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1

nice sentiment. but we need to get the fuck out now, regardless of the why's and wherefores.

Posted by bing | July 1, 2007 5:36 PM
2

I have given up any hope we as a nation are capable of a discussion or a decision that is remotely adult. We are doomed to a culture and society that will not think for itself. We have become a society that is more worried about Paris Hilton than our leaders using the US Constitution as ass wipe. And you think that we will really make an "adult decision"?

Really, what planet are you living on?

Posted by Andrew | July 1, 2007 5:41 PM
3

Iraq is totally fucked. It is unstable and will erupt into civil war the second we leave, whether that is tomorrow, next year, or in 10 years.

We will do what we always do - pick a side (done already), arm them to the teeth and give them money (in progress), and get out (probably not soon enough).

There is no right answer. There is no clear moral path. We stuck our dick into some stank, and we didn't wear a rubber. What's the best thing we can do? How about not fucking anybody else for a while?

Posted by SteveR | July 1, 2007 5:48 PM
4

Dumbass who spams Slog with links to Dan's article supporting the war in 5... 4... 3....

Posted by Gomez | July 1, 2007 6:05 PM
5

And I rest my case.....

Posted by Andrew | July 1, 2007 6:18 PM
6

I think that honestly we haven't had adult dialog about many things. The war, immigration, gay rights, etc. The reason being is that the people that this affects are not the majority of policy makers. Since the effects of these talks don't impact most members of congress or the executive branch, they don't care about the consequences.

Its like "I am not in the military, neither are my family members. Going to war doesn't impact me". Then they can much more easily vote to have it.

Same with gay rights: "I am not gay, neither is anyone in my family (or they don't care about the person that is) so I why would I rock the boat and vote to give them rights?"

Immigration: "My family may have immigrated here, but that was a long time ago and they weren't a minority, so I don't want any 'new' minorities".

Our current system makes running for office incredibly difficult to do without having some kind of private wealth. That, unfortunately, keeps the discussion between those that do not reap what they sow, so to speak. Just my thoughts.

Posted by Original Monique | July 1, 2007 6:26 PM
7

@ Andrew's Mama, I have fucking clue who you are but you are about as annoying as the prick who spam posts what Dan wrote five years ago. Besides, my mother has been dead for 3 years.

Posted by Andrew | July 1, 2007 6:35 PM
8

A refreshing take on the war, and one I hear all too infrequently. I also opposed the war from the beginning, though I now find myself uneasy with the blanket withdrawal plans being bandied about by some people (many of whom originally supported the war). I find that I was/am in the minority opinion both ways. The main problem is-- and I think the vagueness of your post highlights it-- what do we do now? Staying is clearly not an option, and pulling out doesn't seem to be one either, so what is to be done? And for all the pull-out-now democrats, let me make one pragmatic point: If we draw down the troops now and there is another terrorist attack in the US, regardless of any connection to Iraq, I guarantee that we'll have Republicans of the George Bush ilk running this country for the long-term future (shudder). Anyways, I'm ready to have an adult discussion about this. Where do we start? (Iraq Study Group?)

Posted by Mr Me | July 1, 2007 7:16 PM
9

Got a mouse in your pocket? Who's "we"?

Nobody asked my opinion about this clusterfuck. Going in was a rotten idea. I'm not sure getting out now is a good idea. Nobody in a position to make this decision is competent to do so.

Posted by Lee Gibson | July 1, 2007 7:22 PM
10

Both pro war and anti war sides need to acknowledge the truth of the charge that we were arguing childishly. And still are, judging from the above posts.

The pro war side -- obviously was childish or wrong.

The anti war side was mainly saying "all wars are bad" which is equally trite and childish and misinformed and totally ignored the security threat we faced post 911.

What to do now:
1. get out of Iraq except for a force to help defend the Kurds/reassure Turkey. If the Iraqis just can't help slaughtering each other, there's nothing we can do to stop it, even if we are partly responsbile for upsetting the apple cart. \
2. Keep enough forces nearby (on ships? Maybe in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or Dubai?) so that in case Al-Queda actually does develop a real base in some part of Iraq, or if the govt. running part of Iraq lets them have a haven, we can go bomb their locations. Like we did in Afghanistan.

(Our military force works well for this type of mission, but not for street fights/house searches'nation building esp. if we can't tell who is really AlQueda).
3. Go after bin Laden wherever he is.
Get him. Try him if possible.
I cna't believe no one would sell him out for some $500 million or the cost of this war for about two weeks.
4. Assit Afgh. govt. deal with Taliban resurgence.

5. Spend way more effort on police work, tracking finances and cells internationally to prevent attacks like those in Great Britain.
That is the real threat we face. Not any "threat" form Iraq.
Yes, there is a terror threat. No it isn't the biggest threat we have ever faced. Yes we need a forcful response at times but our military might only gets at part of their assets....they have many more assets which require financial, intelligence, securty and international efforts.
6. Admit crimes (to a degree) in Iraq and pay some compensation. Start regaining some level of trust in the world. Start diminishing the ire of Moslems. Start acting based on our ideals.

7. Get off oil and reduce presence throughout whole Middle East.
Fundamental. Once we do that, they have less money to fund terrorism.

8. Impeach anyone in the US who has in fact committed high crimes and misdemeanors like being an overall imbecilic comdr. in chief who simply churned up our forces.

9. Beef up home defense/preparedness: Spend more for emergency preparedness at home including not only terror attacks but quakes floods etc. Give basic checkup / bloodtyping / listing their medical needs for everyone(Shades of national preventive health care.....)...build clinics....it will help when we suffer the Big One or the bird flu whatever anyway.

10. Condemn Bush et al. for doing exactly wht Al Queda wanted. They (the terrorists) used huge leverage to strike at us on 9-11 -- hitting huge targets using box cutters.

We then magnified their success about one million times more by wrecking our economy, invading an innocent country which basically squandered our legitimacy around the world and led nearly the entire Moslem world disliking us, increasing the power and influence of Al Queda.

We have to explain to the public how this struggle works. The nature of the threat, what we are doing right, what we did wrong, what the plan is now, how we will succeed in being safe and regaining our moral leadership.

I would like it if the Demo. candidates for pres. addressed some of this stuff beyond saying "I will get us out of Iraq." I would like other progressive to address this stuff rather than saying "Oh the USA is a big criminal they will never do the right thing" or "just get out now get out now get out now."


Posted by Cincinatus | July 1, 2007 8:15 PM
11

Most of us (slog readers) were against the war to begin with. We all had our suspicions as to what this mess was really about. However, as the war has progressed, simply pulling the troops out doesn't seem to be a good idea. It would leave a power vacuum that would almost certainly be filled by an Islamic extremist group of some variety, the Mahdi army perhaps, leaving the world with yet another theocracy. Not good. We have stuck ourselves in a fucked situation out of which there is no "solution", just damage control.
I see only one option: to build a legitimate international coalition that could solidify some measure of stability in the country. And the only way that will happen is if Bush and his crew are impeached or otherwise held accountable for their actions. Credibility building stuff.

Posted by douglas | July 1, 2007 8:18 PM
12

@14: The problem with your argument is that it's basically "pull out now" just a little better thought out. If a bloody sectarian civil war spreading throughout the Middle East doesn't concern you ("If the Iraqis just can't help slaughtering each other, there's nothing we can do to stop it"), let me present another scenario. If civil war breaks out and we are no longer there, what's to stop Iran from moving in to "ensure the peace." I don't think the real danger is that Al Qaeda will set up a base there, it's that Iran will happily fill in for us if we leave a power vacuum next door. Not good, unless you fancy a war with Iran as well.

As for holding the current administration responsible, well... There's no doubt that Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. are war criminals. We hanged plenty of Nazis for lesser crimes. One problem: It's never going to happen. I think the Bush administration is as isolated and discredited as it's going to get. But they're in far more trouble for the attorney's scandal than the war. So it doesn't really seem relevant to this discussion.

As for what we do, I don't know. That's why this was such a collosal strategic fuck-up. Any fixes are not going to be quick. Partitioning the country might make the most sense, but it wouldn't mean any less US troops there in the short-run, and you'd still have to worry about Iran's influence in the south. Solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem would breed a lot of good will, but we all know how easy that is. Maybe some kind of partition with an Arab coalition keeping the peace? Sounds unlikely, and might inflame regional tensions. I really don't know. What a mess...

Posted by Mr Me | July 1, 2007 8:53 PM
13

An adult discussion would only be meaningful if it informed our country's actions going forward. At the moment, it seems like the only discussion that matters is the one about whether or not we still live in a democracy. The executive branch has, through recent actions and public statements, made it abundantly clear that they do not feel they have to answer to the other two branches of government, let alone the will of the governed. Cheney is now evidently forwarding the claim that he represents a newly-discovered fourth branch that exists beyond the checks and balances that govern the interactions of the other three. Nor is his outrageous assertion atypical. In fact, it's become so commonplace for this administration to justify its actions with outright fabrications that it scarcely merits notice in the press.

Despite the media's depiction of unified public opinion going in, this war enjoyed historically low levels of support from the beginning and provoked protests of historically unprecedented magnitude. It didn't matter. The architects of this war have shown little interest in responding to public opinion at any juncture (although they have at times been very skillful at shaping it.)

There is a fight to be had here in our own country before the situation over there can be addressed in any satisfactory fashion.

Posted by flamingbanjo | July 1, 2007 9:24 PM
14

#14: I should have added what PM Brown said today in England: 'We have to fight it in a number of different ways - militarily, by security, by police, by intelligence,' he said. 'We've got to also fight it as a battle of hearts and minds.'

#15: Agreed.
#16: If you "really don't know" why write in?
As to the prior part of your post you say what I said is " 'pull out now" just a little better thought out.'" Agreed. "If a bloody sectarian civil war spreading throughout the Middle East doesn't concern you" -- err, I didn't say it doesn't concern me, I said we can't do anything about it -- as you aptly quote me [" ('If the Iraqis just can't help slaughtering each other, there's nothing we can do to stop it'"), let me present another scenario." You say "If civil war breaks out and we are no longer there, what's to stop Iran from moving in to 'ensure the peace.'" You say " I don't think the real danger is that Al Qaeda will set up a base there, it's that Iran will happily fill in for us if we leave a power vacuum next door. Not good unless you fancy a war with Iran as well." Well gee ...can we think a bit before we rush to war again? First of all, your scenario just presents a possible downside and bitching about consequences of plan A is just silly unless you have a plan B you are advocating, which you don't.

I don't reeally care if Iran takes part of Iraq. I would care if Iran and Saudi Arabia got in a fight. I don't think they will. They would both rather make money selling us oil.

So nmaybe they will divvy up Iraq. It's like the Balkans all over again after the death of the Ottoman Empire. We don't like it, it's unfair to ethnic groups, it presents risks of bigger conflagration...but what are we going to do about it short of sending in a force of what, about 2 million troops ?
We just have to live with some badness in the world because we can't do anything about everything that may hurt us. We really have to focus on what is likely to present an imminent threat of actual harm.

Even Rome knew this, they bounded the Empire at the Rhine River....and the Euphrates.

Sure sometimes this didn't work but more often it did. You just have to get out of some areas, you really cannot police the world.

#17: Grow up. We can talk about more than one subject at a time. In this case the two subjects are highly interrelated and anyway we can (a) have a foreign policy, and (b) deal with impeachment and also (c) other domestic issues. Come on. It would be a major victory to get any impeachment going, saying if we do, we'll have to drop everything else that matters is just....dumb.

Posted by Cincinatus | July 1, 2007 9:57 PM
15


word.

Posted by K X One | July 1, 2007 10:03 PM
16


word.

Posted by K X One | July 1, 2007 10:03 PM
17

Damn buggy Slog-comment program screwed up where my post shoulda been and made it two!

Nevermind.

Posted by K X One | July 1, 2007 10:05 PM
18

Eh. They're fucked no matter what, and yes, we're the ones who will deserve the blame for the escalation of the ongoing refugee crisis. The fact of the matter is, there is no good way out of Iraq, and a castastrophe (good thing Arabic has such an expansive vocabulary; An-Naqba, the Catastrophe, is already taken by the Palestinians)is bound to follow. I advocate taking the same damn position we did after Vietnam. We airlift out as many refugees as we can on our way out, and open our doors to all Iraqis who made it to our borders or embassies.

They'll have the same problems of assimilation that the Hmong and Vietnamese did, and we'll no doubt put them in a place with a climate and culture as alien to them as possible (50,000 child marrying, polygamous, tropical mountain Hmong in Minneapolis), but after a generation or two, they'll be fine.

Stick around in Kurdistan, get them to hold off on a formal declaration of independence until the Turks can be convinced that they have no revanchist intentions on Turkish Kurdistan, and work with them on keeping PKK guerillas out of Turkey. Perhaps we can even convince them to keep (or start) calling themselves Iraqis until the rest of Iraq settles out, much the way Serbia remained Yugoslavia until Montenegro gained independence.

Finally, barring a regime so unpalatable as to be pariahs to even the Iranis, as the Taliban were, recognize whoever wins the Iraqi Civil War, and maintain good diplomatic relations with lots and lots of UN administered humanitarian aid.

But as I've said many times before, the lives I'm most concerned with are American. I want our troops out of there as fast as humanly possible.

Posted by Gitai | July 1, 2007 10:24 PM
19

@16 On a strictly geopolitical point of view, it would be advantageous to the US if Iran moved in on part of Iraq. Either the mullahs would bring a level of peace and stability to Iran that we cannot, thanks to their long history going back to Safavid rule, and the deep respect many Shi'as have for them, or they'd be seen as invaders, thanks to their long history going back to Safavid rule, and all the shit that we're dealing with now will be their problem, meaning the Iranis won't have the time or energy to fuck with us.

Either way, it would be more good fortune than we deserve.

Posted by Gitai | July 1, 2007 10:56 PM
20

I think flamingbanjo nailed it, as usual. And I would take that back to the Slog post we're commenting on here: the reason some people can't let go of how we got into the war is that the question of how we got into it has strong implications about how or if we can get out of it.

We deserve what the fates have in store for us in any event.

Posted by Judah | July 1, 2007 11:45 PM
21

@18-- I think if you read my post, in the end I tepidly endorse a balkanization of Iraq. I just don't know that that doesn't end up with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey at each other's throats. It's true they want to make money selling us oil, but there's an awful lot of it in Iraq for them to fight over. And I wouldn't undersell the threat of Iran to our interests in the region, whether you think our interests are justified or not. Iranian control of Iraq certainly doesn't make us safer anywhere, and might provoke Sunni nations, like Saudi Arabia, to step in to protect their own. To not at least consider that it could spread into a regional conflict seems shortsighted.

@22-- "Finally, barring a regime so unpalatable as to be pariahs to even the Iranis, as the Taliban were, recognize whoever wins the Iraqi Civil War, and maintain good diplomatic relations with lots and lots of UN administered humanitarian aid." What kind of regime do you think is going to come out of a civil war like this that would be palatable to us? Much less to Iraq's neighbors? Seems like you're betting on a long shot there. You'd be lucky to get another Saddam. I also don't understand how some people can be so callous about condemning millions of people to a bloody civil war that we indirectly caused. It will surely only push US global prestige even lower. How can we have any moral credibility trying to stop the genocide in Darfur if there is also genocide happening in Iraq because of our actions?

As for Kurdistan, I think Turkey would have a hard time with independence regardless of the aspirations of the new Kurdish republic. It's the aspirations of the Kurds within their borders that matter.

Clearly, to get out of Iraq we need a new leader with the global prestige and vision build a coalition to get things done. Do any of the Dem contenders have the right stuff? (Obviously the GOP doesn't.) The danger is that if we pull out and the situation goes to hell, the Neocons are going to come roaring back to power for the long term. There's no clear, clean, and easy solutions here. That's what I meant by "I don't know." But I hope the dialogue will move beyond "stay the course" and... Well, read the first post in this thread to see the other side.

Posted by Mr Me | July 2, 2007 1:01 AM
22

Speaking of Iran, I just saw this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070702/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Posted by Mr Me | July 2, 2007 1:03 AM
23

The next president should make Bush the new Iraq Ambassador. Then they should cut the funding for anything Iraq to zero.

Posted by xx | July 2, 2007 4:07 AM
24

I think opponets of the war should spend more time in the real world organizing the antiwar majority, and less time trying to change The Stranger.
Good things are happening, 2000 people rallied at the Bush home in Main on Sunday against the war. 10,000 people took part in the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta, stopping the war was a big focus. (expect a snarky attack article about the social froum soon in The Stranger) marches and rallies are planned this fall by citizens all over the U.S.
Maybe we expect The Stranger to be somewhat progressive just because they are "alternative", but when push comes to shove they likely line up with U.S. foreign policies. Despite surface differences there is really no day light between Dan Savage at The Stranger and Joel Connelly at The P.I. about Iraq or future wars.

Posted by rich | July 2, 2007 7:28 AM
25

So, Rich, I have to ask: what the fuck good does marching do, exactly? I seem to remember marching with about 15,000 other people to stop the war and, weirdly enough, didn't do a damn bit of good.

There are elements within our government who are actually launching pretty straightforward attacks on the Bush administration and it's policies-- impeachment proceedings, GOA, etc. --and being rebuffed at every turn. There's a surprising amount of establishment support for anti-war views, but the establishment isn't working the way it's supposed to. So that raises a different question: how badly is the system malfunctioning and what kind of response is appropriate from the electorate? Some people will answer that question with rhetoric about mass protests and some kind of "democratic revolution" but I think the amount and type of adjustment that will be required-- and the amount that is possible, in any case --is actually relatively subtle.

Posted by Judah | July 2, 2007 9:09 AM
26

Judah, all we can do is try. Be it more marching, petittions, vigils, lobbying Congress, etc. The fact is marching and protests of all sorts had a huge effect on U.S. policy in Vietnam. We hepled end the war before the government wanted to do so. The government's own documents, The Pentagon Papers, confirm the impact that protests had on policy planning.
Current supporters of the Iraq war like The Stranger realize that protests are effective, otherwise they would not spend so much ink attacking the peace movement. I think we can make a difference, not only about Iraq, but making it more difficult for the U.S. to attack Iran by building effective opposition to the current war.
The Stranger is just one tiny voice compared to say the P.I or Times or most electronic media.
As a veternan of the old peace movement I found that just forging ahead and ignoring the media while joining with others is very effective.
I believe we can not only "fight city hall", but we can fight the federal government and win. Just ask history.

Posted by rich | July 2, 2007 9:40 AM
27

So back when the war was being debated, you had a concrete position. But now that withdrawal is being debated, your position is that we need an adult position? Perhaps you could model this thinking for us rather than lecture anti-war opponents for being childish?

Posted by wf | July 2, 2007 9:55 AM
28

I'd agree that Americans are at their best when focused and pragmatic. However, I think it's fair to rehash the decisions that got us into Iraq. It wasn't about bad planning, or the republicans cronic inability to govern large institutions. There is a long streak of rewriting the Vietnam war narrative in red-bating, Rambo terms that lent itself nicely to the Iraq war narrative. Whether the post 9/11 flag-waving fever dream was a legitimate part of the debate or not is still up for grabs. And that narrative needs to be ruthlessly desentimentalized until we can include the whole country in a debate over our foreign policy, instead of this Straussian freedom vs. terrorism script. We need more than 10% of the country that's willing to seriously consider our national interests (resources (oil), costs, colonialism, etc.) Because if England is any indication, it's only going to get worse.

Posted by Taargus Taargus | July 2, 2007 10:00 AM
29

@25 I foresee another strongman, possibly a minor figure from Saddam's regime who's gained credibility by being a resistance figure, but one without a reputation of being a favorite of the old regime, or I forsee a theocracy on Irani lines. In other words, I forsee a brutal, repressive regime, with the only question being whether the brutality is top down or bottom up. Any regime that allows girls an education and women out of the house will be fine.

As for callousness, we're talking about geopolitics here. "We have no eternal enemies, nor permanent allies. Only our interests are eternal." Our interests dictate that we cease wasting blood and treasure in Iraq, and for the sake of our reputation, which is secondary to preventing the collapse of our military and economy, do right by the millions of refugees that continue to be created. It's going to be a matter of decades to regain moral authority, even with our best efforts, and by that time, the Iraqi Civil War will likely be over.

When we abandoned Saigon, we knew what would happen then. The North Vietnamese even gave us several opportunities to show that we would continue to back the Saigon government, but rather than comitting to the defense of corrupt government of our own creation, we let the South fall, knowing that millions of refugees would flee, that our friends remaining behind would be subject to retaliation, and the average person would be ruled by an authoritarian regime, but we knew that it was better for us to let all that happen than to remain in Vietnam. We're talking about grown up options, and being a grown up isn't about screaming that the options presented to us suck. It often means choosing between eating the shit sandwich and getting stabbed in the dick. Since we as a nation embarked on this path, this choice has been inevitable. It's just time to choose what damages us the least.

Posted by Gitai | July 2, 2007 10:00 AM
30

@25 I foresee another strongman, possibly a minor figure from Saddam's regime who's gained credibility by being a resistance figure, but one without a reputation of being a favorite of the old regime, or I forsee a theocracy on Irani lines. In other words, I forsee a brutal, repressive regime, with the only question being whether the brutality is top down or bottom up. Any regime that allows girls an education and women out of the house will be fine.

As for callousness, we're talking about geopolitics here. "We have no eternal enemies, nor permanent allies. Only our interests are eternal." Our interests dictate that we cease wasting blood and treasure in Iraq, and for the sake of our reputation, which is secondary to preventing the collapse of our military and economy, do right by the millions of refugees that continue to be created. It's going to be a matter of decades to regain moral authority, even with our best efforts, and by that time, the Iraqi Civil War will likely be over.

When we abandoned Saigon, we knew what would happen then. The North Vietnamese even gave us several opportunities to show that we would continue to back the Saigon government, but rather than comitting to the defense of corrupt government of our own creation, we let the South fall, knowing that millions of refugees would flee, that our friends remaining behind would be subject to retaliation, and the average person would be ruled by an authoritarian regime, but we knew that it was better for us to let all that happen than to remain in Vietnam. We're talking about grown up options, and being a grown up isn't about screaming that the options presented to us suck. It often means choosing between eating the shit sandwich and getting stabbed in the dick. Since we as a nation embarked on this path, this choice has been inevitable. It's just time to choose what damages us the least.

Posted by Gitai | July 2, 2007 10:00 AM
31

@31-- The Stranger is an Iraq war supporter? Really? This feeds into why protesting no longer works: A lack of focus. The Stranger has not featured "snarky" articles about the peace-protest movement because they support the war, but rather to point out how ineffective and unorganized the protest movement has become. Early on, I went to one rally against the war, but it seemed that nobody got the message that it was an anti-war protest, not a platform to gain exposure for every fringe cause in the book, from PETA to the communist party (who knew they were still around?). Sometime during the anti-G8 summit hey-hey-ho-hoing, I gave up and left. Yes, history shows ORGANIZED mass protest can work. But I hardly think that people were handed fliers about global banking conspiracies (as I was) during the march on Selma.

Posted by Mr Me | July 2, 2007 10:12 AM
32
The fact is marching and protests of all sorts had a huge effect on U.S. policy in Vietnam.

Uh, not really. I've read the Pentagon Papers too, and the role of mass protests in the thinking of the planners was hardly definitive. And also? The Pentagon Papers only go through the end of the Johnson administration. Nixon had a very different reaction to the protesters-- much closer to Bush's in tone.

As to "all we can do is try", I'm inclined to agree. But some people's version of "try" is different than yours. Personally, I'm inclined to think that yours will have little or no effect on the Bush administration. The mid-term elections were a much more eloquent and meaningful condemnation of Bush's policies than the peace marches, and I believe that raw electoral results are little changed by large demonstrations-- particularly when those large demonstrations have giant puppets and shit that give people in the Midwest the impression that the demonstrators are a bunch of urban liberals and freaks who aren't taking the situation seriously. In point of fact, I would be inclined to think that demonstrations of that sort are actually counterproductive in forming coalitions with voters whose manufacturing jobs went overseas on the same day their son came home in a box.

But maybe I'm too conservative in my thinking.

Posted by Judah | July 2, 2007 12:11 PM
33

Judah, I would direct your attention to some of the Nixon White House tapes.
There are a number of conversations between Kissinger and Nixon where they discuss the timing of escalations of warfare in relation to approaching peace rallies in the Capitol.
I think we should not underestimate the power of people in the streets and other kinds of organized opposition to government policy.

Posted by rich | July 2, 2007 1:51 PM
34

38: Well, people will invent any excuse they can to be apolitical. That's how Americans get out of responsibility. "I can't affect anything so fuck it." It's the easiest way to surrender their duty as citizens.

Posted by Jay | July 2, 2007 2:10 PM
35

Rich-

Fine, your generation matters ever bit as much as it's always believed it does. Go with god.

@39

I'm sorry, are you suggesting that my decision to pursue methods other than walking down the middle of the street chanting "This is what democracy looks like!" while my government is being hijacked by lobbyists and defense contractors qualifies me as "apolitical"?

Posted by Judah | July 2, 2007 2:19 PM
36

Judah: I'm just being an asshole. I know there are other methods, I just don't think they automatically invalidate protests. The fact is, and I know you know this, the political process is a multi-tiered, multi-faceted process. Just as there are no single causes for historical events, there is no single strategy for affecting change. Even if the protests are a relatively small part of the process, and I think we'd both agree that their overall effect this time out is pretty small, they're still a necessary part. It's several strategies operating at once that fosters change. The protests change nothing alone, but they play the important role of publicizing the opposition. Just voting or lobbying or letter writing, especially when taken alone, are no more effective than protesting alone. Political change happens on every level.

Posted by Jay | July 2, 2007 4:20 PM
37

Judah, your response to the post by #39 seems off the wall. I think he simply was saying that there are lessons from history that are useful in 2007. Our generation matters as much as the boomers, no more, no less.

Posted by Clarence | July 3, 2007 5:29 AM

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