These are very perceptive observations, particularly your point about the blockage of political representation during the Vietnam era. Both major political parties were, in a sense, managers of the war, and therefore unavailable to the protest movement as avenues of political expression. This is no longer true.

To your comment about the greater ease of communication that modern media and the internet now afford, I would add that the routine, almost formulaic quality of contemporary protest adds much less to the process of political mobilization than true in the earlier period.

Please add the sense of utter hopelessness during the time when warmongers who drank the Kool-aid for their Spoiled Twit's benefit ruled the entire roost.

Since? Not much reason to protest as Democrats are doing about all that is thought responsible at this miserable point and they don't have the votes to go beyond what they can sell to moderate crossovers. (ie those mindful of the coming election and among the very few who aren't in safe seats)

Lastly? Protesting for the benefit of a donkey like Bush would seem yet more fruitless than protesting Nixon. Perhaps Bush's ratings says it all? I suspect protesting did play a strong role in causing LBJ to step down. But what did we get? An Ike-like campaign promising to "bring the boys home" and something yadda "with honor" and six more years of war after nearly everone who was literate, plus some, knew it was an utter waste.... and worse along with 40% of the names on the Vietnam Wall and a million?? Vietnamese and Cambodian deaths, maimings and cripplings.

Obama for president, 2008

It is obvious, that 9-11 provided the opportunity to unveil and unleash upon an unsuspecting nation a sinister plan to invade and occupy the sovereign nation of Iraq. The idea to go to war in Iraq of course was plotted long before that fateful day. This act of unmitigated war defied the moral and value basis of the American democracy.

So much has been said about the reasons for going to war in Iraq. It is now as clear as day that none of the reasons given were true. It can be stated without fear of prejudice that the whole thing was an outright fabrication given all the facts that have now come to light.

The damage has been done and now the big questions beg answers. Where do we go from here, and who will be the best leader to tackle the monumental task of restoring constitutional order to the United States? Who can do the best job of rebuilding Iraq a nation ravaged by a senseless war driven by lies and criminal ambitions? Who can recapture world respect diminished by our total disregard for international law in the conduct of the illegal invasion of Iraq

Enter the 2008 presidential elections. With one swipe of the hand, all republican candidates are ruled out. As a matter of national and global interest, no republican should be allowed near the White House in a hundred years because that’s how many years that party has set civilization back. Attention now turns to the democrats

If the outcome of the Iraq invasion and occupation was not so tragic, it would be laughable to think that all members of congress who voted to start military intrusion into Iraq were deceived by the bush administration.

Far from it, all those who voted for the war including Clinton, Biden, Edward and Dodd knew what they were doing. They took a calculated political risk in part to brace a perceived weak spine in matters of national defense. The other profound reason was to fulfill their obligation to special interest groups like the Neo-cons whose agenda is counter to real American interest. Think about it deeply.

All these pitiful escapists who are now prostrating at the altar of empty regrets should be held accountable just as George Bush and his cronies. These people should not be rewarded for their lack of vision and leadership at the critical moment when supreme judgment and courage were demanded.

Obama is the man for president. After all, what he saw sitting down in the valley, others couldn’t standing atop the hill. What other test of leadership can there be other than the ability to make sound decisions using instinctive judgment in the face of uncertainty.

All those politicians who favored the disastrous incursion into Iraq should be held accountable because they failed in their duty as leaders to protect the vital interests of America namely freedom, pride, treasure and national security. Why should these people be trusted to lead now?

A strong case can be made for Obama to be president because he has already demonstrated presidential capabilities which include strong vision, superior intellect, political savvy, courage, successful career, uncluttered personal life and a great natural charm.

These qualities far out weigh the so called years of experience touted by the other candidates. What do they have to show for their worthless experience? If years of experience meant so much, then why are we in such a mess today?

Please, not another word by these candidates about being deceived by George Bush. Truth is, if one can be deceived by Bush on matters of such national significance, then on no account should such individuals be qualified to lead this great country. Please, drop the self serving talk and make way for Obama, the next president of the United States.

Wordtodawise

I think another distinction is the lack of an obvious exit strategy. Neil Sheehan, Pulitzer Prize winner author on Vietnam (A Bright Shining Lie), summed it up:

“In Vietnam, there were just two sides to the civil war. You had a government in Hanoi with a structure of command and an army and a guerrilla movement that would obey what they were told to do. So you had law and order in Saigon immediately after the war ended. In Iraq, there’s no one like that for us to lose to and then do business with.”

By contrast, even the strongest opponents of the Iraq war do not think that America should simply abandon Iraq to its fate; they agree that America has a moral obligation to return stability (if it can) to a country which was de-stabilized by America's actions. Some think that withdrawal of the troops would be the best strategy, but that's not clearly the case by any means.

What I am surprised about is the weakness of calls to bring to account those responsible for the faulty intelligence and the faulty presentation of the case for war; and equally importantly those responsible for the disastrous post-war strategy. The only way to have made the country work would have been to round up all police and military, double their pay and shoot any deserters. And retain all the civil servants including former lackeys of Saddam. If there wasn't the political will for this, the invasion should not have gone ahead.

Another reason: yesterday's protesters are today's Baby Boomers, i.e., parents and (soon to be) grandparents who are content to sit on the sidelines and recall the nostalgic days of their youth while trying to make a living. Unfortunately, most of them have not lost their politics or their idealism, just their energy.

I grew up and came of age during the "Vietnam era". My entire Junior High and High School experience was colored by it. When I moved in Junior High to a new state, the letters from friends back "home", were full of details of the first casualties in town to come home in body bags. When I got to high school, the adminstration had put up what was called the casualty wall, that listed all graduates who were either KIA or WIA on a weekly basis. In my senior year, all of us eligible for the draft were called to the auditorium and listend for our birth dates to be drawn and in what order. Some responses were, " Oh-SHIT!" I'm going to have to forgo college for a few years. Let's go down and enlist! I hear hear if you enlist you've got a better chance of not ending up as a Groundpounder! For others, it was a bus ticket to Canada. As for myself, I pulled one of the last sequence of draft numbers for the year. So I went home and waited for my orders to report for basic training. One day the letter arrived and to my relief, it read, "Don't bother showing up for basics, we have all the manpower required for this year, but stay in touch, just in case. Your draft status has been changed from 1A to 1H." My response, Thank God! I've got my life back! As for those who enlisted, they got the job of cleaning up the mess, and putting everything back into order in the armories, depots and camps. The next year, Congress ended the draft.

Protesting? What else was there to do? Everyone from top to bottom of the soci-economic order was seared by the experience or knew someone who was, no pun intended. Unlike today.

I agree the costs of violent protests are higher.

However, I also suspect the expected benefits of or returns from an investment in a violent protest have also diminished. The second and third factors you explicate might also help us understand why the value of the violent protest has diminished.

People are busier (or believe they are busier) these days than they were during the late 60’s and early 70’s, and a much smaller percentage of us would set aside the time to pay attention to the messages violent protesters might want to communicate. The violent protest political/rhetorical tool might also suffer from ordinariness. So many of us have seen them before; perhaps they have lost something of the sense of novelty that is often required to hold our attentions these days. Moreover, competitions for audiences’ attentions have also intensified greatly. Perhaps only the most scandalous or extraordinary events are able to seize the attentions of many audiences at the same time these days, because information about such events tends to take up a lot of bandwidth via both the major media and the minor media (blogs, emails, newsletters).

Modern would-be protesters might believe the violent protest is an ineffective political/rhetorical tool.

For me, who did participate in the street and at the university and who was there for Daley's police riots, the reason for subdued protest today is the learned lesson that protest just leads to the bombing of Cambodia and an extension of the misery. This time around, I would favor intensification of the war to the extent that it leads to a permanent defeat of Amerika, much like what happened to the Germans and Japanese, who have been peaceful now for over 60 years.

Part of the lesson learned is that it is my own USSA government, not a foreign power, that presents the greatest threat to my own day-to-day freedom as well as to any hope of ever seeing the light of freedom at the end of the tunnel during my lifetime.

Back in the 60s, there was hope for an end to Amerikan government's meddling in our sex, drugs, and rock & roll, but that end has not been forthcoming. Amerikans are still xenophobes and homophobes. The government still dictates what we can eat and drink. It has tightened rules on sex, drinking and pornography. There are certain magic words, like fuck and nigger, that can't be said on TV. More folks are in prison, more of them for victimless crimes, and more of them are the poor, minorities and those with mental problems.

Give me a defeated Germany, where I could have wine for lunch at my city senior activity center or a defeated Japan where sex is not a moral question! What we need is a defeated Amerika that no longer supports Latin dictators, no longer interferes with an African woman's right to health and no longer attempts to distribute its perverted sense of morality throughout the rest of the world.

jimbino, Do you know what the ING's motto for the last Democratic Convention held in Chicago was? "We kicked your old man's ass in "68" and now it's your turn" Old Judge Julius was probably spinning in his grave. ;)

It's the question which bothers me.

Violence at Vietnam protests, especially as early as '68, the subject of your blog entry, was rare indeed. The vast majority of violence at such protests was committed by those opposed to the protests, especially the police and FBI. The protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in '68 became violent only after the police, in full riot gear, attacked and beat protesters. This was the pattern everywhere. In '67 at the protest which attempted to "levitate" the Pentagon, the demonstrators were attacked by soldiers with bayonets; my friend Scott still bears the scar on his thigh where he was stabbed. In many protests, e.g. in Texas where I was at that time, agent provacateurs employed by the local police and especially and more often by the FBI, attempted to cause violence at war protests; usually without success. Unless you consider peacefully and nonviolently blocking public access to itself be violence, I should love to see your sources for your assumption. J. Edgar was most definitely not committed to non-violence and those working for him knew it and followed his lead. It was part of the anti-war catechism that most of those advocating violence before protests were in fact working directly for the FBI, or indirectly through the captain (in Austin, TX, lieutenant) of the local police in charge of "public order."

The leadership of the anti-war movement, and the older (in their 20's), and even many of the younger participants, broke their political teeth in the civil rights movement. King's non-violence, even by those who had theoretical disagreements with it, was such a sacrosanct part of that movement that it carried over into protest against nuclear testing and then to Vietnam. SDS, from its inception at the U. of Michigan in '61 was committed to nonviolence and was a very significant part of the anti-war leadership on college campuses. In fact, it was those in SDS who gave up on non-violence, and having failed to convince their colleagues, broke away and formed the Weathermen. Except for some of the Maoists (Progressive Labor), a tiny minority, even the most committed Marxists and Socialists, even real card-carrying members of the Communist Party, maintained their commitment to non-violence well into the '70's.

Were your post concerned with the number and size of protests in the '60's, rather than their purported violence, I would have found it insightful.

L. So your saying, "Won't you please come to Chicago for the riots" Was an FBI inspired protest song? See "spooks" in your shadow too? It's all a question of "whose side is whose"? or is there even a side. Just don't "steal the book". ;)

L. Caroline makes a valid point. The Weathermen and a few extremists apart, most of the violence generated in the police/protester conflicts of the late 1960s and early 1970s resulted more from what the police did than from what the protestors did.

Posner chose a poor adjective--"violent" rather than "disruptive"--to frame his question about the broader phenomenon. But it is surely true that current anti-war protests are less disruptive than they were during Vietnam. Posner's analysis of why that disparity exists is, I believe, largely correct.

Becker and Posner raise interesting points about the current anti-war movement. As a sociologist currently studying this political movement, here are a few thoughts:

1. There is a sociological/political science literature indicating that political reform movements have to be aggressive, but not violent. If you don't attract attention to your cause, you won't get anything. If you are too disruptive, you will lose popular support. This is by no means a consensus position among researchers, but it is plausible given various studies of policy response to protest such as Gamson, Fording and some of my own recent work.

2. The relative absence of disruptive tactics is a very conscious choice among anti-war activists. My research partner and I have been conducting field site visits and interviews with activists. We find that, as Posner indicates, there has been learning. These activists feel that extremely disruptive tactics tend to be counter productive. They believe tactics and rhetoric that resonate with public opinion (e.g., "bring the troops home" vs. "Bush lied") are more productive. They have also begun to professionalize - that is, they have begun to adopt the tactics associated with lobbyists. This suggests that the American peace movement has undergone quite a bit of learning.

3. I agree with the commenters about Vietnam era violence. In my own research on black power activists in the 1960s, violence was usually pursued by a minority of individuals and often in response to police. More recently, a graduate student of mine has video taped various demonstrations as part of her research. She has found that violence is often triggered by police actions. It is also the case that there is a small subgroup of activists who employ violence. Thus, the issue of violence in political movements is not simply about the choice activists make. It is the combination of what activists do, what police do and the interactions during protest events. The empirical question is how much of a riot can be attributed to a particular factor, such as police tatics or protester actions. The unstated assumption is that it's mostly about protester choices and police simply respond. I suspect that more weight should be given to police actions.

To see my research on the anti-war movement - use this URL: http://mypage.iu.edu/~frojas/research.html

Tom, Really?! Then why were seven tried in Chicago for Criminal Conspiracy and crossing state lines with the intention to incite riot? Perhaps Hiz Honor de Mayor put the temper of the times into perspective when he said, "The police aren't here to preserve order, they're here to preserve the disorder!" Judge Julie is probably still shaking his head and babbling. YIPPIE!

Fabio, In your literature search have you come across Lipset & Raab's work "American Political Extremism"? Truly a seminal work in the field. Along with the "Age of the Guerilla", "Che on Revolution", Mao's little red book and the "Anarchist's Cook Book" among others. The whole country was up for grabs.

Prof. Rojas--

All forms of protest--peaceful or violent, disruptive or orderly--aim at basically two objectives: to mobilize supporters, and to raise the domestic cost of continuing the policy under protest. Obviously, the larger the movement and the more numerous the actors, the more complex will be the weightings of these different objectives at different times. If you have developed a reliable empirical method for separating measuring these factors you shall have my undivided attention.

Mr. Hatfield--

There are too many reasons for undertaking a political trial like the Chicago 7 trial to rehearse here. Let me just say that there is a large literature on this trial and the events that led to it. If you can read just a portion of it without finding yourself in agreement with the Walker Report's characterization of the Chicago disorders as a "police riot," I'll buy you lunch.

As someone who is politically on the far left, it seems to me that street protests have become essentially ineffective. The last time in United States history that street protests were effective was probably in the Civil Rights era, and their effectiveness was primarily due to media coverage. Since then, the news media have come increasingly under the control of large corporations who have no particular interest in producing reportage that would adversely affect their economic interests (I'm assuming here that news media are no longer motivated primarily by a higher calling of reporting "truth"). Thus, even when when we see a fairly effective street protest (e.g., this year's Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, which 50 years ago might have gotten serious press coverage) the media ignores the story almost totally. So from a purely pragmatic standpoint, there is little reason to participate in street protests. (And yes, from a leftist point of view there's a possible analogy here with the ineffectiveness of street protest in post-Tianamen China.)

If you assume the above is true, you wouldn't waste time with street protest, would you? And those of us on the left have indeed been pursuing other options. Example: as long ago as the 1980's, Starhawk was writing about the transmogrification of direct political action into a form of religious expression, and today there continue to be those on the far left who have found that religious communities can serve as change agents within mass democracy and advanced capitalism. Example: some current activists are pursuing social marketing as an agent of change, using a basic tool of capitalism to subvert capitalism. Example: new media, particularly the Web, are currently being used with great effectiveness.

Instead of asking "why no street protests?" a more fruitful question might be why public sentiment has turned against the war in Iraq in spite of the control exercised by the government and the misinformation spread by news media. Perhaps religion, social marketing, new media, and other new techniques are actually quietly effective at pushing change in the face of an increasingly autocratic executive branch, in the face of a legislative branch that is only watching the polls, and in the face of an increasingly hostile judicial branch. I suggest that a search for street protests may reveal observer bias more than anything else.

http://www.old-pc-games.com/

To Posner's "five factors are as or more important than the end of the draft or the lower casualties in explaining the absence of violent protests against the Iraq war", I'd add a sixth - that of delusion.

The war is not yet such "a symbol of what they believed to be deeper and broader problems with the United States and the entire Western world" because the war hasn't lasted that long yet, and more people - a bigger proportion - are deluded about the problems with the "system", exemplified in the much denied climate-extreming.

The war serves as a distraction from climate-extreming, and the climate-extreming serves as distraction from the war. Both problems are being profusely denied and played down by the administration, and although these lies are seen, the run-around connection between them is not quite seen.

People's focus is being divided, energy of protest is being depleted, and the convergence to a boiling-point of protest takes longer to reach. Both sides have learned since 1968-1973. But the pressure of a weakened “system” - in the form of a stronger conflict between culture and nature / real needs – is growing.

In the end, action speaks louder than words, and if words aren’t loud enough action, other forms of action will speak, until the “system” again is perceived as serving “we the people”. Unaltruistic, group-interest serving leaders can fool most of the people much of the time. But they can’t delude sufficient amounts of people enough of the time to avoid the reality of double deficits, war against innocents plus war against nature to finally break through – like some New Orleans levies.

Judge Posner, although I agree in principle with the five factors you outlined in your post, and although I was born in 1968 and so have no real memory of the events of that turbulent year, I have to say that I still think that the main variable is your first point about the lack of conscription today.

In short, my sense of the protests in the 1960s (based on a US history class I twice TA'd for with Professor Stephen Gillon) is that the anti-war protestors were a bunch of self-serving opportunists who mostly came from wealthy families. If this is so, this would neutralize some of your five factors, especially the one about time-costs. Nevertheless, I continue to enjoy and relish your economic reasoning.

Dear Judge Posner, as a postscript, I forgot to mention that (in the absence of conscription) the protesters find themselves in a kind of 'prisoner's dilemma' or 'tragedy of the commons' situation. That is, the cost protesting to each individual is large relative to the small benefits of signalling one's opposition to the war in Iraq.

In other words, the psychic benefits to ending the war would be enjoyed by everyone (including non-protesters), but the costs of protesting to end the war are borne by a small number of radical protesters. As a result, in the absence of a personal incentive to protest (such as the fear of being conscripted), we have a classic free rider or social dilemma in which the interests of each individual protester diverges with the collective interests of the protesters as a whole.

Paco

To Mr. Hatfield: Yes, I have run across these works, but my comments were addressing what has been discovered through empirical analysis of protest events, not polemical statements. I think that analyses of tactics (such as violence), on the balance, show that extremism is actually limited in its effectiveness.

To direct link: "If you have developed a reliable empirical method for separating measuring these factors you shall have my undivided attention." The book you should consult is Gamson's Strategy of Social Protest. He collected data on over 100 American political groups to assess whether various factors, such as internal organization or protest, correlate with goal attainment. It was done in the 1970s, which means that it isn't as sophisticated as we might expect, but it is really an ambitious and useful first step towards the comprehensive analysis you suggest. On a more sophisticated level, you might also consult Tilly's "From Mobilization to Revoulation," which presents a rational choice model of protest and state response using the factors you mention. Sadly, there has been no comprehensive study testing Tilly's ideas and it would be good to do so.

thank you very very nıce thank you very very much...

My first reaction to Posner is: "Is that right?"

Is it really the case that the situation in Vietnam is similar to what we have in Iraq now? This approach seems typical of looking at a few qualities, and drawing the conclusion that they in fact must be similar enough to draw identical conclusions from.

1- Remember that the bigger protests in Vietnam did not start until after there were already hundreds of thousands of troops (many drafted) deployed.

2- The war in fact had started many years before 1968. Compare that with the large protests even before Iraq war.

3- Obviously Posner doesn't spend his valuable time with any anti-war organizing. But for those who spend time on the field, it is very clear that the current activist groups generally share an understanding that "violence" is not productive on the street. There is a deep sense of "non-violent activism" even among those who self-identify as anarchists. Also the church/faith based groups which became active in anti-militaristic campaigns of 80's (when the US was supporting bloody paramilitaries in Central America); now those groups have a strong legacy of non-violence in today's antiwar groups.

Of Posner's explanations the most reasonable one is not having a draft today.

Tom, The report mentioned never covers the issue of using Gen'l. Logan's statue in Grant Park as a public toilet. This was just too much for those charged with maintaining public order. It was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull. Such incidents occured all over the city. As a strategy of street theater, it was brilliant, because it forced the opposition to take an action that was counter-productive from a propaganda perspective.

Fabio, it looks as if we've crossed over into the realm known as "revolutionary praxis". Such that, "practice without theory is useless and theory without practice is meaningless'. The problem with trying to do an empirical study of any social/political event, lies in the fact that the observer cannot fully isolate themselves from the event and make objective observations. The event is meant to fully engage the hearts and minds of the participants of both sides and polarize them. Emotionally, psychologically and physically.

I would add to Judge Posner's discussion of the cultural factor my observation that, during the Vietnam War, many Americans saw the Vietnamese Communists as the "good guys" and openly wished for a U.S. defeat. By contrast, I almost never hear an American publicly hoping for a U.S. defeat in Iraq (although undoubtedly many would privately prefer a U.S. defeat to a "victory" that might vindicate George Bush). Rather, public opposition to the Iraq War is usually based on its being unwinnable and its having been sold to the American people on false pretenses. The closest one comes to hearing in this country public sympathy for insurgents/al Qaida/Moqtada al-Sadr is from "paleoconservatives" who argue that we have no right to impose Western liberal values on cultures that don't want them.

There's a much simpler explanation: the protests of the Vietnam era were deliberately staged and funded by the Soviet propaganda machine. But our enemies in the middle east have neither the skill at manipulating Western media nor the friends within it that the Soviet Union did; if they did, they would not find it necessary to engage in terror attacks in order to get media coverage.

It seems to me we should consider restoring the wartime censorship laws we had in both world wars, and should extend those laws to prohibit media from airing the motivations/grievances/demands of terrorists. If our battle losses had been shown every evening on TV news or even in newsreels during WW2, there is no way we would have stayed in the war long enough to beat the Nazis. It appears to be simply impossible for a democratic country to prosecute a war to completion, no matter how necessary, when the media display our daily losses -- so not censoring our news is tantamount to surrendering the world into the hands of dictators who are willing to censor theirs.

Mr Hatfield--

With all due respect, I think you are allowing your views of the merits of the 1968 protesters to color your views as to who was "causing" the violence. Do you really think that protesters who taunt the police and thereby provoke a violent response "cause" that violence in the same way that a matador "causes" the bull to attack by waving a red flag in front of him? If so, let me offer an "easier" case--"easier" because the cause of the protest is now less controversial.

In 1963, TV viewers of the nightly news were horrified by scenes of Bull Connor and the Birmingham police unleashing guard dogs and firehoses on men, women, and children who were merely asserting rights most white people took for granted. What was the impact of this? Did we all join hands and sing "We Shall Overcome" until the walls of segregation came tumbling down?
Hardly.

The first major consequence of these demonstrations was to cause businessmen in Birmingham and elsewhere in the South to lose money. Not surprisingly, even people who were indifferent to segregation did not enjoy vacationing in Dixie while local thugs were beating up demonstrators. So the business community became an unwitting, and perhaps unwilling, agent of change. They began to pressure for changes to the conditions that were producing these scenes of violence.

Did the civil rights leaders anticipate this result? Did they intend it? Almost certainly. Does that mean that in occasioning the violence, and even inviting it, they were "causing" it? Not in any morally meaningful sense that I can think of, because police officers are not like bulls responding to instinct. They are moral agents who can choose both the institutions they defend and how they defend them. In the end, it was they institution of segregation that was "causing" the violence.

My point is that one cannot easily separate the good, First Amendment-protected "message" aspect of protest and discard the bad, unprotected, "coercive" aspects of protest. They go together in complicated ways.

I've started a thread about this on my personal blog, which is about sociology & economics. Here is the URL for interested folks: http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2007/05/01/violence-and-the-anti-war-movement/

Tom, At least the boys in Birmingham didn't move in Federal Troops and clear the streets with musket fire and bayonet as they did in the streets of New York during the Draft riots in the 1860's, but then they were only Irish and German malcontents. I won't even mention Kent State in the 1970's or when the anti-war movement burned down the ROTC building on the OSU campus (it was crummy old building anyway and needed to be replaced).

As for "Jim Crow", there were laws in effect about sizes, locations and times of public gatherings meant to control riots. The Law is the Law and those charged with maintaining good public order can do nothing else, except enforce it. As I mentioned earlier, the event is meant to polarize, emotionally, psychologically, and physically. It still does, years after the fact. Always the sign of a good theatrical/rhetorical event.

Responses to the five factors:

1. I agree. The political winds seem to have shifted against the war (see, 2006 midterms), so protesting the Iraq War now is like shooting a corpse. Of course, there are those who still think it was a good idea and that we should still "stay the course" (yet none of them--with the possible, but doubtful, exception of General Petreus--have any coherant plan as to how the U.S. Army is supposed to mend the centuries-old Sunni/Shia rift). This group seems to think that optimistic thinking and statements of determination are substitutes for being able to articulate an actual plan. If they can't be convinced by the realities of Iraq in 2007, it would be foolish to think they could be convinced by a picket sign.

2. I think there is some truth to this, but I do not think this is as much of a factor as the draft. As a twenty-seven year old law student, I do not know what the opportunity costs of being a protestor were in the 60's, but I know that college and law students today have a lot of time to devote to activities like drinking, playing video games, and blogging (except me of course, err...wait a minute). I also doubt that protesting would hurt people's job prospects unless they did something totally ludicrous.

3. I agree. In fact, I am going to blow off some steam "protest steam" at the end of my post.

4. Also agree, radical, violent protests tend to harm causes more than support them.

5. Agree. We saw socialism fail around the world and are seeing anarchy fail right now in Iraq. So right now, no one seems to have any ideas of a system to use if we threw out the current one.

Now, my "protest steam":
I just finished watching George Tenet's 60 minutes interview on CBS news' website. Who the hell thought that this guy should be in charge of the CIA? (Both administrations are to blame here.) I wouldn't buy a used car from that man. His position on the "slam dunk" comment is that he wasn't saying that he meant that Saddam actually had WMD, just that making the case to the American people (translation: making up a false story to justify the war) would be a slam dunk. This is supposed to abdicate him from responsibility? He also says that he knew the Iraq/Al Qaeda link stories were false and implies that he had the foresight to know that Iraq would be a disaster. If this is true, which I think it is, that means he knowingly didn't speak up and sat silently as we were led into this disaster. I know members of the administration are supposed to tow the party line, but with hundreds of thousands of lives at stake, that is not an excuse.

Much as I respect Judge Posner, I've read his post several times and, as someone who was around in the late 60s and early 70s, and cognizant of the Vietnam War, the only conclusion that comes to mind is that Posner's remarks on why there are no violent street protests over the Iraq conflict are not even irresponsible; quite the contrary, they are simple bullshit.

I can't comment on whether the Vietnam protests were violent. That was before my time. With respect to the lack of violence associated with the Iraq war protests, I would suggest two reasons - the first idealistic and the second profoundly cynical.

The first idealistic (and, I like to think, primary) reason is that Iraq war protesters come from all age groups and are united by their belief in non-violent solution to conflict. As a result, the leaders of the Iraq war protest movement tend to be mature adults with a deep belief in the value of non-violent resolution of conflict. This makes it very difficult for those advocating violence to recruit the necessary support.

That is, to the extent that protesters are motivated by a desire to make the world a better place, they honestly believe that non-violent solution is most likely to be effective.

The second profoundly cynical reason is that, to the extent that the protesters believe that the Iraq war has harmed them personally and merely desire revenge, then ending the occupation of Iraq is counter-productive. At the time of invasion, the majority of Americans were in favor of invading Iraq and the members of the US military were, at least in a limited sense, volunteers. With this in mind, it is the American people and the members of the US military who are responsible for the war in Iraq and against whom revenge should ultimately be directed. The thing is, the best way to hurt the American people and members of the US military is for the USA to stay mired in Iraq. Why assume the great personal risk of engaging in acts of violence to end the Iraq occupation if ending the Iraq occupation would ultimately help the people who deserve (and seem to want) to be punished?

Essentially, "Do not alleviate the suffering that they have brought upon themselves but instead show them the error of their ways for only when they have recognized the error of their ways (and acknowledged that they themselves are responsible for their suffering) will they be worthy to have their suffering alleviated".

'There's a much simpler explanation: the protests of the Vietnam era were deliberately staged and funded by the Soviet propaganda machine.'

Exactly. That machine had a long and storied history, going back to Stalin's man Otto Katz infiltrating Hollywood in the 1930s. Al Qaeda has nothing like it.

Remember than Nixon had the country behind him as he pursued his Vietnam strategy. He won a huge victory in 1972 over McGovern. Bush doesn't have anything like the support Nixon had, yet the protests today are minuscule in comparison.

I think additionally prior history to each war makes a big difference. The fifties were the time of the blacklist when communist authors could not find new work nor their works expression. This provided a bulwark of conservative opinion but rather like an individual who had not been exposed to childhood viruses it also provided a very vulnerable population so that as the idea that the war was (some) wrong and a leftist idea(s) was possibly correct there was a revolutionary turn to leftist ardor. This ardor has persisted in the intellectual community. 9/11 provoked a suspension of active disbelief in the relative evils of the society but the peaks of cultural influence have so far mounted a successful counterattack, in the lack of easy success in Iraq, against any massive reflection in the populace on contrary ideas. The ardor of the left is however not fresh and their response is emotionally, 'been there done that,' cf. VN war protests.

"...the protests of the Vietnam era were deliberately staged and funded by the Soviet propaganda machine.'

Exactly. That machine had a long and storied history, going back to Stalin's man Otto Katz infiltrating Hollywood in the 1930s." ( - Patrick R. Sullivan, May 2, 2007)

*

Oh, sure - Katz, executed by Stalin in 1952, was behind the Vietnam-era protests on behalf of Stalin. No protest against the war in Vietnam had any other source but “the Soviet propaganda machine”. And George W Bush is really a reptile from outer space (or is it his opponents who are - or are they still Stalin-minions?). That "fact" Sullivan forgot to mention.

That there's anything wrong with US policies and unprovoked attacks on foreign states like Vietnam and Iraq, is of course unthinkable to some. (The "Tonkin bay incident" 1964 which served as pretext for grand escalation of US attacks on Vietnam has been thoroughly debunked - by NSA in 2005, no less - as having had nothing to do with North Vietnam).

Looking for any "casus belli" is not in the style of the always honorable US military, which always simply defends poor little US citizens and their reasonable interests - even if the defence must happen on the opposite side of the planet, killing millions of people for hay-wire political theories (like the “Domino-theory” or the WMD-theory, both demonstratively wrong) ...

Makes me reflect on what "propaganda machine" is behind these notions.

Re Nixon's win in 1972: behind it was an illegal rigging, revealed in a small smear-campaign and vote-influencing incident later known as "Watergate". The revelation of the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972 to plant listening devices pushed Nixon to resign from office August 9th 1974, exactly because he was revealed as a knowing accomplice - in the break-in, the smear-campaign, and the dirty tricks to throw the election his way in 1972.

Some people can’t get real no matter how much reality is thrown in their face.

Back to the issue of “Why No Violent Protests Against the Iraq War?”.
1. Early days yet.
2. No violent protests? Then what’s all the IED-attacks and fighting with Iraqies in Iraq - non-violent?
3. What’s not violent about herding people into “free-speech zones” cordoned off military-style – that that violence is pre-emptive?

Deluded US conservatives, bleating cheers at their own slaughter, like the good sheep they are.

I think additionally prior history to each war makes a big difference. The fifties were the time of the blacklist when communist authors could not find new work nor their works expression, iconic works like 'Death of a Salesman' excepted. This provided a bulwark of anti-communsit opinion but rather like an individual who had not been exposed to childhood viruses it also provided a very vulnerable population so that as the idea that the war was (some) wrong and a leftist idea(s) was possibly correct there was a revolutionary turn to leftist ardor. This ardor has persisted in the intellectual community. 9/11 provoked a suspension of active disbelief in the relative evils of the society but the peaks of cultural influence have so far mounted a successful counterattack, in the lack of easy success in Iraq, against any massive reflection in the populace on contrary ideas. The ardor of the left is however not fresh and their response is emotionally, 'been there done that,' cf. VN war protests.

Judge Posner- I agree with all of your reasons but one. I wasn't there, but I really don't think that the opportunity costs of time and career focus have changed over the years. At least, not enough to prevent people from protesting. This reason could apply to the immigrant marches, but not to war protests. Do you really think that people have better things to do with their time than protest numerous deaths and human rights violations that are direct results of American actions in Iraq? In my opinion, there is a deeper underlying reason, which is that people have become disillisioned with the power of protests and politics in general. The support for this can be found in the drastic decrease in voting. People don't vote and they don't protest because they lost confidence in politics.

"As someone who is politically on the far left, it seems to me that street protests have become essentially ineffective. The last time in United States history that street protests were effective was probably in the Civil Rights era, and their effectiveness was primarily due to media coverage."

I agree with Dan here. As a left-wing youth, there is an overwhelming sense of the fundamental failure of Vietnam-era mass-protest tactics, coupled with a general sense of disillusionment with that era as a whole: The liberal, anti-establishment, activist character of the time gave way to an intensely conservative, cautious, established nature as our parents aged.

The success of the Civil Rights movement's mass protest was ultimately a result of shared interests with political leaders; that is to say, the Civil Rights movement could have successes because there were politicians who found it in accordance with their ideology and best interest to accomodate the calls for equal rights. Marches against Vietnam, however, did little to change circumstances, and pretty generally turned the conservative establishment against the (damn dirty hippie) marchers; change didn't come until the nation as a whole became fed up with war.

In this case, like in the case of Vietnam, our political leaders have a specific interest in pursuing the war, and, accordingly, protests are immaterial - the largest protest in history was a "focus group," according to Bush. Unlike the hippies, however, my generation seems to have realized that protest is not an effective tool for social change when the protested topic is a vested interest of the power to which the protest would be appealing.

All posts are interesting banter but I think Judge Posner misses an important factor. In fact, I believe all the respondents have missed an important factor.

Most academics, legal scholars and upper middle class and above citizens simply have no reference point with the military. They simply don't know many or any soldiers, sailors or marines. They typically just don't serve or if they do it is not in a combat arm(i.e., infantry, armor, etc).They simply don't enlist and because of the all-volunteer military-they simply don't see military service as attractive. What I find so disingenuous is this broad based belief that all this cannon fodder actually joined the service for altruism. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most enlisted soldiers are products of small towns with limited economic opportunity. Most of the killed in action and grievously wounded in action are products a lower class or lower middle class environment. The reason the Judge and the other high minded posters observe that there's less protests is primarily fueled by the lack of any real direct, reasonably contemporaneous interface with any of the kids that bear the real wounds of the war.

We've outsourced our combat arms(both Army and Marines) to lower middle class kids who are desperate to survive. They sign up because of education benefits and the ability to give their children a stable middle class life.

I spent time in the US Army as an infantry platoon leader and I was shocked not to see ANY kids from advantaged backgrounds. No Birmingham or Grosse Pointe kids(I was raised in Detroit and now live in Birmingham). As a society we should be ashamed that the real heavy lifting of American foreign policy is done almost exclusively by those who owe society the least.

So the "6th factor" is what I'd call "visceral" distance. When you don't know anyone or you haven't been indirectly or directly impacted in any substantive way-you really can't formulate the outrage to protest.

I just wonder though. Assuming no draft-would a pure humanitarian mission to a Darfur mobilize the historical non-joiners to join. Are we really a country where the grads of the Kennedy School at Harvard or Georgetown(without any military, Peace Corps or other "real" public service) are going to economically bribe lower middle class and immigrant kids to join the military to send them to the far reaches of the earth for dubious objectives. Bottomline: If bodybags came home to Cambridge, Berkeley, Hillsdale and Bob Jones University-I think we'd have an entirely different military commitment policy.

Jose, Your right, but then, that has always been the case when nations develop "professional" volunteer militaries. The burden has always fallen disproportionately on the less advantage members of society. Which is what we have discovered by using volunteerism and the elimination of a true citizen military.

Now the problem is a lack of manpower and the stretching of the reserves to almost the breaking point. If the U.S. is to continue to expand its influence around the globe, the Congress is going to have to do something like reinstituing the Draft. Or as I would prefer, the reinstitution of "well regulated militias" of all able bodied citizens as articulated in the Constitution. At least then a true citizen military would result and eliminate a professional military composed primarily of the less advantaged.

'If the U.S. is to continue to expand its influence around the globe, the Congress is going to have to do something like reinstituing the Draft.'

That is simply ridiculous. Think about the numbers for a minute. There are roughly 50 million Americans in the prime soldiering ages 18-30. We don't need even 5% of them in the military.

Bush inherited 1.4 million men and women in uniform. Ronald Reagan--also an all-volunteer army--had 2.4 million to confront the Soviet Union. So, if we need more military manpower, it should be a simple matter to expand it.

All it takes is more money.

Patrick, You weren't one of Rumsfeld's office boys were you? The Nation's got problems, big problems, and it's time "to think a-new and act a-new". The first step, is to recreate what will guarantee and maintain a free government. "Cost" be damned.

Jose Santiago:
Assuming no draft-would a pure humanitarian mission to a Darfur mobilize the historical non-joiners to join.

I would suggest that the reason the upper class does not join the military is related to your idea but not not about humanitarian missions, per se.

The thing is, money is power and the upper class, by definition, have money. What this means is that the upper class is accustomed to having control of their lives. If an upper class person wants a new couch for their living room, they go out and buy a new couch. If an upper class person wants to go out to dinner at a fancy restaurant then that person goes out to dinner at a fancy restaurant. If an upper class person wants a clean house but doesn't want to clean their own house then the upper class person hires someone to clean their house.

The problem is that the military is not about letting people have control of their lives. A lower class person doesn't' really have control of their life anyway so it doesn't matter. For an upper class person, this loss of control is a huge sacrifice.

It's not clear to me that the military really needs to be so coercive and to prevent its member from having control of their lives. If the military made each mission optional (e.g. a soldier could choose to fight in Afghanistan but not Iraq) then I suspect there would be a lot more members of the upper class enlisting.

The absence of a draft reduces the common burden that the citizenry felt in Vietnam.

But, to characterize today's armed forces as "all volunteer" is to fall prey to current group speak.

The troops are paid what the market says they are worth. They are volunteers in the same sense that my garbage man is a volunteer.

Putting a thin veneer of patriotism probably lowers the government's costs somewhat. But let's be honest, by and large we have a poverty draft in this country. Just like the Civil War.

Maybe being a stinky, dirty hippie just isn't as broadly fashionable and hip as it was in the Vietnam era. However I do see a fair number of Che t-shirts, so I might be wrong.

Wes, Ever been in the middle of a fire fight, where the platoon has frozen in position because of stark fear? There is a reason for the coercive nature of discipline. "Pickup your rifle and move against the enemy! NOW! Otherwise, I will have the SGT. shoot you where you lie. GET MOVING!"

As an officer he is well within his rights to have you shot on the spot for cowardice in the face of the enemy.

In my opinion, formal education can also be a kind of consumption. In my college, there are quite a few students who are pure "party animals". They are always happy. From what I saw, they never worry about grades, they seek new friends on Facebook and chat online in all classes, and they have at least 4 parties every week... To them, college education is just pure enjoinment, four years of party, and the best thing is that their parents will pay for them.

Violent Protests Against the Iraq War? Is that really work?
In my opinion, to be a violent protest, cost is too high, and nobody can say is there are "Violent Protests Against the Iraq War" the war will stop or shorter. U.S. government have benefit to break out this war, they consider the national safety compare with violent against. That is the opportunity cost, the "national safety" is more important to the government, so I don's think it will be useful. also the cost of be a violent protest is os high , no body want "pay for it."

The answer is so blatant I'm amazed the question was even posed. It's entirely cultural. Let me give you a clue. Think of the popular bands/music at the time of the late 60s early 70s. Now think of Brittney Spears (popular in our time), who says we should trust the president and do whatever he says. Conformity is what these times are all about. The people who 40 years ago would be protesting the war are, today, rebelling by trying the new Dulce de Leche Frappuccino at Starbucks rather than their usual Venti White half-calf Mocha. Nobody is going to protest anything meaningful, and they're certainly not going to be violent. They might show up for an anti-meat ralley for half an hour to pick up the chicks who are there so they can say they do something 'meaningful' (as opposed to crying and pilates).

In addition to the KGB's disinformation campaign, one might also look to the pervasive operations of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Undoubtedly there were agents provacateur planted among organizations to which protestors belonged, in an effort to damage their legitimacy. Hoover would have seen this as an important priority, as he would have believed such organizations to be shot through with leftists belonging to various Soviet front organizations, or with fellow travelers at the very least.

I think that this is a very interesting perspective on the lack of violent protests in America. As I read through the blog I completely agree with the reasoning of the author. It is not at all that Americans today are in more agreement with the war in Iraq than they were with Vietnam but the opportunity costs today are far higher. I have never looked at the situation in this way however it is a great observation. The possibility for a college student to find employment upon graduation is unacceptable under any terms however especially as a result of a known punishment for protesting, possibly even in a non-violent way. During the protests of Vietnam it was almost a way of gaining respect to protest, today it is looked at as a radical behavior that is unjustifiable.

What a bunch of nonsense. The unpopularity of the
war for many stems not because it's being fought,
but because it's being fought not vigorously
enough.

Why no violent protests? Gee, I don't know maybe
it's because the Scum we are fighting in Iraq
murder hundreds (sometimes more) every day. I
think most Americans understand the gravity
of this situation. Do you?

I completely agree that the cost of violence protests has risen and the benefits have fallen. I never thought about it, but electronic media such as blogs really are a great way for people to vent about the war in Iraq thus promoting them to not cause violent protests. It's also a good indication that these violent protests have not taken place because there is no draft. All of the U.S. troops ARE volunteers, therefore, we cannot complain about this war because there's obviously people out there who agree with it enough to actually volunteer to put themselves on the line for our country. Personally, I don't agree with the war, but what can I do about it?

The factors that can account for the lack of protests against the Iraq War make a lot of sense. As mentioned, technology has come a long way and people make their views known on such issues by posting on a blog, for example, instead of protesting like before for the Vietnam War. Also, I think it is an excellent point that there are higher opportunity costs for protesting today. Now, because there are higher wages and education is in such high demand, most people will not jeopardize their careers by partaking in the protests. These two reasons seem to be the most applicable in accounting for the lack of protests with the war in Iraq.