U.S. peace movement gathers force

By Reed Johnson
Los Angeles Times

Daniel Comito waves the peace sign to passing motorists during a war protest in the Greenlake area of Seattle. Demonstrations like this one on Oct. 11 are gaining strength across the nation. Associated Press

In that process, some observers say, peace activists are moving beyond a singular, post-Vietnam cultural stereotype that depicts them as clueless hippies hopelessly mired in the peacenik past, as apologists for whatever power-mad dictator is on the prowl, or as cynical troublemakers of questionable patriotism whose "fringe" antics give aid and comfort to America's enemies, as Attorney General John Ashcroft has suggested.

"Dissident political activity that's portrayed in this country leads people to believe that anyone who gets out in the street must be kind of crazy," says Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas-Austin, who became a marked man in the Lone Star State last fall after writing several columns attacking U.S. military policy in Afghanistan.

There was a vague feeling of the torch being passed at a recent two-hour rally at the First Baptist Church in Los Angeles' Koreatown, an evening of agitprop theater that mixed old-time progressive sentiments with a newfound sense of urgency. And if anyone present was worrying aloud about finding the peace movement's next Martin Luther King, Tom Hayden or Helen Caldicott, it was drowned out in a polylingual chorus of shared convictions.

Filling the pews of the 1,500-seat church were the movement's traditional shock troops: trade unionists, middle-age progressives of various creeds, battle-hardened veterans of the civil rights and Vietnam War struggles. But clapping and singing alongside them were young anti-globalization activists, interspersed with many Central American and Asian immigrants, some of whose countries have suffered their own, albeit less publicized, versions of 9/11-style terrorist atrocities.

Many of the speakers and much of the symbolism were familiar. Labor leader Maria Elena Durazo extolled a union member who perished at the World Trade Center. Syndicated columnist Bob Scheer chastised Taliban brutality and Washington demagoguery. Hollywood star Alfre Woodard gave soothing readings from the Quran, the Bible and the Bhagavad-Gita. Between speakers, a mixed-race choir delivered a thin but plucky rendition of "Down by the Riverside."

"Join us in a new peace movement," exhorted the Rev. George Regas, catching the evening's forward-looking tone. "We will change the face of this Earth!"

Less easily pigeonholed than their predecessors, and more reliant on Internet mailing lists than sloganized placards, today's peace activists are more globally attuned and media-savvy than the bearded and sandaled legions of yore, some say.

"Our general argument is the same one: that we've got to find alternatives to war because we don't like the notion of killing people," says Medea Benjamin, a former U.N. economist and Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Unfazed by polls that show a majority of Americans would support going to war with Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from amassing weapons of mass destruction, today's activists say their aims aren't that different from those of previous generations. What's changed is the movement's composition, focus and tactics, which have been conditioned by a sound-bite culture where world politics gets simplified and perceptions often rule.

In the calculus of the contemporary peace movement, two numbers have logarithmic power: 9/11 and the 1960s. The first is a date that no American will soon forget. The second is a cultural epoch that simply refuses to go away.

Campbell, co-director of Peaceful Tomorrows, says that while taking part in marches over the last year she's been taunted by people yelling, "Go back to the '60s! This is the '90s!"

Never mind that the '90s went out with the Clintons and high-tech startups. What Campbell objects to is the hecklers' presumption that nonviolence is somehow passe, a fad with no more intellectual staying power than a Lava Lite.

"I was born in 1972. I don't appreciate being considered a throwback," says Campbell, speaking by phone from her Bay Area home. "I don't think war is a good idea under any circumstances."

While professing their abhorrence of the Iraqi dictator, Peaceful Tomorrows members have been crisscrossing the country this year preaching nonviolent alternatives to the Baghdad street-fighting scenarios being aired in Washington. Some members also have visited Afghanistan to meet with families who lost loved ones during the U.S. bombing campaign to oust the Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

Their pacifist stance has surprised and angered those who thought revenge and retaliation the only sane response to 9/11. But group members say they don't want their personal tragedies used to justify more bloodshed.

"We don't really want to live with Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq," Campbell says. "On the other hand, what's the price of killing a whole bunch of other people to get rid of Saddam Hussein? That is not going to make us any safer in this country. It is going to promote terrorism, if anything."