[Marxism] ISO: "For a Mass, Non-Exclusionary Antiwar Movement"

[Joaquín Bustelo <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

        Having been one of the protagonists in recent exchanges on this list
with members of the ISO on tactics in the antiwar movement, it is especially
gratifying to point people to the excellent article from the ISO comrades in
the latest International Socialist Review on the antiwar movement which has
now been posted online.

        Titled, "ANTIWAR MOVEMENT: For a Mass, Non-Exclusionary Movement" it
is available here: <http://www.isreview.org/issues/41/editorial.shtml>.

        From my point of view, it underscores that, in reality, there are
large areas of broad, strategic political agreement between the ISO comrades
and those of us in other groups, like Solidarity and the Freedom Road
Socialist Organization, both of whose supporters took part in the recent
marxmail discussion, as well as what my guess is the bulk of the
unaffiliated revolutionaries that make up most of the U.S. subscribers to
this list.

        The main immediate target of the article are the liberal/non profit
bureaucracy/democratic politician and operatives wing of the movement, which
is in a full scale, galloping retreat from both the perspective of building
an *independent* movement AND the demand for immediate and unconditional
withdrawal.

        The editorial exposes in especially clear terms those who are
carrying out this retreat under using manipulative lines like "support our
troops," and explains very clearly that while "issues like inadequate armor
and equipment for U.S. troops in Iraq" are useful in exposing "the criminal
willingness of the Rumsfelds and Bushes to sacrifice soldiers? lives for
their own agenda," the role of U.S. troops in Iraq is that of an imperialist
occupying force and any use of a phrase like "support our troops" MUST be in
the context of and at the service of the fight to end this imperialist war.

        Implicit in the comrades' argument --and I agree with their decision
to leave it implicit, but I WILL make it EXPLICIT here-- we must avoid
giving the impression that we are for "our troops" having better armor,
weapons, etc., ON THE CONTRARY we are categorically *against* their being in
Iraq AT ALL and to every suggestion that they should be militarily MORE
capable or effective there, with better weapons, thicker armor, or more
troops, our response must be NO. Every dollar spent on up-armoring humvees
is a dollar that should be spent instead getting them the hell out. Not one
body, not one bullet, not one penny for furthering the imperialist war. 

        The ISR editors stress that in the 1960's "Support out troops, bring
them home now" had that kind of clear antiwar content, but having been an
active participant in that movement, I would go further along that same line
of argument.

        Really, back then we tended to limit the use of those sorts of
formulations to counter precisely the same kind of demagoguery being put
forward today, that we shouldn't oppose a war that American boys ("boys" in
those days, "troops" today) were fighting and dying in. And our response
was, the REAL way to support "our boys" was to get them out of harms way by
immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

        In the case of the Vietnam antiwar movement, we were aided by the
term "boys," a strictly non-military word, one, moreover, that emphasized
that these were very young people, barely crossing into adulthood. 

        Today because of the impact of the feminist movement and the way the
imperialist military has adapted to it, we're precluded from using "boys" in
a slogan like that, and "troops" has become the term. 

        But we should be conscious that "troops" is a definitely inferior
substitute from our point of view. Unlike "boys," the "troops" are organized
members of an imperialist military war machine, it has that connotation,
whereas the connotation of "boys" was that these were just kids like any
others you might see playing football or delivering your newspaper.

        In the Vietnam-era antiwar movement, we wanted to project that we
had no quarrel with the GI's, that we had a supportive stance towards those
of our generation who had been dragooned into Vietnam -- so much so that a
significant layer of us felt morally obligated to refuse the student
deferment and take our chances with the rest of our age cohort in the draft
lottery that was implemented towards the end of the war.

        But to the degree that found expression in a slogan, that slogan was
"Bring the boys home now!" ("Boys" because in those days the armed forces
were much more overwhelmingly male than now, the draft was male only, and we
were mostly clueless about the feminist critique of patriarchal societies). 

        But the "support our boys by bringing them home now" was more of an
argument aimed at *countering* the manipulation of understandable sentiments
among working people about their loved ones, friends, neighbors, townspeople
and so on that prowar forces tried to carry out, rather than a major slogan
we were raising.

        This is all, of course, by way of amplification of the point that
the ISR editors make, which is precisely right.

        And this is very much related to a simmering issue that the ISO
comrades bring out, which is red-baiting and attempts to exclude more
radical voices from the antiwar movement. 

        A central example of this has  been denying a platform to Carl Webb,
a military resister refusing orders to go to Iraq, and --the irony in this
is quite rich-- with arguments like that having Carl speak will cut us off
from ... opponents of the war in the military and military families, i.e.,
others just like Carl.

        And it is gratifying to see the clarity with which the ISO comrades
present this question of non-exclusion, not narrowly as a question of an
attack on their group or left groups in general, or all radicals, but on the
antiwar movement itself and what must be its character if it is to be
successful.

        At the end of the article the comrades present a very cogent summary
of their points and the issues as they see them:

*  *  *

The time has come for an open and honest debate in the antiwar movement
about what kind of movement we need and how we can build it. To ISR, the
critical issues are these. We must reaffirm that the movement?s key demand
should be ?Troops out now.? Second, we need to build a mass and grassroots
movement that maintains its organizational and political independence from
the Democratic Party. Third, we should seek to build an open and
non-exclusionary movement that debates differences within it rather than
seek to stifle them. Fourth, we must support resistance inside the U.S.
military, especially those brave soldiers who have spoken out and have
refused to participate in the occupation and subjugation of another people.
We also need to strengthen resistance at home, for example, in the fight to
get military recruiters out of our high schools and colleges. Fifth, we must
support self-determination for Iraqis. Only they can determine the future of
their country. And only they can determine how they will resist its colonial
occupation. Finally, we must reaffirm our support for our own right to
dissent at home and to defend the rights of Arabs and Muslims whose civil
liberties have been under continued assault. We believe these points provide
an outline for a stronger antiwar movement?something that we crucially need
today.

*  *  *

        On the points the comrades raise, I would say the following.

        On the first one, "Out Now!" We're all in agreement.

        I think Fred Feldman in particular has made a very valuable
contribution, in his balance sheet on the New York coalition, in terms of
fine tuning our tactics around this slogan by highlighting and separating
out from any specific formulation of an antiwar demand the concept of having
the central focus actually be on the war that is going on.

        I don't believe there are any real differences among most of us on
this, saying "Out Now" is the key demand obviously already incorporates that
focus. But by separating out the focus on opposing THIS war from the
specific formulation of the demand, Fred's insight helps us think more
clearly about the tactics.

        As in the Vietnam days, the "Out Now" advocates should accept
compromise slogans, like "end the war" or even (as happened, I think it was
in 1967) "sick of war" in exchange for the action having a clear character
of being a protest against the actual war currently going on.

        On the other side, Fred reminds us that we're also seeing a retreat
from the perspective of building a mass antiwar movement from people who
don't necessarily abandon "Out Now!" as such but DO abandon the central
focus on the war.

        On the second, building a grass roots movement politically
independent from the Democrats, again I have no quarrel. We should be
conscious, though, that this, in and of itself, doesn't solve all the issues
of *how* to build the most socially powerful movement possible, i.e., one
that is most rooted in and springs from the oppressed nationality
communities and other relatively more oppressed/exploited layers of working
people as well as the youth. This wasn't an issue raised by the subjects the
editors of the ISR addressed, I'm not saying they should have talked about
it there, but I do think it is something we have to keep in mind constantly.

        Third, on non-exclusion, this is a vital point. And I would just add
something here that an ISO comrade stressed to some of us from Soli in a
conversation about these issues, that one big test of this is whether the
movement is inclusive of the Arab and Muslim communities in the United
States. An antiwar movement that has such a tone and internal culture that
Arabs and Muslims feel excluded is an abomination.

        Fourth, on supporting resisters within the armed forces and campus
anti-militarism. I would only add here that the role of the ISO on the
campus side of this needs to be recognized and supported, just as the ISO
comrades have said they're conscious of the need to have the same attitude
to those forces that took the lead in the other sector. 

        "Fifth, we must support self-determination for Iraqis." I think this
sentence would have been stronger by bringing it back to the "Out Now!"
demand, i.e., by saying "Fifth, we must support self-determination for
Iraqis by demanding immediate and unconditional withdrawal." 

        And, although I have no objection in principle, and no real
objection in this kind of article addressed to a more advanced layer, I'm
still a little nervous about phrases like, "Only they can determine how they
will resist its colonial occupation." This is, at any rate, a truism, and I
think the point would be stronger by simply stating that all history shows
that a people under occupation WILL resist, not because they're terrorists,
but because they want to be free from foreign domination. 

        The more I've been thinking about this since the last exchanges on
this list, the more I think the ISO comrades are right in stressing that the
demonization of the Iraqi resistance must be countered systematically. But I
also feel that in addressing broader circles beyond already committed
anti-imperialists, we have to explain this more carefully and defensively
than has sometimes been done in the past. 

        The difference I see would be, for example, whether to pitch an
article: "Why we should support the right of Iraqis to resist occupation"
versus "Why do the Iraqis resist occupation?" 

        I think the former pitch is ok here on Marxmail or in the ISR (or
Soli's magazine, Against the Current) of Links (the Australian  but the
latter is better in something like an issue of Solidarity News that is meant
to be distribute widely to people coming to antiwar demonstrations and so
on.

        The ISO's final point, defending civil liberties, is fine: I would
just double underline and put in bold that these comrades are right to
stress that the cutting edge of this struggle is in defense of the rights of
the Arab and Muslim communities in the United States, and an antiwar
movement that has such an internal atmosphere that these sectors feel
unwelcome is light years away from the antiwar movement we need. 

        So I would urge everyone to take a careful look at this editorial.
It was obviously very consciously and carefully written to separate out the
big issues from secondary questions, to help clarify the discussion, and I
think the effort the comrades put into doing this was very much worthwhile.

Joaquín


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