In Us-and-Them World, Protesters Are on the Other Side

By JAMES LILEKS

c.2001 Newhouse News Service

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A progressive group called ActForChange has announced that it will send your disapproving e-mail to the Taliban. Direct from your warm, comfy dorm to diplomats in Pakistan. We can stop the Bush Death Juggernaut, friends -- just start typing for peace! One small problem: the Taliban itself. This is a government that beats people to death for playing cards. It takes a special breed of moral imbecile to believe their hearts will be softened by the entreaties of pacifistic spam.

But in the protesters' world, the actual effect of one's actions is immaterial. What counts is holding forth a standard that ensures your civilization dies in a state of moral purity. Every response to aggression should have the same effect as the Polish cavalry's assault on Nazi tanks -- gallant, doomed, and above all symbolic. Hence the march on D.C. last Saturday.

The International Action Center coordinated the rally -- and who are they, you ask? According to their Web site, they're dedicated to "resistance to U.S. militarism, war and corporate greed." Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark is one of their luminaries, and the site reflects his U.S.-Out-of-North-America worldview. Judging from the position papers and articles on the site, they live in that Bizarro world of American politics where Fidel Castro is a champion of freedom, Saddam Hussein is a victim, and North Korea is an innocent victim of American imperialism. These people would take Lex Luthor's side against Superman.

True to the belief that evil can best be combated with ponderous acronyms, they've assembled a new antiwar group, the International ANSWER. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). The list of signatories condemning Bush had all the usual suspects -- labor organizers from AFSCME, a Mumia Abu-Jamal advocate, Greens, dovish Jews, and other sorts who'd be shot on day one should the terrorists win.

The ANSWERites were busy protesting a war that had not started, had assumed no form -- indeed, they were protesting during a period in which the United States did exactly what the protesters demanded. The administration sought international approval and used non-military means to combat Osama bin Laden, i.e. diplomatic isolation, asset confiscation. You'd think the administration would get credit for that -- but no. Protesters have a script, and you can't move them off it.

"I don't think the solution to violence is more violence," said one protester. Let's remember that the next time the anti-globalists trash a neighborhood to protest genetically modified tomatoes.

Her opinion was echoed in another protest in Berlin, where anti-American marchers hung a sign that read "War is no solution."

One hates to bring up something as inconvenient as history, but war was a jack-dandy solution to that nation's Final Solution. By the protesters' logic, D-Day was just a big karmic disaster -- if we'd just waited, the Nazis would have collapsed of their weight, just like the U.S.S.R. Granted, it wouldn't have happened until 1977, and by then Europe would have been blond and blue-eyed from Gibraltar to the Urals. But at least we wouldn't have stooped to their level.

The protesters aren't invoking some universal ideal. They're very specific about who they hate -- Us -- and who gets a pass, namely Them. Every state that has implemented their ideals of egalitarian collectivism has resulted in tyranny, death and repression -- but apparently you have to break a few hundred million eggs to perfect your omelette recipe.

Every state whose cause they champion was birthed in war and violence, but somehow that's OK. If violence is bad, shouldn't Uncle Ho have just learned to love life under the French? Shouldn't Fidel have gotten a job as a croupier at a casino instead of being violent? Shouldn't the Sandinistas have sat down with the Contras and met them halfway?

Apparently there's violence, and there's "struggle." It's OK to fight a war on behalf of the "people." As long as the people aren't American.

Of course they have the right to protest. They have the right to demand the United States withdraw from the world. They're entitled to believe that the PLO and other such groups want coexistence with Israel. They're welcome to believe in the goodness of Yasser Arafat and the Loch Ness Monster. They're entitled to march, and chant, and e-mail, and light candles. They are, after all, Americans.

And Americans, as the protesters never tire of pointing out, are frequently idiots.

(James Lileks can be contacted at james.lileks@newhouse.com)

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), October 04, 2001

Answers

They should be judged by their own actions... Look at the last G-8 meeting in Italy. If the bastards did that bullshit in my town, I would hope my police force would not be so gentle as those damn Europeans were! Arrogant, self-centered assholes to the max, which is just a typical liberal. They've all made it clear that they are on the side of the terrorist, not our side. They hate this country soo much and everything we stand for, but yet, the cowardly bastards are the first to go running and hide behind the constitution and *cry* freedom of speech! Fuck 'em all!

-- Gary (gcphelps@yahoo.com), October 04, 2001.

You are swallowing the right wing propaganda hook, line and sinker.

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), October 04, 2001.

Gary: I think that both you and LAI are looking at dissent to something YOU like and expressing your opinions. I don't agree with those opinions. Public dissent IS guaranteed in the U.S. by the constitution. I may not LIKE all of it, and YOU may not like all of it, but suggesting that police should move in and shut it down is to suggest that we live in a police state. Would you really want that? What if it were YOUR group/opinions desired stifled?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 04, 2001.

Anita

The main difference is when I disagree (versus the dissenters in this article), I don't ever feel the need to destroy other people's property. I cannot find anywhere in the constitution where freedom of speech includes giving me the right to destroy property. These liberal, anti-globalist are no more than anarchist, plain and simple. Listen to them, they are so Anti - American, you can taste the venom they feel for us. Why should I just give up and let them terrorize my community, flaunt the laws in my country, and *try* to hide behind the constitution?

-- Gary (gcphelps@yahoo.com), October 04, 2001.

Anita tell the man about your true self. I am sure then he wont be dumb enough to even respond to you.

-- (LadyLogic2000@yahoo.com), October 04, 2001.

Gary: An anarchist is an anarchist. A liberal is just a liberal. Painting all liberals with a brush of anti-globalist anarchist is too broad a measure.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 04, 2001.

Gary,

precisely what property was destroyed on Saturday? Out of 200,000 demonstrators, only 3 were arrested--not because the police were letting demonstrators walk all over them, but because there were only a handful of idiots doing illegal, inappropriate things among the tens (hundreds) of thousands of peaceful, non-violent, patriotic demonstrators. You speak of hatred and venom; have you examined your own words, your own attitudes, your own actions?

-- Nick (nickihead@hotmail.com), October 28, 2002.