[Peace-discuss] It's up to us

[David Green]

I generally agree with Raimondo's perspectives in this article, and I've 
apparently been naive for some time in assuming that it's become obvious to 
those in the left antiwar movement that there needs to be an alliance with the 
antiwar right. I should know better. On "progressive" Common Dreams, for 
example, the antiwar right has yet to exist.

I do, however, have one caveat regarding his criticism of Glen Ford (Black 
Agenda Report):

On the other hand, one can easily imagine that Ford, who has called the Ron Paul 
movement and the tea partiers “racists,” ... see(s) a left-right coalition as a 
deadly threat to “their” movement. 

 
Ford is a sensible leftist who is focused on issues of race in relation to class 
and institutionalized racism, not so much in terms of attitudes ("diversity"), 
as his recent commentary on Sherrod made clear. I'm not sure that he cares how 
Ron Paul "feels" about blacks. He does care that on the libertarian right there 
is no critique of institutionalized racism. If he's uncomfortable with an 
antiwar alliance, it's on this basis, and it's understandable in terms of his 
dominant focus.

On the radio version of News from Neptune, Saturdays at 10 on WEFT, we usually 
begin with Ford's weekly commentary, which is invariably scathingly anti-Obama 
in corporate terms.

DG




________________________________
From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: peace discuss <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Wed, July 28, 2010 2:54:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] It's up to us

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/>.
>.
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