T.T. Quotes 7 + 8: We Must Be Actively ANTI-WAR
Reflections on the ridiculous and reprehensible responses to this past Sunday's "Rage Against the War Machine" protest (that I attended) in D.C.
Opposing nuclear war shouldn’t be politically controversial… tolerating any ruling class escalation toward World War 3 from either side shouldn’t be socially acceptable at all among the innocent citizens who would actually be paying and even dying for it on BOTH sides… yet here we are.
Compared to my usual T.T. format, this post is an anomaly in several ways:
It’s being published on a Friday, not a Thursday, because today (Feb. 24th, 2023) is the exact one year “anniversary” of Russia invading Ukraine
It’ll be longer than usual… still as an informal stream of consciousness rather than a carefully reviewed final draft, just with more of my barely edited and loosely organized paragraphs
Out of Thoreau’s many, many great quotes, this is the first time I’ve used any of the more overtly political ones for a T.T. post
The main topic focuses on social squabbles — antiwar/libertarian public relations vs the RepubliCrat duopoly’s actively pro-war narratives — rather than my typical focus thus far on living more deliberately as an individual
This past Sunday, I attended the “Rage Against the War Machine” protest in Washington, D.C. — the belly of the beast for “our” Petrodollar Empire — at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, then over to the White House.
As the first antiwar protest of any significance in D.C. for at least the past decade, it was inevitable that the Military Industrial Complex and its corporate media propagandists would try to poison the surrounding narrative. Their outrageous amount of “sPeCiAl InTeReSt” fiat currency and power would be existentially threatened by the resurrection of a major antiwar movement among “the 99%” at scale.
(the 99% is a term that’s hardly used now, ever since Occupy Wall Street was successfully subverted, but it should become common again)
Main disingenuous attack topics used to frame this protest as Pro-Russia:
Russian flags
A few controversial speakers
“Small” crowd size
Certain prominent libertarians on Twitter also bashed the rally with unreasonable purity tests applied to the rally’s inclusively nonpartisan approach:
The more right leaning purity test was a refusal to join a single issue coalition for the survival of all humanity because it included anyone… even literal communists
More commonly, the left leaning “loser brigade” cowards were quick to parrot the Military Industrial Complex’s framing of this Anti-War gathering as Pro-Russia
I could go through each of those attack topics and debunk each one in detail. At some point in the near future, I might do exactly that as my first “Long Form Writings” post. I could combine that with an elaboration on this “quick and dirty” T.T. post to become more polished and thorough.
For now though, let’s “steel man” (the opposite of “straw man”) their disingenuous arguments (a courtesy they’d be unlikely to return btw). Hypothetically, we’ll assume that all of those attack points are valid, and even get taken to their logical extreme.
Imagine this protest was only attended by a single deplorable Alt-Right fascist, who idolizes Putin and Hitler, and was prominently waving a Nazi flag, while cheering on speeches that defend the most controversial pro-Russia perspectives, and booing anything else.
Even with all of that… the rally STILL would have been a significant net positive overall:
The rally’s official list of demands calls for an immediate ceasefire, and then negotiations to prevent all of humanity dying in nuclear World War 3
It breathed new life into the antiwar movement, which had virtually disappeared after Obama replaced Bush
It brought people together — which, even if the crowd only had that single person, would still apply to all the speakers meeting each other
Network effects are exponential, and this smaller one laid the groundwork for bigger protests or rallies in the future
Ron Paul was one of the speakers… enough said
Also, it’s really worth emphasizing this point:
The most evil person in every other way would still be making a commendable contribution by actively taking steps to prevent ***NUCLEAR*** World War 3
To quote Stannis Baratheon in the earlier seasons from Game of Thrones: “The good does not wash out the bad, nor the bad the good.”
Thoreau himself was EXTREMELY antiwar. Being actively pacifist is a major theme of his iconic essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” — a quintessential treatise of American ideals, which has famously inspired human rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, among many other nonviolent dissenters. It describes how Thoreau even went to jail as officially lawful punishment by his own government — at a time when slavery was still legal, by the way — because of his principled conviction and unwavering refusal to pay taxes in protest of a pro-slavery war.
Notice how the morally correct stance there was clearly NOT to side with U.S. imperialism. The same thing has proven to be true again since then, including multiple examples in much more recent history… Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and particularly Iraq come to mind. Again and again, the corrupt “special interests” controlling the U.S. petrodollar regime lied… again and again, millions of innocent people died as a direct result.
The current conflict in Ukraine is quite obviously a proxy war between NATO — primarily the U.S. — and Russia. It’s absolutely NOT ridiculous to question if BOTH sides were at fault in tensions reaching that point. Putin was wrong to invade Ukraine… but the U.S. was ALSO wrong to provoke him for years until Russia felt like a cornered animal and lashed out.
Both sides’ governments are mass murderers. For the citizens’ sake — and potentially all of humanity’s survival — there NEEDS to be a ceasefire and peace negotiations ASAP.
My main takeaways from this rambling, rushed post:
(my perfectionist standards are making this hard to publish in such an early draft level of quality)
Oppose nuclear World War 3 at all costs
Being antiwar is by definition NOT supporting either side of any conflict
Putin and NATO both suck… unsurprisingly, since it’s the nature of all Big Governments
Never blindly regurgitate the ruling class narratives — especially when doing so undermines the efforts of fellow liberty loving pacifists
Never even tolerate — let alone actively enable — the perpetuation of systemic slaughter
War is a racket
If you have a better way than this protest to promote peace, I’ll actively support that as well
