Antiwar goes mainstream

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Dec 12 12:37:34 PST 2002


Carl Remick wrote:
>
> [Jeez, I guess the antiwar movement isn't just a front for the Forces of
> Darkness after all! Hope somebody will alert Messrs. Corn, Gitlin and
> Cooper. From Salon:]
>
> The antiwar movement goes mainstream
>
> Groups like NOW, the Sierra Club and the National Council of Churches --
> plus a raft of celebrities -- reach out to Middle America as they denounce a
> preemptive, unilateral war with Iraq.
>

I believe this group approves of sanctions, which means that it either will eventually dissolve, change to critical support of the war, or merely become inactive. Max Sawicki sums it up pretty completely:

"My buddies in Z-Net and IPS are in United for Peace, so that's where I'll be. Win Without War does not appear to be more than a group statement at this point. There's another outfit -- Peace Action Network -- that seems to be a legit membership group. There are some smaller coalitions too."

There is no reason (as one poster on Pen-L suggested) to "struggle against" such groups as the Win Without War coalition: it is not going to actively oppose the other 7 or 8 (and growing) groups but will merely keep issuing statements, and whatever the windy rhetoric inside them, the general public will simply see them as nothing more than "No War," and the net effect will be to recruit more people for UFP, ANSWER, NION, PAN, and other groups that undoubtedly will be formed. The local group here consists wholly of what I suppose you would call liberals rather than radicals except for some Catholics from the Central America solidarity work, my wife and me. And all of these liberals want the war to stop -- Period! No qualifications, no messing with "winning" without war. So Win without War won't even be able to recruit among those who mostly agree with it. I keep passing on all the charges of the red-baiters to my local group, and they simply aren't bothered. They just want to stop the war.

Actually, I suspect that a lot of people in it will also join other coalitions. :-) That's how it went in the '60s for the most part anyhow.

Carrol



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