists and young folks shaping struggles for racial justice, immigrant rights, climate justice, and corporate accountability.
Throughout those conversations, there was consensus that the contemporary peace movement was not nearly powerful enough to mount a serious challenge to the forces of American empire and militarism. As the challenges facing that movement came into focus for me, so did their scale. It is hard to imagine a more difficult target, from an organizing perspective, than military policy. The US empire today leaves a great deal of ruin in its wake, but its cost is only vaguely felt by most Americans, while its gargantuan profits are pocketed by a few and its most recognized organization—the military itself—is widely celebrated as the most trusted public institution.
In the wake of the election, as the need for a constituency to challenge American militarism grows in urgency, how might such challenges be met? Doing so will require reimagining the constituency, strategy, and purpose of the movement itself. It is not at all clear that a “peace movement” or even an “antiwar movement,” as those have generally been conceived, will suffice. Rather, we need a movement that can speak to the anger that so many Americans feel toward the corporate powers that dominate our politics. Such a movement would expose how militarism is not immune to that influence but is particularly beholden to it. Can such a movement be organized? [...]
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
“Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.”
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1963
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Oh! Oh! Pity the Poor ex-President’s Boss:
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is catching flak for dissing the former Vice President, the lead guy in the Cheney-Bush administration, during Monday's press conference.[…]
If there hadn't been eight years of media sycophancy in the case of Dick Cheney, the current phony outrage about disrespect for the former Veep might leave one gasping in disbelief. Given the record, it's just another installment in the what-else-is-new sweepstakes. As [David Dayen] says, respect is earned.
Remind me again. What respectful thing did Cheney say about President Obama in his interview with the fawning John King? Something about Obama having reduced the security of Americans? That gets a pass, but comparing Republican Party chief Rush Limbaugh to the ex-Veep is a diss? On the contrary. For all of Limbaugh's baggage, at least he's not on the short list of people who should be investigated and prosecuted for war crimes. The torture he delivers is confined to words.
HIGH IMPACT STORIES • TOP COMMENTS
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, our 3/17/16 episode fills in, while we’re in the computer hospital. Greg Dworkin on SCOTUS punditry. Trumpistas and their Nazi ink. Deputies demoted for ignoring rally sucker-punch. Gun mom: “Su casa es mi casa.” Mansplaining #GunFAIL. GGWG mistaken for bad.
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