>It may have been organized by WWP, but it became far larger than
>that. The more non-WWP people that are there, the less it is a WWP
>event. It's not like you have to carry a portrait of Sam Marcy to
>march.
No-- but you have to listen to an endless parade of speakers who rail about US crimes, yet almost universally remained silent on the authoritarian crimes of Hussein. The effect of this is to alienate those looking for a reason to oppose the war despite their revulsion at Hussein's regime.
>The SWP had a big hand in organizing anti-Vietnam War demos. It was
>good that that didn't keep people away then, even if a young LNP3 was
>there.
Yep-- folks were marching for five years after 1968, when a majority of the public were opposed to the war. Yet the marchers couldn't stop the war for half a decade more of slaughter in Southeast Asia. In gallup polls in August 1968, clear majorities said the war was a mistake, and by May 1971, the margin was more than two-to-one taking that position. Yet the war went on.
So how is citing the "success" of a sectarian-led antiwar movement from the Vietnam era comforting, when that movement, despite having majority support against the war, not only failed to stop the war, but allowed it to expand to Cambodia?
Could the alienation of average folks, the ones that recoiled and supported Nixon in both 1968 and 1972, have had something to do with that lengthening of the war?
Why should anyone be impressed with an antiwar movement that had two-thirds of the populations' support for ending the war in 1971, yet couldn't stop the carpet bombing and mass murder in Cambodia in 1973?
If that is the model for "success", god help the world as Bush launches his global crusade.
-- Nathan Newman