Anti-War Demonstrations- Déjà vu.
The recent demonstrations against the U.S.A. and its policies in Iraq and its war against Al Qaeda and other terrorists has a familiar ring.. The so-called peace activists and anti-war groups have been around for a long time. The media gives full-coverage to the anti-war demonstrations. The question is who is behind these demonstrations, who leads them, organizes them, funds them and makes certain that the Media takes notice?
The hate US groups have their roots as far back as the 1920’s when their answer to capitalism was communism. An interesting phenomenon took took place in Berkeley ,California (Where else) on December 12, 1941 just five days after Pearl Harbor was bombed. The City Council of Berkeley, Calif approved by 5-4 a resolution condeming as “warmongering” the recent U.S. declaration of war on Japan. In a statement, the council deplores “violence as a means of settling international disputes and urges President Roosevelt to “sit down with the Japanese ambasador in Washington and “enter into a meaningful, non-gender or race-based dialogue.” On December, 13 1941, Mavis Montag in an article for the New Yorker, suggests that the U.S has only itself to blame for the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, she expresses satisfaction that America is now formally at war with Germany and will thus “be forced to aid the heroic struggle of the Soviet Union". There is more but I think that the reader can get the idea.
While I was in ROTC at UC Berkeley during the Korean War, there were demonstrations at Sather Gate almost every day condeming America for its participation in the war against North Korea. The same basic demonstrators with the same message as in 1941 were at it again. I don’t have to remind you of Viet Nam, the first Gulf War and the present conflict in Iraq. These demonstrators are vetetans of organized political opposition, men and women of the anti-war, anti-Israel, anti-capitalism, and anti-US left and proud of it. Check the web site of United for Peace and Justice and see what groups are listed under their banner. These people will never understand how this country obtained its freedoms and its prosperity. They are not a happy lot and cannot tolerate a different opinion or idea from the so-called main-stream American. They consider themselves more intelligent than the great mass of Americans and would do anything to change our system of capitalism and democracy. I have one suggestion. Maybe they should adopt a terrorist and choose one of those nice fellas that we are holding at Guantanamo Bay.
Gary E. Marsella