Made Love, Got War

Norman Solomon divides the post atom bomb generation from the previous one by raising the question of the psychological impact of living in a world with no future because we are now capable of blowing up the planet. The rest of his peace activist memoir is dotted with thought provoking nuggets and anecdotes, but no overall thesis. For this journalist, it is a sort of you win some you loose some battle with the media, while his personal revelations are rather minimal.

He did introduce me to the idea of faith in arms when he relays his conversation with a company publicist on his tour of Los Alamos National Laboratory (where the A bomb was designed). This is the concept that we must have the bomb in order to deter others from attacking us. This theory leads to the arms race, because you're always going to have to top the other guy in firepower, but it mostly gave me insight into how the nuclear bomb club thinks—that certain civilized nations are allowed the bomb because they would never use it, but they need to have it in case other less civilized nations decide to use it. In that case how come Japan has remained unattacked despite having no military? Or is it that Japan has friends in the bomb club? Not to mention that Bush wans to make pre-emptive war so that kind of throws the civilized part out, not to mention that the bomb has been used to back up virtually every foreign policy put into place by the club. Wasn't the war against communism basically a battle of economic policy differences? This faith in arms concept has nevertheless made me wonder since I do believe in self defense, just not in weapons of mass destruction. So does that mean I automatically surrender to those who have them?

At his talk Normon Solomon implied that the peace movement was suffering from a lack of commitment from a populace more motivated to buy lottery tickets than to call their representatives. While reading his memoir I was struck by how uninspiring the story of the peace movement is compared to the civil rights movements or any other movement involving raising awareness and taking action. He makes fun of the make love not war strategies of the '60s, but I was left with the thought that, fundamentally, by the time a peace movement is required it is already too late. If a leader has the power to activate military forces then there's little to stop him using it. He only needs to persuade the public of imminent threat to the nation—false flag events being the most effective. And if stopping the war is the job of the peace movement then why do we have to wait until the profiteers get their piece of the action? Polls are always showing that people want peace, so why do we have to remind our representatives to represent these sentiments? Do we have to threaten their lives to compete with the corporate interests?

I think the most effective tactic of the peace movement is to uncover and spread the truth once war is upon us. It is a battle of who gets to tell the nations story. Which comes down to maintaining access to broadcasting and media and a cadre of responsible journalists willing to educate the public in a way that can compete with the info-glut which means that educated comedians and cartoonists may be the frontline of peace activists. And bloggers. And holding up the rear must come responsible historians. Thus this book could be more effective if it were told as a "and then we uncovered the lies and we told the people". It would be the story of a nations evolving consciousness.