[lbo-talk] Ending the Occupation

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Nov 26 13:19:13 PST 2004


At the end of his plan for dissolving the anti-war effort, Tom Hayden writes: "Care will have to be taken during such militant actions to send the clearest possible message to mainstream public opinion."

Messages may be sent but not arrive at their intended destination or with their original content. Nowhere in his Plan does Hayden confront the fact that whatever the anti-war movement does or says will be known by the "mainstream public" (whatever that may be) only as it is first passed on by the corporate media to a (large) minority of the citizenry and then passed on by them orally to another large minority. The two together probably constitute a majority, but I would not myself be able to estimate its size. Only a _very_ small minority of the public will receive that "message" directly (and relatively undistorted) from the senders themselves.

But then his aim of dissolving the movement is clear in his very first step: "The first step is to build pressure at congressional district levels to oppose any further funding or additional troops for war."

He does not venture any opinion on how long it will be before such pressure from the district levels would actually effect voting in Congress. (I suggest that those wanting to know read up on Cantor's explanation of infinity.) "The important thing," Hayden sums up, "is for anti-war activists to become more grounded in the everyday political life of their districts." This is exactly how the anti-war effort is bled of its organizing capacity and leadership.

Hayden _has_ to know better; this has to be be deliberately aimed at dissolving the anti-war movement.

Carrol



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