--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> There is no useful comparison to be made between the
> anti-war movement
> of the '60s and of the present: There is no hugely
> varied black
> liberation movement at the center of the stage now
> from which all other
> movements can draw strengh. {In addition the
> movements of the '60s were
> fueled by two decades of steady economic expansion,
> laying the basis for
> what was then known as a "Revolution of Rising
> Expectations." There is
> no such explosive growth of hope in the last few
> decades.}
>
[WS:] The economic expansion argument is a good one. If memory serves, there was a theory of social movement moblization called the J-curve theory that argued along similar lines. In short, economic expansion creates grwiing expectations and those, in turn, a widening gap between expectations and reality, and growing frustration. I think it can explain a fee social movements both here in Eastern Europe.
However, I do not think that black liberation movement would get anywhere if the kennedy administration as not willing to listen. And the kennedy administration was willing to listen not out of the goodness of their hearts, of course, but because the Sputnik went up a few years earlier, and those nasty Ruskie commies were making advances all over the world, including Cuba. The elites were afraid that something would eventually give here as well, and moreover the US could not play a good "role model" for the rest of the world with the vestiges of Jim Crow in its core. They needed to reign in the home grown bigots a bit to calm things down, "win some hearts and minds," compete with the USSR and advance the cause of the empire abroad.
So if it were not for the Kremlin, the sixities would not have gotten anywhere on this side of the pond. The lefties, and the liberals in general, would have be as marginalized as they are today. With the USSR in decline and eventual dissolotuin - the reagan "revolution" swiftly wiped out all the concessions made in the 1960s and we ar eback in the "roaring twenties" where the capital is king again.
> Hence total unity around ideally correct tactics in
> the present anti-war
> movement would have no effect on the war.
>
> We are engaged in a holding operation to keep local
> left organizations
> alive with some growth if we are lucky. (It makes
> not a fucking bit of
> difference what national or would-be national
> organizations do or don't
> do.
[WS:} Granted but for the reasons stated above. There is insufficient threat to the US ruling class for it to be thinking of making concessions.
As long as thinking people think about the wrong
> problems (e.g.,
> unity in the anti-war movement) left thinking will
> be moribund. {In
> other words: Left thought now should concentrate on
> how to maintain and
> strengthen various local organizations, not on big
> plans, big hopes, or
> big fears.}
[WS:] Granted again. That and also networking with all kinds of potential allies. mass movements are history - the future is in the networks.
Wojtek
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