This is true as a matter of logic. However, various anti-war demonstrators were both anti-semitic and anti-Israel. Fine distinctions tend to get lost in the sort of gross message delivered by a demonstration. Furthermore, many Arabs and Muslims are both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Naturally many of these people participated in anti-war demonstrations.
You may be aware that the very anti-war Rabbi Michael Lerner was barred from speaking at the San Francisco demonstration. Some details.
Well, are there countries who Saddam is an imminent threat to that are begging us to come and help them? It seems to me that most countries in that region are at best grudgingly going along with U.S. policy.
Well, how do you know what the Iraqis want? My guess is that they probably would want to be out from under the control of Saddam but whether the mothers and fathers want to see their sons in the Iraqi army killed by the tens of thousands by U.S. bombs is another question. (This, by the way, is something that is often forgotten about the last Gulf War with the focus on how many civilians died. While the U.S. is careful to limit civilian casualties, we seem quite indiscriminate in our willingness to kill their soldiers. While I understand this from the point of view of rules of war where those who threaten you are fair game, one has to remember that most of those Iraqi soldiers probably don’t want to be fighting us. This is one of the reasons why war must be the last rather than the first option…More than just “innocent civilians” get caught up in the carnage!)
The Iraqis are faced with lots of unpalatable options and I don’t pretend to know which they prefer.
On the subject of the Michael Lerner incident, I must grudgingly admit that this shows some real problems and even anti-Semitism has infected a small part (unfortunately, inordinately influential on the organizational side) of the anti-war movement. Michael Lerner is someone who has expressed so much sympathy for the Palestinian cause that he has aroused extreme anger and even death threats from the nutter side of the Jewish community. To have ANSWER now veto his speaking at a rally was really quite a low point for the movement. Nonetheless, I don’t think you can paint the whole movement as reflecting the views of ANSWER even if it is disappointing to see them able to exert this veto. (Apparently, the organization of the rally was set up so that any of the major organizational groups could veto a speaker.)
I haven’t yet read through the comments, but here’s my take:
It’s a legitimate attempt at a parallel, with the usual december “spin” on a situation.
But, as we discuss whether there are any similarities (and, by the way, what Gerald L.K. Smith did after Pearl Harbor is not a legitimate grievance against what the AF people did before it), let me offer another parallel:
A President decides that his prestige and that of a prior president to whom he is deeply indebted are tied to a war opposed by a fair proportion of the populace, and in consequence he and his followers force an escalation of that war, attempt to paint its opponents as un-American, construct “strategic facts” that are not valid to support their stance. The consequence, as it happens, is that the effort invested by America and the loss of good American soldiers is in vain, and redounds to America’s detriment in the eyes of the rest of the world.
That war was Vietnam.
One analogy is as good as the other – it all depends on how you interpret the facts.
So, while folks are refuting December’s premise, I welcome him trying to deconstruct mine.
Individuals in America First were indeed anti-semitic. And it would probably be more accurate to say “anti jew.” I never heard a single person of that period say anything about any other of the semites such as Arabs.
It is difficult to protray, today, how endemic, and accepted, anti-jewish opinion and rhetoric were then. It is, therefore, totally unsurprising that some, probably even a majority, in the group were anti-semitic. Just the same, the official program of the America First Committe was silent on the subject so all the talk of the organization being “anti-semitic” is just nonsense of the rabble rousing variety.
And this is the sort of claim that is always used to stifle dissent. There are many who see Bush’s course as a terribly mistaken policy by someone who was apparently largely ignorant of the rest of the world before becoming president. I wish you had been around in 1941 to see what you would have said about Jeanette Rankin, the member of Congress who voted against the declaration of war in both WWI and WWII.
GW, in just the space of two years has managed to alienate almost everyone by spurning the Kyoto meetings, treating the World Court with disdain, and deciding that he and he alone has the right to decide the issue war or peace in a highly volatile part of the world.
His ego is fully the equal of Teddy Roosevelt’s except that Roosevelt had something to be egotistical about.
It is truly a sad state of affairs in the world when Eva Luna has a frozen butt and nobody here except me seems to care.
The OP is at the level we have come to expect of its author, or even lower if that is possible.
It is so ridiculous when people equate different groups they dislike. december dislikes the anti-war and the anti-semitic so the anti-war must be anti-semitic and viceversa.
I remember hearing people who were anti-communist and anti-semitic propagate the idea that the world’s problems were caused by the jewish communists who ran the Soviet Union. It was just as ridiculous as the idea that those who think the USA has not made its case for war are anti-semitic.
Discussing the OP is a waste of time and we would be better served discussing what we can do about Eva Luna’s butt.
a) As has already been pointed out in this thread and others, by numerous posters, we anti-war demonstrators are not a monolithic bunch. Yesterday I saw Palestinians and other various assorted Middle Easterners (and BTW, there wasn’t a single anti-Semitic banner in the place; any anti-Israel stuff was restricted to military policy toward the West Bank and Gaza). However, I also saw union activists (one group of which was carrying a great banner which read “Make Steel, Not War!”), student organizations, church and youth groups, Communists and Socialists of various stripes, and members of the local immigration bar, but mostly just plain folks. (Also ran into a number of old family friends.) Many people I spoke to had never participated in a deonstration in their lives.
b) Where the hell were the conservatives, including our current President, when Saddam Hussein was committing genocide against the Iraqi Kurds? Oh yeah, that’s right, in the petrochemical biz. Who brought the Kurdish story to light? Oh yeah, that well-known bunch of right-wing conservative Republicans, Human Rights Watch. (Check out the report on the Anfal on their web site at www.hrw.org, but not right before or right after eating.)
A couple of minor hijacks: Michael Lerner married one of my oldest childhood friends in SF about a year ago (in his role as rabbi, not in his role as husband). Interesting guy, if a little absent-minded. He nearly lost his tallis at several points during the ceremony.
Oh and **sailor, ** you almost made me spurt borsch all over my monitor! The butt is rather numb at the moment, as I just sat through 3+ hours of Dr. Zhivago. A fine film for reminding a person about the horrors of war, among other things.
And **december, ** I’m sure you will be glad to know that my friends and I picked up someone’s dropped anti-war poster and carried it around all afternoon, not wanting such nice artwork to go to waste and not having thought ahead to make posters of our own; at the end, I read the print at the bottom, and discovered I’d been promoting the Islamic Organization for Palestine all afternoon. Ah, sweet irony…
Anti-semitic means anti-Jew. You may be right that the word *ought * to mean anti-Arab as well, but it normally isn’t used that way.
I am not stifling dissent. I am merely criticizing the dissenters.
Nothing good. It’s interesting that she was in the House of Representatives before women were allowed to vote.
On the contrary, Bush has gotten countires across the world to support the war against Iraq. The few exceptions have their own internal reasons for not supporting the US position.
Fine! I’ll defend december, though I feel like I might get squished in this mosh pit.
It seems a logical statement that the peace activists don’t think Saddam’s atrocities are worth going to war over. Therefore they must be apologists for his actions and his quest for WMD’s to destabilze the region for his benefit.
If they believe in the intent of a war (that Saddam should be removed) but not the method… then they are deluding themselves. Peaceful means to influence Iraq through inspections, no-fly zones, and sanctions have been given enough time to see if they work.
december, despite that fact that we seem to disagree on almost everything, I do believe that you sincerely care about this country.
I think we can agree that it is impossible to associate the Homeland security issue with any particular group.
You’re absolutely right. This is something that scares the s*** out of me. And I wish people would address the issue instead of “pooh-poohing” it. On the other hand, I am not certain that eliminating Saddam’s arsenal through military force is the way to go about it. I do believe we need more time to let the U.N. do its work, despite the fact that you think they are rather useless.
And also, when it comes down to it, I am much more afraid of the threat from terrorists and N. Korea than from Iraq. Yes, I know, Iraq could possibly be “arming” the terrorists, but that does not in any way detract from our imminent need to use all resources on the “war on terrorism.” And I’m not sure that war with Saddam is an efficient way to do that.
I think this is (again) a bit harsh. I’m certain that most anti-war folks are extremely concerned with both the threat to other nations and the evils Saddam has committed on his own people. It’s just not clear what immediate threat he poses to other countries. And as the true intentions of our adminstration’s actions are somewhat muddled, it is difficult for anyone to argue the high road.
Again, I agree (this is becoming an unsettling trend…). I wish that the Bush administration would make a much stronger case for relieving the plight of the Iraqi people. Why not spend more time and energy trying to convince the American public of our role as “liberators” of a repressed society rather than of the threat of WMDs? I think his administration would be viewed in a much more favorable light if he pressed these issues. Instead we are coming across more as conquerors than as liberators.
The logical sequence of your first paragraph needs a whole lot of work. One may be entirely appalled at atrocities yet feel that it is not one’s responsibility to rectify them, or that the proper way to rectify them is by other means than a particular proposition.
In short, peace activists are saying that they are in favor of peace. “Peace” means “the absence of war.” Other means of achieving one’s ends (nationally or individually) than war are to be preferred, on this stance.
Other activists are opposed to the United States going to war at this time and with the evidence they have. I hope it has escaped no one’s notice that at least one member of this board, whose judgment I trust immensely – Bluesman – asserts that there are good reasons why we need to go to war against Iraq and to go to war now, but he is precluded by the secrecy commitment he has made in taking the position he has, where he would very reasonably be in a position to know, from revealing those reasons on an Internet message board. But while my views have changed significantly as a result of reading his reasoned statements on the subject, I was until two days ago in the camp that the first sentence of this paragraph describes – while there may be appropriate reasons to enter into a war with Iraq under certain conditions, I felt, those conditions have not been proven to me to exist as yet, and the reasons so far cited are not sufficient to convince me of the necessity. Because I feel I can trust Bluesman’s judgment, I have changed my mind there – though I look forward to finding out the truth rather than relying on his word, some time in the future.
It is a very wonderful thing to be able to pigeonhole your opponents into a convenient category where they will nicely fit your image of right and wrong – but the world is usually more complex than that.
That would, in fact, go for December’s “anti-Semitic” comment above. The definition I’ve always seen for this term is “bigoted against persons of Semitic ‘race’ especially Jews.” The alleged people picketing stores run by loyal or presumably loyal Arab-Americans are as anti-Semitic as those who paint swastikas on synagogues. To be sure, december and others are privileged to use terms as they see fit – but they should remember that 40 years ago, “Communist” meant anybody to the left of Robert Taft, and 30 years ago, “Fascist” meant anybody who thought that persons elected to authority had any business exercising that authority.
I got over name-calling when I was nine. It seems to be taking others longer.
If Sadaam think the anti-war protests are pro-him, he is in a rude, rude shock when conditions for his staying in power becomes increasingly impossible in his narrow worldview.
His worldview, I submit, is not as narrow as that of december et al., who think that Bush can do no wrong.
Sure. Like the people pushing for this war in the Bush administraton aren’t being supported by the anti-Semitic dungheap that’s better known as the Christian Right. But hey, at least they’re equal-opportunity anti-Semites, right? :rolleyes:
I know a good number of people who, like Eva Luna, are Jewish, pro-Palestinian, and totally against this war with Iraq. Heck, I’m even married to one (but I didn’t know it when I first met him, so don’t hold that against me). I attended the anti-war rally in DC last month and I saw both pro-Israel groups and pro-Palestinian groups that ran the gammut politically and socially, just like everyone else who attended. Mostly, I saw people holding Palestinian flags, but no “Zionism=Nazism” or “Sharon=Hitler” placards as far as I could see.
Pointless stuff that I must share: Michael Lerner is the spittin’ image of the rabbi who married us. Come to think of it, he was also quite absent-minded. He forgot to sign our ketubbah.
:smack:
Anyway, I wish ANSWER would have shut the f**k up and made Lerner a speaker at the SF rally. I would have liked to hear what he had to say. Likewise, I wish Rabbi Lerner wouldn’t allow himself or his fallout with ANSWER to be used by the pro-war movement in order to discredit the anti-war movement.
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And what’s wrong with that? Infringing on civil liberties and stigmatizing ethnic groups in order to “protect” our national security is so…well, you know…facist.
Bush Takes a Stand for America First -03.08.02
This sounds a lot more in line with the agenda of Lindy’s organization, than does the inclusive multinational, multilateral anti-war movement.
As far as the anti-semitism, anti-Israeli inference - I don’t think this kind of rhetoric is helpful to your argument, december. It often provokes a red flag that dismisses a debate outright.
If you were trying to say that some anti-war protesters feel that America’s involvement in Israel is part of the problem, then that is one thing. But to accuse most of the protesters of “leaning anti-Israel and anti-semetic” is neither a true statement nor a productive argument.
This anti-war rally (IMO) was/is about finding a peaceful solution to the Iraqi problem. That’s all.
This is a common argument. But, war with Iraq doesn’t prevent us from simultaneously dealing with NK and terrorism. Are there any actions you would like to see us take against north Korea and terrorists that would be precluded by attacking Iraq?
If you asked an anti-war protestor, s/he would agree with this. And yet, the anti-war *protests * were not concerned with Saddam’s threat to others and to his own people. There were plenty of anti-Bush signs, but no anti-Saddam signs.
If war occurs, who is to blame? The US and Bush to some degree. But, what about Saddam? He started the whole business by invading Kuwait. He continued it year after year by building WMDs, despite his agreement not to do so. He is mcould avoid war now by genuinely giving up his WMDs.? But, there were no posters urging Saddam to give up his WMDs.
He’s an immediate threat to Israel. He encourages suicide bombing by the families of the bombers. He’s not quite an immediate threat to Kuwait. However, many believe he would be likely to attack Kuwait again if he had a nuclear arsenal that could be used to keep the US from intervening.
I do not know what this comment means. However, it is noteworthy that the Christian Right is now giving more support to Israel than are Jews like Eva Luna and your spouse. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
