A Powerful Anti-War Movement to Transcend Political Boundaries
An unprecedented rally will take place in Washington on Feb. 19 to protest NATO’s war drive under the banner “Rage Against the War Machine”. Unprecedented, as it’s organized by a very broad-based right-left coalition, bringing together people from the entire political spectrum, who are opposed to war. Sister rallies will also be held in many other U.S. cities, followed by many in Europe one week later.
Representatives of the two principal sponsors, the People’s Party and the Libertarian Party, participated in Panel I of the Feb. 4 Schiller Institute conference (cf. above), together with the SI’s Diane Sare, who will speak at the Washington rally. Other speakers include Tulsi Gabbard, Ron Paul, Judge Napolitano, Dennis Kucinch, Max Blumenthal, and Jill Stein.
The ten demands of the organizers are clear-cut: “Not one more penny for war in Ukraine, Negotiate Peace, Stop the war inflation, Disband NATO, Global nuclear de-escalation, Abolish the CIA and the Military-Industrial Deep State, Slash the Pentagon budget, Abolish war and empire, Restore civil liberties, Free Julian Assange.”
Angela McArdle, chair of the Libertarian National Committee, explained to the Schiller Institute conference that “Our coalition spans a lot of different political parties and ideologies because no matter where we come from, we all feel compelled to speak out against this war on behalf of humanity. Nuclear war affects everyone; peace is for everyone. Even though we might all have a different idea about economics, or how we want to get to wherever we’re going, from a values perspective we all want a future world that is free of nuclear war. We want a safe, prosperous future for our families, for our friends, and for the people who come after us. We don’t want to live in the shadow of nuclear winter, we want to see humanity thrive. That’s why we’ve been able to set aside some of our other differences and come together. And quite honestly, it’s been a wonderful experience. I think that we need to have things like this happen a lot more often, because it really helps us to push past the tribalism that holds us back in so many ways that’s just so unnecessary…. And believe it or not, there are a lot of areas we all agree on. This is one of them.”
The national chair of the People’s Party Nick Brana, after presenting the demands of the demonstrators, added: “I’m very proud that we’ve been able to come together, a party perceived as being on the right — the Libertarian Party; and a party perceived as being on the left – the People’s Party. These… are not left-right issues. At the People’s Party, we really see that left-right framework as an outdated framework that is used as part of the ideological control matrix to keep people from actually talking to each other”, and from looking at “who is really profiting from the war”.
Both Angela McArdle and Nick Brana expressed their gratitude to the Schiller Institute for its unique role in bringing the big strategic picture into the mobilization for a viable anti-war movement in the United States. Indeed, coalitions built on principled issues, or the notion of “coincidence of the opposites”, have always been encouraged by the SI.
