[Sixstrings]

Was looking for Libya war news and got curious about what moveon.org has to say. I remember them being so strongly anti-war during the Bush years. They really kept up the fight on that.

So I checked it out:
http://front.moveon.org/

And the weird thing is.. they don't have a single thing to say now about the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Libya, or the latest push for regime change in Syria.

Instead it's all stuff like this:

"What Obamacare Has Done For Me"

"Where Did Fox's Viewers Go?"

"How A Birther Sees Obama's Birth Certificate"

Meanwhile, we still have soldiers dying in Iraq:
April deadliest month for US in Iraq since 2009
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.279588144c0fd58d312ca2e921687d3b.681&show_article=1

So what's up with this? How is it possible that what used to be THE pre-eminent anti-war movement just forgot all about their anti-war views? You'd think they'd have some kind of opinion about all this war going on..

I could understand a passionate defense of humanitarian war, or looking on the bright side of war, maybe even flipping to pro-war, but no opinion at all? Very strange.

[MontrealMichelle]

Good point Six Strings. Clearly that whole organization was just a campaign sales tool. I confess, they had me fooled in the beginning too.

[Pretorian]

Was looking for Libya war news and got curious about what moveon.org has to say. I remember them being so strongly anti-war during the Bush years. They really kept up the fight on that.

So I checked it out:
http://front.moveon.org/

And the weird thing is.. they don't have a single thing to say now about the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Libya, or the latest push for regime change in Syria.

Instead it's all stuff like this:

"What Obamacare Has Done For Me"

"Where Did Fox's Viewers Go?"

"How A Birther Sees Obama's Birth Certificate"

Meanwhile, we still have soldiers dying in Iraq:
April deadliest month for US in Iraq since 2009
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.279588144c0fd58d312ca2e921687d3b.681&show_article=1

So what's up with this? How is it possible that what used to be THE pre-eminent anti-war movement just forgot all about their anti-war views? You'd think they'd have some kind of opinion about all this war going on..

I could understand a passionate defense of humanitarian war, or looking on the bright side of war, maybe even flipping to pro-war, but no opinion at all? Very strange.

That is simply called " it's not bad when I (or mine ) do that" Old as world

[Sixstrings]

Gee, this a quiet thread. Listen, you can even hear the crickets.

Where did all the anti-war Left go? FEMA camps? They're just.. missing.. it's spooky.

[PrestonSturges]

I'm too lazy to dig up the quote but Popper wrote that one of the hallmarks of authoritarians is that they claim to have conquered moral relativism. He wrote that around 1945.

I think it goes without saying that the other half of that equation is that authoritarians declare something with one hand and do the opposite with the other hand.

In other words, claiming to be free from hypocracy is merely a declaration that hypocracy is their religion, and claiming to be free of hypocracy is a sort of meta hypocracy for full time hypocrites.

[Pretorian]

they are right there , hidin, waitin for a republican in the WH

[Pops]

Where did all the anti-war Left go? FEMA camps? They're just.. missing.. it's spooky.

Ha Ha Six that's a good one.

There never was much of an anti-war movement, because there never was a draft, or a tax to pay for the war or any sacrifice called for at all. All that was asked was that we go shopping, take a trip to Disneyland.

Well, there is defacto conscription of kids who can''t afford college since it's been privatized - even Trump has a university. But hey, they are volunteers so who cares?

[Plantagenet]

There never was much of an anti-war movement..

The anti-war movement was one of the most powerful political movements ever seen in US politics. From 2006-8 anti-war democrats won election after election and took over both houses of Congress Congress with huge majorities not seen in the last 50 years and then anti-war candidate Obama won the presidency---you don't get much more powerful than that.

The democrats proclaimed themselves to be the anti-war party, and they took over the Congress back in 2006 because of their promises they would defund the wars and bring our troops home if only they were in power. Similarly, one reason Obama won the democratic nomination in 2008 was because he was the most "anti-war" candidate---both Hillary and Edwards had compromised themselves by voting for the Iraq war.

The problem isn't that the anti-war movement wasn't powerful enough---the problem is that many of the dozens and dozens of democrats the anti-war movement elected were liars and hypocrites---the dems didn't even try to defund the wars once they were in control of Congress in 2006, and when anti-war candidate Obama became president after the 2008 election he just followed Bush's schedule in Iraq (and is actually lobbying now for US troops to STAY in Iraq beyond the pullout date set by Bush) and Obama actually EXPANDED the war in Afghanistan and started a new war of choice in Libya.

[Pops]

I am calling you on that one, Dad.

You're right some people got into it, I give them credit. Then we reelected Bush so he could straighten out the SCOTUS


What's the marginalized thing?

[Sixstrings]

In other words, claiming to be free from hypocracy is merely a declaration that hypocracy is their religion, and claiming to be free of hypocracy is a sort of meta hypocracy for full time hypocrites.

Well that's clever, so I'm a hypocrite for asking why anti-war folks are so eerily quiet. I diverted a little bit talking about Trump and resource wars maybe, but at least I'm honest about it and talk it out. Mostly I'm consistently anti-war.. whereas I guess you and Mos are all for Libya is that right? And you're a-okay now with the never-ending war in Afghanistan? And regime change in Syria, you and Mos are neocons there too that right?

Thing is Preston I never even saw a transition from you guys, you just flipped pro-war. "Yes we can" end the wars turned into "Yes we can" start new ones. What matters more to you, principle itself or the personalities that start the wars? Explain it to us, how Bush wars are bad but Clinton / Obama wars are good.

It's not just the previously anti-war folks on this forum of course.. even the FRENCH are on a rampage now. Now that's hypocrisy, those self-satisfied smug French all that crap they had to say in the Bush years.. now Sarkozy is desperately trying to prove he's a bigger neocon than the far right nationalist he's running against.

And the Brits, they were anti-war too remember that.. big marches and all.. now they're marching on Libya, after new oil contracts.

It would just be nice if certain people could at least admit a teeny bit of hypocrisy here, how Bush was supposedly a warmongering cowboy now post-Bush these same folks are all for it.

There is still an anti-war left by the way. You see a bit of it in HuffPost comments, though the articles are pro-Obama strictly enforced. I can think of only two lefty netroots communities that have been consistent to their principles -- Firedoglake and democraticunderground. They are the genuine Left, consistently anti-war and anti-corporatism and anti-Wall Street not just phony campaign liberals pushing the same darn neocon corporatist globalist agenda that the Republicans do.

[Pops]

We can complain and blog all we want but it makes no difference. We are trained poodles in suburban ghettos.

Maybe, probably.

I gotta think there are some reasonable people out there that don't automatically sit up at the sound of their food bowl rattling or a cat wailing on AM radio.

Maybe not, but the 'net seems to have had some effect on the Arabs this spring. That's the thing about tipping points, they look just like every other time right up till they don't.

[Lore]

I once dreamt I was an elephant for Sabu.

[ColossalContrarian]

Obama has done a very good job of making the anti-war folks look like complete asses. He throws them under the bus and they still rally behind him. I don't think there's anything he can do to look bad in some peoples eyes.

He's so good at being pro-war he doesn't even need congregational approval to go to war.

[Cog]

I once dreamt I was an elephant for Sabu.

Put down the bong dude.

[dohboi]

So let me get this straight: the people who encouraged us to get into two disastrous quagmires of wars, and those who just sat by and let it happen--that is those people most responsible for these fiascoes--they all get a nice big pass.

But the people who cried out against this madness, many of whom continued to do so for many years, standing in the rain and snow, holding signs week after week wherever they wouldn't be arrested for doing so--these are the people we are now accusing of 'hypocrisy' because most have finally--after ten long years--grown as tired and jaded as the rest of us.

Well, that's just great. What a very high horse some around here seem to be prancing around on while they look down on those who are obviously their moral inferiors.

Quite pathetic, actually.

[Plantagenet]

So let me get this straight: the people who encouraged us to get into two THREE disastrous quagmires of wars

There. I fixed that for you.

Its hypocritical not to include Obama's war in Libya in the discussion, because its the war that the anti-war people have been completely silent about.

[Sixstrings]

But the people who cried out against this madness, many of whom continued to do so for many years, standing in the rain and snow, holding signs week after week wherever they wouldn't be arrested for doing so--these are the people we are now accusing of 'hypocrisy' because most have finally--after ten long years--grown as tired and jaded as the rest of us.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

I've seen it right here on this forum, people who used to be anti-war became neo-cons after Obama took office. Look at my OP.. moveon.org was THE online anti-war movement. Soon as Obama takes over they shut up. You don't think that's odd?

And now, Obama will campaign on the OBL victory when in fact that victory would not be possible without waterboarding intelligence. The very thing the anti-war left railed against in the Bush years. Guantonamo is still there, the wars haven't stopped (Libya, plus more on the way) and yet you guys should just get a pass on all your old views because you're "tired?"

I think we both know that if the GOP win 2012, moveon.org will suddenly get all anti-war again.