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

[<g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Carroll,

How are things? Now for our disagreement, though I would like
to preface this by saying that I was **genuinely** delighted
someone commented on a post of mine.


You disagreed with my point about support for the war
shrinking to a hard core 10%.  My argument was rather that I
disagreed with Mohammed's point that 30-40% of Americans are
pro-war. And always will be so.  I am simply reluctant to
believe that of any section of humanity.  I deeply believe
and this is probably faith talking that the majority of
humanity are non-violent and that it takes extraordinary
measures to get them to kill.

Now is there an analogy with Vietnam?  There is to the extent
that this is an Imperialist war and that it too has been ill
thought out from a ruling class perspective.  Moreover it has
the potential to involve the entire region in an anti-
imperialist conflagration.  Moreover it is plain that the
cost of occupation is eroding public support for the war in
the USA and throughout the world.

Kerry has been reluctant to fight on the war, but even he,
pro-war that he is, scored against Bush on the Iraq issue.

Mine point here is that for the American body politic Iraq
will become a ever more of a running sore and that is
precisely what Vietnam was.

warm regards

Gary

>
>It is indeed some sort of quagmire, but it is _not_,
however, for many
>reasons, a "Vietnam type" quagmire, and I suspect that using
Vietnam as
>our perspective on it interferes more than contributes to our
>understanding of what is happening and how we should respond.
>
>And the third point is just wrong. At the height of anti-war
sentiment
>in the 1960s & 1970s a majority of the u.s. population
continued to
>support the war. We can doubtless build a huge resistance to
the
>Occupation of Iraq, and a growing numbers will cease to
support it
>_without_ actually opposing it, but that huge resistance
will still
>amount to a minority of the populace.
>
>Carrol
>
>
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