[Peace-discuss] It's up to us

[C. G. Estabrook]

I hope it's clear that I quoted Raimundo's recommendation of the SWP strategy re 
Vietnam because I think it's the right strategy re AfPak.

"...a really effective strategy ... was to make the antiwar movement ... a 
single issue movement. The idea was to unite all who  could be united around a 
simple axiomatic principle: Get the US out of [the Middle East]. Period. The 
SWPers were among the most energetic and effective antiwar organizers because 
they knew the difference between building a mass movement around the issue of 
war and peace and building a political party: the former had to be broad and 
all-inclusive, as opposed to the latter, which, by definition, has a more
comprehensive ... character."


On 7/28/10 5:31 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>  From Justin Raimondo's attack on the United National Antiwar Conference in
> Albany last weeked:
>
>
> "...What is needed is not another leftist-dominated 'coalition,' which puts on
> conferences that address the faithful, reasserts their well-worn dogmas, and
> sponsors marches of a few thousand (at most). You’ll note that these marches
> nearly always take place on the coasts – especially San Francisco, that bastion
> of the left’s past glories – but never penetrate into the American heartland.
> Until and unless they do, the antiwar movement, as an organized force in
> American politics, will literally remain a fringe phenomenon.
>
> "The irony here is that it was the Trotskyists in the 1960s who really
> understood how to build a mass antiwar movement: the Socialist Workers Party
> (SWP) had a really effective strategy and that was to make the antiwar movement
> during the Vietnam era a single issue movement. The idea was to unite all who
> could be united around a simple axiomatic principle: Get the US out of Vietnam.
> Period. The SWPers were among the most energetic and effective antiwar
> organizers because they knew the difference between building a mass movement
> around the issue of war and peace and building a political party: the former had
> to be broad and all-inclusive, as opposed to the latter, which, by definition,
> has a more comprehensive (and self-limiting) character..."
>
>
> Full article (which I don't entirely endorse, although I think the above is
> correct) at
> <http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/07/27/why-is-the-antiwar-movement-stalled/>.