Where’s The Anti-War Passion?

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/12/1824/

Where’s The Anti-War Passion?
by John Buell

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With nearly two-thirds of the highest Vietnam era military presence in Iraq, with occupation expenditures topping $100 billion a year, and with daily reports of substantial U.S. casualties, comparisons with Vietnam era politics are irresistible. Two years before my graduation, Amherst gained national notoriety when five graduating seniors publicly walked out on Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s commencement address. By the time of my graduation, President Johnson faced the prospect of an anti-war challenge to his own re-nomination. Months later, he stepped aside.

President Bush has been granted funding to continue a war that many of the Democratic majority pledged to end. Why is there no political movement that might give the Democrats the spine to provide more than a temporary inconvenience to the president?

The increasingly incestuous relationship between mainstream media and the administration is one factor. The Bush administration was clever enough to embed reporters during field operations and forbid pictures of caskets. The U.S. media have always been cheerleaders for war, but today it is even harder for them to jump off the ship. By 1968, long time CBS Evening News anchorman Walter Cronkite had become disabused of his government’s portrayal of the war and presented footage that challenged prevailing Pentagon reports.

Today star media players, like Dan Rather, seem able to express dissent — if ever — only on leaving their positions. Media as institutions are just as embedded as their correspondents. TV networks are part of vast conglomerates and depend on administration approval for new mergers and acquisitions. They also rely on direct government subsidy, license renewals, and trade treaties — all of which exert a huge impact on the bottom line. The very definition of journalism has become altered, with journalists viewing success in terms of access to high administration officials.

For their part, Democrats have allowed the media to define the boundaries of the possible. Most are shameless triangulators. Since most Americans still get the bulk of their political information from television, media labels count for a lot. The trick is to appeal to their base while finding subtle ways to reassure the media as to one’s safety and thus avoid the most damaging labels in U.S. politics, “radical” or “unelectable.” Thus many Democrats today suggest they oppose the current course of the war, but “support the troops” and defer management of the war to the president.

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Although virtually none of my friends served in Vietnam, the war was continually part of our consciousness — if only because the inequities of the draft did require some skill to navigate and the steps taken to avoid the war forced dramatic shifts in life plans. Should we conclude from this, as some on the left have, that one way to ramp up opposition to the occupation of Iraq is to restore the draft? I will explore this step and some alternatives in my next column.

does not play in Peoria. As long as the soldiers sacrificing their limbs and lives are volunteers there will be no mass demonstrations. Bring on the draft and suddenly Peoria will care and the war will be history by Christmas.

was the smartest thing war mongers did. Of course IMHO, it's not really all volunteer. I believe there is an economic draft. Many who join the military do it because they have few options either to go to college (can't afford the tuition) or for employment.

Of course upper middle class kids and rich kids don't have to worry about having few options.

How many here have close relatives in the military? I have two nephews and a niece..one nephew is in the navy, one is in the army and the niece is in the marines.

Few Americans have any real connection to someone who is serving so it's not foremost on their mind.

Since there is no draft this time around, avg soccer mom and her family doesn't have to worry about the war... it's a damn shame we aren't in the streets everyday

There will never be a republican draft. The other unspoken plan is to outsource the military - ie BlackHawk.