> I think Nathan's got it right. The village-atheist tone of some of these
> posts is getting a bit shrill. Remember that the form of Christianity
> espoused by, say, Tom Delay (an heretical form, I'd say) is held by only
> a
> minority of US Christians. Others take quite different positions, as is
> noted by (of all people) Noam Chomsky -- who thinks that all God-talk is
> incoherent, but points out, e.g., that Christian churches and church
> groups were far more active than the soi-disant Left in opposing the
> Reagan wars in Latin America. --CGE
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/13034.ctl Smith, Christian Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement. xx, 464 p., 12 halftones, 1 map, 21 tables. 1996
Cloth $60.00tx 0-226-76335-8 Spring 1996 Paper $22.00tx 0-226-76336-6 Spring 1996
A comprehensive analysis of the U.S. Central America peace movement, Resisting Reagan explains why more than one hundred thousand U.S. citizens marched in the streets, illegally housed refugees, traveled to Central American war zones, committed civil disobedience, and hounded their political representatives to contest the Reagan administration's policy of sponsoring wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Focusing on the movement's three most important national campaigns--Witness for Peace, Sanctuary, and the Pledge of Resistance--this book demonstrates the centrality of morality as a political motivator, highlights the importance of political opportunities in movement outcomes, and examines the social structuring of insurgent consciousness. Based on extensive surveys, interviews, and research, Resisting Reagan makes significant contributions to our understanding of the formation of individual activist identities, of national movement dynamics, and of religious resources for political activism.
Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgments Acronyms Introduction 1: The Sources of Central American Unrest 2: United States Intervention 3: Low-Intensity Warfare 4: Launching the Peace Movement 5: Grasping the Big Picture 6: The Social Structure of Moral Outrage 7: The Individual Activists 8: Negotiating Strategies and Collective Identity 9: Fighting Battles of Public Discourse 10: Facing Harassment and Repression 11: Problems for Protesters Closer to Home 12: The Movement's Demise 13: What Did the Movement Achieve? 14: Lessons for Social-Movement Theory Appendix: The Distribution and Activities of Central America Peace Movement Organizations Notes Bibliography Index -- Michael Pugliese