{"id":19886,"date":"2010-07-26T11:13:43","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T15:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=19886"},"modified":"2010-07-31T19:55:27","modified_gmt":"2010-07-31T23:55:27","slug":"the-ivaw-coffee-house-dilema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=19886","title":{"rendered":"The IVAW coffee house dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

The poor IVAW folks who are trying to influence the “GI resistance movement” have hit a brickwall called “the reality of operating socialist endeavors in a capitalist environment” – you have to make money;<\/a><\/p>\n

My name is Seth Manzel. I am the Executive Director of COFFEE STRONG, a GI coffee house located outside of Fort Lewis. I am sure you are familiar with the coffee house movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, that helped to foster GI resistance against the Vietnam War. You may also be familiar with the modern manifestations of those coffee houses that attempt to promote resistance amongst today’s soldiers.<\/p>\n

COFFEE STRONG at Fort Lewis, Different Drummer near Fort Drum, Under the Hood at Fort Hood and Off Base in Norfolk, VA were all created with a common goal; to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by fostering GI resistance. While we all operate independent of each other, and we all have different approaches to what we do, we all provide a comfortable atmosphere for soldiers to speak out against these wars.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago The Different Drummer closed down for lack of support. Right now, we are in jeopardy of loosing Under the Hood for the same reason. We are all fund intensive operations, but we all work in a field that can’t be done from anywhere else. GI resistance can only be effectively promoted at military bases. It is not something that can be done from Manhattan or LA as effectively as it can from the depressed neighborhoods that surround military bases.<\/p>\n

This is what you can do. You can become a sustaining donor and support one or more of these coffee houses (especially Under the Hood). If you don’t have money, you can repost this and encourage others to do the same. If you live around these bases, donate your time. We all need experienced grant writers.<\/p>\n

There is something very rewarding in seeing the political consciousness of soldiers develop. When they relate the deaths of their brother and sister soldiers, not with the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan but with the corporate greed that drives American politics, it is clear that our efforts are not wasted. We are all working every day to help these soldiers end the wars. These are the trenches that our movement can directly engaging the military from.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, so trying to operate their cafes where they’re not welcomed is confusing for the hippies. <\/p>\n

Ya know what though? These were supposed to places from which they could help soldiers at Forts Hood and Drum. But since they turned them into meeting places for covens of socialists and anarchists, the money and support dried up. Wonder why? Might be because socialist and anarchists really don’t want to help anyone but them-damn-selves.<\/p>\n

Adios, Under The Hood. Better luck next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The poor IVAW folks who are trying to influence the “GI resistance movement” have hit a … The IVAW coffee house dilemma<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antiwar-crowd","category-ivaw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}