There was a time when it was cool to be anti-war

[90-percent]

http://www.georgetownbookshop.com/display2.asp?id=1045

I hope somebody can google a better version. This is a result of acquiring a September 1939 issue of Life magazine about the European World War that was going on pretty big by then.

I post this as a direct response to a snippet I heard from the frothy mouth of Rick Santorum denigrating our beautiful President for being ANTI WAR.

So what the fuck is wrong with being anti-war? Aren't you supposed to be anti-war to be a good person and conform to the teachings of all religions since the history of the planet?

That a guy running for President could belittle a man in favor of peace above war shows you how much rot there is in our national consciousness these corporate propaganda ridden days.

Another thing - the articles are rigorous. You have to devote your entire mind to reading them. Everything wasn't dumbed down yet.

just thinking

-90% Jimmy

[niyad]

1. k and r--thank you for posting this

[MadHound]

2. Since when is our President anti-war?

Seriously, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya.

The man is not anti-war, far from it.

[Luminous Animal]

10. No shit. Drones in Pakistan and Yemen.

But its almost ant-war because it is a kinder gentler Democratic war.

[woo me with science]

20. Twilight Zone.

The active denial around here regarding his actual policies is reaching Twilight Zone levels.

[gratuitous]

3. Boy, not in my experience

But yeah, there was a time when going to war was a sober (you should excuse the expression) undertaking (ditto), not entered into lightly. But in the land of the High Church of Redemptive Violence, war is always handy to be used as a problem-solving tool. And if the application of wholesale violence doesn't appear to be working very well - or at all - the first alternative is to apply more violence to see if that doesn't achieve the desired end.

The propaganda has grown a little more sophisticated over the last 70 years, but you can read it off quite readily: "We have an all-volunteer military! Nobody's forced to join up, like they were in the bad old days of the draft." While this one example among many is true on its own terms, the "volunteer" argument glosses over the reality that every year, for thousands and thousands of young people, enlisting in the military appears to be the only option for getting ahead, and that message is heavily reinforced throughout our society, whether it's the relentless war-drumming of the popular media, the ubiquitous advertising done by the military and its supporters, and even in popular entertainments (movies, TV programs, games, etc.).

[90-percent]

13. "We have an all-volunteer military!....."

To which the cold hearted bastard Dick Cheney replies; "So what? They volunteered"

I think Rachel wrote a book about this recently? she even plugged it on Howard Stern, so I have more biographical info on her sexual preferences.

I don't have to go very far ever, to find some poor American's that have lives permanently damaged by the vanity-wars of GWB and Company. There's a 17 kid at work doing co-op or something. He told me he had a cousin back from our current wars that is messed up from having to shoot a little Afghanistan girl that was sent to blow up Americans with a bomb strapped to her chest!

I got my tuition paid for by shooting little girls!

I'm acquainted with a woman who's boyfriend no longer has a long term memory. Permanent brain damage from flipping his Hum-Vee.

SUPPORT OUR TROUPS Buy a fucking magnetic sticker for your car and forget about them!

-90% jimmy

[Zalatix]

4. Treasonous OP detected. Sending in the drones.

Dear Citizen:

Like the al-Awlaki family you have been judged to be a United States Citizen who is engaged in terrorist talk. This anti-war talk is killing American citizens because we the Government have decided it is, and because of this we are sending a combat drone to rectify the situation.

This is a summary execution. There will be no trial, no warrant, no attempt to arrest you, because we believe you are a threat. We need no evidence. We just need 2 or 3 gung-ho warmongering US soldiers to accuse you of putting them in harm's way. Hell, we don't even need that. We just need to accuse you in our minds. Plus we know what's best for America.

Right, wrong, we're the ones with the drones.

[img][/img]

[Peregrine Took]

5. I remember during the 1960's , even in downtown Chicago, things were so mellow.

It was common to flash the peace sign to absolute strangers just as a gesture of peace and love.

One time I was riding the bus home from work and a guy got on with a guitar and started singing some folk songs and soon everyone on the bus began singing along.

I traveled on that bus line for many, many years and that is the only happy time I ever had.

We were all anti war back then and proud of it.

How did it ever turn around? The elimination of the draft?

[Skip Intro]

6. Obama is anti-war? nt

[Initech]

7. The only reason we go to war anymore is profits for military contractors.

No other fucking reason - it's just a way for the uber rich to show off their shiny new toys. We used to go to war because we would gain something - since Vietnam - the military industrial complex and the war profiteers are the only ones who gain anything - obscene riches. The fact that our leaders can't see this is truly mind boggling.

[stevenleser]

8. The picture you posted is its own answer. Being against US involvement in WWII was wrong.

I consider myself to be anti-war, but some folks wouldn't say that about me. I think that Vietnam, Iraq and Panama were mistakes/unnecessary. I go back and forth about Korea. I do not want to go to war with Iran and dont think we should. I think WWII and Afghanistan were appropriate. If I had been 'the decider' in all of those situations, the only ones I would have been sure to make the decision to go to war on were WWII and Afghanistan. I doubt (95% sure against) that I would have given the OK in the others.

To most Republicans, that makes me a bleeding heart-hippie-anti-war freak. To some folks that makes me a war monger.

I agree there is a strong possibility Iraq was about oil. That doesn't mean future conflicts are. I do not assume previous situation X and the analysis thereof applies to current and/or future situation Y. You can guarantee that any war that might happen in the next 20 years in which the US is involved will be considered by some in the anti-war crowd to be about whatever natural resources that country has. They will automatically discount any argument to the contrary. They will not bother to think about it or analyze the details.

I don't work that way.

So what does it mean to be anti-war? I am against over 50% of the conflicts in which we (the US) have been involved in the last 75 years. Does that qualify?

On the other hand, I feel strongly that our participation in WWII and our reasons for going into Afghanistan were just and moral. I don't think people against either one of those are 'cool'.

[90-percent]

15. "I agree there is a strong possibility Iraq was about oil"

Thanks for this interesting point.

WHY THE FUCK DID WE INVADE ANOTHER COUNTRY BACK IN 2003?

How the fuck can we engage in a foreign war where TO THIS VERY DAY American's are asking why we did it? We are at a state with our affairs where we go to war and no thoughtful American can state the real reason we did it. We're all just guessing!

smoking gun/mushroom cloud
he traad to kill mah daddy
winnebagos of death
yellow cake
fight em over there so we dont gotta fight em over har


AMERICA NOW GOES TO WAR ON THE BASIS OF COMPLETE BULLSHIT!

War as a solution to human problems does seem to have very limited application, as it should. It's fucking war, stupids! you only use it in dire circumstances when all other avenues have been exhausted and the security of our country is at stake. You shouldn't resort to it merely because you are diplomatically retarded and incompetent! Read a fucking book about negotiating skills or something, fer chrissakes!

and, please, future America, be on the look out for prefabricated "new Pearl Harbors". The purpose of which seems to be merely to fatten up our heinous military-industrial-congressional-complex.

-90% Jimmy

[KG]

9. when has the president been anti-war?

[spanone]

11. still is, in my book

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. It's getting to be cool again after our lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The majority, by a large margin, want us out of Afghanistan sooner than scheduled by the Peace Prize winner.

[madokie]

14. In my eyes its still cool to be anti-war

I feel I earned the right to feel this way too

[bigtree]

16. there's always been resistance

it's still 'cool'

[Kath1]

17. There's hope

My daughter is 24. She and her friends consider it very cool to be anti-war, as do I. We have all demonstated against it.

[mowsepotato]

18. Irony

I find it amazing how many Republicans became 'anti-war' after Obama was elected.

[Kath1]

19. In my mid-70s high school days it was very cool to be anti-war.

Maybe it was just the artsy-fartsy nerdy girl group I was part of, but I remember some of the "coolest chicks" were the types who would come to school with an American flag sewn somewhere on the seat of their faded, worn-out, torn bell-bottom jeans in a statement against Nixon/Vietnam war/milatarism, etc. I didn't really approve of that form of protest (still don't) but I didn't really have a problem with it, either. Besides, my Republican parents would have killed me had I done it! I don't remember anyone getting any flack about it and I'm not sure that would be the case today. Maybe we were completely jaded from growing up with Vietnam and crooked politicians but anti-war sentiment at the time was widespread and, yes, it was very cool to be anti-war, anti-Nixon, etc. Being "pro-war" (that even sounds stupid) was almost unheard of, at least in that age group. Most of the peace activists I have met are from that era and are in their 50s and 60s now. War should always be a last resort. There is nothing cool about it. Iraq was based on even more BS than Vietnam and I don't know how Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld can sleep at night. There are very many of us out here who still believe it is "cool" to be anti-war/pro-peace.