Reflections on this moment and ways to take action.
Demonstrator holds up a sign opposing the joint US/Israel war against Iran during an Al-Quds Day protest at Times Square, New York City, on March 13, 2026.(Mostafa Bassim / Anadolu via Getty Images)
For thousands of years, war has been a favorite way for the rich to make money and consolidate power. High risk, high (material) reward.
Despite recent volatility, the US stock market has been consistently driven higher by war and the inevitable rebuilding efforts, turning conflict into profit for wealthy shareholders, institutional investors and, these days, hedge funds. There is such a stark divide between those who bear the cost of war and those who stand to gain.
Today is no different. Trump and Netanyahu are doubling and tripling down on their strategy of shoring up domestic support through endless war.
This conflict is not about human rights. It is about power, profit and oil.
It has little to do with the well-being of Iranians, Israelis, Americans or anyone else.
In the 1990s, I remember anti-war protests by students at my K-8 private school in San Francisco, on the street corner outside our building. I can picture cars honking while they drove by on Masonic Avenue as middle school kids held up signs saying “No War in Iraq.”
In 2002, I was part of a direct-action group that was going to lock down the corporate offices in San Francisco to protest the invasion of Iraq after 9/11. The day before I got horribly sick. I might really have been sick, but I was also scared. Scared to lock down. To be putting my body on the line like that.
My dad was a conscious objector in Vietnam. My mom was part of a weekly vigil at the federal building after 9/11.
This was all righteous action. But quite disconnected from any relationship with the largely working-class people who serve in the US military.
No one I know from any of the K-12 schools I went to enlisted in the military. If anything, I was taught to look down on those who served and for whom patriotism was an important value.
Without a broad-based, cross-class alliance, anti-war efforts like my family’s are justified and right, but also isolated and ineffective.
With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.
As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
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Onward,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation
What do we do now? How do we organize across class and race to build an anti-war movement that can win? Here is an admittedly noncomprehensive list of suggestions:
• Support and get involved with veterans groups organizing against the war, such as About Face: Veterans Against the War, VoteVets, Common Defense and Veterans for Peace.
• Support and get involved with National Iranian American Council. Sign up for their regular updates and action alerts. Their e-mails have been such a helpful resource in educating myself on the current situation.
• Support and get involved with anti-war groups like Win Without War, working to advance more peaceful US foreign policy, and Dissenters, organizing young people on college campuses, as well as multi-issue groups mobilizing against the war such as Working Families Party and MoveOn. These organizations are playing a leadership role in anti-war efforts here in the US and will be continuing to shape the response moving forward.
• For those interested in building a powerful anti-war movement in the long term, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), Grassroots International (GRI), MADRE and Peace Development Fund are partnering to launch Funders for Demilitarization. It is an emerging project and pooled fund working to increase philanthropic resources going towards grassroots work confronting US militarism, as well as developing and strengthening alternatives to militarism and war. It is a unique collaboration between grassroots social movement organizations and trusted philanthropic institutions, coming together to govern the fund and “move at the speed of trust.” For more information or to get involved, contact MADRE (a highly respected international human rights organization and the host for this project) at madre@madre.org.
• Join a local demonstration against US aggression and war with Iran, such as the next No Kings rally on March 28.• Build relationships of respect with people from Iran, Israel, West Asia and Africa, as well as with veterans and active-duty military. These will necessarily be some of the lead forces in any successful anti-war organizing.
Michael GastMichael Gast is the director of a multi-media project, Organize the Rich, documenting the stories and lessons from the last 50-plus years of efforts to organize the wealthy as part of grassroots movements for the common good. He has been organizing the rich for over twenty years, and now works as a strategist at Solidaire Network. Read more on the Organize the Rich Substack.