Many progressives are ignoring U.S. aggression around the world despite its involvement in many wars and expanding arsenal of nuclear weapons. Medea Benjamin joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news.

Paul Jay

Hi, I'm Paul Jay. Welcome to the Analysis News, and this is going to be part two with Medea Benjamin. Don't forget a donate button at the top of the webpage, and as much as you might be getting tired of hearing me say that, I'm sort of tired of having to say it, but what the heck, that's what nonprofit journalism is, and if you're watching on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, and here's the music.

So this is a follow-up discussion on part one of my interview with Medea Benjamin, and I'm not going to do the long introduction again, but here's Medea and she's the co-founder of Code Pink and author of, what, four or five books on foreign policy.

Thanks for joining me again, Medea.

Medea Benjamin

Good to be on with you Paul.

Paul Jay

So a few years ago, I believe you were there, there was a People's Summit held in Chicago. Bernie Sanders spoke, the nurses union organized it, and there were sessions and all kinds of topics, and I remember that those of us who do care about this were talking to each other and saying, hold on, where's the session on foreign policy? And there wasn't one.

Now, it's interesting that when Biden and Sanders had these working groups, there wasn't a working group on foreign policy in the lead-up to the elections. Maybe because there were such differences on foreign policy, they figured they couldn't get together or nobody cared?

I don't know, but, you and your partner in crime, Jody Evans and the Code Pink women and a few others have been dedicated fighters for an anti-war movement in the United States, but it's been quite a while, maybe since the massive demonstrations against the Iraq war, that there has been much of an anti-war movement in the United States.

And I said this in an interview the other day and somebody wrote in on YouTube, I don't know what left you're talking about the left I know, we're all interested in foreign policy. Well, yeah, but, boy, it ain't much. So if you agree with that proposition, why?

Medea Benjamin

I think it's complex and maybe we can explore some of those different areas, we had a very strong anti-war movement. Well, I'm old enough to remember the anti-war movement of the Vietnam days. That's where I got my start, and that was because there was a draft, and when you have a draft, you have an anti-war movement that has a lot of young people and a lot of energy to it. The end of the draft did a lot to end the anti-war movement.

The Iraq war built up an anti-war movement, and we had several demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets. Then when Obama came in, the anti-war movement fell apart, and I think it's for several reasons.

Paul Jay

Can I ask a question before you go there?

Medea Benjamin

Yeah.

Paul Jay

Didn't it fizzle out really even before Obama came in? How much of an anti-war movement was in the year or two before Obama was elected?

Medea Benjamin

Well, when the war started dragging on, there becomes less and less of an anti-war movement, but I would say that we were still able to mobilize people. We still had small groups all throughout the country. Code Pink still had chapters around.