The Discouragement of Activists : Houston Indymedia

Many radicals see Americans as too comfortable to want change, and imagine that an oppressive presidency or starvation would help wake people up to demand their rights. But, did our bad experiences with the Patriot Act, the Terrorism Futures Market, Homeland Security, and the Domestic Security Enhancement encourage Americans to demand a new enforcement of the Bill of Rights?

20th Century history shows us that the people who have had the most taken away from them often favor oppressive leaders to protect them instead of choosing self empowerment. And even when public outcry succeeds in closing down programs like the School of The Americas, the Office of Total Information Awareness, and The Office of Strategic Influence, the government either re-names them or transfers their functions and resources to another agency.

Discouraging words from non-activists are even more common. All those struggling against destruction of what is worthwhile on this planet have been told, even by those sympathetic to our goals, that only something horrible will awaken the American public. But it is hard to imagine that a crisis will make Americans become anything but more greedy about whatever is left, leaving us scrambling, like in Dr. Strangelove, for spots in the underground bunkers. September 11th only made those claiming to identify with the victims of aggression more comfortable with using aggression. Perhaps, like in Hiroshima, if we do something unimaginably horrible, and sudden, we can dream that the American public will be shocked towards peace and away from leaders who have too much power. But there too, we have seen huge civilian casualty figures in countries we attack being brushed off by the American media and public.

So the question remains - what could motivate more Americans to demand a fundamental change, rather than just a change from one President from another?

For those of us who have always criticized Bush, war and erosion of civil liberties, we finally feel some support from mainstream America. Even the Democratic candidates, other than Lieberman, are falling all over each other showing that they either opposed the war, or were tricked into it by the constructs of our sly leader. On a daily basis, we see indications that even Republicans are standing up to the White House, this week voting to normalize travel to Cuba, and threatening to subpoena the White House for missing 9-11 documents.

The American public is almost awake to, and bummed out by the war, which seemed like a relatively good idea to them just a few months ago. Unlike the CAFTA story, suppressed in the corporate media this week, the explosions in Baghdad are big news. In addition to Iraqi civilians, American soldiers and international aid workers are dying, and those deaths have an impact.

We have heard and read for years from complacent colleagues and arrogant editors that only the deaths of American soldiers influenced the American public to oppose Vietnam, more so than protests, or the deaths of third world citizens. We also hear that seeing a bunch of weird beards holding signs does more to push mainstream America away from our message than to educate.

Of course, we ignore this advice, and keep protesting anyway, perhaps only to show ourselves that we are doing something against the murder and torture of people around the world. But the discouraging message, which perhaps is really nothing more than the voice of the propaganda of oppression itself, has left us believing, to some extent, that only American deaths will melt the hard hearts of the tv watching public.

Our critics say we are failing to support the troops by opposing the war, which is so Orwellian that it is difficult to interpret. Given a chance to debate Bush who risked the lives of our soldiers for greed, and then cut their pay, and medical coverage, any of us could easily show that we support our troops to live their lives and that he risked them for nothing. And furthermore, this accusation from our critics undermines their own criticisms of our protests. We are told that we have no power to stop the war but we do have power to put soldiers more at risk. Some even accuse us of wanting Americans to die so that we will be vindicated.

But, it is our critics themselves who encourage us to applaud the death of our soldiers, because they have been telling us that only body bags will influence public opinion.

For those of us who reject this entire construct and refuse to allow ourselves to feel any joy over Bush's war failures, we are left with nothing - if military attacks are victorious, we suffer with the victims and imagine the victory will just encourage more wars. If there is an attack against American soldiers, we mourn the losses of our soldiers while denying ourselves the twisted indulgence of deriving hope from it.

How can we escape the paradigm that only the occurrence of the things we don't want will bring about the things we want?

The Democratic candidates are critiquing the war, but what would they really do once in office? Just like Johnson, and Nixon, these men might find that it is easier to criticize a war than to stop it. When asked about what they would do, their answer sounds very similar to Bush's plan - to get more international assistance and try to leave as soon as stability is reached.

Perhaps the only way to truly end the war and occupation is to stop it and run. Maybe, like in Vietnam, we are incapable of any honorable exit from the mess we created. With our current militaristic system, the pursuit of such honorable exits is in fact a driving force for more destruction than the initial war itself, to which the people of Cambodia and Laos, bombed in unprecedented levels as we were withdrawing from Vietnam, could attest.

Perhaps this is why antiwar protests were huge before the war, and they have been so small since then. There is nothing good than can come from war, even ending it is a mess. There is nothing good that can come from an attack, even success just encourages them to do it more. There is nothing good that can come from domestic repression - even when we shut one of the agencies down, they just pop up elsewhere. We're so off course that even our victories are tainted. For anti-war protesters, environmentalists and anti-totalitarianism activists, there is no pleasure in saying "we told you so," when these inevitable disasters occur. But damn it, that's all they've left us. And we did.