Click on the headline to link to the "United For Justice With Peace" Website for a posting on their anti-Afghan war demonstration against President Barack Obama when he came to Boston in order to raise funds for the Democratic National Committee.
Markin comment:
The stars are not in alignment these days. At least not in alignment in our favor, for those of us who have opposed President Obama, his governance of the American imperial state and , particularly, his Iraq and Afghan war policies from the left. No question that Obama is riding “high” after a few well-published victories for his domestic policies (the truly ugly and poorly thought-out, even by bourgeois standards, health care package that just passed Congress) and an appearance of doing something in foreign policy by taking a “red-eye express” flight to Afghanistan to lay down the law to the “Mayor of Kabul”, the current squirming American puppet, Karzai.
In light of that flourish Obama has deemed it safe to run around the country raising huge sums of cash for his political party. Part of that effort brought him to Boston on April 1st. (No sophomoric jokes necessary here. Moreover, in Obama we are not dealing with a fool like the last guy, uh, Bush, who ran the ship of imperial state into the ground but rather a very capable agent of that state.) In response the local chapter of the United For Justice With Peace Coalition (UJP) sponsored a protest centered on Afghanistan to greet him. And that is the reason that I say for us today that the stars are not aligned.
No question that Obama, for a myriad of reasons, has gotten a free pass, except for the crazies on the right and their front, “The Tea Party Express”, from the general populace. More importantly, he has gotten a free pass on the Afghan question and not just from the general populace but, apparently for now, a fair share of the left. At least, that part of the left that we are interested in making anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist fighters. I offer the response to the UJP demonstration call and who came to the protest as prima facie evidence for that comment.
As the linked post above graphically demonstrates few people (about 100) showed up and those who did had, frankly, a “more in sorrow than anger” perspective in confronting the Democratic Party bigwigs who showed up to rub shoulders with their President. The core of the protest was led by Raging Grannies and Code Pink activists. Now, before I am tarred and feathered, and rightly so for making sport of the efforts of my fellow AARPers and their allies to “bring the war home” let me say that I have worked, of necessity, with these kind of groups all my political life. And where we can agree on an issue, like Afghanistan withdrawal, if not the strategy to accomplish that, I am more that willing to “united front” with them. My point here is rather why, in 2010, are raging grannies, raging mid-life protesters, raging pacifists of all ages standing almost alone along side the remnants of the anti-imperialist left that was so vociferous earlier in the decade. This local configuration reflects the same phenomena that was witnessed in the Washington March 20th anti-war demonstration.
Something is indeed out of alignment when grey hair, grey beards, granny shoes (for real), granny glasses and all the other impedimenta of old age greatly outnumber the single idealist young student, the young working class parents worried about the future of the planet for their kids, and blacks and other minorities who have been beaten down, and beaten down hard in this decade. With no relief in sight. Obviously we continue to organize as best we can but I believe, at least I believe today, that all this “apathy” in the face of serious social destruction here, and internationally, among the young cannot be simply reduced to changes in lifestyle, changing technology, and changes in the way that youth connect socially. I mentioned at one time in a earlier post that I thought, as a rule, the youth that I run into today have no grand dreams, no grand schemes like those that drove my generation in our youth, but try to get by day to day as best they can. I also mentioned that I was perfectly willing to be corrected on that score. And I still am. But in the meantime- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq And Afghanistan!
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