Go back in time to 2002. Jingoism abounded, WMDs were all in the news, and if you questioned the idea of invading Iraq, you were a traitor at worst or a naive liberal at best. Yet many people did question it.
I remember standing out there with candles before the invasion (the MoveOn demonstration). After the invasion, we demonstrated. Many in the media had hawked the war and now were saying it was a success. Bush had his Mission Accomplished moment. The war kept going on.
But many still fought against the war.
Remember the woman who went down to Texas and demonstrated at Bush's ranch. I can't remember her name (and she became a bit weirder as time went on), but she did a lot. Cindy something.
I want to highlight a couple views on the end of the occupation of Iraq (Yes, I know there are mercenaries (contractors) and a big embassy, etc., but the war and occupation are fundamentally over).
There were so many who said we could not do anything. The government and big business were too big. Americans wanted a war. What could only a few do? Yet, in the end, we won, although it took so long.
This day may not have come were it not for the years of work by all of the millions of Americans who volunteered, protested, lobbied, organized, donated, wept, prayed and voted for an end to this war. The American people have ended the war in Iraq through our democracy's flawed but still great ability to correct itself.
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And from those humble beginnings the movement to end the war grew over several years to become a chorus of millions who changed the political landscape and kept fighting until all of our troops came home. The anti-war movement became the anti-war public. By my last count, more than 50 members of Congress and senators lost their jobs in 2006 and 2008 to an anti-war opponent.
Along the way this movement organized hundreds of thousands of people at vigils, protests, marches, sit-ins and more. Tens of thousands of American were politicized -- learning their organizing skills while opposing the war. The movement built its own apparatus for politics, media, messaging and organizing.
This is the same movement that elected a president who opposed the start of the war and promised to end the war. This week President Obama has kept his promise to end the war in Iraq. He did not do it alone -- the movement that mobilized the public was at his side.
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In the end, you ended the war in Iraq.
Tom Mattzie, You Ended The War In Iraq
Please read the entire article. Mr. Mattie has much to say. He worked with moveon.org and in various ways to end the war.
And another by Jonathan Bernstein writing at Washington Monthly:
Acting in presidential primaries and other primaries in 2004, liberals made it clear that the ambivalence (or, in some cases, solid support) for the war that was evident in Congress in 2002 was absolutely unacceptable within the Democratic Party. That accelerated in the 2006 primaries, with the sort-of-defeat of Joe Lieberman showing exactly where the party was.
As a consequence, when Democrats won majorities in Congress in 2006 - in large part because unhappiness with the war had severely damaged George W. Bush - it was an almost solidly antiwar caucus.
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Meanwhile, Obama, in large part because of his credibility with antiwar Democratic activists and other party actors, emerged as a surprise nominee of the party in 2008, and captured the presidency ready to carry out the Bush withdrawal - or, a more blunt version might have it, the Bush slow motion surrender.
The point is that the war ended because citizens, acting mainly through the Democratic Party, ended it. Democratic Party actors - activists, policy specialists, politicians, campaign operatives, and eventually just about everyone, many of whom were not politically active before the war - made it clear that a pro-war candidate could not be safely nominated, eventually, for any federal office. And the other point is that it took just forever to get that done, and it was never certain; had the economy boomed the Republicans might well have won in 2008.
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And so today’s outcome is the very direct, if distant, triumph of the Deaniacs way back in 2003. It’s the triumph of party actors who enforced an antiwar line on Democratic candidates in 2004 and 2006. A triumph of all the people who worked so hard for Ned Lamont in Connecticut. It’s a triumph of those who did it again in 2008 despite the frustrations of 2007 - it’s a triumph of those who didn’t walk away when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the rest of them were apparently stymied by George W. Bush, but instead went out and tried to reinforce their numbers in the Senate and the House and to put an ally in the White House.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/...
Bernstein's entire article is excellent also.
What's my point? That there are lessons to be learned from the antiwar movement. That it takes a long time for change, but we can't get discouraged. We must continue struggling even when it looks impossible.
And that someday in the future we may read this:
The point is that [the Great Class Stratification] ended because citizens, acting mainly through the Democratic Party, ended it. Democratic Party actors - activists, policy specialists, politicians, campaign operatives, and eventually just about everyone, many of whom were not politically active before [the Great Recession]- made it clear that [a pro-1%er] candidate could not be safely nominated, eventually, for any federal office.
And the other point is that it took just forever to get that done, and it was never certain.
Solidarity.