Blind Prophecy

For the most part, I missed out on yesterday’s Anti-War protests. San Francisco was much more interesting than the anti-war protests I attended back in Utah. At least 150 people were arrested during the day.

I did see some of the protests during my lunch break. It looked more like a scene out of V for Vendetta, though, with tons of cops in riot gear. I snapped a few photos.

One of the reasons I like Obama is the connection I feel with him over being against this war from the beginning. In February and March of 2003, I wrote two consecutive editorials in Out Las Vegas Bugle (which would eventually become QVegas) arguing that the political rhetoric building up to support an invasion was wrong-headed and there was no justification for a bloody conflict. I won’t pretend I had some deep understanding of international affairs or insight into the middle east, but I opposed an invasion on moral grounds. As a pacifist, it takes a great deal of persuasion to convince me that armed conflict is necessary. I said that war is murder and that innocent people will die.

At the time, with near-hysterical levels of “patriotism” still gripping much of the country, those editorial generated more hate mail than anything else I’d ever written. I got an anonymous letter of photocopied pages from Newsweek with a photo of a soldier carrying a child in Afghanistan and a black sharpie messages “Is this soldier a murderer?” Perhaps I’d chosen poor language in my editorials, but the irrationality, the knee-jerk emotion people had around this issue precluded rational discussion.

It’s tempting for me to get on my high horse now and say, “I told you so” to no one in particular. I try not to, because what’s the point, really? But watching a few minutes of yesterday’s protests, I couldn’t help but wonder, how many of these angry, emotional protesters were photocopying pages of Newsweek 5 years ago? Look, I’m glad more people agree with my view on this war these days, and I’m a strong believer in the power of protests, but the reports I’ve read and what little I saw of yesterday’s demonstrations didn’t impress me much. The antics, the violent (as opposed to nonviolent) tactics, and the emotional confrontations need to backed up by specific rational discussion in the public sphere that goes beyond a day of showmanship.

Filed under: politics by Jere Keys