The 'Peace Movement' still alive and well. Maybe it's you that's missing?

Love this place. Truth reigns. For the most part, anyway. But still seeing here and there 'the peace movement has been missing for the last 8 years', 'where is the peace movement ?, but you know, sorry, but hey, fck you. Where are you? The peace movement has continued on from the 60's. Sorry if you left it. Sorry if you never joined. Sorry if you are ignorant of it's workings.

What have you done for me lately? What have YOU done as part of the 'Peace Movement' ? There was a large component of the amorphous Occupy Wall Street that were there for the Peace. You? Where were you? On the sidelines, producing copy how Occupy would never work did not work was worthless?

Where were you in response to the continued US endless war?

Just read an otherwise informative essay here that decried the 'Peace Movement' being dead during Obama 8 years. The only thing dead was YOUR impotence of being in touch with what others were doing constantly opposing BO's continuation of the US endless war policies.

Of course there are those of us who never stopped. Continued peace vigils. Supported peace causes. You know, did sh't. Buy yeah, go ahead and decry the lack of a 'peace movement'. Point your bloody fingor.

Just know that you when you type those words you feed into the opposition when you do that.

Most every year since the 60's, people have been arrested opposing nuclear bombs, military recruiting and more. What about you? What have you done? Yuh. What?

How about rejoining the 'peace movement'? What about making it bigger and better? Yeah, you. Right, right, you are 'just one person.' What difference can you make?

At the very least you could subscribe to

UFPJ Peace & Justice
@UnitedForPeace

United For Peace and Justice is a network of more than 1,000 groups nationwide who have joined together to protest militarism and organize for peace!
New York, NY
unitedforpeace.org
Joined June 2009

O, hell, be patriotic and support Veteran's for Peace www.veteransforpeace.org ?

Veterans For Peace
@VFPNational

Exposing the True Costs of War and Militarism Since 1985. #PeaceIsPossible

But, please, please, don't say that the peace movement is dead. Your involvement or support for it is dead maybe. But no, brave folks everywhere are carrying on the work. You?

At the very least suggest you inform yourself and subscribe to

Sorry for this interruption of your day if you are one of those who think the 'peace movement' is dead.

Have a glorious day. Seriously.

# end of rant.

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divineorder's picture

Hey, you know, have a good day, even though your tax dollars are killing hundreds of your fellow humans and fcking the planetary ecology, please, please, have a nice day.

Want to find the 'peace movement'? Look 'within.'

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

mimi's picture

@divineorder
just remembering there were probably no anti-Vietnam war demonstrators in West-Berlin in the sixties that didn't listen to Joan Baez at that time, over and over and over again. She was the embodiment of a pure humane urge of people wanting peace and no wars. I had stacks of vinyl records of her and listened to them regularly while doing math homeworks in highschool. My cousin, a result of a Russian soldier's rape at the end of WWII, who secretly was involved of helping some East Germans crawl through the tunnels to West Berlin (we learned this only after his death a couple of years ago) was thoroughly in love with Joan Baez' words and songs.

Here she is again. Her voice got older, but her strength of mind never did. What a huge joy to see her sing.

I have yet to see someone who loves war when he is in one. I have no worries, that the peace and anti-war movement is always within us and will never be silenced for good.

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@divineorder

but you know, sorry, but hey, fck you. Where are you? The peace movement has continued on from the 60's. Sorry if you left it. Sorry if you never joined. Sorry if you are ignorant of it's workings.

I gotta tell ya, though, that this is the last place you should try to use such a pitch. Almost everyone who posts here is strongly vocal against the war mongers in our country and are more than happy to support a vigorous campaign to challenge authority.

So why would you want to insult the people you want to recruit to a more activist role? I don't get it.

If your whole purpose was to heap praise on yourself and those who 'never left it', then I think you're going to want to put that aside.

I would suggest that you try to make a more positive appeal to people like you will find here, by which I mean emphasize the things we need to fear and then point to the 'do something' options that are available to us.

We've really taken about all of the insults/shaming we can stand from the Democrats who supported Her. Let's go with a different approach on this, okay?

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James Kroeger

Big Al's picture

You're right, a great many are working for peace, against war, they're out there. It's not dead, but it's not big enough. And there aren't enough people willing to be blunt about it, to tell it like it is. A classic example is the ongoing discussion whether Trump's air attack was legal. The discussion revolves around constitutionality and getting congressional approval while ignoring the fact that the attack was based on the lie that Assad did the deed.
This was a false flag! Say it! But most people can't say it, won't say it. Like they won't say 9/11 was a false flag. Like they won't admit the CIA murdered JFK. Like they just don't want to go there. In the end, most people just don't want to go there.
That's what it's going to take, enough people who want to go there.

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@Big Al to know war is wrong and the reasons for war, empire, power and profit.

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lotlizard's picture

to name just one example.

http://www.codepink.org/news

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Wink's picture

a pulse but that doesn't mean it still lives. That 8 or 9 show up with signs to protest the latest infraction does not a "movement" make. The "peace movement" hasn't been seen or heard from since the very early '70s. The old truism applies here: if you didn't see it on tv it didn't happen. That's Not to say that there isn't an effort. Just saying TPTB do their best to minimize any impact by keeping it off the tv. #Occupy died from lack of tv exposure as anything else. In order for "the movement" to have any impact it needs thousands in the streets. Vietnam war numbers. Something not seen since Vietnam. The under 40 crowd doesn't know that experience becuz they've never seen it.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

@Wink

Exactly! I do believe that there have been thousands in the streets a number of times where corporate media has either not covered it or denigrated and downplayed the participants and/or disinformed regarding their actual purpose. And now they have subverted so many once-reliable independent news sources...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

My essays had nothing to do with the Peace Movement but the Democratic Party's and their partisans pretence.

How the duopolies reaction to war depends upon who is in power and not the ethics of war itself.

My opinion is also that the Peace Movement should keep the duopoly at arms length.

You well know how the Occupy Movement was treated by both sides of the duopoly.

I agree with the main thrust of your essay.

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PriceRip's picture

@LaFeminista

          I seriously doubt this article is about one specific person or specific article as divineorder wrote, "But still seeing here and there ...".

          In general, on the internet, there is an implicit consensus that we have entered "uncharted territory", that somehow this all is worse than, for example, the Cuban Missile Crises, or the "War" in Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam. We are simply repeating history, albeit a historical narrative containing many anachronisms, but as they saw, "There is nothing new under the sun." it is just all scrambled up.

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"Well maybe it's you." Thanks a lot. Peace & Love

"I'm not dead." "I feel happyyyyy!" Exhausted everything during the aughts, when Bush junior poured gas on Clinton's freshly passed hell. The Contract on America is still taking the piss out of the economy is what I see, homelessness and poverty the silent killers. No explosions and not much property destroyed, Democracy mitigated. Kinda like Flint Michigan water, outta sight outta mind. Education system in collapse, future is dumb-dumb. Was a middle-class home owner, before Bush's "Ownership Society" came to power. Doesn't matter that I sold it for a little profit, the money has been absorbed by folks greedier than me. There are so many now in California it is really depressing. See how that works? Disability.

Occupy was an (anti-) ad campaign that went viral: http://www.adbusters.org/occupywallstreet/, which is why very little real or positive change occurred, in hindsight. Social Media; (Facebook, Twitter, Google to start) with all the disposable devices their propaganda is spread through, it is addictive personality behavior to support the very people who are causing the problems, supporting the war machine. Think you're smarter than the psychological AI deployed? Well alright then, go on.

Millennials and the generation coming up behind them don't realize their own demographic purchasing power, the one thing left to battle oligarchy. Everything else gets "mitigated" by the plutocrats. Don't listen to Bernie he is a tool, listen to real people on the streets for a change.

Act peacefully with every transaction. Don't use Uber or any other rentier app without full knowledge you're contributing. The energy is far better spent breaking taxi medallion corruption in government I think, so it benefits everyone and not only some greedy-ass IPO seekers. They are the bubble creators to be despised, not worshiped. A DFH knows what ride-sharing is. Uber is war on wages writ large. Real peace activists don't drive Uber, or rent AirBnB.

I don't care much for "people just trying to make ends meet" when they are active participants in lowering living standards and working conditions, right here right now. This is California, sound asleep at the wheel. The problem when a state this size goes all "What's the matter with Kansas?", the rest of the country follows like lemmings over the edge. Sorry.

Still using Microsoft Windows, Grasshopper? Apple, Google, or Microsoft, those are the "choices". Lovely free market for monopolists, lobbyists, crony capitalists.

Maybe it's you that's missing?

revertar ad vos

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Cassiodorus's picture

I remember 2004, walking my friend's dog through town in the election run-up. All those nice yard signs: UFPJ, right next to the signs saying Kerry for President.

Remember Kerry for President? John Kerry was the guy who stood up at the Democratic National Convention in Boston that year, telling the audience of assembled delegates that "we will win the war in Iraq!" He ran, as I recall, on a platform of "Bush smart"; his main talking point was that George W. was an idiot and that he would enact most of the Bush agenda with much more substantial intelligence than we saw from the guy with an (R) next to his name. Besides, his wife was a charitable woman and all.

At any rate, divineorder, I'm sorry you feel put out by the folks around here saying "the peace movement is dead," but perhaps the nice peace movement people could see it through to running their own candidate for President next election cycle? Barack Obama really wasn't our guy, though we spent eight years pretending hard that he was. It's the trust thing again.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

gulfgal98's picture

With the invasion of Iraq, a group of citizens in this small western NC town organized a Peace vigil which met every Saturday in front of the local courthouse from noon until one pm. The original group consisted of about 35-40 individuals. In 2008 with the election of Barack Obama as President, the Peace vigil lost the bulk of its members because they thought Obama would end the wars.

In 2011-2012, I became involved with the Occupy Movement in another state. Shortly, thereafter, I discovered the Peace vigil in this small town and joined it. At the time, I joined, the group was down to four men, all well over 70 years of age, including one who was 90 at the time. Our Peace vigil group remained at five members for two more years until our 92 year old was no longer physically able to participate. Shortly after he left, a second member also stopped coming.

That left our Peace vigil at three members, two 80 something year old men and me in my 60's. We tried to recruit new members, but no one ever lasted more than a week. Giving up a Saturday in an area where there are a lot of out door activities did not appeal to many people. We persisted on until one of group had medical issues that prevented him from participating. That left Don at age 87 and me to carry on. After a few weeks, Don called me and said he had decided to disband the Peace vigil.

I have tried to find people interested in restarting a Peace vigil, but have not been successful. It requires a weekly commitment that most people are not willing to make, especially younger people. I have considered going solo, but my husband is opposed to my doing so. My four and a half years with the Peace vigil were very rewarding to me. Did we stop the wars? No. But we did have some great conversations with a wide range of people, including many self described conservatives. From my personal experience, I found that this country is very war weary. However, I doubt that even a massive anti-war effort would stop the MIC that runs this country.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Lookout's picture

is very active http://worldbeyondwar.org/

They had a protest in Huntsville this weekend against war in space.

They got the climate march organizers on the 29th to also include peace as a component of the march.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

PriceRip's picture

          While reading this the other day I encountered this:

          One of the reasons we don't have a Left in the US is that our cultural "Left" has not gotten to the point of thinking about agency, about what or who it is that is going to develop the sort of agency we want.

I wrote a comment that included this:
"I and most of my friends have asked and debated these issues for an age."
which elicited a response that included this:

          ... Oh and since y'all have debated agency "for an age," what conclusions did you all develop, and what organizations did you all develop as a result of your conclusions? And could I be a member?

You have started something and it is time to finish it.

          I started in the late 1960s and I haven't stopped. I consider it disingenuous to pretend that we have disappeared. I consider it disingenuous to pretend that we have not been "think(ing) globally (and) act(ing) locally" for five decades.

          As for DemExit and all that new stuff. Bullshit, "new stuff", we have been doing that for about the same number of decades. I am still looking for the "magic bullet" that will start the "dominoes falling", and other cliches. "What can we do to start creating a more acceptable society?" is a question that has been on my mind constantly for an age.

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lotlizard's picture

or institutions like the Ramallah Friends Schools (“Friends” as in Quakers) in the Palestinian territories.

http://quaker.wikia.com/wiki/Ramallah_Friends_Schools

The Quakers are possibly a good place to start for anyone interested in peace activism. Are there Quakers in your area? The American Friends Service Committee? What are they doing?

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PriceRip's picture

@lotlizard

          JOAN BAEZ sings: Last Night I Had The ...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HX1XYY5X7g]

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PriceRip's picture

          Yep, no denying it, that's what you said, and I thank you for that divineorder. I have been involved in this as well as various community action campaigns for a long time. And it really pisses me off when I am told we-all haven't done anything.

          My wife, a few minutes ago, pointed out that not only have we done shit, doing that shit has cost us, literally. "Literally" as in reduced salary, as well as standing in the community. For example, Kearney NE has a household recycling system that is better than the one operating in the Bear Creek Valley of Oregon. Yep, a place in Nebraska has a better environmental project than a similar one in Oregon, go figure. To get that done, I was a part (albeit a small part) of a community action that burned a scammer and pushed the PTB to do the right thing. Community organizing works, the real problem at hand is how to scale those successful strategies for national actions.

          I think JtC has created just the right forum with just the right atmosphere to do the necessary work. I think the challenge is to discover "that one thing, project, action" that will convince this group that collectively we-all can have a real impact at a national level. I see some signs that this just might happen in, I hope, the not too distant future.

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@PriceRip

we wait for a hero to save us

while our government is killing people

all over the world.

we seem to have nothing better than that.

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PriceRip's picture

@irishking

          I don't either, so I just keep plugging along, doing my thing, talking to whomever will listen. Someday I might find that special person. I know that no one in a position to do anything real has listened to me yet, and while I don't expect anyone to listen I will continue to be a irritation to the best of my ability.

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@PriceRip @PriceRip

I know that no one in a position to do anything real has listened to me yet

the power to do "anything real" appears to lie with "big people" who could help but won't do it. we keep talking and hope someone with power will hear us and do something. many have been doing this for "decades". (me too.)
at this point I am in favor of more direct action. I believe "we are sunk" is the most realistic assessment of the situation. We may escape this, but I don't see how.

so the question is -"how do I go down?" I would really like to get in some faces.
how to do that and get a good result? I do not know- not advocating violence but confrontation. small groups could carry out planned operations. this seems consistent with some of your hopes for c99.

fuck these people.

edit: perhaps we could do coordinated ops by phone or computer. we must have computer buffs who know how to make a person's life miserable,for example. see above.

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PriceRip's picture

@irishking

          the power to do "anything real" appears to lie with "big people" who could help but won't do it. we keep talking and hope someone with power will hear us and do something. many have been doing this for "decades". (me too.)

          Actually I was thinking of another approach. There are leaders among us yet to be identified. I know an unassuming self-effacing hourly employee of a large corporation that took them down. Community organizers have methods for finding these "natural born" leaders and helping them to become the leaders needed for the situation.

          I do not know who that(those) leader(s) might be. I don't know if that(those) leader(s) will ever be identified. I am absolutely convinced that(those) leader(s) exists(exist). I suspect we screwed up a very big opportunity a few months ago, but as usual what the hell do I know, or, in other words, your mileage may vary.

          I have been involved in many actions locally over a period of 35 years. The successful far outnumber the unsuccessful outcomes.

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mimi's picture

is hard these days. There is not enough trust in "marching" being effective anymore. It's the mental depression that is the reason why people are not on the streets anymore. What happened on the streets in the sixties and seventies now happens @twitter or in facebook. That's not the same.
Cyber peace movements or anti-war movements have no effect, other than inform you, which is very good, but nobody feels threatened by "electron" on the www?

Bombs and missiles mean your body and your homes and your country's infrastructure gets destroyed, violently. Those people flee, if they can, and they protest with their bodies on the streets marching. American soldiers don't get killed in today's wars like they were in Vietnam or the second world war. Not enough angry family members to protest, today's protest is making a video and post it. At the same time you know even if it goes viral and has a lot of clicks, it's not going to change anything, because the folks who are the "deciders" couldn't care less about it. But if you come personally, press their flesh and ask them nasty questions, that will change something. But that is dangerous, at least you could think of such actions to be more courageous as the "lonely" soldier shooting remotely on some targets that he never should have been ordered to shoot at.

So the anger and urge to go to the streets physically (Occupy Congress) isn't there.

I don't know what to do about that. I tell myself, no matter what, you get your body on the street and march. One day we will find out something more effective, and then we still can do both.

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PriceRip's picture

@mimi

          I don't know what to do about that. I tell myself, no matter what, you get your body on the street and march. One day we will find out something more effective, and then we still can do both.

          None of us have the answer, that's why we are here. Perhaps, just perhaps, collectively we can find a way to become effective. I only know one thing: Effective action requires you move well outside your comfort zone. Effective action requires you to expose your boss's fraud. Effective action requires you to publicly condemn the psychotic Dean for his actions. Effective action requires you to use a state agency to stop the bad behavior of people who will, in turn, seek revenge. Effective action is putting yourself at risk.

No Sacrifice, No Risk, No Progress.

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I really would have liked to have been part of that, but I was in the Peace Corps at the time.

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I've seen things things that say more Democrats demonstrated against Bush's wars and this latest action of Trump's than demonstrated against what Obama was doing for eight years, so hypocrisy seems to be involved.

IMO, demonstrations, online petitions, letters to Senators, etc. do not prevent or stop wars. The peace movement has great value, IMO, but preventing or stopping wars is not it.

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@HenryAWallace

Comes down to public awareness, doesn't it? When media censorship and other propaganda control fails and the danger is from a better informed and more cohesive 99% uniting against the parasite Class they so greatly outnumber?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Our following on Twitter in one day is as big as FB for what feels like months. All of the folks on here that gave our account a boost and tips on who to follow, thank you.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

gulfgal98's picture

@dkmich I think Twitter will prove to be more effective for us. A lot of people (like me) use Twitter as a way to get information quickly. I am glad we are on Twitter. Thank you again dk!

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

enhydra lutris's picture

Win Without War ( http://winwithoutwar.org/ ) is a coalition of organizations. Just looking at the list on their about page can be a source of ideas on where to look for local activities and the like. The main organization also sends out alerts for actions now and then, petitions, and all like that.

The "what happened to the peace/anti-war movement" meme, to some extent is an expression of frustration by some at "partisan peaceniks", those who pretty much oppose war per se, but who only get involved when Republicans are running the show, and who give/gave Bill Clinton and Obama a pass. A believe a more ancient phrase for these folks is "fair weather friends".

Two aspects of that are:
1) Trying to get these people to oppose wars and war mopngering regardless of the political party of the offenders and
2) Trying to reawaken and rekindle the activist aspect of their intellectual opposition once their guys are out and the bad guys are in.

A whole other driver of the meme/complaint is what I think of as the missing cohorts. Starting maybe in the days of Bush I/Clinton and definitely in the days of Bush II, local marches, vigils and the like have shown a tendency to not be reflective of the local population density. Here, Boomers, especially the early boomers who were active in the 60's are disproportionately present. Back in the earlier days, it was a proponderance of the aging, and now it is "dayim, lookit all the geezers and geezettes". As that cohort slowly but surely becomes less and less able to march, or do time there is a concern for the ongoing viability of the movement. That does, btw, seem to be changing some lately.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

gulfgal98's picture

@enhydra lutris Our local Peace vigil was all older geezers. When I joined them, I was considered "the kid" and I was in my 60's!

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

edg's picture

The point is not that there is no peace movement. The point is that Democrats, who form a large part of the peace movement, suddenly shut their faces when it's a Democratic president doing the bombing. That's what's different from the 1960s. We protested against LBJ back then even though he was a Democrat. Protests against Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for their murderous wars? Not so much. Protests against war-mongerer in chief Hillary Clinton? Yeah, right.

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Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

when the ones who care not at all for peace care less about we who want peace? The only answer I can honestly think of is paradoxical to peace: to get people who want peace to stop being peaceful about what they want.

Edit: quick clarification: I'm not saying people get violent specifically. Not being peaceful about fighting for peace can mean that, sure, but it can also mean being confrontational or disruptive. Things like storming governmental meetings, disrupting the economy in ways beyond simple boycotts, even try getting military members to refuse engaging in this idiotic nonsense that serves solely to put their lives on the line so some guy in a mansion far away from any signs of war can make an extra grand or two.

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