File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0109, message 244


From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: AUT: Intervention in Chicago anti-war discussion
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 22:17:53 -0500


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.


I would appreciate feedback and ideas.

Thanks y'all
Chris


Not to be a sour-puss, but I participated heavily in the anti-Gulf War activity
here in Chicago.  I worked with Chicago Campuses Against War and the
National Network of Campuses Against War, both of which I was a founding
member of.  I actually proposed CCAW to Ahmed Shawki (head of the ISO), my friend Nick, and a
few other people at a meeting of 300 people at DePaul where I spoke for the
DePaul anti-war committee, on Oct 24, prior to the war beginning.  I
remember a lot of things about that experience, so let me drop a few
memories and observations from someone who watched this from the higher
levels...

1.  Political struggles took place over whether or not to support the UN
embargo.  That set the tone for the split in Chicago's anti-war movement.
It was a reasonable political dividing line.  We will have to define the
political questions we are coming up against now and we will have to quickly
begin to think about certain kinds of demands, both the obvious and easy to
agree on (No War, No Racist Attacks, No Police State) and others that will
not be as readily agreed upon, which might include Complete US Military
Withdrawal from Middle East, End US Aid to Israel and the Arabic, Turkish,
Iranian and Pakistani Regimes, Hands Off The People of Iraq/End the Embargo,
Arrest Osama bin Laden and Try Him at the World Court, and so on.  Some
other issues will arise, but no anti-war movement will be unilateral
politically and differences will develop.  The question is, will they appear
as power struggles where the politics get hidden or obscured, or will their
actual political content become the ground of struggle?

2.  The basis of "the biggest, broadest" possible movement always reduces
politics to the lowest common denominator.  During the Gulf War, that led to
revolutionaries, concerned with always having something to do, spending a
lot of time running around "organizing" and not enough time talking to
people, doing educational work, etc.  That burned a lot of people out.
Also, a lot of 'revolutionary' groups and individuals buried their politics
searching for the 'biggest, broadest' movement and chose to spend their time
fighting for control of the student milieu, against each other and against
'liberals' on campus.  That was again done on the basis of being more
concerned with having a wide audience, and at times, a wide possible field
for recruitment (a way of functioning which I think is basically corrupting
and manipulative).  Last time I checked, among Marxists at least, winning
control of a movement that is not revolutionary, but much more limited,
means adjusting one's politics to those circumstances and politics.  This
happened frequently.

3.  Politically amorphous groups lost control rather quickly or adopted a de
facto politics.  DAN could de facto adopt any number of politics or
watered-down versions (Labor's Militant Voice, the ISO, etc.)  However, I
think DAN, at least at moments like this, is rather resistant to such
cooptation.  Does that bother most Left groups?  Yep.  DAN's failure to work
out some kind of political basis of unity is going to hurt us now in some
ways.  However, it also means that DAN cannot impose a politics on the
movement.  Other groups with large memberships of 'professional activists',
'trained cadre' and a unitary political line pose a much greater threat of
imposing their control than DAN.  In the Gulf War, that resulted in the
National Network of Campuses Against the War excluding Left groups and
physically keeping them out (which I sadly participated in), even though
there was no good reason beyond hostility between sects.

4.  The object, IMO, is not to have a Central Committee, which will
inevtiably simply reflect the organized sects.  The problem is to have
coordiantion between different working groups who help autonomous groups
around the city and suburbs do work where they have a foundation and a base.
The Coalition itself should be a political rallying point and a means to
coordinate, not a directing body.  If it tries to be that, then those who
are in power will be undermined by those who want power and those in power
will ignore those without power.  I guarantee that those struggles will
happen and that they are already in motion.  We can defuse this by refusing
the organizational terms of engagement that encourage them.  Then we can
help avoid the fratricidal warfare that took place in the Gulf War between
the Chicago Coalition for Peace in the Middle East and the Chicago Campuses
Against War, whose politics diverged little after the bombing began, but
whose desire to control key constituencies led to all kinds of petty
bullshit.

5.  Unlike in the Gulf War, when few people tried to address working class
communities as working class communities (rather than as union
constituencies) or did not address them at all (Chicago Campuses Against
War), I am for taking it into the neighborhoods and workplaces.  The massive
attacks we will face out of this are already impacting communities and
workplaces.  Just look at the airline industry, the insurance industry, etc.

6.  My political position: If they want war, we can't stop them.  Capital
will use this war as a means of recomposing the working class in favor of
capital and finally breaking the back of working class resistance.  This
will be especially harsh in immigrant and people of color communities, but
it will also fall hard on ALL workers, including the most privileged, who
capital has been afraid to attack.  The tragedy has already brought out an
amazing outpouring of support and solidarity, but it is based on "This
shouldn't happen HERE."  If it does not become "This should not happen
ANYWHERE.", then capital will succeed in reasserting its power.  The US
Government WANTS U.S. casualties because it wants a reliable US Army and
popular support for militarism again.  This is NOT a war between the
oppressor and the oppressed.  The terrorists are as anti-working class as
the US.  But, in their war for regional supremacy and control, both sides
have made the global labor their target and their cannon fodder.  However,
that the US bares heavy responsibility for this act cannot be denied.  The
US state has trained these people, supported every reactionary dictatorship
in the region at one point or another, and of course supported Israel.  Our
war is not for the defeat of one side or the other, but of both sides.  I do
not simply want US withdrawal, although I want that.  I also want US defeat.
I do not want bin Laden or whoever, tried by the Hague, high court of
international capital.  I want the bin Ladens and Talibans and Ayatollahs
and Zionists defeated.  This is a battle of global labor against global
capital, not simply some national war.  That is not the basis for an
anti-war coalition, but it is the basis upon which I am working and will
work.  I do not ask that a coalition adopt these points, but at least they
have the merit of not hiding my politics.

7.  In this spirit, groups and individuals should have the right to speak
their mind and their politics.  The coalition should allow for this kind of
autonomy, but it cannot pretend to determine who is valid and who is not.
Inevitably, a centralized coalition will represent a certain political
uniformity.  What will the basis of that uniformity be?  Anti-imperialism?
Anti-capitalism?  Pacifism?  We must begin to think about those questions
seriously.  Otherwise, groups who already have answers to these questions
will provide us with answers, and thereby with a political organization of
their own choosing, not ours.

Cheers,
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: <elalasz-AT-hotmail.com>
To: <chicagodan-AT-yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 8:34 PM
Subject: [chicagodan] Re: Saturday meeting plans


Jim -

Just a comment on your reply.  I actually think 300 people can
make decisions (or whatever number come to the meeting on
Saturday).  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to me that you think
that we can.  Why is that?

Here's my agenda, Jim - it's not hidden - to build the biggest,
broadest anti-war movement to stop this horrible war.  I want
everyone who can to join us, find it easy to get involved and want
to bring friends, family, etc. to it.   I first become political during
the Gulf War, where we BUILD demonstrations, teach-ins, vigils
of 1,000s and 10,000s of people.  It was amazing.  I think this is
even more possible today.

But in order to do that you need to involved the largest number of
people in deciding for themselves what it is that THEY want to
do, rather than a group deciding it for us.  Let the 300 people
decide, both organizations and individuals, what they want to do
at the publically announced meeting.

Isn't this what democracy looks like?

Elizabeth
International Socialist Organization



HTML VERSION:

I would appreciate feedback and ideas.
 
Thanks y'all
Chris
 
 
Not to be a sour-puss, but I participated heavily in the anti-Gulf War activity
here in Chicago.  I worked with Chicago Campuses Against War and the
National Network of Campuses Against War, both of which I was a founding
member of.  I actually proposed CCAW to Ahmed Shawki (head of the ISO), my friend Nick, and a
few other people at a meeting of 300 people at DePaul where I spoke for the
DePaul anti-war committee, on Oct 24, prior to the war beginning.  I
remember a lot of things about that experience, so let me drop a few
memories and observations from someone who watched this from the higher
levels...

1.  Political struggles took place over whether or not to support the UN
embargo.  That set the tone for the split in Chicago's anti-war movement.
It was a reasonable political dividing line.  We will have to define the
political questions we are coming up against now and we will have to quickly
begin to think about certain kinds of demands, both the obvious and easy to
agree on (No War, No Racist Attacks, No Police State) and others that will
not be as readily agreed upon, which might include Complete US Military
Withdrawal from Middle East, End US Aid to Israel and the Arabic, Turkish,
Iranian and Pakistani Regimes, Hands Off The People of Iraq/End the Embargo,
Arrest Osama bin Laden and Try Him at the World Court, and so on.  Some
other issues will arise, but no anti-war movement will be unilateral
politically and differences will develop.  The question is, will they appear
as power struggles where the politics get hidden or obscured, or will their
actual political content become the ground of struggle?

2.  The basis of "the biggest, broadest" possible movement always reduces
politics to the lowest common denominator.  During the Gulf War, that led to
revolutionaries, concerned with always having something to do, spending a
lot of time running around "organizing" and not enough time talking to
people, doing educational work, etc.  That burned a lot of people out.
Also, a lot of 'revolutionary' groups and individuals buried their politics
searching for the 'biggest, broadest' movement and chose to spend their time
fighting for control of the student milieu, against each other and against
'liberals' on campus.  That was again done on the basis of being more
concerned with having a wide audience, and at times, a wide possible field
for recruitment (a way of functioning which I think is basically corrupting
and manipulative).  Last time I checked, among Marxists at least, winning
control of a movement that is not revolutionary, but much more limited,
means adjusting one's politics to those circumstances and politics.  This
happened frequently.

3.  Politically amorphous groups lost control rather quickly or adopted a de
facto politics.  DAN could de facto adopt any number of politics or
watered-down versions (Labor's Militant Voice, the ISO, etc.)  However, I
think DAN, at least at moments like this, is rather resistant to such
cooptation.  Does that bother most Left groups?  Yep.  DAN's failure to work
out some kind of political basis of unity is going to hurt us now in some
ways.  However, it also means that DAN cannot impose a politics on the
movement.  Other groups with large memberships of 'professional activists',
'trained cadre' and a unitary political line pose a much greater threat of
imposing their control than DAN.  In the Gulf War, that resulted in the
National Network of Campuses Against the War excluding Left groups and
physically keeping them out (which I sadly participated in), even though
there was no good reason beyond hostility between sects.

4.  The object, IMO, is not to have a Central Committee, which will
inevtiably simply reflect the organized sects.  The problem is to have
coordiantion between different working groups who help autonomous groups
around the city and suburbs do work where they have a foundation and a base.
The Coalition itself should be a political rallying point and a means to
coordinate, not a directing body.  If it tries to be that, then those who
are in power will be undermined by those who want power and those in power
will ignore those without power.  I guarantee that those struggles will
happen and that they are already in motion.  We can defuse this by refusing
the organizational terms of engagement that encourage them.  Then we can
help avoid the fratricidal warfare that took place in the Gulf War between
the Chicago Coalition for Peace in the Middle East and the Chicago Campuses
Against War, whose politics diverged little after the bombing began, but
whose desire to control key constituencies led to all kinds of petty
bullshit.

5.  Unlike in the Gulf War, when few people tried to address working class
communities as working class communities (rather than as union
constituencies) or did not address them at all (Chicago Campuses Against
War), I am for taking it into the neighborhoods and workplaces.  The massive
attacks we will face out of this are already impacting communities and
workplaces.  Just look at the airline industry, the insurance industry, etc.

6.  My political position: If they want war, we can't stop them.  Capital
will use this war as a means of recomposing the working class in favor of
capital and finally breaking the back of working class resistance.  This
will be especially harsh in immigrant and people of color communities, but
it will also fall hard on ALL workers, including the most privileged, who
capital has been afraid to attack.  The tragedy has already brought out an
amazing outpouring of support and solidarity, but it is based on "This
shouldn't happen HERE."  If it does not become "This should not happen
ANYWHERE.", then capital will succeed in reasserting its power.  The US
Government WANTS U.S. casualties because it wants a reliable US Army and
popular support for militarism again.  This is NOT a war between the
oppressor and the oppressed.  The terrorists are as anti-working class as
the US.  But, in their war for regional supremacy and control, both sides
have made the global labor their target and their cannon fodder.  However,
that the US bares heavy responsibility for this act cannot be denied.  The
US state has trained these people, supported every reactionary dictatorship
in the region at one point or another, and of course supported Israel.  Our
war is not for the defeat of one side or the other, but of both sides.  I do
not simply want US withdrawal, although I want that.  I also want US defeat.
I do not want bin Laden or whoever, tried by the Hague, high court of
international capital.  I want the bin Ladens and Talibans and Ayatollahs
and Zionists defeated.  This is a battle of global labor against global
capital, not simply some national war.  That is not the basis for an
anti-war coalition, but it is the basis upon which I am working and will
work.  I do not ask that a coalition adopt these points, but at least they
have the merit of not hiding my politics.

7.  In this spirit, groups and individuals should have the right to speak
their mind and their politics.  The coalition should allow for this kind of
autonomy, but it cannot pretend to determine who is valid and who is not.
Inevitably, a centralized coalition will represent a certain political
uniformity.  What will the basis of that uniformity be?  Anti-imperialism?
Anti-capitalism?  Pacifism?  We must begin to think about those questions
seriously.  Otherwise, groups who already have answers to these questions
will provide us with answers, and thereby with a political organization of
their own choosing, not ours.

Cheers,
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: <elalasz-AT-hotmail.com>
To: <chicagodan-AT-yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 8:34 PM
Subject: [chicagodan] Re: Saturday meeting plans


Jim -

Just a comment on your reply.  I actually think 300 people can
make decisions (or whatever number come to the meeting on
Saturday).  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to me that you think
that we can.  Why is that?

Here's my agenda, Jim - it's not hidden - to build the biggest,
broadest anti-war movement to stop this horrible war.  I want
everyone who can to join us, find it easy to get involved and want
to bring friends, family, etc. to it.   I first become political during
the Gulf War, where we BUILD demonstrations, teach-ins, vigils
of 1,000s and 10,000s of people.  It was amazing.  I think this is
even more possible today.

But in order to do that you need to involved the largest number of
people in deciding for themselves what it is that THEY want to
do, rather than a group deciding it for us.  Let the 300 people
decide, both organizations and individuals, what they want to do
at the publically announced meeting.

Isn't this what democracy looks like?

Elizabeth
International Socialist Organization
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