[lbo-talk] anti-war factionalism

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Sep 20 18:56:11 PDT 2003


Eubulides wrote:
>
> Stop the War must stop the war within
>
> Paul Donovan watches the anti-war movement lose faith and battle with
> itself
>
> Sunday September 21, 2003
> The Observer
> [clip]
> Marqusee also believes that in February, the leadership of SWC found
> itself sitting on a movement of millions and didn't know what to do and
> the coalition has been in retreat ever since war broke out. "There should
> have been events going on up and down the country putting pressure on the
> Hutton inquiry but there has been very little, it has largely been the
> media carrying things forward over the last couple of months," said
> Marqusee. [clip]

Of course they didn't know what to do. Movements (and their leadership) that spring up this suddenly _never_ know what to do -- even if, under the conditions existing, there was anything they _could_ do.

Moreover, those _most_ of those millions had _not_ "signed up for the duration": They had rallied to stop the war from happening, and no policy, not amount of brother/sisterly love among the leaders, could have kept up the pressure called for here. With the beginning of the war, the anti-war movement necessarily entered a period of retreat and consolidation, and the measure of it now is not how much pressure it can bring to bear _now_ (the troops just aren't there) but how successful that consolidation is, and how successfully local organizations maintain some sort of continuity of activity and outreach to those who participated last winter but now have "gone home."

We are probably lucky in the U.S. to have two national coalitions. Probably one or two more (or organized tendencies within the coalitions) wouldn't hurt. We will be able to keep more people active in that framework, and there will continue to be more slack for exchange of ideas within the "leadership."

It's easy to sit on the sidelines and say "there should have been this" or "there should have been that." We should, for instance, have a nationally agreed on petition be circulated door-to-door by local organizations, with a committee in each local organization to encourage internal education among the circulators of the petition (the "foot soldiers"), with constant discussion of the responses of people to the petition and what kind of "pitch" works best.

We're not going to have it for various reasons. For me personally, I have found by bitter experience (this is essentially why I retired when I did) that one feature of my depression just won't go away: If I take on any sort of responsibility, I freeze up, and then can hardly manage my personal life, let alone carry out the responsibility. And the sort of idea I pushed in the preceding paragraph can only really be worked out intellectually even by someone who is _doing_ it. I'm not going to do it for the reasons given, and all my past political experience is in involving people by doing myself and bringing them along. I can't do that now. Sometimes I feel like Rochester's "Maim'd Debauchee," with politics substituted as the 'war' in question:

Thus Statesman-like I'le saucily impose,

And safe from Danger, valiantly advise;

Shelter'd in impotenced urge you to blows,

And being good for nothing else, be wise.

But in any case, I do really dislike articles of this sort which are perfectly true but outrageous in that they are whining about the inevitable and doing nothing to moderate the losses.

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list