Opaque Lucidity

Nothing Of Note

The anti-war protest in Washington came and went this weekend. The cast of characters was familiar: Cindy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, two California Congresswomen, members of both the Socialist and Communist parties, anarchists (ironic?) and assorted professional protesters. The park rangers present reported that there were easily 100,000 people there.

I’m sure a significant number of the people present also protested against the Vietnam War. Still others were probably my age or younger, full of the imagery of an earlier age when free love ruled and protests such as this changed the world. Or so they are told by the Boomers around them and the MSM. The truth is much less glamorous.

Those of us who came of age after the Vietnam War are never told that the protestors, most of them college-aged hippies, were a small percentage of the population. There was, indeed, a great deal of unhappiness about the war (especially after the Tet Offensive in 1968) just as there is a general unhappiness about the war in Iraq. I believe that unhappiness has very little to do with George Bush or Republicans and much to do with the fact that Americans don’t like wars. As I’ve said before, we have no military class in our society. The Marines on the ground in Fallujah are neighbors, friends, sons and fathers. Personally, I wouldn’t trade one of them for the entire nation of Iraq. But wars rarely result in positive gains in terms of life or property. England lost an entire generation in the trenches of France only to gain an invitation to the next war a generation later. Most wars are fought over intangibles. But I digress.

The truth of the protest movement is that it changes nothing. Richard Nixon had more to do with ending US involvement in Vietnam (remember Vietnamazation?) than any set of protestors. Of course, Jesse Jackson, et. al already know this. They use demonstrations of any kind as a means of getting face time on the news. The cause, more often than not, is irrelevant. The person who is getting the short end of the stick here is Cindy Sheehan.

I have never lost a child, so I can not even begin to imagine the anguish that Sheehan must feel. But her anger has been misdirected into a crusade that will not only not bring her son back, but will do little to change the world. One day, Michael Moore will move on to his next Goebbels-like propaganda show and Jesse Jackson will find another company to blackmail. Cindy will be left standing alone, probably feeling even worse than she does now.

Who will she blame then?