Thinking old people thoughts

by Mark Gisleson

I had a dark fantasy this weekend. Half asleep as the news reported on a Minnesota man who died in Iraq, I was thinking whether I should go to the airport when his body comes home, or if that would even be possible. As I started nodding off, the scene shifted and I was standing, a bit uncomfortably, next to a crowd of mourners and military family members watching his casket deplane. Off a ways, a small angry crowd waves placards and shouts disrespectfully. The weird vibes are shifting, and I feel hostility building among the people I'm with. A wave of responsibility (shame?) washes over me and I reluctantly walk over to the protesters to see if I can defuse the situation. Even in my dream I don't hear the words of our conversation. All I see are angry faces. "Please," I say, "this is just making things worse. These military families are turning against the war, but you're making it harder for them to break away. Please stop and disband." Then a prominent local organizer gets in my face and I punch her out. Even in my semi-unconscious state this makes me sit up straight.

I've never believed that anti-war protesters spat on returning troops from Vietnam. That, or if it did happen, it was most likely the result of an FBI Cointelpro-style dirty trick. At worst, I rationalize that any such protest could have been led only by a David Horowitz type, one of those antiwar protest leaders who went on to a life of stock trading or agitating while on the Scaife payroll.

I'm pretty sure I know why I had this dream/fantasy. I cross the Marshall-Lake Street bridge a couple of times a week, and often catch the antiwar show. Usually there's a vastly outnumbered but angry pro-war crowd on the other side of the bridge. Invariably the antiwar folks provoke a twinge of guilt in me for not joining them, just as the pro-war crowd angers me with their arrogant assumption that the troops can be honored only by obeisance to this illegitimate regime.

I'm not a stranger to protest. I didn't leave home and go to college until 1971, so the only real anti-Vietnam protest I ever attended was the take over of the Iowa State ROTC building in '72. In all candor, for me that was less about protesting than it was about climbing up the fire escape and hanging out on the roof. My involvement in late '70s labor protests in Des Moines was quite a bit more serious, and helped me gain an understanding of protest dynamics. That experience was very helpful to me when I went back to college in the mid-'80s and got involved in the anti-Apartheid protests at the University of Iowa, where I finally paid some minimal dues by getting arrested for occupying the hallway outside the Dean's Office (133 arrests — there wasn't room enough for all of us in his office).

Finishing my degree work in Iowa City afforded me numerous opportunities to help with other protests, and, almost by default I ended up doing a lot of security work. Next to a former heavyweight wrestler, I was the biggest guy in the movement, so I got tabbed to defuse drunken frat boys checking out candlelight vigils. Later, I was the person designated to take the "pie" when Angela Davis appeared on campus and the conservatives made idle threats (pies were big that year).

Aside from other labor protests over the years and the usual Take Back the Night rallies, these are my bona fides. Trespassing, destruction of property and arrests make for a checkered list of qualifications, and dismay as many people as they impress. There's no glory in being a revolutionary unless you win. And, unless you win or go to jail or get killed, you're really only a revolutionary wannabe.

So back to the fantasy/dream. Shortly after moving to the Twin Cities, I visited Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) headquarters to buy a Christos Institute poster for my office. They had recently made the news for saying they'd be protesting Michael Dukakis's upcoming visit to Minneapolis, and I made the mistake of asking one of the women why. The next thing I knew I was getting ripped a new asshole for daring to suggest that Michael Dukakis was anything but a tool of the military-industrial complex. The woman doing the ripping, as it turned out, was one of WAMM's leaders, but the deeper I dug, the harder I found it to find anyone who really supported her position. Sadly, however, no one seemed to have the guts to tell her to shut up.

The Left is like that. Our assholes get all the press, and do a great job of motivating the other side. I believe in the widely held theory that much of the new Right is a result of recruiting in the aftermath of the antiwar movement in the '60s and '70s. More and more, however, we have discovered that some of the worst of it was instigated by Nixon's minions seeking to discredit the movement. I doubt we know even half of that story, and there is tremendous irony in the fact that the new Right may owe it's existence to dirty tricksters working for Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover.

In my heart, I still believe in revolution. In my heart, I still think I have the 'nads to put my life on the line for a cause. In my gut I think this is the only way we'll ever achieve our goals of economic and social justice. But in my head, I want to win the next election so we don't have to have a revolution. So I worry about things like whether or not Johnny Ashcroft has planted an agitator down at WAMM, who, even as I type, is trying to get everyone to sign off on some bad idea that will blow up in their faces and make the national evening news. "Spit on the coffin — that'll get their attention!"

Bush had to ignore millions of protesters to start his war, and protests aren't going to end it, not unless we have some flag-waving, pickup-driving patriots leading the parade next time around. A few women with young children who have no father will have more impact on our collective hearts and minds than millions of the usual suspects marching on the Mall.

This time let's hold a bake sale to feed the families of the Air Force mechanics who service the bombers. I'm beginning to believe that the real front line for real change will come from the ranks of those who didn't vote for Gore or Nader last time around. The Left hasn't changed their minds: Bush has.

Support for this war is unraveling. I want to help speed that process up, but I think it might go even faster if I just tried shutting up and letting some new faces do the talking and marching.