![\"DSC_0077\"](\"http:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2044\/2345161649_c5f910948c_n.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nOur buddy, Rick Moran<\/a> and Buzzfeed<\/a> have noticed the absence of throngs of ill-clad hippies in the streets around the White House in regards to the impending Syria “punishment”. I remember that the communists were protesting the war in Afghanistan before the dust had cleared at the twin towers and the Pentagon. But now, the silence is deafening. Some of the odoriferous hippies blame the economy;<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think me or Medea or anyone else should be defensive about that,\u201d Martin said. \u201cWe don\u2019t push a button and get hundreds of thousands of people in the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n Martin blamed the anemic response among peace groups to Syria on the economy, noting that all nonprofits are struggling \u2014 not just protest groups.<\/p>\n Plus, Martin said, the energy on the left has been focused on drones and civil liberties, which \u201cdoesn\u2019t rise to the level of an obviously unjust war where hundreds of thousands of people are being killed because of a belligerent president.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n But others arrived at the same conclusion many of us reached more than a decade ago – the anti-war left is partisan;<\/p>\n \u201cThe Democrats are missing in action because of course the president is a Democrat,\u201d said David Swanson, a longtime antiwar activist and author of War Is a Lie and When the World Outlawed War, who works with Roots Action, a progressive nonprofit. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest factor, I think. What\u2019s tamping down the activism is partisanship.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis started in 2007 when it was time to focus on electing a Democratic president and the Democrats forgot about the wars,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been struggling ever since to get back to where we were in 2006.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Our buddy, John Bruhns<\/a> arrived at that conclusion back in 2008 when he left VoteVets and the United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) when he discovered for himself that the movement was just cover for the Democrats.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the shrieking harpies of Code Pink have been relegated to moderating online petitions;<\/p>\n \u201cThose of us still working on this have been mobilizing,\u201d Benjamin said. \u201cThe online protests are proliferating. There\u2019s petitions to Obama, there\u2019s calls for Congress to get involved \u2014 so many groups from Code Pink to Win Without War to Just Foreign Policy \u2014 all have put out calls saying no war in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n But mostly, the movement has been left for dead even by those who were once leading figures in it.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat antiwar movement?\u201d former Congressman Dennis Kucinich asked when called for comment on Wednesday. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"DSC_0086\"](\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3159\/2345167529_c1c357011c_n.jpg\")
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