Leftists can, of course, win, be they in elections, strikes, street demonstrations, cultural politics, or even social revolutions. Hugo Chávez Frías and his fellow Bolivarians are a good recent example. It took numerous defeats -- including Chávez's own -- to arrive at social conditions and levels of political organizations that have led to Venezuelan leftists' recent victories, though. The Vince Lombardi school of leftists, in contrast to Bolivarians, do not understand the value of learning from experiences of organizing that do not and cannot result in a clear big victory (like winning the presidential election) immediately, let alone from experiences of defeats.
Nathan wrote:
> >Whether George W. Bush or John Kerry wins the presidential election,
>>though, the AnybodyButNader/AnybodyButBush hegemony successfully
>>defeated, for the time being, Americans, Iraqis, and others who want
>>US troops to withdraw from Iraq. It will be a lot of work to rebuild
>>an anti-war movement in the United States.
>
>What the hell are you talking about Yoshie? Did you join the
>hundreds of thousands at the RNC who marched against Bush and
>against the war?
As a matter of fact, I was in the lead contingent of the World-Says-No-to-the-Bush-Agenda march organized by United for Peace and Justice, as I remain on its steering committee nominally. (Thanks to Doug, John Mage, and Michael Pollack for detailed instructions for NYC parking -- they helped!) The UfPJ organizers in NYC did a great job, the march had a big turnout (roughly 500,000), and it received fabulous media coverage (for instance, landing a big photograph and a sympathetic article on the front page of the New York Times). However, it communicated neither a sharp opposition to the continuing occupation of Iraq nor UfPJ's own alternative to the occupation (see <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041004/022379.html>) to the media or the US public, nor was it intended to make such a message the central one. Mobilizing for a clear demand to withdraw US troops immediately or a definite plan to replace US troops by UN peace-keepers minus the current occupiers would have contradicted the march's point, which was to attack Bush and the Republican Party *without* sending (at least not too loudly) a politically inconvenient message that Kerry and the Democratic Party, too, are pro-war and pro-occupation, against US withdrawal with or without UN peace-keepers as its replacement.
>Kerry said he wanted no permanent presence in Iraq, no permanent bases.
Few US politicians -- including Kerry and Republicans -- would want a permanent occupation of Iraq. All of them would rather implant a pro-Washington neoliberal Iraqi government and then withdraw the majority of US troops. The rub is that it is not possible to implant such an Iraqi regime without defeating armed and unarmed Iraqis who resist the foreign occupiers and their Iraqi allies -- hence the continuation of the costly direct occupation and bloody counter-insurgency war.
>And to be frank, who gives a shit if you get a stronger antiwar
>"movement" under Bush if you get a more pro-war government?
Whether Bush or Kerry gets elected, we'll have a more pro-war US regime than the current one, especially if either gets elected with a landslide. If Washington wants to hold elections in Iraq in January 2005 or at least sometime soon, it will have to take or retake the cities and villages -- the majority of Iraq -- that it has so far ceded to either insurgents or Iraqis of doubtful loyalty to Washington. That means escalation: "U.S. and foreign officials say it is increasingly clear that more armed forces will be needed in Iraq over coming months to secure the nation's first democratic elections, to protect against the possibility of an insurgent offensive during Ramadan and to allow U.S. commanders to launch a major counteroffensive to quell the rebellion in the Sunni Triangle" (Thomas E. Ricks and Josh White, "More Troops Needed In Iraq, Officials Say," September 24, 2004, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45683-2004Sep23.html>).
The offensives have already begun: "More than 4,000 American and Iraqi soldiers mounted a military assault on this insurgent-held city here Thursday night, in what appeared to be the first major operation to retake areas from guerrillas before the January elections" (Rick Lyman and Edward Wong, "Forces Move Against Iraqi Rebel Stronghold," October 1, 2004, <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/01/international/middleeast/01samarra.html>). See, also, Rick Lyman and Edward Wong, "Americans and Iraqis Press Effort to Secure Samarra," October 3, 2004, <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/international/middleeast/03iraq.html>; and AP, "U.S., Iraqi Forces Launch Major Offensive," October 5, 2004, <http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html>.
The offensives may or may not succeed in pacifying Iraq enough for even nominal elections, but Washington will have to remain, of necessity, more pro-war than before if it wants to take or retake the territories currently held by hostile Iraqis. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>