Mermaid Musings

Current mood: pensive

I was just reading about the War Resisters League’s latest issue of WIN magazine. Not much news there really, just the list of articles included and a depressing run-down of all the war-mongering that has occured this summer…and I’m wondering why there is so little response from the American people to stop this war-machine.

If polls are to be believed, most Americans think the Iraq war is a mistake, that the bombing of Lebanon is wrong and that invading Iran is a bad idea, so why is there not more outcry?  Why is there not more activism? What will it take to motivate Americans to get out of their barcaloungers and do something to stop this insanity?

I haven’t the slightest clue. Even looking at my own activism over the past few years, it has waned considerably. I could chalk it up to burnout, but I think if something inspiring were on the offer for me to participate in, I’d do it. I’m not that tired.

Just thinking about my involvement in the global justice movement, the direct actions and mass mobilizations that stopped the WTO, put the IMF and World Bank on the run and forced the G-8 into hiding, I can’t quite put my finger on what it was about those issues, those actions that inspired me (and thousands of others) to take to the streets and DO SOMETHING.

Part of me wants to think it is because war is really a symptom rather than a root cause and it’s just not effective to treat the symptoms and the anti-war movement has yet to articulate how to address the root causes of war. Personally, I think the global justice movement was well on its way to doing that. People were inspired, people were active, and we were getting somewhere. The big meetings of the power-brokers were hiding out in remote locations in countries where protest was illegal, policies were changing (just look at what happened in Cochabamba, Bolivia concerning the privatization of water).

Then 9/11 happened and the public terror of terrorism has trumped any debate, discussion, analysis of anything other than what alert color we’re on, what we’re allowed to carry on airplanes, and where to next drop our bombs on the axis of evil. If anything could convince me of 9/11 conspiracy theory, it’s the horrible chilling effect it has had on the nearly victorious global justice movement. I think it was orchestrated by the same goons who keep trying to force WTO, IMF and World Bank style neoliberal capitalism on the developing world. I have no proof, other than the results.

So how does the current state of almost all-out war relate to the unjust socio-political and economic prescriptions dictated by the global financial institutions? I think that’s the connection that has not been adequately made.

But there’s also the possibility that GW is so beholden to the extreme right, fundamentalist, end-of-the-world, anti-sex fanatics that he really has instituted a complete shift in geopolitics away from neo-colonialism through giant financial institutions controled by the corporate wealthy to a more cave-man approach of beating the world into colonial submission.

And that still begs the question, is war the symptom of a corrupt system or a root cause. Is it because war that we have social, political and economic injustice on a global level? or is war a result of grave social, political and economic injustice on a global scale?