andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> There's serious work on the efficacy of peace
> movements in political science. Matthew Evangelista,
> an old prof of mine, has a book arguing that the
> transnational peace movement actually affected Soviet
> policy:
I think this may have been the case. But I don't think it affects (and may even support) the essential thrust of my argument and (even more) Jerry's. A very special "peace movement" was built around the threat of nuclear holocaust, and the transnational movement, in addition, appealed to some of the same elements that Soviet peace movementa (remember Picasso's dove) appealed to, so they couldn't ignore it without losing some of their own base of support in western europe.
Peace movements, whatever their visible results, _do_ recruit, energize, and train cadre, and they do involve more people in direct political activity. They result in mailing lists being in the hands of activists. All that is dangerous to the powers that be and (as Jerry argues) probably tempers their policies. And that is why the powers that be are so anxious to persuade people that movements don't count. I noticed this even before I had even a distant thought of becoming active myself -- when in 1962 or so I read some of Bobby Kennedy's shouts and growls (re the anti-nuclear testing movement) that petitions and form letters weren't effective -- that people should write individual letters. Bullshit. Petitions and form letters indicate that people are talking to each other -- a truly frightening phenomenon to the powers that be. (I'm not so sure that web-based petitions are so useful.)
Carrol