Last month, I went up to Vancouver for a couple days. Vancouver is a lovely city. There was a documentary showing on the Weathermen Underground. For those of you who, like myself, grew up in the 80's, the name may be unfamiliar. The Weathermen Underground was the Vietnam protest-era's version of a terrorist group. The one big difference is they didn't kill anyone but themselves, in a bomb accident. Otherwise, they blew up offices and buildings in the government and especially prison system when no one was there and with ample warning to clear the area. The bombings always had a symbolic meaning, accompanied by an anonymous press release explaining why this prison office, for example, was being demolished in protest for the killing of that Black Panther by prison guards. The Weathermen Underground were never caught until they turned themselves in, and most of them escaped jail, because the F.B.I. had broken so many laws pursuing them. I got a lot out of the movie in terms of feeling and understanding the Vietnam era. Since I am committed to non-violence, I disagreed with the Weathermen Underground's tactics. Through the movie, though, I felt, viscerally, what it was like to live under America's war against Vietnam - how bloody insane that was for people.

It was hard not to think of today. Groups like Al Qaeda, although from a very different worldview, attack both the military and symbols of global trade, as the Weathermen Underground did - only Al Qaeda kills. American troops are in a drawn-out occupation of Iraq. And the central insight of the movie is still with us: American power manipulates and dominates large parts of the world, and American people are to a large degree clueless of the way our country can be seen, reasonably, as imperialistic. The Weathermen movie was remarkably powerful in showing how 60's-educated activists realized this fact about American foreign policy with very clear minds. Their minds were so clear, in fact, they became overwhelmed and retreated to violent positions. There was a shot near the end of the movie taken as a plane dropped Napalm on a village in Vietnam, taken from the back of the plane so that you see, progressively, explosion after explosion trailing off away from the camera, as literally fragments of building fly up ahead almost to the next spot where a bomb lands. As the shot is shown, the voice of the Weatherman organizer Mark is overdubbed, saying that he saw how America treated parts of the world, and didn't know what to do about it, still doesn't today, but the fact has haunted him his whole life.

It still must. America is still doing what, in essence, America did in Vietnam. The government just keeps the reporters out from the scene of action, now, controls who sees what more effectively. Still, we see the body counts, probably reduced. There's a guerilla war now in Iraq. Meanwhile, there is such a lull of awareness or passion in America. Life seems on cruise control, with few people at all protesting or taking to the streets. It's almost as if people think the war will just go away, already has, any second now....

Unlike the Weathermen Underground, I don't believe the answer is to blow up symbolic things. "The" answerS (plural) need to be non-violent and democratic, for moral reasons. What are we to do in this lull around the war?
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There are arguments that complicate the position presented here, though. The other side of the story argues that America's involvement in Iraq is a geo-political move aimed at securing long-range freedom for this country and also, as a side-benefit, for other people in the world. One problem with this justification of occupying Iraq is that the freedom this country is founded on, what, ideologically, is the essence of America, is not a country-partial freedom, but a country-impartial freedom. Our constitution and our Declaration of Independence assume that all human beings have a right to treatment as free humans, and have this right equally. In the context of the argument for America's self-interest, our country's idea of freedom entails that acting for American freedom over or at the expense of the freedom of other countries is, precisely, un-American. This is why President Bush emphasized that he thinks America's current wars are for "freedom." He needs to paint our wars as consistent with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to make them seem American. But they are not consistent with our founding idea of freedom, an idea that is not "country-partial."

To be consistent with our founding idea of freedom, we must do what we do consistent with all people being treated equally as free. To sacrifice someone else's freedom for your own is not consistent with equal freedom. The heart of the matter seems to me to be this: American "real-politik" has not caught up with America's founding ideas. There is a contradiction in the heart of our country's political ideology. It is not consistent both to advocate for American self-interest at the expense of others and to advocate for equal freedom.
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The Weathermen Underground went violent in an almost anonymous expression of public activism. Against the anonymity of American power, they exercised a counter-anonymity of revolutionary anarchy. Is there another form of voice that does not reinforce the impersonal anarchy of living under imperialistic power? This is a question that haunts me now.

For the time being, happily, there is one concrete goal, though: vote Bush out of office. Perhaps this is where the activist spirit has gone. A critical interlocutor pointed out to me that protest against the war was at an all-time world high before the war broke out. This is true - on February 15th of this year, the most people ever to protest in unison protested the war, and did so worldwide - millions and millions of people. The photos were staggering and beautiful. What my critic pointed out is that perhaps people have stopped now, because it doesn't look like protests work. After all, we had all those protests, and they didn't stop Bush and company. At the same time, criticism of Bush in the mainstream of America is at an all-time high, and Time magazine recently published a front-page story which was half on why Bush is so questionable. Bush's ratings are at an all-time low. Perhaps people have turned to slowly eroding his presidency instead of taking to the streets. Perhaps there is no lull around the war.

This critic also pointed out that the war with Vietnam was much more serious in terms of the body count. Furthermore, it was only when the count got astronomic that people here started taking to the streets. Perhaps Iraq is not "serious" enough yet, from a sociological point of view. She pointed out these statistics:

IRAQ
Estimated number of US soldiers killed in Iraq 440
Estimated number of Iraqis killed 7927 and 9758


VIETNAM
Estimated number of US soldiers killed in Vietnam 58,169 - 58,193
Number of South Vietnamese military personnel killed during war.....220,357
Estimated number of North Vietnamese military and Viet Cong KIA...444,000
Estimated number of Vietnamese civilians killed in war...................587,000


Statistically, Iraq is a drop in the bucket. Existentially, though, Iraq is the death of someone's grandmother, of a child, of someone's eighteen year old from Littleton, Colorado. To ape the credit card ad -- irreplaceable.

For moral reasons, we need to do more than just wait for the elections to roll through. I wish we could make clear the human costs of the present American imperialism.
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One thing people could do is figure out a better plan. That's not romantic, and hardly revolutionary, but it could help. The fact is, Iraq is in shambles. What should the world community do to help? America needs to pull out, make reparations -but what would happen if the factionalism brewing there erupted in full scale? Is there a way to involve people there more in their own self-rule? To have neighboring Arab states be more in control of the situation? To have the United Nations be truly impartial and not just an often-time tool of the West?
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Recently, a cadet at the Air Force Academy contacted me to ask for advice. He had to stage a mock coffee house for younger cadets as part of their leadership training. In that house, he wanted them to confront citizens with critical voices. Here are a couple he considered using:

Critical civilians:

1. Voice of a guy, age 20-25: "Hey, you guys, you just do other people's orders. I know a lot of you don't agree that bombing innocent civilians, killing them and calling it "collatoral damage" is alright. Like, go tell that to the grandmother of a blown -up grandkid: Hey, grandma, I'm sorry we just did "collatoral damage" to little Joey. Tell me she won't puke in your face. ... Anyway, I know some of you guys don't think that kind of killing is O.K. Some of you say confidentially that you are sick of being abused by Chicken Hawks that make you go colonize oil rich countries for them while you sit back and do nothing about places like the Congo, Sierra Leone or Rwanda where people are being butchered left and right and nobody cares because even though freedom is on the line, no riches are made. So tell me this: how come you think it's O.K. to follow orders that kill people for chicken hawks just so those chicken hawks can make $$$ for their corporate sponsers?

"For real, though, I know I'm sounding pissed. I respect you guys, but I just can't stomach you guys and our country being used for bullshit wars that kill innocent people for oil. And all because you have to follow some orders by chickenhawks that you don't even respect, because they've never fought, are clueless and greedy. Why don't you people use your consciences and object? When do you use your consciences? For real, I'm not being an asshole, even though I sound pissy."

2. Voice of a nun, age 65-70: "What you cadets don't understand is that war is not a necessary feature of life. You look at us nuns and think we are all starry eyed dreamers . But we are not. We understand that the world is caught in awful spirals of bloodshed. But what we don't mindlessly do is affirm the status quo: we worry you do. So many of you think that war is a necessary feature of human nature. What you don't understand is that we are trained to think war is natural, and you are part of that training, part of the system that must be changed. Our whole culture preaches war through indirect means: check the media, movies, videogames, the news, our leaders, history books. Most importantly, look at the global arms trade and the way it also supports global oil. What do you say to being part of the problem, not its solution? I mean, please be real --don't just brush us aside as idealists, because we are not. We are making a very serious point that the world's best educators have made in many different traditions, from psychology to religion."

I do not know if these voices were used, but it sounded like some like them were. There are many eddies of activity in our world, and at the Air Force Academy, too, there are people who are developing their consciences.

The point is not that just voting Bush out of office, protesting, or getting cadets to be self-critical singly or together is enough -although the vote would help big time. The point is, the lull around the war -if there really is one- is complicated. As complicated people, not simple romantics, let's remember that when we roll up our sleeves.

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