Comments on History Is A Weapon (and a blog): Voices and Silence: Ruminations on the Peace Movem...

Random thoughtsMarches had their time and place. T...

2007-10-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

Random thoughts

Marches had their time and place. That time and place is gone.

I once saw footage of an imprisoned revolutionary who shall remain nameless. He was being interrogated. He noted how the people participated in elections and how that didn't work. How they participated in street protests and how that didn't work. How they participated in strikes and that didn't work. He ended by saying that they had no other choice but to rise up in arms.

I'm not necessarily saying that we're at that juncture but we're definitely passed the point of marches.

But there will continue to be marches. I think the next big march in this country should be on April 9, 2008.

Why?

For the people of Iraq, that is the day they march on Baghdad to protest the occupation. It's the day Baghdad fell. Apparently, this date resonates more with them than the day the invasion begun.

We really should be showing solidarity with the Iraqi people. You know, the ones who are actually suffering from this war.

The 30% Bush supporters represent approximately 100,000,000 people. Let's subtract the elderly among them and those who are otherwise harmless. There still remains tens of millions who will probably fight to the death.

These percentages give context to the repeated claims of commies killing millions upon achieving power. It doesn’t seem like such a bad thing after all.

Unfortunately, I'm of the opinion that it is impos...

2007-10-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I'm of the opinion that it is impossible at this point in history to stop these wars.

The 'war on terror' will go on for ever, until either:

a) the ruling class decide to consolidate for a while

or

b) a conscious working class stops them, by simply not playing the capitalist game any longer

I know it's unfashionable in anti-war or even general 'activist' circles, but that's exactly the problem. The people at the head of the anti-war 'movement' don't want class war, and most of the footsoldiers don't know how to have one. Economic circumstances will eventually change that, but it's so frustrating waiting.

PS. I do think they're going to try Iran.

If I had a nickel for every time I read a post lik...

2007-10-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

If I had a nickel for every time I read a post like this after an anti-war cattle drive . . .

I mean, I pretty much share your sentiments, and appreciate your honesty, but I'm not sure what good these kinds of posts do, other than to confirm that, yes, most of us are very, very frustrated (and, admittedly, I haven't done nearly enough myself to help end this war).

How about offering at least one concrete alternative course of action? I'll try to share some somewhat incoherent ramblings:

Personally, I favor the direct action approach, such as the week-long action shutting down the Times Square recruiting station earlier this month, or attempts to block military deployments, or organized war tax resistance.

However, I'm not sure if any of these actions bring us any closer to ending the Iraq War either; I don't think any of us do.

Maybe we need to seriously consider the possibility that, as of our current place in history right now, it's simply not possible for anti-war activist organizations to end this war. This government is too powerful, and we are too weak. The war will probably only end when the U.S. government, irrespective of whether it is led by a Republican or a Democrat, decides that it is no longer in the best interest of U.S. foreign policy to continue -- not whether or not the war is popular with voters.

This doesn't mean that we should stop trying, but that we need to reconsider why we keep failing, and adopt a more long term strategy that considers the systemic problems of U.S.-style democracy (so that in the future we will have gained more power for ourselves, and not allocated so much of it to Washington). That is, why is it still so easy for U.S. politicians to get away with lying to the American public in order to justify war? And why, even after the public discovers such lies and then comes around to amass a majority of opinion in opposition to the war, does the war still continue?

Of course, I think the anarchist-inspired anti-globalization crew have the best answers to these questions, but for some reason there is a huge disconnect between this "movement of movements" and the peace movement. The largely centralized, national peace movement (as exemplified by these big D.C. marches) can't decide if it's a lobbyist organization, or a buck-the-system group of agitators (which is barely even feigned, really). If they think the system works, then why don't they play dirty politics like everyone else and try to win? But if they think that the political system is really the enabler of war after war, then why don't they come up with a serious tactical plan to attack it, instead of marching in circles within the confines of police barriers?

Maybe this is also the fault of the "movement of movements", and maybe their focus on anti-capitalism is too limited. Indeed, as you have hinted at, why haven't these large number of anarcho-anti-capitalists emerged to lead a vital anti-war movement?

Maybe the new, revitalized SDS is on the right track. They give me some hope. While their emergence was primarily in reaction to the current war, they have proven to be heavily influenced by the politics and organizing strategies of the rhizomatic, horizontal-structure-loving "new" anarchists. What we need is a mass movement that combines these strategies with the peace movement's critique of war, the greens/ELF/earth-first!ers critique of environmental destruction (and impending ecological disaster), and the global justice movement's critique of capitalism and neo-liberalism. How do we get there? How do we combine these efforts?