WWJB: Who Cares?

By Alston B. Ramsay | Thursday, April 3, 2003

They dance in the streets. They bike through downtown traffic during rush hour. They hold signs with messages like 'Who Would Jesus Bomb?' and 'No Blood for Oil.' Their spoken arguments are every bit as compelling. 'Whenever everybody undresses, the ego goes away and then we can make decisions,' said Nadine Gary, a member of the Raelian cult. Clad only in thongs, she and her ilk shared their desire for world peace: 'Imagine President Bush nude addressing the state of the Union. Imagine Saddam Hussein nude.'

Some lash out when they're arrested, railing against their inhumane treatment at the hands of the police. According to 19 year-old Brian Henderson, the police strictly adhere to 'scare tactics'—for instance, serving inadequate sandwiches to detained protesters. Cops even withheld bathroom privileges from a San Francisco woman, until she divulged her name. 'That is not right,' Brian whimpered. The horrors!

And after all this, most protesters claim their speech is silenced by catcalls of 'Traitor' and 'Un-American.' Bonnie Weinstein, a protester in San Francisco, described her feelings on police officers wearing American flag handkerchiefs under their riot helmets: '[They] might seem like kind of a threat, like they're saying 'You know what side I'm on.'' The protestors march on, though, unperturbed, certain their gatherings will have an effect, even as support for war grows by the day. They have a response to this support, too.It's simple and elegant: only the vile, imperialistic Bush Administration and the uneducated, unwashed, rural masses support war. They ignore their own egalitarian mandate—that all voices be heard and valued—and belittle certain approaches to the issue of war.Sometimes they even throw their own to the dogs. Columns like this one are often criticized for focusing on the fringe elements of the anti-war camp—the few crazy or dim-witted souls the media pick from the throngs.

If one accepts both propositions—that only the uneducated support the war, and that only uneducated anti-war demonstrators are covered by the media—one wonders: how do the educated elite frame their argument? The open mic 'discussion' chronicled in this issue answers that very question. Only it probably isn't what the anti-war camp intended.

It was an easy task: rant and rave to others who agree with everything you say, despite your gross factual inaccuracies. What resulted was quite sad. Applause was lavished on those who displayed the most fiery anti-Bush rhetoric. The loudest response came after a fervent speech that began with the disclaimer that the female '[ca]me from a non-intellectual place' and wanted to 'speak with [her] heart,' not her mind. Passion, of course, trumps logic.

Apart from the usual panoply of anti-imperialism and no-blood-for-oil diatribes, the anti-war agitators in 105 Dartmouth Hall harped on issues that were...well...nuts.

One girl stood before the audience and denounced the United States for dropping 'uranium-depleted' bombs on Iraq during the first Gulf War. These had been killing innocent men, women, and children for the last twelve years, and this was indisputable fact, backed up by 'numerous and credible sources.' Or so she said. It turns out every one of her sources originated from the same bastion of truth: the Iraqi government.

She wasn't alone with her conspiracy theories. Professor David Montgomery offered the true reason the war is being fought: it is simply another front in Bush's war against the lower and middle classes. I asked if he could clarify this. He didn't, so I put my query in simpler terms: 'You're saying the war is nothing more than a distraction so President Bush can pass his domestic agenda?' The answer was a swift and unflinching 'Yes!'

But that's the way it goes. The protesters here aren't asking us to envision George Bush naked yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did. They are, of course, demanding the leap of faith required to believe the United States purposefully gives cancer to Iraqi civilians, or that the President would spend over 70 billion dollars and send 400,000 troops to the other side of the world to...pass tax cuts, reduce social welfare, and propagate 'class warfare.'

To date, I have heard no one of stature lob the charge of 'Unpatriotic!' at the anti-war camp, even when the actions of some—nay, many—warrant that epithet. But as long as they maintain their current level of outrages and excesses, let them speak out and demonstrate to their heart's delight. 'They are defecating in [their] own nests,' said the mayor of San Francisco. And it only makes the hawks' argument stronger.

WWJB: Who Cares?

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