>But of course the division of marxism into these two separate strands is
>bad Marxism, and even from the perspective of "practical politics" it is
>probably necessary to insert into our agitational work the perspective
>embodied in Yoshie's two posts.
hello. i do believe that i accept the truth here: it's a war crime. there's no rejection here of that, on my part. i'm not separating it from anything but suggesting that, if we are to take it seriously, then we _have to_ do more than hand waving about the fact that it's a war crime. we have to fight an enormous amount of propaganda that what we are doing is correct. the post yoshie forwarded was several k's in length. is it any match against boot camp, months and years of indoctrination into the service, into US life in general?
no.
but you know wt works with members of the mil is to appeal to precisely the same thing that fucker bush was appealing to just now when speaking to Iraqi troops (riiiiiiiight): bush thinks it's actually worthwhile to tell the iraqi troops that we're saving them from the evils of the country they live in and their gov and mil leaders. bush appeals to what he believes or pretends to believe are universal notions of freedom, individuality,justice, etc. bush believes (or pretends to believe) that all people everywhere desire those things--those things the way we live them out in the u.s./the west. and thus, he believes that he merely need to appeal to that nascent belief system within in and every iraqi and things will fall into place. in turn, he even offers them a "support network" in the form of the loving arms of the u.s. occupying forces. *gag*
same thing here, except we believe we're right. but we can't just say, "something you've identified with your entire life, the u.s., is now wrong and bad, you must give it up. and something you've identified with for many months, probably years, is now doing something bad and wrong, you must give it up."
very few people are capable of just ditching their identity like that.
you need to provide them with an alternative. and you also need to appeal to something _positive_ in their current identity. in this case, one might appeal to the very things the mil says it's fighting for. which is to say, the vietnam war resistance among members of the service then was built on appealing to their sense of outrage: at being lied to; at the inanity of mil bureaucracy; at the unfreedom; at the meaningless of what they were doing.
in general, it was their very identity _with_ the ideals that they think the u.s. stands for that ignited enough anger for the to _begin_ the _process_ (and it's a process, not a static thing that happens once, transforming someone.
see my post of some weeks back where i talked about why the feminist movement has much to offer us, as leftists, who want and need to figure out how to deal with dissension among us.
kelley