Just World Podcasts

Frank Joyce discusses issues in the antiwar movement with Helena Cobban

August 11, 2019 Helena Cobban
Just World Podcasts
Frank Joyce discusses issues in the antiwar movement with Helena Cobban
Show Notes Transcript

This episode is an inter-season special: an interview Just World Educational President Helena Cobban conducted with Frank Joyce, a veteran antiwar and workers-rights organizer who was the co-editor, along with Dr. Karin Aguilar-San Juan, of the 2015 anthology The People Make the Peace: Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar Movement.

In July this year, Frank Joyce and four other American antiwar activists went back to Ha Noi again: this time, to celebrate the launching of the Vietnamese edition of The People Make the Peace. You can read more about their latest visit to Vietnam in this blog post on Just World Ed’s website. In reflecting on this latest visit to Vietnam, Joyce argued that in the years after the antiwar activists of the 1960s and 1970s had succeeded in persuading the U.S. government to end the war, many of them started to experience an inferiority complex that led them to radically under-estimate the value of what they had achieved. In this this interview with Joyce, Ms. Cobban explored that proposition with him… and also, got his insights on some of the challenging issues that have faced the US antiwar movement in recent years.

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Speaker 1:

[inaudible]

Helena Cobban:

today in a special episode on just world podcasts, an interview with veteran antiwar activist and organizer. Frank Joyce.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Helena Cobban:

Hi, I'm Helena Cobbanon, the president of Just World Educational. This podcast episode is an inter-season special: an interview I conducted recently with Frank Joyce, a veteran anti-war and workers' rights organizer who was the co editor along with Dr Karin Aguilar-San Juan, of the 2015 anthology"The people make the peace: Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar Movement.".

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"The people make the peace" presented reflections on their Vietnam-era activism from nine notable antiwar activists who in 2013 traveled back to Vietnam as a group to see firsthand the bustling, self-confident country it became once the United States' war efforts there had been defeated. In July this year.,Frank Joyce and four others of those activists went back to Hanoi again, this time to celebrate the launching of the Vietnamese edition of"The People.Make the Peace."You can read more about their latest visit to Vietnam at the blog on Just World Ed's website, which is www.justworldeducational.org. Look for the August 2nd blog post titled US Peace Activists Retrace Steps to Vietnam.

Helena Cobban:

In reflecting on this latest VA visit to Vietnam, Joyce argued that in the years after the antiwar activists of the 1960s and 1970s had succeeded in persuading the u s government to end the war, many of them started to experience an inferiority complex that led them to radically underestimate the value of what they had achieved. When I set up this interview with him, I wanted to explore that proposition with him and also to get his insight on some of the challenging issues that had been facing the u s antiwar movement. In recent years. We had a fascinating conversation that ran about 40 minutes long. But before you listen to it, I want to put in one final plug for the super distinctive book that lies at the heart of this whole story, which was published by just world books back in 2015 the people make the peace co-edited by Frank Joyce and Korean Aguilar's. San Juan is available wherever fine books are sold. Be sure to get your copies soon. So now here's my conversation with Frank Joyce, which was conducted over a slightly imperfect phone line. If I was really intrigued by the observation you made, um, that the peace movement here that had been, you know, so widespread, so creative, so let us say successful during the U s Vietnam War. Um, subsequently people in the movement suffered something of an inferiority complex. So I'd just love for you to expand on that a little bit.

Frank Joyce:

One of my assumptions is that there is very little realization in the United States of just how warlike and aggressive[inaudible] has always been as a nation. And that's not an accident. It's how we are taught in both religious and secular education so that we're kind of disconnected from the history for example of well just how, what amount of violence was required for the United States to go from 13 colonies that were close to the Atlantic Ocean, even to the Pacific Ocean, nevermind onto Hawaii and onto the Philippines and ultimately on to Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia and so on and so forth. And because that history is sanitized, I guess might be one word for it, people don't understand how extraordinary it was that there was opposite mass opposition to the Vietnam War in the first place. With all the wars the United States has had in its history, Vietnam is the only one which produced anything close to either the breadth or the depth of opposition that the Vietnam War did. And partly because even the people who were in the bat movement kind of didn't know that history and still don't know that is free. There was never a sense of how extraordinary an accomplishment it was to have an anti war movement that was as big and became as effective as it did. So that's the first issue that comes into play. Uh, right off the bat. The second issue is it of course after the war, because the Vietnamese succeeded in defending their country, despite every effort that the United States could make to prevent that, then the revisionist machinery, particularly of the Pentagon sort of kick into gear to diminish the significance of what the Anti War movement had been in the first place. And that has been a nonstop campaign ever since. It used to have a name, nobody uses this term anymore, but it was called the Vietnam Syndrome. And it was how we as a nation, we're supposed to in a weird sense, heal from Vietnam and get over the fact that in these terms are problematic, I think. But get over the fact that the United States with all its might and all its muscle and all its weaponry and all its financial advantages lost the war to this tiny little country of uncivilized people. And in that adjustment, the post war where the w post 1975 to the present, the propaganda efforts ranging from literally the Pentagon itself to documentaries like Ken Burns, re relatively recent series on PBS, et Cetera, has been about the manipulation of opinion about many things, but including about the anti war movement. And it's a combination of neglect and fragmentation and distortion as all successful propaganda efforts are. But my argument is sadly, it's been very effective. So the, the conclusion from that is that the more we can revisit and help people understand just how powerful that movement was, the more likely it is that we can build another one. And really, in a way that's the premise of our book. The people make the piece, I think we say at the end of the introduction something to the effect we, the reason we wrote this book is because we want people to understand that if we did this once, we can do it again.

Helena Cobban:

Right. So, um, if you go back to the immediate post Vietnam War period, one of the big changes of course, was the ending of the draft. In the introduction of the all volunteer military. Um, so presumably that had a like an effect on the, the prospect of movement building cause so long as you had the draw, you had, you know, the sons of the political elite were potentially, unless they had, you know, something like bones, burgers or whatever, you know, they were, they were subject to being drafted. But once it became an a purely economic draft rather than a whole age cohort draft, then the sons of the elite, we're no longer,

Frank Joyce:

you know, subject to it. Yeah. I actually don't agree with her[inaudible] any of that. And I did. Uh, and we address it somewhat in the people make the piece. And I've subsequently written one article in particular that zeroes in on that point. So I appreciate the opportunity to speak to that, uh, in this conversation. And my starting point is, first and foremost, the most important thing, if anybody hears this and only takes one thing away from it, uh, I hope it's this. We do not have a volunteer army. We have a recruited army. And in this piece I wrote, I did a lot of research on the Defense Department budget. I believe it was for the year 2017, but there is a massive portion of the defense budget that is devoted to recruiting and a massive portion of the defense budget has to be devoted to recruiting. Because if we really had an all volunteer army, all that would be required would be, you know, you can sign up on the Internet, uh, and you could join the military. Uh, and that would be the end of it. But it's only the beginning of it. And one of the most conspicuous examples of the all recruited army is the, is the partnership between the Pentagon and professional sports in the United States. When people watch a football game and see, you know, a flyover or see color guards and soldiers and so on as part of the halftime show, US taxpayers are paying money to the national football league to make that happen. And there are lots of other examples of the same thing. And so part why this is so important, I think, uh, is two fold. First it's just a break. This mythologies that people are breaking down the doors of military recruiting offices to get in no gang on it. They're not doing that at all. There is more widespread support for peace. Then we are led to believe this comes back to this whole inferiority complex. So idea the value of the significance of the graft and the anti American war known as the Vietnam War movement was not that it created opposition to war, it was that it created a very effective form of resisting the war machinery and we could recreate that same effect tomorrow if we devoted as much resources to disrupting the recruitment program of the military as we devoted to disrupting the draft. And I cite too many points actually and then one of these is included. If we, if we ever do a second edition of the book, I would hope that we would expand this section. But this notion that the graph tail wags the Anti War dog is rebutted by too bright many things, but children that are immediately important. Uh, one of them is can be summed up in one word and that word is Korea. If all it took to create a mass anti war movement was a graft in which large numbers of USP soldiers were being injured and maimed and killed in support of an alleged anticommunist agenda, there would have been a giant movement against the war in Korea because they are, the two wars are virtually identical in their stated purpose in the composition of the military and the extent of the casualties being a u s casual to use and, and in the extent of the brutality of the casualties being visited upon the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, and allow oceans. So that tail doesn't like that thought. Then Yard I graph moon was created by opposition to the war and the opposition to the war not only created a lot of creativity and resisting that drafts, it created enormous creativity and resisting the war from within the military. And David Cort, writer and others have written books and eloquent and important books about the resistance both to the graph and the resistance with in the military. The other variables that gets overlooked in this notion that we can war movement. And unless there's a draft, he has that much of the opposition to the war. And for that matter, much of the opposition to the graph, uh, during the anti war movement in the 1960s and seventies was led by women. Women weren't, you know, women weren't drafted. They couldn't be drafted. That wasn't an option at the time. But some of the most prominent names in the anti war movement from Cora Weiss to Joan Baez to duty Gumbo to, uh, uh, Alice Hertz to any number of others were leaders of that opposition. Uh, and I could go on or nine about,

Helena Cobban:

there's a two very powerful arguments. I want to just come circled back to, um, the leader, the leader to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[inaudible] okay. I know that were anti war movement in the interim. There was a big while. I was a big anti nuclear movement in the early eighties and there was quite a lot of opposition to the various us wars in Central America in the 1990s. But, um, the big sort of next appearance of an antiwar movement or emergent, um, onto the scene came in 2002 and bailed up to the invasion of Iraq. And that one I was a part of, which of course I hadn't been back in, in the 1960s, Seventies. And you know, one thing that a lot of my, um, you know, older friends and people who had been in the United States longer than I had and I was living in Charlottesville, Virginia. And there seemed to be a general feeling that if you take one lesson from the Vietnam War, it's, that you don't want to accuse the actual soldiers themselves of being baby killers. So that was this like y good story. That MTV protest in the 1960s, 1970s had treated the returning soldiers very badly indeed. And we didn't want to do that. You know, we wanted to support the troops but bring them home. That was, that was like, you know, the mantra then how accurate was it that there was a lot of harassment of returning soldiers, um, people coming back from Vietnam.

Frank Joyce:

It is extremely inaccurate and[inaudible] it was a part of the propaganda campaign that was very deliberately, uh, molded after the war to paint the anti war movement, you know, in a certain light and characterize it in a certain way. Now that was true during the wars. Well it's just that after the war was over, the environment in which that campaign was taking place, uh, changed quite dramatically in a variety of ways. Uh, there is a book, I can remember, we can fill this in later, but, yup. Yup. Very what is it? And you know, it has a title, like something about nobody spit on anybody[inaudible] the title leader. But it's this notion, you know, that people that returning soldiers were spat upon. There are no, there is no documented instance of that ever happening, ever. Not what? Um, it is a widely held belief and again, it didn't become a widely held belief by accident. Right? Something that would help a listener understand this would be to think back to the swiftboat campaign that was launched against gun carry, which was in itself a textbook example of effective propaganda that John Kerry of all people, uh, you know, quit, be, uh, redefined, uh, in the public mind relative to what his service in Vietnam actually was, is worth studying and worth studying in the context of, well, how did some of these myths about the anti war movement become so powerful that even people who have participated in the end, I word movement, came to believe them and believed them to this day. And one of them is about this notion that the soldiers were mistreated, the demand was always bring the troops home. One of the arguments within the anti war movement, and one of the arguments, particularly in the larger international context of the Anti war moment, was that the bring the troops home slogan was itself sort of nationalistic, right? That it focused entirely on what was happening to US troops as opposed to what US troops were doing to the Vietnamese, the Cambodians and the Laotians. And you know, that's a conversation that is important, uh, as important now as it was then as well. Right. It's not all about American. Exactly. Exactly.

Helena Cobban:

So looking back at that era of the Vietnam War too, um, I've seen a little bit of propaganda and I actually remember being in England in let's say the late 1960s, um, I was fairly young at the time and I looked at like some old copies of Reader's digest and there were all kinds of scare stories about the Viet Cong and the Vietnamese men, you know, were raping women and cutting off their breath and like set that sort of a little memory of reading some of that stuff stuck in my mind. But was there a big sort of, um, let's say, you know, formulating the big lie?

Frank Joyce:

Oh, absolutely. But remember that this process, this 500 years of colonialism and white supremacy and white nationalism is cumulative. And as I said earlier, it's systemic and it adapts. And it readjust. So here's something I think particularly Germane to have a special relationship between England and the United States. Very few people in the United States know that the declaration of independence is not just the preamble. The declaration of independence has the preamble, which is what everybody is taught, but it goes on to list 27 grievances against the King of England that are the basis for seeking independence. Number 27 on that list, the grand finale, if you will, is that the king is criticized for making alliances with savages. That's the term. The word is savages. And that of course is a reference to indigenous nations and indigenous people. And indeed there were alliances between the British and certain Indian nations and there were alliances between the British and African Americans that were underway at the same time. And there were also in formation. And I make that point to make the point that this notion of look though white man is civilized and anyone who is not white is barbaric. And savage is a very essential core component of the doctrine of white supremacy from the very beginning. And so of course you can look at any war that the United States has been in. And also, by the way, just to be clear, this is the nature of war, right? Everyone tries to otherwise and demonize the opposition. But when you introduce color into the equation in the way it got introduced from the very origins of colonialism, then it would be surprising if that kind of propaganda war not an essential component of waging the war in the first place. Of course it is.

Helena Cobban:

So, um, one thing that interests me, well many things that interests me about what has happened in the current century, but we, we had this very large, very like passionate and he wore movement nationwide and worldwide in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. Right. And my experience of it was that the moment the invasion took place, it was like let the air

Frank Joyce:

out of the balloon of the Anti War movement. Like nobody knew what to do. And then there was like, you know, well we, we can't, can't undermine our troops while they are overseas. And like it didn't look the most like just seem to collapse almost overnight. Well, I think you are essentially right about that. And I think it's, you know, in a direct where maybe a roundabout way, I'm not sure which supports the point I'm trying to make here of how effective has been the cultivation of the inferiority complex of the Anti War movement by the pro war movement in the period between Vietnam and the invasion of Iraq. And this overcoming of what was what I've referred to as the Vietnam Syndrome. So for example, what might have been a different outcome to the invasion of Iraq had the anti war movement had, there's no fan in. Some people do by the way. Uh, and you know, their, their point was not effective and that has to be understood and, and looked at. But some people did cry to interfere with the recruiting machinery that was in place. Uh, and it is particularly directed at young people, high school students, um, rural and urban. Uh, and so in a way we didn't come up with the tactics and the strategies that have been effective in Vietnam. There's another key variable here and that is the disintegration of the vision and the connections of international solidarity and the anti-colonial struggle of which the one Vietnam was apart in a way that the war on Iraq was not perceived. And there's an over simple, but I think affective way to clarify that distinction. Um, and that is Osama bin Laden was no Holcim meant, no one could identify with the righteousness of the struggle of[inaudible] widen as the personification of nine 11 and the way that people could identify for historical and other reasons with the, the anti-colonial aspirations of the Vietnamese. And so that's sort of two variables that help, I think us better understand the very important question that you're raising about why haven't we been able to be effective in the post nine 11 period? And it's hard to think of like a more important question than that that we should be wrestling with. Yup. And to the point where we need more of these kinds of discussions and conversations and looking back at, okay, so what did it happen? And just to pile on a little bit here, in my opinion, one of the key places to start that conversation is reexamining what was the opposition Movement for the war on Vietnam all about in the first place.

Helena Cobban:

Yeah, that is a, is a really important point. Now coming back to the, the kind of Iraq invasion periods. Um, so obviously there was the time I've been lagging and, and then there was Iraq, which was separate. I mean, you know, in spite of the[inaudible] was no hokey man either. Right. And, um, and then you had active American participation and the, um, regime change project in Libya and Barry and, um, in the Saudi war in Yemen. And then more recently, not actual military help, but a lot of political and economic sanctions help to the regime change project in Venezuela. Uh Huh. And why were they here?

Frank Joyce:

One more point to that was, uh, Alina, as you well know, a part of this assessment needs to look at the arc and the trajectory of the shipping, uh, issues around Israel and Palestine because that too has to be poured I think within the framework of how propagandist deliberately framed certain questions and impacted public opinion and redefined. Uh, we defined the imperial project. You know what,

Helena Cobban:

right. I mean, one of the things, one of my saddest memories I have to tell you is because I had worked as a journalist in Beirut for six years at the beginning of the civil war there. And I ha, you know, I had married a Lebanese person, now my ex husband, but you know, he's somebody I've obviously kept in touch with and we have two children, four grandchildren. Um, and I came out Lebanon because of the children and 1981. And then in 1982, the Israelis launched a massive invasion ground invasion of pharaoh of Lebanon, right up to Beirut. And you know, all my friends were stuck in Beirut and being bombed the hell out of. And one of the people went to support the Israeli armed forces ringing Beirut at the time with Jane Fonda[inaudible]. So that bothered my mind

Frank Joyce:

or that goes to this point of the vary. You gotta give credit where credit is due, the very smart, very smart latching on to the perceived moral authority that is real had at that time. And in that context, which sort of made Israel strange as this sounds to even say in a way but made is real, the successor to Vietnam and your story is perfect, what would better suit, who would better symbolize that then Jane Fonda?

Helena Cobban:

Well, like exactly. I mean it's still like makes me real. Every time I think about it. I mean I was sitting here in Boston, Massachusetts, I was writing a book about the PLO and I could not like go out in the morning cause I was like crying so much about what was happening. And then you get on the TV and you see Jane Fonda going, La La la with the Israeli true was, it was very, very weird.

Frank Joyce:

Well it is very weird. And that, uh, you know, the Jane Fonda is still, for lack of a better term, uh, unprocessed, uh, information in analyzing all of the very questions that we are talking about. And she is the, and I experienced this routinely including every time I talk about the book that people make the peas, someone brings up Jane Fonda and the accusation that she was a traitor to the United States and so on and so forth. I mean, this is a virtually as wall

Helena Cobban:

2019 is, it was in 1973. Interesting. You know, the thing get said now about Tulsi Gabbard. So having gone to[inaudible] that's good point. And um, I mean I don't agree with everything is held together. Does that, I, I have a lot of respect for the woman and I think her reaching out to president by shadow asset is one of the good things about her, you know, and but gets vilified for it.

Frank Joyce:

Well, I agree with that, but this brings us back to the questions of the vilification because where does the vilification comes from? Well, I'm in the macro sense, the vilification comes from the 500 year history of colonialism and white supremacy and the more recent is[inaudible] of white nationalism, more specifically, it comes from a machine, uh, that has vast resources at its disposal to amp up the vilification, to introduce the vilification into the system and then to increases the effectiveness. So this was no different than what we see with the response to draw a squad as it was called. Right. I mean, we have not been in this movie for 500 years

Helena Cobban:

and so

Frank Joyce:

too easy to lose track of is that is the points where we have been able to make a different movie and still are, right. I mean we are still not without effect and not without impact, but I do come back to the original premise of, part of our problem is to get past our own inferiority complex that we didn't achieve anything then. And so how could we expect to achieve anything now what we achieved a lot then and we're already achieving a lot now. Let's build on that.

Helena Cobban:

Yeah, no, I think those are excellent points regarding places like Libya and Syria. One of the things I've noticed, um, I mean, I, I'm particularly concerned with Syria because it's a country I know very well and I've written two books about it. And, um, you know, I know all kinds of things that the government there, you know, abuses that they have carried out over the years.[inaudible] one of the things that's really disturbed me a lot is to see so many people in the so called progressive or liberal or human rights or humanitarian movement in this country jumped onto the bandwagon of regime change in Syria.[inaudible] um,[inaudible] which, you know, and they had done that with Libya before and they didn't do it regarding your up. I mean, we all knew during the movement, you know, to try to prevent the war on Iraq, but nobody was trying to prevent that war because we love to them. Hossain I mean, we were all clear about that, but we were trying to prevent that wall because it's preventing the wall was the right thing to do. But now you've, I mean, many of my previous like colleagues and companeros in the, in the anti war movement against the war in Iraq are cheering on the regime change project in Syria, although not as much now. You know, now it's not, it's kind of,

Frank Joyce:

it's not so fashionable. But yes, I understand your point. Well, again, I think part of this circles back to the value of understanding the opposition to the war on Vietnam again, because it helps to understand what I call regression to the mean and regression to the mean in the United States. And this is true in all of the colonial powers. It's most powerful of course in the United States, but you know, it helps understand Brexit in Great Britain and so forth. But this notion that we have come to terms with the loss of empire is no different than having come to terms with Roe v Wade. No, we haven't. It's just a different phase in a very long running battle. But the u s population from the very beginning is used to getting its way with other regimes. You know, there's a joke in Mexico, I don't know if you've heard this or not, I learned this from Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz. There's a joke in Mexico which says, yes, we will build a wall and we will pay for it. But only if the wall is built along the things that were grown in the treaty of Guadalajara.

Helena Cobban:

That would be good. Yeah. Well I, I make that[inaudible] and

Frank Joyce:

joke to make the point that people in the United States don't know any of this. Well, don't actually, more and more people, I think in the United States are paying attention to this history and are trying to come to terms with what is the actual history of United States. But the point is that why shouldn't we conquer? Why shouldn't we decide who the regime of Syria should be? Just like we decided who the regime of Hawaii should be, just like we decided who the regime of Mexico should be, just like we decided who the regime of California should be, just like we decide who the regime of Venezuela should be, or of Nicaragua or Cuba for crying out loud. Um, this is the norm. This is the expectations that people have and that people are taught in you when you go Sunday school

Helena Cobban:

and when you go to elementary school and even before and when you turn on the TV, this is the message you get 100% of the time almost, or from some sources it is the message 100% of the time. Fortunately, there are some other sources, but so, so thanks. Now we have obviously, um, sentenced center, the prospect of a possible military attack against Iran. Right? And I mean, I, I think this is, you know, a moment when we need to really figure out what can the antiwar movement do at all levels. Agreed. So what kind of wisdom can you share?

Frank Joyce:

Well, uh, this is, maybe we should, you know, get up point of demarcation here or something and have this as a, as a different discussion, but maybe not. I mean, a couple of things that come immediately to mind is, uh, and one of the things that I do try to do, uh, here in particularly in a community of possible Robles California where I spend a good part of time. Uh, there are several local peace organizations here in many of the surrounding communities. And one of the things that is clear to me here and elsewhere is how fragmented is the peace movement. It's one say thing to say that a mass movement is a big hot mass, which certainly the opposition, uh, to the war on Vietnam was a big hot mess, right? Then that's the nature of a big movement and it's got all sorts of internal conflicts and contradictions and disputes and so on and so forth. But it's big. And what we are looking at now are what goes zillion little small piece organizations. So one thing I think to think about is how to overcome that obstacle. How do we get more organizational and streets strategic cooperation between the various peace forces that do exist all around the country? I mean there are millions and millions of peace loving people in the United States and in Britain and in France and you know, not dimension Syria, Lebanon, Vietnam, etc. So kind of reframing how that tissue gets better connected than it is. I think it's a question. I'm not saying that I can say right now or you know, even with more time exactly what the answer is, but I think that we can define that as a project as I've been saying. I think a part of that has to do with re-interpreting our own paths. You know, we like to talk about, we need to come to terms with our own paths. Well I think the anti war movement needs to come to terms with it on past and on the side of looking more. I mean we got people all around us telling us what we did wrong. We need more people looking at what we did right here and it was a lot.

Helena Cobban:

Yeah. And I think you make a great contribution to, you know, acknowledging that history and in your book people make the piece. I'm really proud to have been able to publish it. And, you know, maybe we can go on and do more projects, or I'm not publishing any new books right now, but this conversation is great. Um, and I, I'll, I'll bring it to a formal close and say thank you very much, frank, for, for talking to the listeners. Um, but let's get back together and talk about these issues more soon.

Frank Joyce:

Great. Uh, thank you very much.