Re: [Marxism] Our alternative should be an antiwar movement,

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ben writes, "regardless of the inherent flaws in the Greens (which have
doomed the party to structural and functional failure) it is sort of comical
to watch you attempt to galvanize the left into yet another single issue
campaign."

Ben here rails against something I didn't say. I'm through wasting my time
with people who won't --or can't-- read. 

Eli suggests that one way to build an antiwar movement is to write comments
on the Daily Kos. I don't read the Daily Kos and I don't know anyone who
does. 

Eli suggests a second variant: "Join ANSWER, or Troops Out Now Coalition or
World Can't Wait or even UfPJ if you prefer, or any organization which is
ACTUALLY BUILDING the antiwar movement by organizing demonstrations and lots
more. I work with ANSWER in San Francisco and I'm sure it won't be a
surprise to anyone when I say there's an awful lot of work being done by a
very small number of extremely overtaxed people.

"Demonstrations like Sept. 15 and Oct. 27 don't 'just happen' and there is
PLENTY of work to do."

This is based on the theory that it is better to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING,
rather than NOTHING. There was a time when I might have agreed with that,
but not any more. TONC and ANSWER are both political expressions of Marcyite
sects. Neither one can build a genuine mass-action oriented, immediate
withdrawal wing of the antiwar movement, and their existence prevents the
emergence of such a formation. The role that the Marcyite coalitions play
for the left wing if played by UfPJ for the antiwar movement as a whole.
Their suggestion this week is to call your congresscritters. Their
suggestion last week was to call your congresscritters. Their suggestion
next week will be to call your congresscritters. As for joining the
Avakianite "World Can't Wait" front group, was that some kind of joke?

OH, but they're having "mass actions." So what? Protest demonstrations are a
TACTIC not a strategy. When, where and how they are carried out needs to a
be a function of a strategic perspective that bases itself on an
understanding of politics and social forces. ANSWER and TONC will BOTH claim
to be doing this, but what the WWP and PSL are really about strategically is
building their own sects. As for UfPJ, its strategic perspective is leading
everyone into the Democratic Party, which is, as I've said before, the roach
motel of social movements: folks check in, but they don't check out.

At any rate, there is no answer or tonc here, only an IAC chapter around the
three WWP members who've been here for a quarter century. The UfPJ-type
formation is a coalition of non-profiteers who bear moral witness at midday
one Friday a month in front of the offices of I forget which Senator. They
are all very nice people, but if they were capable of organizing something,
it would have happened by now. 

I don't believe this is JUST because of their individual or collective
failings in organizing technique, but ALSO quite simply that their approach
just plain doesn't work -- not here, not now. I don't know what a successful
approach for organizing an antiwar movement today is. Wish I did. But I do
know what it looks like when the approaches you are following simply aren't
working. It looks like what we have here.

The people who actually have organized something in town are the ones in the
immigrant rights movement, so --frankly-- I'm going to stick with them. 

Joaquin


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