Students Against War

At the outset of the Iraq war four years ago numerous polls found that students, like the majority of the population, overwhelmingly supported the invasion. Now those same polls show that students, more than any other age group, oppose the war.

I've heard much lamenting over the lack of student antiwar activism and organizing around Iraq. The absence of a draft is generally held to be the most important difference in explaining the larger student mobilizations against war in Southeast Asia but charges of apathy also abound.

This has always seemed unfair to me--students have exhibited just as much, if not in most cases more, opposition to the war than any other age group. As Sam Graham-Felsen recounted in a recent Nation article, a broad array of student groups have made ending the war a top priority. Among the main players are a reborn Students for a Democratic Society, the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, the Campus Antiwar Network and the Hip Hop Caucus, a new organization founded by Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. (Check the SDS site for a survey of antiwar actions mounted by students to mark yesterday's fourth anniversary of the war and read Nation intern Wes Enzinna's description of antiwar activists' use of YouTube for more examples of student opposition to the war.)

Offering some of the most substantial support for this collegiate peace activism, Campus Progress, the student program of the Center for American Progress, has launched the Iraq Campaign and Iraq Film Project. (Full disclosure: CP is also an active collaborator with The Nation. We re-publish a small portion of CP content on our StudentNation site and we jointly produce an annual student journalism conference.)

There's been an unusually large number of good documentaries recently produced on the war which can help bring the realities on the ground into sharp focus. Campus Progress is offering to supply organizers with the docs and assist in arranging associated panel discussions with war veterans, elected officials, policy experts, activists, and film directors. Check out the list of films currently being screened, see a list of upcoming screenings, and click here to organize a screening on your campus. More than 40 US campuses have already signed up to host film events.

Campus Progress is also offering ideas for action, downloadable posters and signs, access to policy experts, and, best of all, actual grants of $200 to $1,000 to student activists working on innovative education and advocacy campaigns to end the Iraq war.

If you're not a student and want to get more involved in peace actions, check out the United for Peace website for a range of activist suggestions and tools for change.

Does diversity matter? The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights is asking students from 12 to 17 years of age that question in a "Kids Speakout" writing contest. All entries must be recieved by March 30. The winner receives $500.

Comments (30)

1. LL -- I'm glad you're a reader but I'm pretty appalled by yoiur red-baiting and neo-McCarthyism. Ity's beneath you and betrays a facile understanding of democracy, dissent and the US Constitution. And, fortunately, for you, you don't know nearly as much about leftwing sectarianism as I do.

   Lesson #1: ANSWER and United for Peace hate each other. The former is not at all a front for the latter.

   Lesson #2: Believing in Socialism, Communism or any other ism is not a crime in America. One of the great things about this country is that each individuial citizen is allowed to make up his/her own mind about what they believe. The fact is that people from many diff political currents of the left participated in this past weekend's events. I applaud that.

   Posted by Peter Rothberg at 03/21/2007 @ 6:20pm

2. ZERO -- What can I say--I'm a dreamer who clings to the slim hope that the truth can sometimes win out! I wish I could write your hoped-for headline!

   Posted by Peter Rothberg at 03/21/2007 @ 6:32pm

3. Ask Luvvy to count and list the number of products labeled "Made in China" he has floating around the parsonage. Bought at gunpoint, no doubt.

   Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2007 @ 7:02pm

4. Not a good day for POTUS. Headlines from YAHOO.

   • Panel approves subpoenas for Rove, Bush aides

   • Senate Democrats include Iraq deadline in war spending bill

   • Soldier pleads guilty in rape, murder of Iraqi girl

   • Red Cross report says CIA terror detainees were abused

   Poor Chimpy. It's does have to be tough to be in so far over his head.

   Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2007 @ 7:23pm

5. Lvliberty-At the conservative gathering that took place recently you had the likes of Ann Coulter mingling with your more mainstream conservative,but that doesn't mean that the mainstream conservatives share Coulters view of what America should be.Coulter,too wants an entirely different form of government than we have,but that doesn't mean that the conservatives that were at the gathering share that view.

   Posted by i'm nobody at 03/21/2007 @ 7:35pm

6. Posted by PETER ROTHBERG 03/21/2007 @ 6:20pm

   Two points...

   1. You are, of course, correct about the ANSWER/UFPJ feud; it's well known.

   2. Vaguely, LL has a wee point, in that two of the major anti-war groups do have ties to the Extreme Left (WWP, SWP, CP), which begs the question....why? Where are mainstream, even CONSERVATIVE Democrats coalescing into a mainstream anti-war movement? Every time the leadership of one of these groups gets tied to an extreme leftist organization, the Right can have a field day and paint the whole movement with that brush (as LL did).

   But it seems after 40 years, and the obvious failures of the involvement in The Weather Underground and Black Panthers in the Vietnam-era anti-war movement...the anti-war folks would have wised up.

   Or was it that in 2002-2003, the only ones coming out against the war were...the Commies? (hehe...calm down, rest of ya'll, just funnin'!)

   Posted by Mask at 03/21/2007 @ 7:52pm

7. Mask-No one on the left cares what paranoid right wing extremists think of the anti war movement.Luvvy and his ilk see imaginary socialists everywhere amongst the left so what difference does it make?According to luvvy I'm an extremist socialist despite the fact that I'm far from either so he and his ilk will always see socialists and communists everywhere.It's called irrational paranoia.

   Posted by i'm nobody at 03/21/2007 @ 8:02pm

8. MASK-70% of America is against the war.What was that,again,about the anti war movement wising up?

   Posted by i'm nobody at 03/21/2007 @ 8:07pm

9. Mask-No one on the left cares what paranoid right wing extremists think of the anti war movement.

   Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/21/2007 @ 8:02pm | ignore this person

   ----No, why would they...and who cares what the Left OR Right think? The important group to reach is The Middle. Every "Free Mumia", "Transgenders for Peace", or "Free the World-wide Proletariat" sign turned them off for nearly 3 years and took a continueing disaster in Iraq to finally get those images out of their minds.

   MASK-70% of America is against the war.What was that,again,about the anti war movement wising up?

   ---Yes....NOW. But the guys leading the protests are still the groups that turn off that 70%.

   Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/21/2007 @ 8:07pm |

   Posted by Mask at 03/21/2007 @ 8:13pm

10. LL -- Your paranoia has historical roots and antecedents. But you really don't have to worry. I guarantee you that the "ongoing social network of socialists and communists" in the US are not close to overturning the Constitution aand creating a very different country.

    NOBODY's pt seems to me the most pertinent re the Iraq War.

    Posted by Peter Rothberg at 03/21/2007 @ 8:16pm

11. Mask-I think you've been listening to luvvy for too long concerning the anti war movement.Every person who writes against the war on here and elsewhere is the anti war movement as is anyone who expresses any form of anti war statement to anyone other than themselves is the anti war movement.A handful of protest organizers are not "leaders nor are they the movement."When I go to an anti war protest I seldom know who put it together because,usually,different groups, of varying beliefs,did.If it's for peace then I'll march with anybody.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 03/21/2007 @ 8:36pm

12. LvLiberty-When a president can only get 58% of his own party to think he's doing a good job running a war that's horrible news for that president.When a president has a fourth of his party turn on him during war time and oppose the presidents war that is horrible news for that president.Roosevelt/Truman were loved after 4 years of war by all,Democrat and Republican alike.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 03/21/2007 @ 8:55pm

13. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/21/2007 @ 8:23pm

    LVLIB...don't let me put words in your mouth, but haven't you made it your point that "a percentage" of the "dissatisfied with the way the war is going" are ...

    people who want Bush to "take the gloves off" (mass air bombing of Ramadi, Anbar Province, etc.; hitting even invading Iran, "total war")?

    In other words, aside from a percent who are opposed to the war...a percent who are dissatisfied with the war and want us out ASAP but DON'T want us to "lose"...and a percent who feel we're not killing enough or pulling our punches or whatever....

    and that that's why we get 65-70% "opposing the war", not actual "opposition to continueing our occupation in Iraq and wanting to get out ASAP"?

    that about it?

    Posted by Mask at 03/21/2007 @ 8:57pm

14. United for Peace and Justice is the chief sponsor of the Inaugural protests and it is run by Leslie Cagan, a longtime communist activist and devotee of Fidel Castro who was active in the American Communist Party commencing in the Vietnam War era. She was also a member of the Communist Party USA's Committee for Correspondence. Her goals are the promotion of communism and the destruction of the current U.S. system of democracy.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/21/2007 @ 6:14pm | ignore this person

    LVLIBERTY1,

    Since you are so eager to portray those attending anti-war marches as pawns serving the likes of this devil (Cagan and her associates crime being their past alliance with Castro and Communism), how about examining the history of your crowd (Reagan and his cronies)-- which has a much more gruesome record regarding their own past partnerships. I'll point out this event, since my girlfriend just returned a week ago, from a trip to El Mozote, El Salvador, where she and others built a local health clinic. It seems as though you are utilizing the same kind of character smear as used by Reagan and his corrupt death-causers back in the 80s-though, undeniably, their propaganda campaign was far worse (protecting genocidal murderers whom they armed, trained and supported vs. your own stick-figure stereotyping of war protestors). Your hatred for left-leaning ideology, in whatever form, is reminiscent of the El Mozote cover-up by the Reaganites and their effort to discredit the reporters who were traitors enough to publish what they witnessed first hand a month after the massacre; the slime technique at the time used by conservatives was to portray them as Communist-sympathizers, which somehow becomes larger than the actual tragedy of mass deaths.

    On December 10, 1981, units of the Salvadoran army's Atlacatl Battalion massacred nearly one thousand men, women,and children in the remote village of El Mozote. Below are some details from Wikipedia:

    "Early the next morning, the soldiers reassembled the entire village in the square. They separated the men from the women and children and locked them in separate groups in the church, the convent, and various houses.

    During the morning, they proceeded to interrogate, torture, and execute the men in several locations. Around noon, they began taking the women and older girls in groups, separating them from their children and machine-gunning them after raping them. Girls as young as 12 were raped, under the pretext of them being supportive of the guerillas. Finally, they killed the children. A group of children who had been locked in the church and its convent were shot through the windows. After killing the entire population, the soldiers set fire to the buildings.

    The soldiers remained in El Mozote that night. The next day, they went to the village of Los Toriles, 2 km away. Several of the inhabitants managed to escape. The others -- men, women and children -- were taken from their homes, lined up, and shot.

    The FMLN [Leftist rebels fighting the US-backed government] had a sophisticated sense of how to use the media and it independently smuggled two reporters from two of the most prominent newspapers in the US, Raymond Bonner of the New York Times, Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post, together with photojournalist Susan Meiselas, went to the site approximately a month after the massacre took place.

    Correspondingly, the reports drew immediate fire from Reagan administration officials and others on the American political right. Salvadoran army and government leaders said no such massacre had taken place and officials of the Reagan administration dismissed the reports "as gross exaggerations".

    Accuracy in Media, the conservative press watch organization, charged the newspapers and the reporters with conspiring to hold their stories until late January, just before President Reagan was required to certify that El Salvador's military forces were making progress in human rights in order to continue the subsidies. The reporters denied the charge.

    Thomas Enders, then Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, attacked Bonner and Guillermoprieto before a congressional committee, saying that although there had been a firefight between the army and the guerrillas in the area, "no evidence could be found to confirm that government forces systematically massacred civilians". On February 8, Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths at El Mozote "were not credible", and that "it appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused, at the very best, by the guerrillas". Abrams implied that reports of a massacre were simply FMLN propaganda."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mozote_massacre

    Posted by Oustbush at 03/21/2007 @ 8:59pm

15. As I just noted on Nichols Kucinich thread, the 70% anti-war polling figure is very misleading. Bush still enjoys the support of nearly 3 out of 4 Republicans.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/21/2007 @ 8:23pm

    OK...simple math lesson. LVLIBERTY states that 3/4 of Republicans still (for reasons unknown and unfathomable) support Bush's Iraq policy. Let us assume, for the sake of simplicity, that the US population consists of roughly 40% Republican; 40% Democrat; 20% Independent/Other. If 3/4 Republicans support the war; damn near 0 Democrats support the war; and (I'm being generous here) 1/4 Independents/Others support the war...that puts the level of support for the war at precisely 35%; the level of anti-war at 65%. Damn close to 70%.

    The fact that 3/4 Republicans support Bush's war is meaningless. The fact that virtually nobody in the WORLD outside of these 3/4 US Republicans supports the war speaks volumes!

    Posted by liveeasy at 03/21/2007 @ 10:12pm

16. Re-reading my earlier post...I'd like to simplify it.

    LVLIBERTY....what do you feel the MAJORITY of Americans want to be done in Iraq?

    I'm not going to ask for data proving your supposition (because I don't think you could find it...so you'd claim the pollsters "aren't asking the right question" or we're "ignoring" an obtuse interpretation that supports it)....

    I'd just like you to clearly state what you BELIEVE the Truth is, without even offering any proof.

    I'm honestly curious.

    Posted by Mask at 03/21/2007 @ 10:42pm

17. THE COMING ASS AGE March 21, 2007

    No matter how much liberals try to dress up their nutty superstitions about global warming as "science," which only six-fingered lunatics could doubt, scratch a global warming "scientist" and you get a religious fanatic.

    These days, new religions are barely up and running before they seize upon the worst aspects of the God-based religions.

    First, there's the hypocrisy and corruption. At the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York, Al Gore said: "The central organizing principle of governments everywhere must be the environment." The environment would not, however, be the central organizing principle of Gore's own life.

    The only place Al Gore conserves energy these days is on the treadmill. I don't want to suggest that Al's getting big, but the last time I saw him on TV I thought, "That reminds me -- we have to do something about saving the polar bears."

    Never mind his carbon footprint -- have you seen the size of Al Gore's regular footprint lately? It's almost as deep as Janet Reno's.

    But I digress. As has been widely reported, Gore's Tennessee mansion consumes 20 times the energy of the average home in that state. But it's OK, according to the priests of global warming. Gore has purchased "carbon offsets."

    It took the Catholic Church hundreds of years to develop corrupt practices such as papal indulgences. The global warming religion has barely been around for 20 years, and yet its devotees are allowed to pollute by the simple expedient of paying for papal indulgences called "carbon offsets."

    Americans spend an extra $2.2 billion on gas a year because they're overweight, requiring more fuel in cars to carry the extra pounds. So even with all those papal indulgences, Gore may have a small carbon footprint, but he has a huge carbon butt-print.

    Further proving that liberalism is a religion, its practitioners respond with the zeal of Torquemada to any dissent from the faith in global warming.

    A few years ago, Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg wrote a book titled "The Skeptical Environmentalist," disputing the hysteria surrounding global warming and other environmentalist scares. Lomborg is a Greenpeace anti-war protester -- or, as he is described on liberal Web sites, he is a "young, gay vegetarian Dane with tight T-shirts." His book was cited favorably in The New York Times.

    But for questioning the "science" behind global warming, Lomborg was brought up on charges of "scientific misconduct" by Denmark's Inquisition Court, called the "Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation." I take it Denmark's Ministry of Truth was booked solid that day.

    The moment anyone diverges from official church doctrine on global warming, he is threatened with destruction. Heretics would be burnt at the stake if liberals could figure out how to do it in a "carbon neutral" way.

    Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball is featured in the new documentary debunking global warming, titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." For this heresy, Ball has received hate mail with such messages as, "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further global warming."

    I'm against political writers whining about their hate mail because it makes them sound like Paul Krugman. But that's political writers arguing about ideology.

    Global warming is supposed to be "science." It's hard to imagine Niels Bohr responding to Albert Einstein's letter questioning quantum mechanics with a statement like: "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further quantum mechanics."

    Come to think of it, one can't imagine the pope writing a letter to Jerry Falwell saying, "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further infallibility."

    If this is how global warming devotees defend their scientific theory, it may be a few tweaks short of a scientific theory. Scientific facts are not subject to liberal bullying -- which, by the way, is precisely why liberals hate science.

    A few years ago, The New York Times ran an article about the continuing furious debates among physicists about quantum mechanics, which differs from global warming in the sense that it is supported by physical evidence and it doesn't make you feel good inside to "do something" about quantum mechanics. It is, in short, science.

    Though he helped develop the theory of quantum mechanics, Einstein immediately set to work attacking it. MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark called the constant testing and arguing about quantum mechanics "a 75-year war."

    That's how a real scientific theory operates. That's even how a real religion operates. Only a false religion needs hate mail, threats, courts of inquisition and Hollywood movies to sustain it.

    COPYRIGHT 2007 ANN COULTER

    Posted by looneylefties at 03/22/2007 @ 03:53am

18. Posted by LOONEYLEFTIES 03/22/2007 @ 03:53am

    Before the attacks on Ms Coulter even begin (not that they're not deserved...the woman lost her credibility as a serious commentator years ago)...

    what the HELL does that have to do with this thread's subject?!?!?

    Posted by Mask at 03/22/2007 @ 06:51am

19. One man's perspective on the term "progressive"

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/progressive.html

    Posted by Sliver at 03/22/2007 @ 08:09am

20. Posted by SLIVER 03/22/2007 @ 08:09am

    SLIVER, I've already gotten a definition of a "progressive".

    It means, specifically and with pin-point detailed defitinion--- "a person who believes in doing good things, not bad things."

    Posted by Mask at 03/22/2007 @ 08:59am

21. It means, specifically and with pin-point detailed defitinion--- "a person who believes in doing good things, not bad things."

    I heard that too. Just needed a little confirmation on it.

    Posted by Sliver at 03/22/2007 @ 09:17am

22. So,Luvvy, still waiting to hear why you are so supportive of the sole remaining communist super power. Not only supportive, but you are quite the apologist for communist malfeasance.

    You are a hoot. A war mongering Christian and a communist hating communist lover. Neat mental gymnastics.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/22/2007 @ 10:39am

23. In a few days...the return of Wood Yee!

    Posted by Announcement at 03/22/2007 @ 10:48am

24. The funny thing is that the movements the neo-cons hate the most, anti-war and other assorted lefties, have become strengthened by the policies supported by the neos. they fought tooth and nail to squash the 60's, but by their total incompetence they are bringing it back.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/22/2007 @ 11:41am

25. In a few days, the return of mind numbing stupidity.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/22/2007 @ 11:43am

26. LVLIB...."obviously" Truman's low approvals were due to him refusing to nuke China, right?

    BLOG | Posted 01/10/2007 @ 11:47am Comments for "Surge Homeward" by Katrina vanden Heuvel

    3-5 nuclear weapons against China and a threat to Russia to keep in line or they would have been next would have given the world a much better opportunity for peace than we have seen as a result of not letting MacArthur achieve the victory that we should have.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 01/10/2007 @ 4:32pm

    Posted by Mask at 03/22/2007 @ 4:07pm

27. WHERE IS ALGORES CARBON ASSPRINT?????

    Posted by looneylefties at 03/22/2007 @ 7:52pm

28. find a three way mirror... take a look at your back

    Posted by Will C. at 03/23/2007 @ 05:28am

29. For all the differences in the nature and scope of the military action involved, World War II would at present appear to provide the best parallel to the current conflict. It began with an unprovoked attack on U.S territory; created near-universal support for a sustained military response; and generated continued bipartisan support for the president's conduct of the war (as appears to be likely in the current war).

    The only problem is that Democratic opposition is on the Iraq War. That was is not at all parallel to WWII. Iraq was not involved in 9/11, there was no demonstrable proof that they had WMDs or posed any other kind of threat. Opposition to the war by the public is what led the Democrats to develop a greater spine on the subject and that opposition is based on the fact that the war was sold on deceptions regarding both the Iraqi threat and the ease with which the objectives would be achieved. It was events in Iraq that damaged the standing of the President and not a PR campaign.

    It was Clinton who actually set the Chinese on their current path.

    Actually, Reagan sold military equipment to China as well [heritage.org]. This included avionics for their J-8s, plans and equipment for the making of artillery shells, etc. I would also point out that it was Clinton who sent two carrier battle groups to Taiwan during the Straits Crisis of 1996.

    Posted by brunowe at 03/23/2007 @ 10:02am

30. "Oh yea, its true. I know you are proud!

    Posted by RIO BRAVO 03/25/2007 @ 03:25am

    As evidenced by all the protest here on this site against the out rage in Seattle...

    My guess clowns like WILL SUPPORT IT..

    Posted by john maasch at 03/25/2007 @ 11:15am