The March We Need: A March for Peace… or, at least, De-Escalation
Students march for gun control; women march for a variety of causes, and, well, against anything Trump; but who is marching for less American war in the Greater Middle East?
Why? Why isn’t there a passionate coalition willing to combat the American war machine? A machine that is, by now, on autopilot.
This weekend, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched to protest gun violence; in January, hundreds thousands of women – and their supporters – staged a second annual protest against all things Trump. Leaving aside the relative merits of each issue, the sheer number of marchers physically descending on various cities, rather than engaging in far easier social media activism, is impressive. Right or wrong in their convictions, these citizens, exercising their First Amendment rights, made this author proud…and then sad.
Sad because of what I know: that there is no constituency of any comparable size ready or willing to march against the single greatest disease in 21st century American society – creeping militarism and endless foreign war. As I write this, on a Sunday morning, I’m certain the key weekly television programs – “Meet the Press,” “This Week,” and “Face the Nation” – will focus on, at best, three issues. First: Russia-gate, the Left’s favorite daily soap opera; Second: gun violence, the NRA, and a nation divided over firearms; and, if we’re lucky, Third: the John Bolton appointment and the potential for a future war in Iran.
You can bet there will be hardly any mention of Yemen, Niger, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan – seven of the countries in which Americans have killed and been killed in the last year. There will be no cost-benefit analysis or discussions about which conflict – if any – is in America’s vital, national interest. There will be no nationwide antiwar protests to cover, no dissenting veterans interviewed, no investigative reporters on the ground with disgruntled local civilians in a Mideast locale. No, the Sunday shows will be all about politics, or at least what passes for political discourse these days, and, of course, the ongoing national culture wars.
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