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Five simple but critical elements constitute the political and
organization framework for the June 28-29 open national antiwar
conference in Cleveland, sponsored by the National Assembly to End the
Iraq War and Occupation.
They are the unity of the antiwar movement; the compelling need for
massive mobilizations against the war; the demand for immediate and
unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops and military bases from
Iraq; a democratic inclusive antiwar movement based on open,
one-person-one-vote decision-making conferences; and the independence
of this movement from any political party.
The National Assembly—with its broad endorsements of over 500
organizations and prominent individuals, its 50-member Coordinating Committee,
and its impressive list of conference speakers—sees itself not as a
competing coalition in the present constellation of national antiwar
groups but rather as a current in the movement aimed at advancing the
above perspectives. Its central objective is to urge united and massive
mobilizations on a common date to "Bring the Troops Home
Now."
The success and authority of the Cleveland conference in moving toward
this objective will in large part be measured by its size, unity of
purpose, and political coherence. Three plenary sessions have been set
aside for presentation, discussion, and debate of proposals for action
submitted by the Assembly leadership and a range of other groups. All
proposals for antiwar actions submitted at least three days before the
conference will be placed before the entire conference for discussion
and vote.
Representatives of the nation’s major antiwar coalitions—including
Leslie Cagan of the United For Peace and Justice coalition (UFPJ), and
Brian Becker of the ANSWER coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End
Racism), as well as Larry Holmes of the Troops Out Now Coalition—will
be present as Saturday evening panelists along with the three members
of the National Assembly’s Administrative Committee: Marilyn Levin,
Jerry Gordon, and Jeff Mackler.
To date, ANSWER and TONC are conference endorsers. While UFPJ has thus
far declined to endorse, they have informed Assembly leaders that they
will participate and decide later whether or not to support any adopted
action proposals.
In this writer’s view, reaching agreement on the five major proposed
points of unity above can provide a solid foundation for a renewed
effort to close the yawning gap between the present and growing mass
sentiment against the Iraq War and the still modest and sporadic
mobilizations against it. The conference was at least in part motivated
by the inability of the broad antiwar movement to reach agreement on
united and massive protests against the war to commemorate its fifth
anniversary in March 2008.
Should the Cleveland conference prove successful, a firm political
foundation would have been laid to launch a massive offensive against
the war capable of forcing a U.S. withdrawal. This can be spearheaded
by a combination of the present coalitions and organizations opposed to
the war and by new forces that are its natural allies and who are
aggrieved by the murderous war’s squandering and plundering of vital
financial resources at a time of converging and multiple social crises.
A united and expanded antiwar movement will open the door wider than
ever to challenging the imperialist warmakers’ military interventions
around the world and the attacks on working people at home. The stakes
are high, to say the least.
An analysis of the National Assembly’s five proposed points of unity
reveals that they are consistent with a class-based understanding of
the dynamics of social change—in essence from the proposition that the
history of all successful struggles that challenge the status quo
begins and ends with the unification and mobilization of the
working-class majority to take the stage of history and fight for its
own class interests.
Socialists have always believed that the multitude of evils that
permeate capitalist society—war, poverty, racism, sexism, environmental
destruction, and the ruination of billions of people in the pursuit of
the private profit of the few—are inherent features of capitalism as
opposed to accidents of history that can be remedied with the election
of a new crop of politicians or the replacement of one party of the
ruling rich with another.
Of course, the broad range of forces expected to assemble in Cleveland
are far from being in agreement with this premise. Nevertheless, their
agreement on the five points above constitutes the basis for organizing
a mighty challenge to the present slaughter and occupation in Iraq, the
consequences of which will inevitably spill over to the massive
struggles to come in other arenas.
With this in mind, let us move towards an assessment of these five
stated principles that have united the endorsers and organizers of the
National Assembly, who hope to engage the broadest range of forces to
date to discuss and debate the key questions before the U.S. antiwar
movement. (See a complete list of endorsers and members of the
Coordinating Committee at www.natassembly.org
)
Unity of the movement
The concept of "unity" has been much maligned and
misunderstood, too often declared by those who have no intention of bringing
it into being and/or whose preoccupation with past grievances stands in
the way of objective judgment. In its essence the unity conceived of by
the leadership of the National Assembly to End the Iraq War and
Occupation does not include the subordination of one national antiwar
coalition to another, whether it be ANSWER, UFPJ, TONC, or any other.
Nor does it mean that any of the above would be required to alter its
programmatic basis, its leadership, or its organizational structure and
principles.
We should add here that there can be no requirement that any coalition
or group or individual subscribe to any electoral perspective,
including support or non-support to any candidate(s) for office, to
reach agreement on a proposal for a mass mobilization against the war
on a common date. Were such a requirement ever to be imposed as a
precondition for united action, it is clear that the result would be a
disaster since the forces opposed to the war are scattered to the far
winds with regard to their party political loyalties or inclinations.
In fact, given the often sharp disagreements that at least in part
explain existence of the present movement’s often contending groups and
coalitions—not to mention the divergent views of the thousands, if not
millions, of other individuals and organizations that stand opposed to
the war—it is impossible to conceive of reaching agreement on anything
other than a limited number of demands on the U.S. government to end
the war.
But advancing these demands in the form of united and massive
mobilizations of the American people on a specific date or dates
inevitably sets into motion a dynamic wherein past differences can be
re-evaluated on the basis of new and common experiences.
The Action Proposal presented by the Assembly’s Coordinating Committee
places a special emphasis on the need for unity. It states: "It is
self-evident that a united movement is a stronger movement. There is
every reason for the movement to unite and no good reason for it to be
divided. We believe that coalitions, organizations and groups with
widely divergent views on a host of matters can and must come together
to boldly challenge the warmakers and render the pursuit of this unjust
war morally and socially indefensible and unsustainable."
Today, there is little doubt that opposition to the war in Iraq ranks
at the top, or close to it, of the issues that are vital to working
people. The war crystallizes a host of deeply felt grievances against
the U.S. government.
That the war was based on a series of bipartisan and
government-promoted lies is well known. That the spending of billions
and trillions of dollars on the war is directly counterposed to the
needs of U.S. workers is understood by the largest proportion of the
population in recent memory. That the war is fought for oil and control
of the region with the world’s major oil reserves is virtually
unchallenged in the broad antiwar movement and beyond. All of the above
are directly addressed in the "Motivation" section of the
Assembly leadership’s Action Proposal.
Mindful that U.S. war aims extend beyond Iraq, this section states:
"Building support for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq helps bring to
the fore the question of the legitimacy and cost in human lives and
treasure of U.S. interventions, military actions and wars in other
parts of the world, especially Afghanistan. In fact, Washington’s
pursuit of ‘victory’ in Iraq carries with it the threat of expanding
the war to Iran and enmeshing the entire region and beyond in even more
conflicts and occupations."
Out Now!
The single demand that best expresses the mass opposition to end the
war is "Out Now!" or "Bring the Troops Home
Now!"—the central demand urged by the National Assembly for the
broad movement’s adoption. Based on the principle that the U.S. has no
"rights" in Iraq, and in accord with Iraq’s right to
self-determination, the Assembly’s "Out Now!" statement
explicitly rejects schemes for partial or phased withdrawal.
While the Assembly does not counterpose its strategic focus (massive
mobilizations against the war) to other forms of antiwar activity, its
preference for this tactic is explicit.
The Assembly’s statement of purpose reads: "Mass actions aimed at
visibly and powerfully demonstrating the will of the majority to stop
the war now would dramatically show the world that despite the staunch
opposition to this demand by the U.S. government, the struggle by the
American people to end the slaughter goes on. And that struggle will
continue until the last of the troops are withdrawn. Such actions also
help bring the people of the United States onto the stage of history as
active players and as makers of history itself."
The statement continues: "Indeed, the history of every successful
U.S. social movement, whether it be the elementary fight to organize
trade unions to defend workers’ interests, or to bring down the Jim
Crow system of racial segregation, or to end the war in Vietnam, is in
great part the history of independent and united mass actions aimed at
engaging the vast majority to collectively fight in its own interests
and therefore in the interests of all humanity."
Contrary to its critics, mass mobilizations are far from a
simple-minded tactic aimed at putting hundreds of thousands and even
millions onto the streets on a particular day and then going home only
to mechanically repeat the exercise six months later. The engagement of
millions in independent mobilizations against specific policies of the
government has a dynamic in itself—a dynamic that proceeds, in direct
proportion to the power of the mass mobilizations organized, from a
challenge to the present war to a challenge to the precise social
system that generates war.
Mass action exposes the contradiction between what the vast majority
demand and what the government refuses to grant. It exposes the
minority character of the U.S. government—exemplified starkly by the
fact that the real cause of the Iraq War has nothing to do with the
government’s stated explanation that the U.S. is fighting "a war
for democracy, for the rights of women, and against terrorism."
This exposure of the minority character of the corporate few who wage
war for profit is critical to the organization of even more powerful
challenges to the prerogatives of the capitalist warmakers.
The power of mass action, therefore, goes far beyond a specific day set
aside to march down the street. Mass action serves to raise the level
of confidence and consciousness of those who have been told their
entire lives that the American people have no role in society’s
decisions other than to be passive victims and perhaps to cast a ballot
once every four years for one or another of the representatives of the
corporate "lesser evil" elite.
It is no coincidence that fundamental challenges to the capitalist
status quo, including its perpetual wars and attacks on the standard of
living of working people, have more often than not come at a time when
capitalism’s cannon fodder, either in the form of the youth whose lives
are sacrificed on the altar of profit or the workers who pay the price
at home, rise up to challenge the very system that oppresses them.
The antiwar movement has already registered major gains in challenging
imperialist war in Iraq. The patriotic hysteria initially promoted to
quell dissent, not to mention to imprison thousands of people from the
Arab American and Muslim communities based on their national origin
alone, today falls on deaf ears.
The government’s bipartisan "War on Terrorism" is seen more
and more as a war against the civil and democratic rights of the
American people and a war against the fundamental right to
self-determination of an occupied people who despise their occupiers.
This is a far cry from the government’s original propaganda to the
effect that U.S. troops were welcomed to Iraq as liberators.
A democratic antiwar movement
The National Assembly has announced that its deliberations, debates,
and decisions will be open to all. Resolutions in the form of action
proposals have been solicited from all quarters with all proposed
resolutions presented for adoption listed on the Assembly’s website.
The Assembly’s Coordinating Committee is presenting its own Action
Proposal. It begins with six proposed actions offered for the
consideration of the entire antiwar movement, including setting the
date for coordinated fall mobilizations in cities across the country
followed by bi-coastal mass mobilizations in the spring of 2009.
In the event of a U.S. attack on Iran, the Assembly leadership urges
the convening of a united gathering of the entire antiwar movement to
plan and prepare a massive response.
Decisions in Cleveland are to be made by majority vote, with each
participant having the right to submit their own proposal, and/or vote
for the proposal(s) of their choice. To the extent that the conference
is seen as broadly representative of the views of antiwar leaders and
activists across the country, and to the extent that its deliberations
express the desire for united mass mobilizations against the war, its
authority will be enormous and the political price paid by any group
that ignores its proceedings will be significant.
In the same vein, should the conference prove
incapable of attracting and engaging broad forces beyond the
traditional activist core, the weight of its recommendations will be
proportionally diminished. In this eventuality, at least, the National
Assembly’s effort will essentially serve as an initial test of this
mass action/unity/Out Now! current’s influence and present viability.
Political independence
Too often in the past, the struggle against imperialist war, from the
Vietnam era to the present, has been subordinated to electoral
politics, wherein important sections of the antiwar movement view the
victory of a so-called lesser-evil candidate, if not pro-war candidate,
as preferable to independent mobilizations. Proponents of this brand of
electoral politics are prone to the view that significant social change
can be a product of the election of Democrats as opposed to
Republicans.
While revolutionary socialists reject this notion, they understand that
electoral illusions are widespread, permeating the political discourse
more and more as national elections approach.
Indeed, the ruling elite and its corporate media expend tens of
billions of dollars to promote this illusion, including orchestrating a
one-year or even two-year election-focused charade, wherein
"competing" corporate candidates are paraded across the
country with messages promising "change" or relief from the
oppressing conditions that are in fact generated by the operation of
the capitalist system itself.
In the case of the Democrats, their well-paid campaign spinmasters have
gone to great lengths to promote the illusion that a vote for Barack
Obama is a vote against the Iraq War, despite the fact that Obama has
repeatedly voted to fund the war while rejecting any and all proposals
to bring the troops home now.
As with all capitalist election campaigns, their objective is to foster
the illusion that change is on the horizon, the illusion of democracy,
and the illusion that there are important differences being placed
before the "people," who supposedly decide which candidate is
chosen and therefore the policies of the nation.
In truth, regardless of which corporate candidate prevails, the
fundamental decisions that determine U.S. policy are made by a tiny
ruling-class elite, whose control over the levers of power in both the
political and economic arenas is virtually absolute. This is the
viewpoint of Socialist Action, and widely shared by others in the
revolutionary socialist movement.
But there can be little doubt that ruling-class efforts to turn the
attention of working people toward the electoral charade—and away from
active participation in mass social struggles to win changes in their
own interests—has met with significant success, even taking into
account the fact that a majority of the eligible electorate declines to
participate.
How best to resolve this contradiction—the strong illusions in the
legitimacy of the electoral process as a medium for social change on
the one hand, and the need for independent mobilizations to effectively
challenge imperialist war on the other—has always posed a thorny
problem for the antiwar movement.
The answer, however imperfect, begins with an understanding that no
mass mobilization against the war is possible if it is conditioned on
agreement to support or reject any candidate—not to mention if it is
conditioned on agreement on a wide range of other issues.
The movement must be open to everyone. It cannot include anyone opposed
to the war. This view is explicit in the National Assembly’s conference
call, which states: "We therefore invite everyone, every
organization, every coalition, everywhere in the U.S.—all who oppose
the war and the occupation—to attend an open democratic U.S. national
antiwar conference and join with us in advancing and promoting the
coming together of an antiwar movement in this country with the power
to make a mighty contribution toward ending the war and occupation of
Iraq now."
The National Assembly’s open conference is predicated on the view that
unity in action to "Bring the Troops Home Now!" can be
achieved in the months ahead, that the differences that have previously
divided the antiwar movement can be overcome, and that the mass
opposition to war can be effectively channeled into a force capable of
altering the course of history.
Conference organizers understand that the present and deepening social
crises have produced a giant gap between the wishes of the mass of the
American people and the bipartisan policy makers who run the
government. They are aware that confidence in Congress or the president
is at a low point in modern history and that the opposition to the Iraq
War is intertwined with a crisis of confidence in the country’s future.
The National Assembly is designed to intervene in an antiwar movement
that has been deeply but unnecessarily divided. Assembly organizers
have gone to great lengths to involve all components of this movement
in the conference’s deliberations, including ongoing pre-conference
efforts to reach tentative agreement on proposed dates for united and
nationally coordinated mass mobilizations.
The Assembly leadership hopes that its efforts will result in a turning
point in the movement’s orientation, one where past differences are
subordinated to a united and irresistible challenge to a war that
threatens the future well-being of all humanity.
All out for Cleveland, June 28-29!
For a united antiwar movement!
Bring the troops home now!
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