Blog Post #5: Anti-War

   The voices of anti-war people are not being heard or listened to in the news in recent years. I say recent years because there were times in our history when voices of anti-war protesters were seen and heard, just not listened to. The greatest example of that was the anti-war movement during the Vietnam war; there were thousands of protests that happened in the U.S and around the world, but they did not mean anything because the war still happened. That seems to be what happens either the voices of anti-war protestors are heard but ignored, or they are not seen at all.

 There are a lot of examples of anti-war voices that have been out there, either being ignored or unheard. One example of unheard voices is what is going on right now with the crisis in Ukraine going on; there are large-scale anti-war protests that are going on in Russia currently. Though it seems that no one wants to talk about it, all the news articles are about different things. I went onto google news and looked up the war in Ukraine. There are no major stories on the news about these instances that are going, but USA today published a story about it very recently; weirdly, these voices are being reported on, but they are not being pushed into the headlines.

A great example of voices that were ignored comes from an article I found titled ‘Why Was the Biggest Protest in World History Ignored?’ which is about a protest that was held on February 15, 2003, all over the world against the war in Iraq. Around 10 million people around the globe in approximately 600 different cities participated in this protest against the war in Iraq, but no one talked about it. How was an event of this magnitude just forgotten and pushed aside? It shows that the voices of anti-war protest mean nothing to the government because only a little bit passed a month after this, the U.S entered Iraq.

 Another excellent example of these unheard anti-war voices is the websites like  ANTIWAR.COM and the American Conservative website. There is apparent outrage towards any kind of war on these sites, but no one knows about them. The articles on these websites are the exact opposite of what we hear in the news, and I believe it is important that we hear this side as well. The about us page of  antiwar.com gave me a clear idea of what these sites are and how we should use them by saying that the website “embodies the politics of the possible.” It is clear that these websites should be looked at as an idea of where we should go as a result of how politico is now.

I think overall, the voices of those who are anti-war need to be heard more and should give a spot in the news. It is important to have both sides of an argument, even if it is about the topic of war, and that is what we as a nation are sorely lacking.