The Decagon Antiwar Amplification
One of the most obvious differences between the Vietnam antiwar protests and the Iraq antiwar protests is the foci of imagery. Vietnam images tend to highlight personalities, those individuals who were set on ending the conflict. Iraq images are of groups and slogans, more the message and the magnitude, the ambiguity and the diversity. The Vietnam antiwar movement was truly American, simply speaking to the unjust way we entered a foreign country to establish the first symbol of true USAn hegemony taking center stage within the cultural frequency of earth. The Iraq antiwar movement spoke to the established order 30 years in the making and still invasively broadcasting to nearly every corner of the planet.
The people representing each movement either reflected a straight forward countercultural representation or a true unity of diversity, though both highly understated by USAn media. We tend to think our country is truly polarized during such moments, but again, our choice is dependent upon filtered information and strategic arrays of selection. We’re given this or that option, and once affiliated with either option, the array of goods, services, ideologies, and representational bodies step forth to take control or possession of the previously vacated positions. Liberals, conservatives, hippies, fascists, patriots, anarchists, and neocons become the new political and cultural groups one must bind to if considered to be taken seriously. After that, it’s a matter of all the economic, intellectual, religious and philosophical relationships filling in the blanks of what the media deem as our empty and uncertain lives.
In reality, many groups were mutually represented during the Iraq antiwar protests, and in many countries. The causes for entering the war were obvious, whether true or fabricated. But once the information became fact and fiction, those who believed faithfully ousted themselves and became honest once again. The same case can’t be made for Vietnam, as the two sides were clearly demarcated, or so we see now that the revolutionaries of the moment are able to market the arts, products and happenings of the time. Will our movement have the same generational amplification? Do the generations younger than us and not-yet-old enough to comprehend the fervent opposition understand its implications?
The 21st century, post-9/11 event has taken on a new flavor and some can feel the change of stimuli. There are new sights and sounds in the air, mostly of nature and silence. When the pollution is present, it’s easy enough to spotlight the culprit and know where their past allegiances lay and what transition is coming to them next. Our decagon is ten years in the making, but the form is still with us and the desperation of USA’s “other” is slowly fading and finding itself outdated and outmoded. Antinomously, there’s a capitalistic dilemma belaying a true movement to reach the ideological certitude of the antiwar movement. It faintly reeks of the late 70’s and early 80’s, post-Viet spectacle, whereby USA was symbolized as suffering yet was simply in a classic Friedmanite bunco for the entrance of another round of conservative politics aimed to destroy all the counter-cultural groundwork. The pattern is all too carbon and spam.
There are many of us in “it”, in this place of propositional transition, this ten-layered, ten-year shell, where we think it’s unsafe to label, yet without a particular identity, we might be lost as simply a moment. The machine, the force and the man or largest male sibling isn’t unmovable or irresistible, it simply has a name and easily attaches its modus operandi to the fear. We’re ready to take the pain and use it to be what once was to become the “know” generation. But knowledge is relative and pain tolerance is advantageous. This time we won’t lose a step because we’re better learned at how to survive with -less, yet all-the-more is out there for us to grasp at any moment. Though it doesn’t benefit anyone with -less to attract attention to haves, the undefended abundance is in plain sight. The “trickle down effect” of this generation’s segue out of massive ideological opposition becomes the “cultural collapse of the mainstream”. No more extra-ideological decision making, information retention, corporate intimacy or antiquated economic and political theories. No more corpse-fucking infidelity! We’re barricaded by the open, the spatial reference of nowhere and every place. With such freedom and so many sides to find a corner in, the division of half is pentad and outnumbered. It’s lost in the polygonal ratios of prime and we’re infinitely creative with the 1 and 0. We’re the first dual-digitized movement and our anniversary is upon us.