antiwar protest quotes

Uhuru Solidarity Movement Convention: No phony antiwar movement!

On June 4 and 5, 2011 the Uhuru Solidarity Movement will hold its National Convention “Resistance is the Future: Solidarity with African Liberation”, in Philadelphia, PA. The USM Convention is for white people and other allies of the liberation struggle of African people—inside this country, in Africa, the Caribbean and the world. The Convention will align white people, who are looking for a real stand of solidarity and unity with reparations to African people to get involved. The two-day event will include workshops and presentations from the leadership of the African Liberation Movement in the U.S. in order to forge genuine unity with its goals for self-determination and justice. Glen Ford, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report and member of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations (BIBC) -- one of the key presenters at the upcoming Uhuru Solidarity Movement Convention “Resistance is the Future,” -- recently addressed the white “anti-war” movement in his May 3, 2011 commentary called “The Phony Anti-war Movement.” The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations is an historic African-led anti-war coalition whose mere existence is a criticism of the traditional anti-war movement. “Two university researchers have proven, by the numbers,” Ford writes, “what the real antiwar movement has known for years: that many of the folks who turned out in such large numbers to demonstrate against America’s wars when George Bush was president, were really only opposed to Republican wars. Thus when Barack Obama captured the White House, the so-called antiwar movement largely collapsed.” Noting that while Obama has expanded Bush’s wars, Ford quotes one of the authors of the report as saying the, “antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama’s ‘betrayal’ and reinvigorated its protest activity.

Stop Knocking the Peace Movement! by Carolyn Eisenberg -- Antiwar.com

You might never guess, but across the United States, there are literally hundreds of grassroots peace organizations that have been mobilizing opposition to the wars for years. These groups have a local, regional, or sometimes statewide character, with names like the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, Lincoln Park Neighbors for Peace, Cape Codders for Peace and Justice, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, Community Alliance of Lane County, and Brooklyn for Peace, to cite just a few.

Such entities have participated in a wide range of activities—local vigils, petition campaigns, call-in days, visits to congressional offices, civil disobedience, letters to local newspapers, veterans’ testimony, street theater, and countless educational forums. Some are affiliated with vigorous national organizations, among them Peace Action , U.S. Labor Against War , CODEPINK , Military Families Speak Out , Progressive Democrats for America , and the American Friends Service Committee , while others are freestanding. Since 2003, most have stayed connected through United for Peace and Justice , which remains the largest peace-activist network in the country.

To people who remember the vast antiwar mobilizations of the Vietnam period, present efforts may seem puny. Yet it is worth considering that at the point when those protests were drawing huge crowds, there were half a million American troops fighting in Vietnam, and by 1968-69, 400 U.S. soldiers were dying every week. And while that antiwar movement eventually prevailed, 58,000 Americans and perhaps 2 million Asians perished before the war ended.

Such complexities notwithstanding, it has become the conventional wisdom that the current peace movement is not merely puny, but also ineffective. Yet this overlooks the contribution of antiwar activists to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and to the growing pressure on President Obama to reduce the American military presence in Afghanistan.

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