-----Original Message----- From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>There is absolutely nothing, nothing whatever, that we can do now that
>will have any effect on U.S. government actions within the next 12
>months or so. This is axiomatic and other assumptions can merely be
>ignorned as childishness.
I understand where this comes from, Carrol, I think, but I also think it goes way too far.
This particular war is very much tied in with the most central concern of the imperialists today - oil profits. There are a couple of 'axioms' I would be willing to grant: that there is no way to convince them to withdraw entirely from the Southwest / Central Asia region without a socialist revolution; that we are not going to make that socialist revolution in the U.S. in the next year; that "peaceful demonstrations" alone have no effect. Your main point seems to be that leftists should take a long-term big-picture approach here, rather than adapting their strategies to the vagaries of the polls, and I quite agree.
However, I can't agree with the absolutist terms you use here: "absolutely nothing ... will have any effect." You don't believe that a relatively small number of people can do anything that will "have any effect"? It seems to me that 19 people using violent tactics can have an "effect" on what the U.S. government does. Is the strategy of mass organization so much less effective than the strategy of small-group violence?
I don't think your statement adequately addresses the complexity of the situation. The United States is not just heading off on a predetermined course like an all-powerful juggernaut. There is resistance worldwide and particularly in the Muslim countries. They have serious problems to solve, and in deciding how to solve them, they have to make assessments of risks. Furthermore there are serious conflicts among them in how to proceed. AND - all of this is being done in the context of a looming depression, which they are now trying to get out of by printing money. Does anyone remember the word 'stagflation'? Conditions for working people this winter may be very rough indeed.
The world political scene is like a large billiard table with many balls of varying masses and speeds flying around and crashing into each other with consequences that are hard to predict. It is a situation in which relatively small forces can perhaps achieve relatively large effects.
I don't believe, for example, that a non-violent demonstration of 100,000 people in Washington - something which might be possible in your time frame - would, in and of itself, "force" the U.S. government to break off the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, I have to believe that, as compared with the hypothetical world in which there is no anti-war movement at all, it would have an "effect" on the decisions of many groups and individuals in the U.S. and in the rest of the world. It might encourage anti-US organization elsewhere. It might embolden some union's leadership to strike. It might encourage some leader in the African-American community to come out openly against the war. It might convince somebody in congress that there is political advantage to be gained by making an anti-war speech, or even by exposing some secret atrocity of the military. It might encourage some soldier to mutiny. It might discourage the military from some measure which would kill civilians in large numbers. It might make some wavering Bush administration figure decide to side with the Powell faction rather than the Rumsfeld faction. It might embolden some media organization to go ahead with an investigative story rather than to passively succumb to administration pressure. It might embolden some judge to rule some "anti-terror" law unconstitutional. And it might encourage the forces which are in action to fight for the economic survival of the workers during the coming period to incorporate an anti-war analysis and demands into their own work.
There are a lot of 'effects' that it could have, no one of which would be sufficient to have a decisive effect on U.S. war plans, but each of which could create a cascade of other effects. I don't think anyone can safely predict anything. It is a situation in which the choice to spend a day doing political work may have significantly more importance than in other, more predictable situations.
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My understanding is that you put forward this 'thesis of near-term impotence' in order to counter the argument that we should "adapt" our demands and political style in order to "get a better hearing" in the short run, by putting forward a limited-war strategy, waving (U.S.) flags, and so forth. I also do not believe we should adapt our demands and tactics so much, but I don't support the argument that "it doesn't matter what we do, so we should keep our eyes on the long-term goal." I think it does matter what we do in the short term, but I don't think that excessive adaptation is the best way to build the movement in the short term.
Let's take the 'American flag' issue as an example. Some people seem to be writing as if it were a crime against left principle to use the American flag. Other people seem to say that using the American flag will give us a lot of near-term returns in getting people involved (and we don't want to keep the left as a 'private club').
Personally I would be willing to wave American flags or put on a gorilla suit or dye my hair green or do just about anything to build the movement, IF it were necessary. No, we can't keep the anti-war movement as a private club. We have to build it and broaden it. But I think we should be thoughtful about how we do it. Just on the flag issue, for example, here are some numbers which I have just invented off the top of my head:
a. Workers who wave the flag and won't listen to anyone who doesn't: 20% b. Workers who wave the flag but will listen to you even if you don't: 20% c. Workers who don't wave the flag but more or less respect it: 50% d. Workers who don't much like the flag but wouldn't burn it themselves: 9.8% e. Workers who would burn flags if given the proper encouragement: 0.19% f. Workers who burn flags now: 0.01%
Furthermore, the support for the war among these groups also varies:
a: 80% strong support, 15% weak support, 4% neutral, 1% weak opposition b. 60% strong support, 30% weak support, 7% neutral, 3% weak opposition c. 30% strong support, 50% weak support, 13% neutral, 5% weak opposition, 2% strong opposition d. 10% strong support, 20% weak support, 40% neutral, 15% weak opposition, 5% strong opposition e. 5% strong support, 10% weak support, 15% neutral, 35% weak opposition, 35% strong opposition f. 5% weak support, 10% neutral, 25% weak opposition, 60% strong opposition
This is sort of my estimate of how things are in the working class on the flag issue and on the war. Now, if I am right, it makes no sense to argue that we have to wave flags at anti-war demonstrations in order to attract the workers, because there are only 20% who care that much about it, AND they are committed to the war anyway.
See, I think that it's a misconception to say that because the majority of the workers support the war now at least weakly, we have to develop an immediate strategy that reaches directly to the worker at the center of that majority. We will get to her eventually. But at the moment something like 60,000 people in the U.S. have been to an anti-war demonstration or are doing anti-war work (say). If you figure 120 million working-class youth and adults who are not ill or in prison, that means that 0.05% (one-twentieth of one percent) are actually involved. I might be ambitious enough to want to organize the whole 120 million, but FIRST I want to get our first million.
Let me repeat that because I think it's important. Our immediate task is not to try and organize the tens of millions of pro-war workers. Our immediate task is to organize the -next- stratum that we can bring in, and then we will go on to the stratum after that, and then the stratum after that. Where are we going to find the NEXT one million workers to bring into the movement, the workers who are 'strongly opposed' to the war NOW but are not involved in the movement and are not participating in anti-war work? What do we have to do to get THEM? I don't think we have to wave flags. I think we have to show that we can speak their language, and that we are serious people, and that we are not going to get their heads busted or get them arrested to no purpose, and I think we have to find out what they are concerned with themselves, whether it is racism or layoffs or what, and help them build anti-war work into their own active lives where they are.
And I think we have to have the attitude that what we are doing may make a difference. If we go to them and say "come to this demonstration as part of a long term process which will educate you, even though it will have no effect on the government," what kind of response are we going to get?
Just a few thoughts,
Lou Paulsen member, WWP, Chicago