Are Marches Pep-Rallies? (was Antiwar Protest Largest Since '60s)

Chuck0 chuck at mutualaid.org
Sat Nov 2 14:27:31 PST 2002


Gar Lipow wrote:


> Any the people win a major victory (like both the civil rights movement
> and the anti-vietnam war movement did) the mainstream propagandist will
> give the standard line: "Oh you people had nothing to do with it. We
> granted this concession because we ar nice people, smart people, good
> people. In fact all those nasty demonstrations made it harder to get
> consensus to do this thing we were going to do all along. You never
> scared us. N'uh Uh. No fear here."

The anti-Vietnam War didn't win a major victory. When did the war end? 1971?

No. We all know that the war ended later. The peace movement was pretty important, but its influence on ending the war has been way over-inflated, which has led the Left in this country to make major strategic mistakes since then because they misunderstand the entire picture.

The peace movement was just part of the reason why the war ended. We can't discount the resistance in the military and, perhaps more importantly, the fact that the Vietnamese people kicked American ass.


> The anti-Vietnam movement could not end the bombing of Cambodia in 1972?
> Remember they had just won popular support. I think 1971 was pretty
> close to first year there even an an antivietnam majority. And it is
> tough to translate majority support into policy change when the people
> in charge like the current policy.

This was barely a majority and if the ruling class made decisions when negative opinions reached 51%, we'd be living in a much different country.


> And the demonstrations were effective. They were not all of the battle
> But they played a huge part in ending the Vietnam war. Pick the memoir
> of your choice by an leading establishment figure who supported the
> Vietnam war and then turned against it. (I'll stack the odds a bit.
> Elsberg may have been an exception to what I'm about to say.) In almost
> every case you will find something along the lines of: "This horrible
> war dividing the country. Defeating the Viet Cong was not worth the harm
> being done to the soul of America." Very seldom will you find horror at
> the number of Vietnamese being killed. Agony over the cost in American
> Soldiers lives or money being spent was usually either absent or pro
> forma. The anti-vietnam war movement raised the cost of intervention to
> the point where the established had more to lose by continuing it than
> by ending it. I don't think there was ever any danger of a revolution.
> But there was a real danger in continuing disturbance of the smooth
> operation of capitalism.

So, you are saying that the resistance of the Vietnamese people had little impact on the reasons why the war ended?


> And I honestly doubt that the fragging of officers or the bombing of
> ROTC buildings and Bank of Americas were the main thing that frightened
> the ruling class. The thing about the demonstrations was that they were
> growing in size. More and more of the public opinion against the war was
> turning to public *action* against the war. That was the scary thing
> that had to be stopped. From the ruling class perspective, god forbid a
> substantial minority of the U.S. public ever become *actively* involved
> in politics - even if it is only demos and door to door activity.

The fragging of officer and the revolt in the ranks of the military were certainly reasons why the war eventually ended. We also shouldn't discount the impact the urban riots had on warmakers who were suddenly confronted with the problem of fighting a distant war when your own cities were burning down.


> Now none of this means Demos are necessarily the best to way to go
> today. War strategy today has been refined for over thirty years
> specifically to be resistant to anti-Vietnam war type tactics. (And BTW,
> this is in itself a victory of sorts. War planners face constraints they
> did not pre Vietnam.) But even if the tactics and strategy need to be
> different, one core remains. Victory on such issues is won by winning
> the hearts and minds of a large segment of the public, (perhaps a
> majority, perhaps not) and converting this into action sufficient to
> raise the cost of war to the point where it is greater than the cost of
> peace. I would add that action by a tiny minority that remains a tiny
> minority is not likely do this. I would also add that acts of civil
> disobedience should not be of a type to alienate the overwhelming
> majority of people. We do need to increase not decrease popular support.

There are more than just peaceful, permitted ways to win popular support.

Chuck0

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