The small antiwar protests that erupted across the country on December 1, as Obama announced the huge surge of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, had a significance far beyond their numbers. For many, that night marked a political breaking point, an embittered declaration of opposition to Obama and the Democratic Party.

Evan Knappenberger, an Iraq war veteran and student in Bellingham, WA, attended the protest organized there by Socialist Alternative. “On election night in 2008, thousands of students in Bellingham, Washington, reacted to the news of Obama’s victory by noisily and merrily marching through the cold streets to drums and bullhorns,” explained Evan in a December 13 article on CommonDreams.org.

“Last week,” he continued, “hundreds of students again gathered to march noisily. Unlike November of 2008, however, their signs now are angry and there is no dancing. Speakers railed against the latest Bush-like troop surge, and the crowd noisily and angrily rallied against the Obama administration’s failure to capitalize on any political victory. Tired of waiting for the promised change, the young, it appears, are turning to that last-resort, dirty word: Socialism. And why not Socialism? Young people today cannot even remember a time without war, crushing student-loans, environmental catastrophe, torture and terror.”

A similar disillusionment with Obama characterized the protests held that week in dozens of cities across the country. While none of the emergency protests gathered more than a few hundred – and many were only several dozen – reports everywhere indicate a feeling that this marks the beginning of a revival of the antiwar movement.

Socialist Alternative participated in anti-surge protests across the country, and played an important role organizing them in Minneapolis, Cedar Rapids (Iowa), Seattle, Bellingham, and Olympia, WA. In Olympia, the protesters briefly occupied the local newspaper offices to demand fair coverage of the antiwar movement, forcing them to print a story on the event!