D.C. Protest by Authur Keene

"If you want peace, you have to stop talking about war."
Arundhati Roy

October 27,2002

Dear Friends:
Yesterday my wife and I marched in the national demonstration inWashington D.C. to mobilize against the war in Iraq. We joined hundreds of people from Western Mass including many UMass faculty and students. Organizers and CSPAN both estimated the size of the crowd to be about 200K, and this was not hard to believe. At one point we stepped out of the March as it headed up 17th street on its way to the White House in order to listen to the passionate chants, watch the street theater and read the clever signs. The marchers filled the streets, densely packed from curb to curb extending as far as the eye could see. We re-entered the stream about 40 minutes later with no end to the flow in sight. The march certainly extended much father than the 5 blocks reported in todays New York Times.

All of this followed a four-hour rally that featured 30 speakers representing an array of constituencies. It was an inspiring day. The crowd was large, diverse, informed, earnest and angry but not at all without hope. As students from Earlham College and Yellow Springs (OH) High School marched down Constitution Ave chanting "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE", we could all feel the growing outrage against the war and against the administrations contempt for democratic process. And I felt personally involved in an affirmation of democracy as people peacefully took to the streets to express their will. We affirmed, by our presence in the Capital, that the policies of this administration do not reflect the will of the people. The current absence of a real national debate about Iraq and indeed about the economy might be taken as a sign of democracys dormancy in America. But the presence of 200,000 people in the Capital (and tens of thousands protesting simultaneously elsewhere across the nation) insisting that their voice be heard, asserting their patriotism in their dissent and pledging to become involved, to vote, and to educate were signs that democracy in America is not dead. That this impressive rally was organized on short notice and largely by word of mouth and in spite of dire weather predications suggests that there is a far greater body of Americans who oppose or at least are uncertain about current administration policies than is evident in the reportage of our nations major media outlets.

I was outraged, but not at all surprised to see that coverage of the event in the corporate media ranged from dismissive to non-existent. Both the New York Times and NPR reported that there were from ten thousand to tens of Thousands of protesters and that organizers were disappointed with the small turnout. The estimates do not match my own personal experience (or the estimates of CSPAN) nor do they jibe with the continuous effusive pronouncements from the stage by organizers that the event was an enormous success. The practice of dismissing mass popular dissent is not new to us. Nixon and the media were enormously contemptuous of the mass expressions of dissent against the war in Vietnam. That military excursion was also supposed to be brief and rather painless for America. . That war took 16 years , 55,000 American lives and over 1,000,000 Vietnamese lives and created wounds in both nations that have still not healed. It took bringing the war to the campuses and streets of America in order to bring that tragedy to an end. Today, Robert McNamara, an architect of that war writes that our intervention in Vietnam was a mistake. Much of the American public realized this seven years before the wars conclusion. It is tragic that the mainstream media have chosen to be complicit in creating an illusion of consenus for this new military adventure as they did in the Vietnam era. It is unfortunate that the Democratic leadership in Congress has been so aggressive in attempting to curtail public debate on the issue.

The Sunday Times followed it's reporting of a disappointing turnout at the rally with a reminder that 56% of Americans still support a ground war in Iraq. But would there be 56% support if Americans were aware of the growing national and international opposition to this war? Would the support exist if Americans were aware of growing opposition to the war among current and former U.S. military and intelligence leaders? Would Americans support the war if they
knew the real state of Sadam's military capabilities today (as for example, reported by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter)?

Would Americans support the war if they had a clear idea of what it would really cost in dollars and in lives? Would Americans support the war if they fully considered what it would mean in terms of violating international law? Would Americans support the war if
they thought about how an imperious act of aggression that flouts world opinion might make America a greater target for terrorist attacks? Would Americans support the war if they considered how our premise of justifiable preemptive aggression could be used by other nations to settle scores with their neighbors, opening the world to growing conflagration? Would Americans support the war if they fully thought out the implications for the practice of democracy and for the soul of our nation? Because we are a democracy, we, by definition, assume responsibility for the policies of our nation. The impending invasion of Iraq (and the subsequent invasion of other nations in the administrations framework of permanent war) healthcare system, our human support services and anything else deemed expendable in order to finance these military adventures will be undertaken in our name. As members of a democracy each of us is responsible for what is done in our name. To not take a stand effectively takes a stand for war. And so I ask all of you, my friends, to take a stand.

If you support this war, I ask you to consider critically why you support it. I ask you whether you currently have sufficient information to make a reasonable assessment on this issue. I ask you to consider the hard questions (as those above) that are not posed in the corporate media. I ask you to undertake the analysis necessary to make an informed decision. I ask you to consider deeply, the consequences of what will happen if we go to war and to not base your decision solely on the sound bites, half-truths and outright lies being disseminated by the White House. And I ask you to bring your informed analyses to public debate so we can truly explore our differences on this issue and begin to separate opinion from analysis and fact from ideology.

If you oppose this war I ask you to act now - to take a stand on what is being done in your name. If each of us who attended the rally, were to spend just 10 minutes/day opposing the war; by getting educated, by expanding the depth of our analyses, by educating others, and by exposing the lie of the current national consensus for war, we could grow the opposition and use popular power to avert tragedy and redirect the priorities of the nation. I have read in the papers that many of our representatives voted for the war in spite of grave personal misgivings because they felt that the outcome was inevitable. Some of my own friends feel the same way that there is nothing to be done and that resistance is futile. But the power of democracy ultimately rests in the hands of the people. It was popular dissent that ended the war in Vietnam. Imagine 200K or 400k or a million people spending 10 minutes a day to stop the war. It is something that each of us can do. I believe that most of us at the march came away believing that a momentum is building in this country. I ask you to become part of that momentum. Those interested in learning more about the growing national momentum against war and for justice in American and abroad might want to check out the following web pages.

http://www.MoveOn.org
http://www.internationalanswer.org
http://www.afsc.org
http://www.Notinourname.net
Those who would like to undertake analyses of the current situation that are based on alternatives to what is presented in the corporate media might want to check out
http://www.indymedia.org
http://www.alternet.org
http://commondreams.org
http://www.zmag.org
http://www.mediachannel.org
http://www.TomPaine.com
Or check out my own list of alternative news on the Middle East at
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~akeene/ipaltnews.html
Peace,

Art

Arthur S. Keene
Professor of Anthropology
Department of Anthropology
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003-4805
[mailto:keene@anthro.umass.edu]

"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows"
-MLK Jr.