[Marxism] Death Notice for the American antiwar movement

[Carrol Cox]

Ron J wrote:
> 
> Some people allow the bosses to set their agenda and others decide that they will organize the people and set it.  This epitaph is defeatist nonsense based on a negative reading of the current situation and an overemphasis on the system and its candidates.  We have to build an antiwar movement that isn't beholden to the Democrats, nont allow the democrats to play taps at its funeral.

I would generally agree, with some important qualifications.

Many activists have from the beginning invited confusion by an
overestimation of what an antiwar movement can do -- stopping a war is
NOT one of those things, and some (many?) activists not seeing this
drifted away from what they considered a lost cause. If you think about
the anti-war movement of th '60s it obvious that from the beginning that
movement owed a good deal to those who had 'failed' so dismally to stop
the Korean War. That is, an anti-war movement, except under very special
conditions, is to be measured primarily by its sucess in recruiting and
training (or providing the context for self-training) of new left cadre.
Despite the low visibility of the current movement, I think it is having
some success in that.

Information we don't have (does anyone?) is how many local anti-war
groups are still (a) maintaining at least monthly meetings and (b)
achieving _some_ minimal visibility in their communities. 

Carrol