I should have asked Nathan before forwarding. Anyway, this is from the unoffical list of Solidarity. Bloom posts alot on Mumia. Michael Pugliese
Received: 3/22/02 4:30:40 AM
From: Steve Bloom <sblm at earthlink.net> Add to People Section To: sldrty-l at igc.topica.com
CC:
Subject: RE: [SLDRTY-L]: Body Bags
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> - ----- Original Message -----
> And since the Gulf War, the Left has mounted the drumroll of
> imminent
> bodybags, only to find that the military has learned the lessons
> of Vietnam
> far better than the Left, and has actually changed its tactics,
> both in
> military decisions and domestic propaganda, again quite in
contrast
> to the
> left that is still fighting the last war with the same rhetoric
> and the same
> tactics.
>
It was hard for me to sort out from the original post who was saying what here. But I don't have to attribute the quote in order to respond to it.
It seems to me that there *is* a problem with simply talking about an opposition to the war on terror emerging among the American people because of "body bags." But the problem isn't exactly what's posed above. Rather, it's in such an overly simple explanation of what stimulated the mass antiwar response during Vietnam.
There were many body bags during World War II and Korea, with no mass antiwar movement. Something was different during Vietnam: the fact that the resistance of the Vietnamese people to the US military forced a public discussion in this country about the political and ideological assumptions of the war. It was only when large numbers of people began to question those political and ideological assumptions that the body bags had the impact they did. It was the combination of these two factors which proved to be so explosive.
During the present war, in my opinion, the American people will accept casualties *so long as they believe the cause for which US troops are fighting and dying is just.* True, the military does want to minimize the number of dead, because they too understand that it is the combination of body bags and political questioning which is so explosive. They will try to limit their exposure on both sides of that equation. But casualties at some level are acceptable. There has been no visible increase in public dissent over the war recently, for example, because some US soldiers have been killed.
So the main task is political, and it entails more than simply waiting for the US to meet resistance. Just as during Vietnam the policies of the US government in the "war on terrorism" are based on lies. We need to reach and mobilize all those who presently understand this, so that if and when the government gets caught up in its own web of lies, if and when their hypocracy is exposed in ways that masses of people can easily understand (which does relate to the question of whether they meet resistance
somewhere, from some people whose nation they invade, which in turn does have an effect on the number of "body bags") we will already have an organized movement in place, even if it is initially a small one. Then we will be able to effectively channel protests that begin to emerge as ordinary people start questioning the political assumptions of the war on terrorism. It is at this point that the possibility will emerge for a truly mass antiwar movement once again.
It would be foolish, of course, to predict that such a turn of events will inevitably take place. But the possibilty is certainly present in the contradictions of current US policy. It is a possibility we should be prepared for, and even anticipate in a political sense.
Steve Bloom