Sinfest

[Him]

[ShadowCell]

I understand it might appear that way to someone who has no understanding of, let alone has ever been involved in, United States politics and society. There was an anti-war movement? Right, right...

Only if you do to the word "movement" what the US military does to people at Gitmo was the "anti-war movement" against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq a "movement" and not just a handful of people with signs being ignored at best and scorned at worst.

[Arc Tempest]

[Him]

Handfull of people with signs? Nope, but Way to prove my point. The anti-war movement was huge, one of the biggest global movements ever. Learn some history. A People's History of the united states by Howard Zinn is my tip.
_________________
"Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice. " - Thomas Paine

[Arc Tempest]

As much as I love Zinn, if you're accepting his assertions at face value, you need your head checked. The man was the walking definition of a biased source.
_________________
The older I get, the more certain I become of one thing. True and abiding cynicism is simply a form of cowardice.

[Him]

[Him]

[ShadowCell]

Wow. So I tell you that there was no anti-war movement to speak of in the United States and you say "no but there was one outside the United States!" And, incidentally, notice how effective they were.

No, there was no "anti-war movement" to speak of in the United States against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, because the wars were sold and conducted in such a way as to prevent such movements from taking off. There was no draft. Only a tiny sliver of the population is in the military or directly connected to it, by family for instance. The wars fell off the news pretty quickly and turned into background noise, easily ignored by the electorate. There was no rationing, no pitches for war bonds, not even a tax hike to pay for it. Instead, the president told us to go shopping. And it doesn't help that both parties supported both wars at the outset and the Democratic president escalated one of them. There were and still are protestors against the war, but they are meaningless in the political landscape, because they are few, their arguments don't have the force of things like the draft behind them, and the wars are not the dominating issue on the political landscape. The reason the electorate turned against those wars was not "the anti-war movement," because there was no such movement. The electorate turned against the Iraq war once it became apparent that the pretexts for it were all false and it was going nowhere and just getting Americans killed pointlessly. The electorate turns against the Afghanistan war for the same reason--to the extent that they even remember that it's still going on.

So no, it was not the Democrats who destroyed the anti-war movement. It was Bush and his buddies, who destroyed it before it began.

Socialist echo chamber noise and getting linked to once in a while on Huffington Post or whatever does not make you mainstream in the United States. Nor does it mean that you have a "movement," except perhaps of the bowel variety.

[Arc Tempest]

[Him]

[Snorri]

[Guest]

[ShadowCell]

And where were these "literally millions out on the streets against the wars" in the US?

[Guest]

[ShadowCell]

We're talking about the US anti-war movement against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so that would be roughly to October, 2001. Him is claiming that the Democrats absorbed and thus destroyed the relevant movement; I am claiming that no such movement existed.