Originally published in Socialist Worker.
October 5, 2007
Building the antiwar movement
PAUL D'AMATO'S article, "Socialism, struggle and the united front" is incredibly important today (September 14). The overwhelming majority of people in the U.S. oppose the Iraq war, but consciousness is mixed, ranging from people who take issue with the war because it's unsuccessful, to people who see it as a symptom of capitalism, a system of exploitation that must be overthrown.
I recently read a great piece by Cindy Sheehan, entitled "Pigs of War" on Dissidentvoice.org, where she attacks both Democrats and Republicans for their support of the war and poses the question: "What if instead of pigs of war in our government, we had elected officials who put humanity before politics and people before profits?"
Now, I feel that change more fundamental than better elected officials is needed, but I would eagerly work with Cindy Sheehan and anyone else who wants to end the war.
However, in the comments section of Sheehan's article, Max Fields counterposes building an antiwar movement to building a movement that gets to the root of the problem--imperialism--arguing, "We need to face [imperialism], as well as the fact that Iraq is not an anomaly, but an exclamation point on what we've been. Then, and only then, can we begin to do something."
This is a dangerous view. Instead, revolutionaries should take Trotsky's "united front" approach of working within the antiwar movement in order to convince other activists of the need for more fundamental change, a strategy which D'Amato does a great job of laying out.
I agree that we need a movement that takes up demands beyond just opposing the war, but it's possible and necessary to get things done without requiring that people who are active in organizing to acknowledge this right off the bat. In a political climate where over 70 percent of people in the U.S. are opposed to the Iraq war, I think that the first step is to get as many of those people as possible involved in organizing against the war.
Revolutionaries need to have their own organizations raising the issue of imperialism, but in order for these organizations to have an audience and be able to grow, they need to work within mass movements, which the antiwar movement could be in the short term.
Right now, there is the potential to draw large numbers of people into a movement that has one demand: "Troops out now." Once people are engaged in that type of organizing, revolutionaries need to bring up issues like opposition to imperialism and Islamophobia and the need to take a strategic view of GI resistance as key to ending the war.
For many people today, coming to an antiwar conclusion has the potential to be the first step toward a broader radicalization. How far they depends upon whether or not they encounter people, organizations and publications that are making radical arguments. A great place to organize and reach radicalizing people right now is the antiwar movement.
Of course, if the antiwar movement goes no further than challenging the Iraq war, even if the movement is successful, capitalism will remain intact, and there will be more wars. Still, working within and helping to build the antiwar movement is an important next step on the path to fundamentally changing society. It's a necessary next step precisely because it has the potential to organize broad masses of people into struggle, which is key if you want to change peoples' consciousness.
As D'Amato mentions, in his pamphlet Left-wing Communism, Lenin argues against German Communists who reject working within parliament (with the goal of revealing its bankruptcy): "Clearly, the 'Lefts' in Germany have mistaken their desire, their ideological-political attitude, for actual fact."
Just because a segment of the left realizes that we need a movement with demands beyond ending the war does not mean that the majority of people realize this, nor does it mean that building the antiwar movement is obsolete. To abandon the antiwar movement is to deprive newly radicalizing activists of precisely the types of anti-imperialist views they must be won to in order for the kind of fundamental change you seek to become possible.
A strong argument can be made that the Vietnam War was ended in large part due to resistance in the ranks of the military, which was supported and emboldened by a broad antiwar movement, with Vietnam Veterans Against the War playing a leading role. It's also true that many people (my parents included) began their process of radicalization by actively opposing the war, becoming revolutionaries through that struggle in large part because they encountered revolutionaries within the antiwar movement.
Today, Iraq Veterans Against the War is growing, including active-duty GIs who have resisted the occupation. In order for more soldiers to have the courage to resist, a strong antiwar movement is necessary.
Revolutionaries need to help build the movement, work within it and--through clarity of argument and effectiveness of action--win broader layers of people to revolutionary politics.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Abortion ban an attack on women
Originally published in Socialist Worker.
May 11, 2007
THE RECENT Supreme Court decision to uphold a ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions is disgusting and a major setback for the feminist movement and for women in general. It shifts even more of the burden of reproducing the labor force onto the shoulders of working-class women and families.
Abortion bans disproportionately affect poor and working-class women; the rich will always be able to find doctors willing to provide safe abortions for a premium.
Considering the slashing of the social safety net over the past quarter century, the further erosion of abortion rights (even now, only 13 percent of U.S. counties offer abortion services) will mean more women will have to choose between attempting to raise a child in abject poverty, and risking serious bodily harm (sterility, among other things) and death by seeking a dangerous "back-alley" abortion.
There is an inverse relationship between access to abortion and unnecessary deaths of women: a mass grassroots movement is necessary to prevent a return to the pre-Roe v. Wade days when tens of thousands of women bled to death across the United States.
The successful struggle for a ballot measure that overturned an abortion ban in the 2006 election in South Dakota proves that grassroots organizing, which won abortion rights in the first place, is still effective in securing a woman's right to choose.
In Mexico, in March, 3,000 demonstrators marched in Mexico City, demanding that the Mexican government legalize abortion. Patricia Mercado, a Mexican feminist and former presidential candidate, stated: "There are women who die today...there are four women every day [who die] because of bad abortions, especially poor women, and the state must respond to the problems of justice and public health that are brought on by clandestine abortions."
Unlike leading Democrats--who tail conservatives who portray abortions as immoral, calling for abortions to be "safe and rare"--Mercado took a firm stance: "A woman can decide to have an abortion or not have it, but it's her decision."
The hypocrisy of a government that claims to support "life" while it slaughters hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan and allows 46.6 million people to go without health insurance in the richest country in the world is staggering.
Pro-choice activists in the United States should follow the example set by Mercado, as well as the women and men who won abortion rights in the U.S. in 1973 after years of struggle. We must accept nothing less than free abortion on demand!
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
May 11, 2007
THE RECENT Supreme Court decision to uphold a ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions is disgusting and a major setback for the feminist movement and for women in general. It shifts even more of the burden of reproducing the labor force onto the shoulders of working-class women and families.
Abortion bans disproportionately affect poor and working-class women; the rich will always be able to find doctors willing to provide safe abortions for a premium.
Considering the slashing of the social safety net over the past quarter century, the further erosion of abortion rights (even now, only 13 percent of U.S. counties offer abortion services) will mean more women will have to choose between attempting to raise a child in abject poverty, and risking serious bodily harm (sterility, among other things) and death by seeking a dangerous "back-alley" abortion.
There is an inverse relationship between access to abortion and unnecessary deaths of women: a mass grassroots movement is necessary to prevent a return to the pre-Roe v. Wade days when tens of thousands of women bled to death across the United States.
The successful struggle for a ballot measure that overturned an abortion ban in the 2006 election in South Dakota proves that grassroots organizing, which won abortion rights in the first place, is still effective in securing a woman's right to choose.
In Mexico, in March, 3,000 demonstrators marched in Mexico City, demanding that the Mexican government legalize abortion. Patricia Mercado, a Mexican feminist and former presidential candidate, stated: "There are women who die today...there are four women every day [who die] because of bad abortions, especially poor women, and the state must respond to the problems of justice and public health that are brought on by clandestine abortions."
Unlike leading Democrats--who tail conservatives who portray abortions as immoral, calling for abortions to be "safe and rare"--Mercado took a firm stance: "A woman can decide to have an abortion or not have it, but it's her decision."
The hypocrisy of a government that claims to support "life" while it slaughters hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan and allows 46.6 million people to go without health insurance in the richest country in the world is staggering.
Pro-choice activists in the United States should follow the example set by Mercado, as well as the women and men who won abortion rights in the U.S. in 1973 after years of struggle. We must accept nothing less than free abortion on demand!
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Till and the legacy of racism
Originally published in Socialist Worker.
April 6, 2007
SHARON SMITH'S piece, "Justice denied again for Emmett Till," provides a launching pad from which we can talk about the persistence of brutal racism in the U.S. (March 9).
The recent coverage on the racist criminal injustice system, including continued coverage of the Gary Tyler case, underlines this point--but the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina are a unique microcosm of the poverty and racism that have continued to exist since the murder of Emmett Till.
A friend recently referred me to a comparison that Michael Eric Dyson made in his book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster: In Pompeii, when Mount Vesuvius erupted and the city was destroyed, large numbers of slaves and poor servants were smothered by ash because they could not afford the horses and chariots necessary to escape.
Similarly, a predominately Black group of poor New Orleans residents were unable to evacuate because they too lacked money for transportation.
Dyson notes that many of the poor and enslaved residents of Pompeii who were left to die in the city (after the rich evacuated) spent their last few hours of life collecting riches that were left behind. Many bodies that were excavated from the site were found clutching jewelry and other symbols of wealth, seeking to experience what it was like to have some amount of luxury if even for a short while.
Dyson points out that the "crime" of "stealing" these trinkets pales in comparison to the crime that was the life of the slave/servant in Pompeii before the eruption of Vesuvius.
The analogy to Katrina and the "looting" is fitting, and the media's coverage of the hurricane, which spent vastly more time demonizing the poor Black victims of the hurricane than it did exploring the conditions of poverty and racism that so exacerbated the disaster, provides further evidence that systemic racism in the U.S. was not abolished by the civil rights movement that Emmett Till's brutal murder helped spark.
The tragedies of Pompeii and Katrina, nearly 2,000 years apart, show how class society neglects to offer the most exploited and oppressed even the means to escape an avoidable death. Today, however, a better world is possible.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
April 6, 2007
SHARON SMITH'S piece, "Justice denied again for Emmett Till," provides a launching pad from which we can talk about the persistence of brutal racism in the U.S. (March 9).
The recent coverage on the racist criminal injustice system, including continued coverage of the Gary Tyler case, underlines this point--but the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina are a unique microcosm of the poverty and racism that have continued to exist since the murder of Emmett Till.
A friend recently referred me to a comparison that Michael Eric Dyson made in his book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster: In Pompeii, when Mount Vesuvius erupted and the city was destroyed, large numbers of slaves and poor servants were smothered by ash because they could not afford the horses and chariots necessary to escape.
Similarly, a predominately Black group of poor New Orleans residents were unable to evacuate because they too lacked money for transportation.
Dyson notes that many of the poor and enslaved residents of Pompeii who were left to die in the city (after the rich evacuated) spent their last few hours of life collecting riches that were left behind. Many bodies that were excavated from the site were found clutching jewelry and other symbols of wealth, seeking to experience what it was like to have some amount of luxury if even for a short while.
Dyson points out that the "crime" of "stealing" these trinkets pales in comparison to the crime that was the life of the slave/servant in Pompeii before the eruption of Vesuvius.
The analogy to Katrina and the "looting" is fitting, and the media's coverage of the hurricane, which spent vastly more time demonizing the poor Black victims of the hurricane than it did exploring the conditions of poverty and racism that so exacerbated the disaster, provides further evidence that systemic racism in the U.S. was not abolished by the civil rights movement that Emmett Till's brutal murder helped spark.
The tragedies of Pompeii and Katrina, nearly 2,000 years apart, show how class society neglects to offer the most exploited and oppressed even the means to escape an avoidable death. Today, however, a better world is possible.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
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