Re: [Marxism] Seven Theses on the Current Period,the War and the Anti-war Movement,

["M. Junaid Alam" <mjunaidalam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I think Gilbert's assessment of the situation, at least as enumerated in
points 6 and 7, is pretty amateurish and off the mark, especially
considering his overall smarts. He addresses the anti-war movement as if
it is some kind of united monolithic force that can be guided this way
and that after being chided for this error and that. The anti-war
movement is weak because only a handful of Americans are dying. Period.
There is no draft in place, and there won't be one for at least another
year, assuming everything doesn't _really_ go to hell regionally. And
even if the draft happens eventually, it won't replicate the last one,
which would be political suicide. I don't think the movement was
mobilized out of any fear of American casualties; no one really believed
that Hussein's forces would inflict serious damage this time around if
it couldn't do it when ten times stronger ten years ago. It was mainly
noble sentiment and a sense of indignation that fueled the pre-war
anti-war movement, not any material concrete interest being mobilized,
and of course the former tends to evaporate rather quickly when initial
naive hopes are dashed. I also think at least 30-40% of America's
population is hardcore pro-war, fatalists and fanatics of the religious
persuasion for whom greater disaster is only confirmation that the war
path is the correct one in a galactic struggle and Muslim heathen-
basically, these are the small idiots who support the grand idiot, Bush.

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