“A lot of people are fed up with the war. You can see that in the national polls,” he says. “But there’s a feeling that’s like despair. Because the task seems so daunting, some people are afraid to do anything at all.”
It doesn’t help that the 2006 mid-term elections, which were largely seen as a referendum on the war, resulted in the Democrats taking control of both the U.S. House and Senate - yet the Bush administration has continued to wage war unimpeded by the opposition party.
“The Democrats didn’t do what some of us hoped they would do, which was use the power of the purse to force an end to the war,” says veteran activist Al Fishman, a board member of the group Peace Action of Michigan. “Not enough of them had the courage to face the accusation that cutting off funding meant that they were deserting the troops in the field.”
It’s a ridiculous charge, Fishman says. You don’t support troops by keeping them in harm’s way; you show support by bringing them home.
But 2006 “was just the first step,” Fishman says. “We’re hoping that 2008 will result in us having a more progressive Congress - not just in terms of ending the war, but also in terms of ending the mind-set that allowed us to get into this war. That’s where the struggle is going to continue.”
Joel Eckel, executive director of the group Michigan Peaceworks in Ann Arbor, agrees with that assessment. He also thinks that the failure of Democrats after the 2006 election left a “lot of people disheartened and cynical.”
Another factor is what might best be described as a feeling of disconnection between everyday life on the home front and the wars under way.
During World War II, gasoline, tires and even food were rationed. Instead of being asked to plant victory gardens and buy war bonds in this conflict, we’re urged by our president to hit the stores and visit Disneyland as a show of patriotism.
As for Vietnam, it was the draft that motivated many young people to take to the streets. Trying to bring about an end to the war, for them, was a matter of self-preservation.
This time around, the war - as well as the one in Afghanistan that has been under way since fall 2001 - is being fought by an all-volunteer military and an army of private military contractors.
As a result, say many of the activists we talked with, the war has been reduced to a sort of background noise for the vast majority.
“Because people don’t feel directly affected by the war, they tend to tune it out,” Eckel says.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a cost we’re all paying. Rabhi made that point during a speech Saturday at an anti-war protest in Ann Arbor he helped organize.
“People aren’t linking the dots,” he explains. “A lot of the students I talk with don’t grasp the fact that this is something our generation is going to have to pay for.”
There are also other issues, especially here in southeast Michigan, that force attention to be focused elsewhere.
“In this area,” Hamilton says, “people have so many other kinds of concerns: Will I keep my job? Will I keep my house? Will I be able to afford college for my kids? These are the things that they are most worried about.”
