I Agree Completely

Susie Madrak went to a lecture by Scott Ritter and George Ray McGovern [oops!], and reports back. There's a lot of good stuff, but I want to highlight this part especially:

Ritter pissed off many of the attendees with a rant about anti-war demonstrations. “You did nothing,” he said. “It’s a waste of time. Set a goal, achieve something. There are veterans from four wars who would be on your side in this. You just have to reach them.

“Demonstrations are futile gestures that mean nothing.”

As much as I agree with Ritter, the fact is that the options for left-wing voters in that year were pretty thin. The Iraq vote was held after the primary season was over but before the elections. Anti-war voters couldn't exactly say "vote Democrat" when many of the Dems had supported the war resolution. Nor could we move the Dems left until the next primary season, two years later.

Nevertheless, I think antiwar voters need to take Ritter's words to heart - the demonstrations were really more about making ourselves feel better, and had little to no effect on the outcome of the war. Hell, they had little effect on the outcome of the news cycle, didn't they?