Building & maintaining the antiwar movement–necessarily a permanent fixture in US political life–is a monumental undertaking. It requires meetings; outreach to student, community, church, women’s, civil rights, immigrant rights, LGBT groups; fundraising; leafletting events to build rallies; brokering dissension & differing political methods; finding venues for forums; getting permits for rallies & marches; negotiating with police departments & officials over march routes; getting speakers at events to represent the breadth of the antiwar movement; negotiating through election periods when activity declines; coordinating by state, nationally, & internationally.
In the past several decades, the antiwar movement has declined in strength with smart-ass commentators denying it even exists & mocking it as just a bunch of old people. And still activists do not flinch nor concede an inch to demoralization. There are wars to oppose, a new generation to be roused, a tradition of struggle against colonialism & military terrorism to be constantly created & renewed.
Where was Bernie Sanders in all this? All that antiwar rhetoric but has our man a damn thing to show when he could have used the immense resources of his Congressional offices to support & build the antiwar movement? Has he ever even endorsed an antiwar action? Is the occasional denunciation of war sufficient to balance votes for war appropriations? Is US electoral politics always going to be the triumph of the word over the deed?