> There was too much confusion, too much ambivalence, too much hemming
> and hawing and making feeble objections, etc. among us (leftists,
> broadly speaking) here (= in the States, but also in Western Europe)
> for us to have any impact on the war on Yugoslavia one way or
> another. If the IAC became a dominant party in organizing
> oppositions to the war on Yugoslavia, that's because there was an
> absence of competition, as you suggest yourself. Neither anarchists,
> nor other socialists, nor religious leftists could mount a clear and
> effective opposition to the war (not to mention to covert actions,
> propaganda onslaughts, etc. against Yugoslavia); nor did they have it
> in them to get up and do the work of organizing, when organizing
> against the war was a thankless job that would go unappreciated by
> all but a few committed leftists and the Serbian diaspora and that
> would alienate liberal allies -- for instance a number of feminists
> -- even if they distanced themselves from the IAC as far as possible.
> Besides, a number of leftists couldn't really make up their mind as
> to exactly what they wanted to argue for (if they opposed the NATO
> interventions, what's their alternative?) because they believed that
> Milosevic ought to be deposed, and the Serbs (in their mind the
> guiltiest nation in the process of the dissolution of Yugoslavia)
> punished or at least reined in somehow, by outside powers.
> Ambivalence immobilized them.
I think that other groups wanted to organize, but I got the impression that many of us were surprised at how quickly the Left was snookered into supporting that war. It was like the rug was pulled out from under us. Kind of like the current situation with Hitchens where he has switched sides to become a commissar for the ruling class.
I'll give credit to the IAC for getting several thousand people to that protest, but I'm going to use that protest as an illustrative example of how the Left can disempower itself through really boring demonstrations.
<< Chuck0 >>
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"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)