Act Now: Students Against the War (from The Nation)

[marmar]

BLOG | Posted 03/21/2007 @ 5:53pm
Students Against War


At the outset of the Iraq war four years ago numerous polls found that students, like the majority of the population, overwhelmingly supported the invasion. Now those same polls show that students, more than any other age group, oppose the war.

I've heard much bemoaning about the lack of student antiwar activism and organizing around Iraq. The absence of a draft is generally held to be the single most important difference in explaining the larger student mobilizations of an earlier generation against war in Southeast Asia but charges of apathy also abound.

This has always seemed unfair to me--students have exhibited just as much, if not in most cases more, opposition to the war than any other age group. As Sam Graham-Felsen recounted in a recent Nation article, a broad array of student groups have made ending the war a top priority. Among the main players are a reborn Students for a Democratic Society, the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, the Campus Antiwar Network and the Hip Hop Caucus, a new organization founded by Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. (Check the SDS site for a survey of antiwar actions mounted by students to mark yesterday's fourth anniversary of the war and read Nation intern Wes Enzinna's description of antiwar activists use of YouTube for more examples of student opposition to the war.)

Offering some of the most substantial support for this collegiate peace activism, Campus Progress, the student program of the Center for American Progress, has launched the Iraq Campaign and Iraq Film Project. (Full disclosure: CP is also an active collaborator with The Nation. We re-publish a small portion of CP content on our StudentNation site and we jointly produce an annual student journalism conference.) .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow?bid=4&pid=177843