On February 19th, the National Mall in Washington, DC saw its largest antiwar rally in 20 years. The speakers list included four former US presidential candidates and a broad and diverse collection of antiwar activists from beyond the left and right.
The aptly-named “Rage Against War Machine” rally drew thousands of attendees, however many pro-war advocates eagerly pointed out that it did not match in size some of the larger rallies against the Iraq war 20 years ago.
To that I say, “who cares”? The US mainstream media engages in war propaganda non-stop, with the only exception being Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. So I think it’s a miracle anyone had the courage to travel to the heart of the war machine in Washington, DC to make their voices heard! We don’t need a majority to fight back — an educated and dedicated minority will do quite nicely. And we certainly had that at the rally!
As I sat in the green room waiting to speak, I had the opportunity to visit with former Democrat presidential candidates Tulsi Gabbard and Dennis Kucinich and former Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Political commentators Jimmy Dore and Chris Hedges were there, along with many leading and well-spoken libertarians. Everyone backstage carried the same message: we must put aside our differences to build a new, broad coalition against this war!
I believe the antiwar movement is starting to catch fire both at home and overseas. The DC rally was followed by much larger antiwar rallies in Paris, Berlin, London, and elsewhere.
Several recent polls, including by Pew and AP, show that American support for Ukraine is evaporating. Even in the EU, new polls show a public turning sharply against their governments’ support for the war. According to a recent Ipsos poll, less than half of Germans support continuing to send weapons to Ukraine. Change is in the air.
The DC rally took place in the backdrop of Seymour Hersh’s explosive investigative report demonstrating how the US government blew up the Nord Stream pipelines and the mainstream media’s desperate attempt to cover it up. The truth is coming out, and it’s even uglier than we imagined.
The US mainstream media is clearly getting nervous that its control over the narrative is also evaporating. How do we know they’re nervous? They have turned up their lies and slanders of antiwar rallies and voices.
Rachel Maddow, who fed America a steady stream of “Russiagate” lies for the past six or so years, let loose with a slanderous blue streak about the Rage Against the War Machine rally. Literally everything Maddow said in her post-rally rant was objectively false and her mischaracterization of rally participants as “weird” was devious. She falsely claimed that the rally was full of “white supremacists,” “Proud Boys,” and “anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists.”
No one who was at the rally would have had any idea what she was talking about. But her job was not to describe the rally, it was to defame it. What does Maddow’s hysterics about the rally show? They are nervous. It shows that the mainstream media, despite having near-total power, is afraid. They are afraid they are losing the narrative. Good. It’s about time. Let’s hope that more Americans begin to rage! Rage against the war machine!
Ron Paul is a former U.S. congressman from Texas. This article originally appeared at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and is reprinted here with permission.
