Good trouble

Continuing with the topic of non violent protest, we come to the idea of “good trouble” which became associated with John Lewis the civil rights advocate with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the long time member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."

John Lewis in a tweet in June, 2018.

For more click here.

The bumper sticker, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

Changing hearts and minds about military conflict.

The ways in which protest influences policy are not always apparent. Movements can win even as they appear to lose. While the anti-war movement did not prevent the invasion of Iraq, it helped set the terms of the debate by insisting on UN approval for the use of force and by convincing key governments to refuse to participate, thereby shaping the war’s eventual outcome. The Bush administration was unable to win the larger struggle for hearts and minds at home and abroad. The White House lost the war politically before it ever began militarily. For more click here.

Editor’s note: America has always been a “can do” nation expecting fast if not immediate results. Election cycles are very short from 2 years in the House of Representatives, to 4 years as president, and 6 years as a senator. Therefore Americans have never been good at the long game.

Changing hearts and minds is a generational thing. It takes ten years at least and often the older generation has to die off before the new values, norms, attitudes, and beliefs become predominant.

The anti-military thought system has been slowly growing since Vietnam. Younger generations are against it to resolve international conflicts as there is a growing awareness that our mutual fate on planet Earth depends on resolving our conflicts in other than violent ways and that cooperation and collaboration are the path forward.

When will we ever learn that war is not the solution?

When Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the Security Council in February 2003, however, he was decisively rebuffed. Despite its determined efforts to twist arms, the US was only able to muster the votes of the UK, Bulgaria, and Spain. Rather than face the humiliation of such a paltry showing, the White House withdrew the proposed resolution and proceeded with the attack.

Bush’s so-called “coalition of the willing” was a threadbare arrangement that provided little military help. The massive scale of public opposition prevented many countries from joining and convinced most of those that did to limit their role to noncombat duties. The US Army history says the coalition was “largely unsuccessful” at the operational level, with American troops doing almost all of the fighting and suffering 93 percent of the casualties.

Colin Powell’s disingenuous presentation to the UN about the “WMD”, weapons of mass destruction, when the UN’s own inspection team headed by Hans Blix had not found any evidence of was the end of Powell’s political career and brought shame to the government of the U.S. in the international community.

Further, the lie that the war into Iraq was a multinational affair has been exposed even though it goes unacknowledged by the American people. These lies which attempt to justify military aggression by the United States need exposure if the American people are to learn from their mistakes and make amends for the harm they have perpetrated. As the chorus in the old folk song Where have all the flowers gone? “When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?” The time is now. Non violent resistance is a path to raising our cultural consciousness and lead to better social policies.

Do protests matter?

David Cortright has a great article in The Nation, 02/20-27/23 issue entitled "Why Protest Matters.

On February 15, 2003, in hundreds of cities across the world, some 10 million people demonstrated against the United States’ impending invasion of Iraq. By many accounts, it was the largest single day of anti-war protest in history. More than a million people jammed London’s center, while huge throngs marched in Rome, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, and Sydney. In New York City, hundreds of thousands braved the bitter cold to rally against the war.

“The world says no to war” was the slogan and the reality.

A few days after the February demonstrations, the New York Times reporter Patrick Tyler wrote that the huge anti-war demonstrations were indications of “two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.” The Nation’s Jonathan Schell wrote of the movement’s “immense power” in winning the hearts and minds of the majority of the world’s people.

10 Million around the planet earth protested the U.S. Iraq war which the U.S. started anyway which has been called "criminal" by the U.N.

While the protests did not stop the U.S., 20 years later, increasingly, the Iraq war is a source of shame especially for politicians who voted for it and promoted it.

What have Americans learned from their blunder into Afghanistan and Iraq? In the short run very little, but in the long run we can be hopeful and Americans will learn from their military hubris.