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The Denver Post Revived protests seek firm footing Some say anti-war drive too slow to diversify
By Kevin Simpson Denver Post Staff Writer March 18, 2007 http://www.denverpost.com/ci_5462108

Duke Austin cast quick, occasional glances across the parking lot of a Westminster office building at two uniformed cops who, in a matter of minutes, would take him into custody. Austin, a 32-year-old instructor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, planned to march into U.S. Rep. Mark Udall's office with four other protesters, demand a stop to funding for the Iraq war - and refuse to leave until police arrested him. "In November," said Austin, recalling the midterm elections, "it looked like there was a possibility for change. But I've seen our continued occupation of Iraq, and now (President) Bush is building a case against Iran. "I needed to up the ante." One man's baptism into civil disobedience may mark a subtle shift in today's anti-war movement, but similar actions have rippled across the country. Persistent and peaceful, they've drawn renewed attention to a grassroots push that quickly receded after the first bombs fell four years ago. The day after the "shock and awe" attack on Iraq made news in the U.S. on March 19, 2003, a Gallup poll showed 76 percent of Americans approved of the decision to go to war. This month, 59 percent said sending troops was a mistake. Now, a resurgent anti-war effort has coalesced around the political battle over funding and the specter of hostilities with Iran. This weekend, marches, vigils and rallies throughout Colorado and the nation mark the anniversary and press the issue. The movement's impact War protesters are slow to claim responsibility for the swing in the polls, but they suspect the movement has some role in nudging public opinion. "Partly it's because some folks see more light and act," said 57-year-old peace activist Peter Sprunger-Froese, sporting an anti-war button as he sat in a Colorado Springs warehouse where he assembles bicycles for the homeless. "And partly it's the persistence of an earlier

In many ways, this is not your father's anti-war movement; but in others, it still very much is. Internet technology has given even small and disparate anti-war elements the agility to organize and broadcast their message, and even their music. But activists also worry that point- and-click protest has dulled the urgency of takin' it to the streets. Student involvement, which in many ways defined the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era, has been conspicuous by its relative absence. College kids are more plugged in than ever yet noticeably detached - a circumstance frequently ascribed to the lack of compelling self-interest the draft provided for a previous generation of campus activists. Consequently, gray-haired protest veterans of Vietnam, nuclear and environmental campaigns dominate the core of today's anti-war movement - "retreads" is the term one longtime Boulder activist half-jokingly invokes. "For a viable peace movement, that has to be changed," said Bill Durland, 75, the peace program director for the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission in Colorado Springs and a seasoned Vietnam War protester. "After 9/11, we were psychologically changed as a nation but not enough to get young people out of their pretty comfortable existence." Critics, while acknowledging that traditional war opponents bring valuable experience, also chide the movement for being "tactically challenged" and slow to reach out to other groups.	Amina Khan, 16, of Denver listens to anti- war speeches Saturday at the state Capitol. (Post / Karl Gehring) voice that is deepening."
"Pockets of young people are active, as are pockets of people of color and low-income people, but the traditionally defined anti-war movement is pretty nondiverse," said Bill Vandenberg, co-executive director of the Colorado Progressive Coalition. "That's a problem if you're going to have political success on this issue."

But events have brought traditional war protesters under the same tent as other peace-and-justice groups. Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, a broad coalition that technically doesn't consider itself part of the anti-war movement, launched a national campaign two days after Bush announced his plan to put more U.S. troops in Iraq. The organization cobbled together efforts in 29 states, including Colorado, to support resolutions or letters to Congress opposing the troop buildup, said representative Moira Mack. MoveOn.org, the Internet-based site for progressive politics that represents another slice of the coalition, needed only 24 hours to organize more than 500 vigils nationwide to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the start of the war. The number is now up to 1,000, according to Nita Chaudhary, campaigner for MoveOn .org Political Action. Measure brought out passion In Denver, demonstrators on both sides of a proposed state legislative resolution opposing the troop buildup gathered outside the Capitol last week and brought the philosophical conflict into sharp relief. While a small group of protesters waved signs like "Disarm Bush" on one side of Lincoln Street, state Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, urged a knot of supporters not to let the war protesters break the spirit of the troops in Iraq. "I've done a lot of looking at this, and I have the distinct impression that Americans want to win," said Kopp, a Persian Gulf War veteran. "A lot of them are not happy with the president or the way things have gone, but they want to win. My sense is that (the anti-war movement) is small pockets inflamed by the blog world." In the wake of the 2006 midterm elections that many saw as a referendum on the Iraq conflict, anti-war forces have focused on representatives in Congress who oppose the war's direction yet continue to support its funding. That's what prompted Austin to be arrested at Udall's office as part of The Occupation Project, a nationwide effort of "sustained nonviolent civil disobedience" organized by the Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Traffic on the group's website has increased more than sixfold since demonstrations began in early February, said Kathy Kelly, the group's executive director. "But if people just sit in front of their computers and read and absorb information and send it to each other, they might as well be sitting in a forest on another continent," she said. A recent Colorado College speaking appearance by Kelly tested the depth and breadth of the movement. On the Colorado Springs campus, about 50 people arrived for her talk. Most were white, gray-haired veterans of the peace movement. Dan Lustick, a 22-year-old senior at the school, noted with visible disappointment that he could count the number of students on one hand. "I don't know if it's just my generation or age group, but there seems to be a sense of entitlement," he said. "A lot of students figure that 'unless it affects me' - like global warming could mean there's not enough snow to ski on - then it doesn't hit close to home." Others within the movement criticize demonstrators' sometimes polite and even orchestrated arrests. Bill Sulzman, a 69-year-old former Catholic priest who now monitors space- weaponry issues from his Colorado Springs home, describes the movement as "too soft" - and wonders if he's gone a little soft himself. "At some point," said Sulzman, "you need to create some tension. You can't mail it in. You can't just sign a petition." The fragmented anti-war movement operates on many fronts. Frank Bessinger claimed a table recently in the food court on Denver's Auraria campus. At the far end of the atrium, a green neon recruiting sign outside an office announced: ARMY. Bessinger, 58, drafted into the Vietnam War in 1968, sat behind a sign: "Before you enlist, talk to a veteran." His role: un-recruiter. "I just want them to make sure they understand what they're signing up for," Bessinger said. He believes the failure to prevent the 2003 Iraq invasion set the anti-war movement back emotionally. But today's anti-war movement operates in a far different cultural climate than the Vietnam-era protests, says Todd Gitlin, a professor at Columbia University in New York City. "Now, there's no general radical sensibility, no sense of cultural opposition, that young people are on the cutting edge of everything," he said. "They don't have that sky's-the-limit view as young people did in the '60s."


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The Denver Post Revived protests seek firm footing Some say anti-war drive too slow to diversify

The Denver Post
Revived protests seek firm footing
Some say anti-war drive too slow to diversify