> Bradley Mayer wrote:
>
>> Poor Doug. Can't really blame him and others who are dismayed that we
>> really do live in Yoshie's "Age of Regress", and perhaps don't really
>> want to face up to the consequences of this (by now established) fact
>> in any consistent way. They really want to believe, as with the
>> Beatles song "Revolution No. 9" that "everything's going to be
>> alright" in the end. But maybe not.
>
>
> Man, who the fuck said "everything's going to be alright"? I said the
> popular atmosphere in the U.S. is better than it was at a comparable
> period during Vietnam, and the prospects for an antiwar movement are
> brighter. Is it poor reading comprehension or a twisted temperament that
> produces these misreadings? You seem to be the one reading from a
> prepared script.
Opposition by Americans to the war is at an all-time high, if recent polls are to be believed. CNN.com is currently running a poll which asks the question "Are U.S. goals in Iraq worth the cost?" Currently 73% have chosen the "No" answer to that question.
Doug is just wrong when he claims that "the prospects for an antiwar movement are brighter." People want the war to end, they don't want to build some dam antiwar movement led by Stalinist loons. See, this is an example of why the left never gets anywhere. It assumes that people would want to help build a movement because leftists want to build a movement. Most people, including many activists, want to end the war, not create some movement that serves the agenda of those who want to build a movement. Are all these people who now oppose the war flocking to anti-war rallies? Nope. Are they signing up to build the movement? Nope.
People just don't take the anti-war and peace movement seriously as a means to end the war. The movement's track record of stopping wars is abysmal. It hasn't gotten anywhere in ending the overall American war machine. There are solid reasons why people don't join such a movement and why people don't take it seriously. It is incapable of thinking outside of the box, it won't take risks, and it's wedded to a liberal code of nonviolent moralism. And I suspect that many people can see through the transparent agenda that many leftist organizations bring to the antiwar movement. They want the movement to grow because they see it as a source of recruits and a venue to sell commie tabloids. If they were really *serious* about ending war, we'd be seeing more direct action and more risk-taking.
Wake me up when one of the leaders from ANSWER gets arrested for civil disobedience. No pain, no gain. No fun, no gain. Defense contractors do not lose any sleep over ANSWER's symbolic protests outside of the White House or Pentagon.
We need to stop the war, not build another movement. A movement is built by people who have a strategy and can implement actions. If you don't act first, then you can't expect a movement to follow.
Chuck0