Conspicuously absent from the political discourse are voices against war.
Every major political figure in the country supports dropping bombs on foreign soil and drone strikes against civilians. Bernie Sanders, the most progressive candidate, differs little from the raging lunacy of Ted Cruz in regard to military action against ISIS, and the use of drones to kill suspected enemies of the US.
The US has been at war for most of its history. Since World War II, we have sent Americans to die or to murder foreigners for all but a dozen years.
I was part of the anti-war movement in the 60s. I was in the streets against the Viet Nam war. I ran draft resisters to Canada, burned my draft card, was beaten by the LAPD, became a federal fugitive. My comrades in the streets are today nowhere to be found. Too many are worn out or sold out. Many are dead and gone.
We were revolutionaries when revolution was an impossibility. It may still be, but the odds are becoming favorable and the audience is becoming sympathetic. Over 80% of those under thirty reject capitalism! We have a chance!
But the need for anti-war voices and activists is profound. The military-industrial complex and its allies in Congress and the administration are playing the public like violins. The munitions manufacturers, the arms dealers, the aircraft companies, the bomb builders and the drone industry are raking in billions of dollars every year due to the fear and gullibility of the American public.
And American neocon foreign policy is designed to embroil the US in international conflicts, alliances, and tragedies as a matter of course.
Radical Muslims didn’t just one day decide to hate the US and attack Western interests. American foreign policy drove them to hate us.
A vibrant and dedicated anti-war movement is needed now! No one is fighting the military-industrial complex, no one is speaking for the dead Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Yemenis, and Afghanis we murder as a matter of course. No one is challenging the administration propaganda about international terrorists and our need to spend blood and lives against ISIS.
We need anti-war activists in the streets. We need activists fighting the establishment. We need activists working against the war-mongers.
We need to remember that war kills people. It kills animals. It destroys the environment.
I remember a poster I kept on my wall during Viet Nam. It was made by the group Another Mother for Peace. It said “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”
Author’s Notes:
• I am unaware of any other blog with the Armory’s mission of radicalizing the animal movement. I certainly hope I am not alone, and that there are similar sentiments being expressed by comrades unknown to me.
If you know of other blogs dedicated to animal rights and the defeat of capitalism, please comment with a link.
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Pingback: Where is the Anti-War Movement Now That We Need It? – The Greanville Post
I like the sound of 80% of those under 30 reject Capitalism, but what study does that percentage come from?
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I’ll try to find the article. It came out last year as Bernie was challenging Hillary.
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Reblogged this on Fahrenheit 451 Books & Blogs and commented:
The “System” holds no future for the 99% a Political Revolution does – Progressive Books & Blogs – fah451bks.wordpress.com
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There is a perpetual war on the Animal Race. Roland, how do you suggest we achieve Animal Rights? If we kill slaughter men and raid feedlots, there will be others to fill the vacuum. I think we must go after the demand, not the supply, but I have no damn idea how.
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Much of the demand for animal products is created by advertising by the slaughter industry and their retailers. Almost all our efforts have been aimed at demand. And our efforts are not working.
The Animal Holocaust is destined to continue and to grow absent revolution and social upheaval. We need to get serious about crippling the murder industries. Our targets should be the executives who own and operate the factory farms, the feed lots, the slaughterhouses. We should identify and attack the directors of those companies, the accountants, the managers. While they are easily replaced, the effect of great risk for holding such positions will drive up costs of salaries, of security, of litigation, public relations, and damage control.
We won’t save a single animal. Every one of those creatures trapped in the food system will be tortured and murdered. None will be saved. The only ones that can be saved are those we steal from their enslavers.
But we can drive up the costs of production, increasing prices to the consumer, and thereby impacting demand.
We should be working toward social revolution. Ending capitalism. And destroying the system that rewards and encourages animal exploitation and makes the Animal Holocaust possible.
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I and many thousands of other Quakers and pacifists are in this movement … please do not say we aren’t!
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Reblogged this on Species and Class.
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I did my share of anti-war protesting during the Vietnam War. I was in the draft lottery in 1970 & got a high number & didn’t have to go. There is no anti-war movement now because there is no draft. Young people are more concerned about paying-off college debt & getting a job then protesting war.
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Those of us who fought the draft and forced the end of conscription believed that would end military adventurism. We believed no one would volunteer to fight unjust wars or offer to die to enrich the military-industrial complex.
How wrong we were! The government merely raised the wages of soldiers. Young people in poverty were effectively coerced to join. We now have a warrior class, primarily black and Hispanic, who are almost expendable.
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Make Love Not War is now Make Love Not Carbon.
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Yes I agree, the reality of it is that the only reason there was an anti war movement in ame-rica in the sixties was angst to the draft, no one was concerned with what was happening to the Vietnamese people, but the fact they had to go themselves and may inadvertently get hurt.
There was no High Ground… As I keep saying the problem is not with ame-rica’s Government… It is the people of ame-rica themselves
ame-rica as ame-rica-nos are well described in those terms alone, it is no accident ame-rica came to be called that… a collective of sociopaths and psychopaths who will do anything for the God Money to which they have prostrated ‘n prostituted themselves… Not a pretty place… not nice people
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Yes indeed, where are rhe Flower children of today?? Where IS the anti war movement, well my theory is this (possible or not) but I believe with so many politicians (state, local and federal) tuning us out, turning deaf ears to our pleas, the people have gotten angry, enraged with the ignorance, they have the need to express their anger to, and who better than a brother, sister, a foreigner, a different culture, a different belief!!!! SSo these new generations don’t believe in sitting at the negotiating table, as there has been too much said and done, nobody wants to listen, they instead get enraged and people get hurt!!! I also believe the availability of drugs plays a major role!!!! Also the rage extends to abuse of defenseless animals, as historically, the weaker ones are the losers, the peacemakers get clobbered thus we have evolved to the present day of rage and riots!!!!!!
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