[O29] Troops out NOW or "at some unspecified date in the future to be determ

[robert montgomery]

 It's important to set the record straight on Vietnam and how the war was
ended:
By 1968 the ground war was stalemated. The US knew it couldn't win on the
battlefield and the Vietnamese knew they couldn't drive the occupiers out
without an air force. US strategy shifted to massive bombing to punish the
Vietnamese enough to try and extract concessions in Paris (negotiations
began early in 1968). The only force that could tip the balance and open
things up for the Vietnamese victory was the antiwar movement here. When
Gary suggests that the antiwar movement here was a secondary factor and that
the struggle was really won on the battlefield he's making a totally false
dichotomy between the Vietnamese resistance struggle and the deepening
struggle against the war here at home. The nationwide student strike in May
1970 threw the US ruling class into a panic. It was at this point that timid
Congressional "doves" began to make some noise. And this gets to my central
point that the record is clear: Whatever happens in Congress is an echo or
reflection of what's happening in the streets. Today we see some small
temporizing stirrings in Congress because:
1. The war is going badly
2. Opinion polls show growing antiwar sentiment
3. Camp Casey and Cindy Sheehan were front page news for over a month
4. Hundreds of thousands were in the streets on 9/24 demanding "Out Now"

So the cautious, spineless politicians are beginning to worry about politics
getting out of their control. This is fine; we want them worried. Hell, we
want them in a panic like in May 1970! But it's our militant mass actions,
independent of their support or prescence (Conyers and Cynthia McKinney
notwithstanding) that has them worried.
The LeBlanc proposal Gary supports proposes not simply a tactical
reorientation of the movement, but rather a strategic orientation to antiwar
organizing diametrically opposed to our own. One orientation holds that real
power resides in Congress and our function is to leverage the tepid liberal
initiatives along by supportively lobbying "set a date" politicians. The
other orientation believes the real power lies in deepening and broadening
mass opposition to the war by continuing to build a politicallly independent
movement based on mass action with a principled demand that supports the
fundamental right of the Iraqi people to self-determination. That demand can
only be for the immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq.
Bob Montgomery


On 10/1/05, Brian O'Connell <vinniechops at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have to weigh in here and say that going along with a timetable and
> leaving the war pullout to corporate loving John Kerry,Ted Kennedy and
> Hillary Clinton does not appeal to me at all. Leave the war to the
> politicians? No thanks.
>
> If we arn't going to demand an end to war and the pursuit of peace NOW
> then
> when are we going to do it? Who's going to do it? The next generation? The
> one after that? Or maybe the one after that? We probably don't have too
> many
> generations left if we don't cure the scourge of war and injustice. If we
> don't seriously take on the military industrial complex with clear demands
> then we won't have much influence.
>
> The message, "a sane and just world is possible, we have the power" can be
> sold to the American public, we just have to create a new protest culture
> to
> get them down to the market. I want to sell them real Peace, not plastic
> Congressional Peace.
>
> If someone had me on the ground with a boot to my neck I'd probably want
> them to take it off NOW. . . I wouldn't say to my assailiant, "Please sir,
> lighten up the pressure in about ten minutes, thank you sir".
>
> Also, on the issue of including a demand in solidarity with Arabs and
> Muslims. For me that's a no brainer . . .Of course we should be reaching
> out
> to that community.
>
>
>
>
>
> Brian O'Connell
> cell: 617-947-8983
> home: 617-364-9746
> vinniechops at hotmail.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> O29 mailing list
> O29 at massglobalaction.org
> http://massglobalaction.org/mailman/listinfo/o29_massglobalaction.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://massglobalaction.org/pipermail/o29_massglobalaction.org/attachments/20051001/a9017193/attachment.html>