Re: [Marxism] The SWP (USA) and its continuing significance

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 5 Jun 2005 10:02:10 -0400 (EDT) Walter Lippmann
<walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> The SWP is not at all "moribund" as some would imagine. Its role is
> to try to discourage and demoralize those anti-war forces who today
> take action against the war drive. Slandering anti-war leaders such
> as George Galloway against whom they choose to focuse their shrill
> rhetorical fire, slandering anti-war artistic figures like Michael
> Moore
> as being "pro-war", slandering revolutionary leaders such as
> President
> Chavez of Venezuela as "bonapartist", reviling the Iraqi resistance
> as
> remnants of Saddam Hussein's government - exactly what the Bush
> administration calls the Iraqi resistance - THE MILITANT has chosen
> the political space it chooses to occupy evidently with
> deliberation.
>

I think that Lou is right.  If the SWP is not "moribund," then you
would see people like Hitchens or Horowitz or Cooper quoting
from the Militant to support their own pro-war positions.  The
fact that we don't this sort of thing going on indicates to me
that no one, absolutely no one, outside of the SWP itself
(and some of that organization's alumni), whether
pro-war or antiwar, takes it very seriously.  It doesn't
have the heft anymore to exert any significant influence,
whether positive or negative on the antiwar movement.

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