MoveOn, moving on... posted by Richard Seymour

There was some controversy over recent criticisms of the tactics of American activist group MoveOn on the Tomb recently. In particular, it was strongly hinted that if any group merited the ubiquitous term "bruschetta brigade" it was them.

Of course, in the United States, MoveOn has been harshly criticised by the radical Left for its tremulousness, and by Bush apologists for its depiction of the President as a neo-Nazi in internet ads. Actually, the demonology of Bush went hand in hand with its support for Kerry and its peon tactics of mobilisation ("hey, let's us liberals have some house parties and eat snacks and drink Chianti and talk about how bad Bush is"). From being an antiwar group, it moved to support for the pro-war candidacy of John Kerry as well as his even more rabid side-kick John Edwards - naturally, their reward was that Kerry rebuked them for being so mean to Mr Bush. They continued, nevertheless, to organise on his behalf.

This March, Norman Solomon was disconcerted to learn that MoveOn had made their peace with the occupation of Iraq . Yesterday, in one of ZNet's e-mail commentaries, Norman Solomon wrote :

The day after Wednesday night's nationwide vigils, the big headline at the top of the MoveOn.org home page said: "Support Cindy Sheehan." But MoveOn does not support Cindy Sheehan's call for swift withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

...

Consider how the MoveOn website summarized the vigils: "Last night, tens of thousands of supporters gathered at 1,625 vigils to acknowledge the sacrifices made by Cindy Sheehan, her son Casey and the more than 1,800 brave American men and women who have given their lives in Iraq -- and their moms and families." Such a gloss excludes a key reason why many people participated in the vigils: They wanted to express clear opposition to any further U.S. involvement in the war.

I love the use of that word "mom". It's so cosy and American and apple-pie. In fact, MoveOn's whole approach from the beginning has been marked by stars n stripes stuff. Their support for Kerry involved distributing a video rebutting the account of Vietnam Swift Boat veterans which said that Kerry was a coward and so on. But no, he really did kill all those people - isn't that great? God bless America, vote Democrat and wave that star-spangled banner.

Some one, with more free time on their hands than I, should bring Rob Newman's advice to the attention of MoveOn: "The rest of the world has a flag too, you know. It's just like yours, except it's on fire."