The 'fatal flaw' in anti-war organizing? (was: Re: [lbo-talk] Iraq war "clearer" to Americans than WW 2

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Apr 8 11:33:44 PDT 2003


LP:
> What we were able to do before the start of the war, we DID
> do. We convinced
> the vast majority of the people of the world that the war was
> wrong. We
> prevented the U.S. from 'legitimizing' the war in the UN. We
> put serious
> political obstacles in their way. We undermined their
> evidence. We created a
> situation where going to war involved more costs and risks
> than they would
> have expected. However, they chose to bear those costs and
> risks and go to
> war anyway and they had the power to do it. I say that this
> is because, when
> all is said and done, we are living under the dictatorship of the
> bourgeoisie. Someone else might formulate it differently.
> But it's not just
> because we picked the wrong slogans and the wrong ad agency.
>

Excellent point. It's logical conclusion is that a strategy based on mobilizing a mass movement to "send a message" is as effective as using WW II tanks against F-16. That strategy is not working anymore for several reasons:

1. The Left/anti-war movement cannot mobilize enough demonstrators; a demo attended by a few hundred supporters is a demonstration of weakness rather than strength

2. The ruling class and its agents learned how to deal with and trivialize even relatively large demonstrations or collective actions

3. Even more importantly, even larger demonstration are not as threatening to the ruling class as they used to be. It is so, because the ruling clases do not need mass participation in accomplishing their goals (cf. conscript or voting) as they used to.

4. Participation in a collective action/demo represent a substantial personal cost to the participants, which renders organizing this form of political action even more difficult, given its already limited effectiveness.

A different strategy is required - one that does not assume that public pressure will affect a democracy. That different strategy needs a new assumption, namely,that to stop the machinery of war you need to put sand in its gears, not your fingers. You do not put yourself, like Gandhi, in the path of harm, but instead increase the cost of war and oppresion in your everyday action and with minimal personal risk Instead of "organining" - whatever that term means - a better strategy is to disseminate detailed instruction how an individual can slow down the working of the imperialist state at any opportunity and every means available with little personal risk.

Wojtek



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