Gitlin on the student peace movement

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Thu Sep 20 17:07:26 PDT 2001


----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
> Todd Gitlin, a sociologist at New York University, says students have a
right
> to be skeptical, but they also have a responsibility to suggest realistic
> alternatives.

-Gitlin must (at least at one time) known better than this. The demand to -offer a "realistic alternative" is simply fatal to a protest moveement. -This recognition was the great contribution of the SWP to the anti-war =movement of the '60s. It will take a while for most newly activated -people, students or otherwise, to learn this. The movement must simply -say no to everything the state tries to do.

Ah yes, the anti-Vietnam - longest in American history - War movement. So successful in fighting a war that was close to be abandoned in 1968, but managed to keep chugging along through genocidal bombing into 1973.

Hopefully, this generation of activists can get us out of Kabul before the decade ends.

-- Nathan Newman



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