40-Year-Old Virgins

Filed under: Foreign Policy, Iraq, Lead Story, Vietnam — Jason, Managing Editor on April 22, 2008 @ 5:52 pm CEST

A major defect in the anti-war movement has been its inability to construct a contemporary and relevant narrative. Rather than engaging with the specific problems presented by the invasion and occupation of Iraq, many of the most prolific anti-war advocates have persistently sought to reconstruct a politically virginal narrative built on their own romanticized recollections of the 1960s. Two of the most prolific such authors write at the hilariously misnamed “Moderate Voice”, perpetually seeking to cast every development in Iraq as a case study in the 1960s. (Prior examples of this endlessly repetitive meme here, here, and here.) Today’s contribution focuses on the old canard of alleged “lack of sacrifice” from modern youth as an explanation for their quiescence compared to the morally fine and upstanding 60s generation (of which the authors just happen to be a part).

The better explanation is that the endless attempts to force Iraq into a Vietnam era mold are more the cause of anti-war failure than its salvation. People from non-baby boom generations who might be sympathetic to parts of the anti-war message are tired of having it hijacked for preening by self-absorbed 1960s retreads. That the major anti-war groups, from Code Pink to Moveon.org, are dominated and controlled by aging hippies living out Vietnam-era nostalgia limits the ability of those groups to present a compelling argument to younger generations.

Until the anti-warriors can get themselves out of their 40-year-old paradigm, they will remain politically impotent and unable to mount an effective political resistance to foreign policies they dislike.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree. Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors. Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.

(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly or willfully misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should not be posted.

(2) Comments should avoid use of vulgar language as well as racial, ethnic, or religious slurs.

(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.

(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.

Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors by email.

1 Michael van der Galien

April 22, 2008 @ 6:27 pm CEST

Interesting to see how those extremists consider themselves better than the rest.

2 Jay_C

April 23, 2008 @ 8:42 pm CEST

In a sense I agree. At first glance to make the many disparate anti-war "groups" more effective, you would think that centralizing of their efforts would be the best method of gaining a relevant voice. However, I think the rub with that idea is that there are so many different points of view. For instance some violently oppose the war, while others peacefully oppose, some are stuck in the past, while others make logical, thought out arguments based on the facts of where we are today, while still others take the "I told you the war was a bad idea in the first place" stance. There are others that feel that we should have gone to war in the first place, but the minute there was no WMD found, we should have left then and there. And still there are others…Like the Iraq war veterans group IVAW that I think you can look at these groups as under the umbrella of "anti-war" but most reasonable people will see that they are separate groups, should be treated as such and judged accordingly. There are factions within the under the anti war umbrella that make rational reasonable arguements agains the war, but I think it is reasonable to assume that they do not speak for others that they don’t associate with. (Much like how a tv station will air a late night info-mercial with the discalimer that they do not endorse the product that bought airtime off the station. If they didn’t pu the disclaimer there, I think I could have figured that out for myself)