Summary: The Million Vet March is typical citizen activism in America, much like the Occupy movement’s street parties. Naive, weak leadership. Poorly conceived goals (the GOP, not Obama, shut down the government). Delusional thinking about the breath of their appeal (“million man”). And a lack of internal discipline (tolerance of off-point or even inappropriate messages). They are nice men and women, but rebels without a cause. Futility in motion, typical of peasants’ protests — venting frustration that if well-directed might threaten the regime.
Still, this might portend greater events in our future. These are fine political shock troops, needing only someone to give them focus and direction. Someone to forge them into a powerful political force.
By John Aaravois @aravois
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“Obama must go!”
“Shut down the White House!”
Slogans chanted at the Million Vet March
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Contents
- ABC describes the event
- Typical Tea Party false packaging
- CNN describes the event
- Good advice from long ago
- An honest statement of their naivete
- They don’t care about the real outrage
- For More Information
(1) ABC describes the event
“Thousands Protest Closures During ‘Million Vet March’“, ABC News, 13 October 2013:
Thousands of protesters descended on Washington D.C. today to protest the closure of national war memorials as a result of the government shutdown. The protesters broke through barricades at the World War II memorial today as part of the “Million Vet March.” The memorial has been closed since Oct. 1, when the shutdown began. … As they took apart barricades protesters chanted “Tear down these walls,” in addition to singing patriotic songs such as “God Bless America.”
… A few high profile political figures also appeared at the rally including Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and GOP vice presidential candidate. “Let me ask a simple question,” Cruz told the crowd. “Why is the federal government spending money to erect barricades to keep veterans out of this memorial?”
The march organizers, however, tried to keep partisan politics out of the protest. In a Facebook post for the protest, organizers said all elected officials — and the people who voted them into office — were to blame for the shutdown.
(2) Typical Tea Party false packaging
The event looks like the false packaging typical of the Tea Party. Mostly hard core Republicans, they claim to be Independents. They stage an event as a non-partisan protest on an unobjectionable cause (“Open the memorials”), and use it to attack the President. These tactics are necessary for an unpopular minority to get favorable attention while they shut down the government — against the wishes of a large majority of Americans.
Jim Acosta of CNN, on Twitter :”US Park Police have arrived in front of WH. Some in riot gear! Tea party/veteran protesters start booing.”
(3) CNN describes the event
“Rallier tells Obama to ‘put the Quran down’“, CNN, 13 October 2013:
High-profile speakers with close ties to the tea party appeared at the event, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The rally, billed as the “Million Vet March on the Memorials,” … evolved into a protest that resembled familiar tea party events from 2009, with yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” flags throughout the crowd and strong anti-Obama language from the podium and the audience.
One speaker went as far as saying the president was a Muslim and separately urged the crowd of hundreds to initiate a peaceful uprising. “I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up,” said Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, a conservative political advocacy group.
… “This is the people’s memorial. Let me ask a simple question. Why is the federal government spending money to erect barricades to keep veterans out of this memorial?” {Senator Ted Cruz} asked. “Our veterans should be above politics. Enough games.”
… “You look around though and you see these barricades and you have to ask yourself, is this any way that a commander in chief would show his respect, his gratitude to our military? This is a matter of shutdown priorities,” Palin said.
(4) Good advice from long ago
“Max, you’re a good boy. But there just ain’t no demand for good boys.”
— Sound advice to a young man, from Robert Heinlein’s Starman Jones (1953)
(5) An honest statement of their naivete
Posted by the organizers on their Facebook page, expressing surprise at how their event was exploited for political gain by their fellow conservatives. Excerpt:
For some, it is hard to separate the politics from the issue at hand. Some will blame the President, some will blame the Congress. Make no mistake about it Americans. We, as Americans, voted everyone of our elected officials into office. We are ALL responsible for this mess. It is up to us, as Americans to correct this mess. We all have opinions, but we need to drop them and get to the business of fixing what is wrong with our government, not what is wrong with America. America is a great nation with people from all over the world and to blame one party, faction or group over another is counter productive to democracy in a Constitutional republic.
Why were Veterans prevented from visiting their memorials and monuments dedicated in their honor? We don’t know. We would really like to know the justification for why this was done. However, to us, it is one issue. Monuments, Memorials and Parks dedicated to honor the sacrifices of our American Veterans and their brothers and sisters-in-arms know NO politics.
… It is our official position that the purpose of this march and the accompanying rallies is focused on the re-opening of the Veterans memorials and keeping them open. While we understand that a Constitutional republic requires the equilibrium of checks and balances to maintain the democratic process, the memorials, monuments and parks built in honor of Veterans should NEVER be closed, blocked or restricted from use. We take the official position that no government office holder shall have ability to abridge the freedom of access to these hallowed grounds.
We have, as a group, been prevented from certain groups that have piggy-backed off our grassroots efforts, to effectively create a comprehensive media message campaign. We made the mistake of trying to partner with some Washington insiders that thwarted many of our genuine concerns for keeping this apolitical and grassroots. While we support many of those groups common causes for Veterans, we do not support the manner in which they go about it. We chose instead to not incite or create panic.
(6) Update: They don’t care about the real outrage
“The WWII Memorial Protest: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing“, Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 14 October 2013 — “Conservatives rally on behalf of veterans and liberty in a way that does nothing to advance either cause.” Excerpt:
What actually bothers me most about this little rally is what it says about the priorities of Tea Party leaders like Senator Cruz and Sarah Palin, and the rank-and-file conservative activists who trudged out to the World War II Memorial to protest its closure. They speak the language of liberty in expressing outrage at the metal barricades, insisting that it’s an insult to soldiers who risked their lives to beat the fascists. Meanwhile, the Veterans Affairs Department has furloughed almost 8,000 employees (half are veterans). Its backlog of disability applications has been increasing for the duration.
… And even when the federal government is functioning normally, it fails to adequately care for the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who are suffering from high rates of suicide, PTSD and joblessness, in large part due to the wars of choice they were asked to fight and that conservatives, who are still allied with a faction of haws urging even more wars of choice, overwhelmingly backed.
On liberty, Tea Party leaders, including Senator Cruz, have spoken out against domestic use of drones, and many Tea Partiers are better than President Obama on the subject of surveillance, at least in their rhetoric. At the same time, protesting temporary barricades at the WWII Memorial in the name of liberty seems rather absurd at a time when every single American is having their phone records and Web behavior monitored by surveillance agencies, laptops and other electronic devices are being seized without even the need for reasonable suspicion at airports and other border crossings, whistleblowers are being persecuted for telling the American public the truth about surveillance, and the NSA invests more money to further increase its activities.
… What I think, when I see that memorial closures are the thing that gets conservatives in the streets, is that movement leaders and rank-and-file activists alike cannot be counted on to identify and take on the most serious issues facing veterans, or the most serious threats to liberty. Instead they spend their time seizing on symbolic issues that promise to result in the best optics for a given news cycle — World War II veterans traveled to Washington and can’t visit the memorial dedicated to them!
(7) For More Information
(a) Articles about the March:
- Yes, the parks were shut in 1995: “How the National Parks Became the Biggest Battleground in the Shutdown“, Garance Franke-Ruta, The Atlantic, 11 October 2013 — “This time is different from 1995, thanks to new media and the post-9/11 security environment. But there are surprising similarities, too.”
- “The Battle of the World War II Memorial and the Final Victory Over Obama“, David Weigel, Slate, 14 October 2013
(b) References pages listing posts on the FM website:
(c) Posts about the right-wing of America:
- The key to modern American politics: the Right-Wing Id Unzipped, 15 February 2012
- A nation lit only by propaganda, 3 June 2013
- Gallup sounds an alarm, again, about our lack of confidence in ourselves, 25 July 2013
- Conservatives show us their thinking, not well glued to reality, 30 September 2013
- What are the odds of violence from the Right in America?, 2 October 2013
- Surveys look into the heart of GOP weirdness: belief in conspiracy theories, 3 October 2013
- The Oath Keepers want to give America its own Freikorps!, 11 October 2013
(d) About political protests and reform:
- Fixing American: taking responsibility is the first step, 17 August 2008
- Fixing America: the choices are elections, revolt, or passivity, 18 August 2008
- How to stage effective protests in the 21st century, 21 April 2009
- More people participating in politics: is this good for America?, 20 June 2010
- Five steps to fixing America, 19 October 2011
- How do protests like the TP and OWS differ from effective political action?, 26 October 2011
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