The antiwar protests on Saturday were a watershed event of sorts. The media covered it well and mostly favorably. Left-of-center bloggers and sites who previously ignored antiwar demos paid attention this time, sometimes sympathetically, sometimes a bit snidely. As with global warming (see above post) the message has been delivered and the mainstream is, at long last, onboard.
As one who has helped organize antiwar marches and rallies since before the Iraq invasion began, the movement has gone from screaming in the wilderness and being marginalized to the front pages of major newspapers and websites. It was radicals who sparked it, who provided the impetus and the organizing chops, who worked countless hours building demos for little or no money. Think about it, who else but radicals would have done it?
So now it’s gone mainstream, just like antiwar protest did in the Vietnam war. We’ve won the battle for the attention of the mainstream, and they overwhelmingly oppose the war. Now let’s all work to end it.
The real message is the Iraq War wasn’t an aberrant event but rather a quite logical continuing of the decades-long policy of US imperialism. That’s what needs to change.
Right on point.