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TechnoratiWhat's a Moratorium?
It's an odd word for a political tactic: it means a time out, a break. It was dreamed up in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War by people who had tried and failed with Eugene McCarthy's peace candidacy the year before. (Not SDS, we should add). The original notion was a nationwide general strike until the war ended, but that's reaching really far, since people don't stop working just because a small group of organizers ask them to. So the goal was lowered to a general outpouring of anti-war sentiment. It worked.
The original Vietnam Moratorium, October 15, 1969, was a decentralized anti-war demonstration in which literally millions showed their opposition to the war around the world in a vast variety of ways. There were many school walkouts and closures; local demonstrations involving thousands around the country (a quarter of a million in D.C.; 100,000 in Boston);
workplace sickouts; vigils, sit-ins at draft boards and induction centers. President Nixon pretended not to notice, but there's good evidence that the outpouring of opposition to the war prevented the war planners from using nukes against the Vietnamese (see Tom Wells, The War Within). A month later, the second moratorium day brought hundreds of thousands to
Washington, complete with an angry siege of the Justice Dept. that reminded Attorney General John Mitchell, watching from inside, of the storming of the Czar's Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, back in 1917. Nixon himself, prior to the action, commented during a press conference: " Google "Vietnam Moratorium" to check out what went on.
Why now? The anti-war movement, for a variety of reasons, has hit a plateau since the war began in 2003, despite the majority sentiment in the country against the war. No strategies have emerged to grow the movement. The thinking behind the Iraq Moratorium is that the moment is right for nationally coordinated local anti-war actions which will allow people to express their anti-war sentiments wherever they are and in a variety of ways. At the same time the Moratorium gives local groups a focus. For example, a campus anti-war organization can decide to do whatever's appropriate for their school--a teach-in, a walk-out, a vigil, a film showing, a sit-in at a recruitment center. It's all good!
The growth of the anti-war movement has to be seen as our current goal, not just a means. Every action, every demonstration should be judged by one single criterion: does it bring more people? We think that the biggest stumbling block up to now has been the too widespread belief that neither individual nor collective actions have no effect. The moratorium, allowing for a variety of tactics with one single focus, coordinated nationally and possibly internationally, has a chance of bringing antiwar expression into mainstream society. Sept. 21 will be the first moratorium day, followed by succeeding moratoriums (moratoria?) each third Friday of every month. If enough people and groups catch on, the movement grows.
The new Students for a Democratic Society, at its recent national convention, has endorsed the Moratorium. Washington, D.C., SDS has undertaken a broad counter-recruitment campaign and will tie the moratorium into that; Hopefully, other campus chapters will adopt September 21 and every subsequent third Friday of each month to organize around. Last spring, many SDS chapters commemorated the beginning of the fifth year of the occupation of Iraq with a coordinated day of walk-outs, rallies, educational events and direct action on March 20.
Other national organizations and networks that have endorsed the Iraq Moratorium include United for Peace and Justice, Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace, Code Pink, US Labor Against the War, Voters for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America, Veterans for Peace, the War Resisters League, and Food Not Bombs.
Many active local and regional antiwar groups have also jumped on board. Too many to name, but they have been the heart and soul of the antiwar movement during the last years of debacle after scandal. These groups have been conducting regular vigils, educational events, direct actions, etc.... Now is the time to unite.
You don't need to be active already to make this happen. Talk to a few people in your school, neighborhood, workplace. Figure out what might be reasonable and useful to express your antiwar sentiment and to attract other people. Check out the website, www.iraqmoratorium.org for ideas. Especially look under the section "local reports."
There is also a Spanish language site: MoratorioIrak.org
In the Bay Area, for example, you'll find that a coalition of groups is getting together to organize thirty simultaneous actions. Now that's ambitious! In LA, the Central Labor Council, and the United Teachers of Los Angeles are organizing workers and teachers.
The main strategic task facing the antiwar movement is to build and grow consciousness of the imperial ambitions of the US in the Middle East. The US embassy in Baghdad is the size of the Vatican City, yet it is under daily mortar and rocket attacks, from both Sunni and Shiite resistance groups. The surge is a failure and an obfuscation of the real issues, such as imperialism, colonialism, and the bloody horrors of US occupation. The movement must seize the opportunity presented by Petraeus's "report" this past week; the Iraq Moratorium might be just the right vehicle.
History has shown that the only way to sway the "powers that be" lies in the ever increasing mobilization and organization of diverse, broad public groupings against the manipulations and calculations of what Chomsky has called the "pragmatic planners of American Empire." Raising the social cost of the war at home is our long-term goal, undermining the "pillars" that support the continuation of the war and occupation. Check out Tom Hayden's new book, "Ending the War in Iraq." Among the pillars Tom describes are: media, military recruitment, congressional support, etc...
The Moratorium is only what local groups and individuals make of it. It is not the whole solution, but it is a strategy for dissent to focus on, an opportunity to unite divergent groups and bridge the chasm between the passive antiwar majority and the militant minority of active antiwar activists and organizers.
It looks like the Democrats are not going to end the war soon. The only hope is an enraged public organized into a mass movement. Think strategy!!!! Think organizing!!!
See you Friday the 21st, then October 19th, November 16th, and beyond.
Now is the Time of the Furnaces, and Only Light Should be Seen - Jose Marti (Cuban Revolutionary)
Mark Rudd (old SDS) was a leader of the Columbia University student strike of 1968 and a founding member of the Weatherman faction of SDS. He was a federal fugitive for seven years, after which he taught math at an Albuquerque, New Mexico community college. He recently retired and remains focused on bringing down the US empire from within.
Doug Viehmeyer (new SDS) is an SDS organizer and worker in Northern New Jersey. As an undergrad at Hartwick College, he was involved with antiwar, Palestine solidarity, and feminist struggles.
14 Comments so far
Show AllTo davepepper: I'm not going to say I don't support the troops, even though most of them are so gung ho and high on the adrenaline rush of action they can't see the harm they are doing. I'm going to say that I support the troops so much that I want to get them out of there and bring them home. I think that's the positive way to put it.
Now for some real action. I've proposed this I don't know how many times, even to Medea Benjamin's face: Organize a year-long moratorium on enlistment, from now to the '08 election. The military is already having a great deal of trouble meeting their goals. Even if we only have a 50% effectiveness, it will bring them to their knees. There is no stomach for a draft, I don't want to hear that retort. There will not be a draft in response. Hopefully, it will leave the administration no choice but to do some kind of face-saving "redeployment" that will gradually get us out of Iraq, and also prevent them from attacking Iran. Please, please, please, nothing else has worked. Denying them bodies is the only answer. Protest in front of recruiting centers and during campus recruiting visits by the military. Ask the young people to flip burgers for another year instead of joining up. Actively pamphlet high school and college students about this. Redirect this effort, hit 'em where it will REALLY hurt the war machine!
STOP THE WAR - DON'T ENLIST!
davepepper
Just like the right, you want to suggest that opposing the war means opposing the troops. You are way off, just like the idiots among the anti-war protestors during Vietnam who behaved as you suggest. (Perhaps they were worse, as the draft was in force then.)
You just try spitting on returning forces. This time around, you'd find a lot more of us out there willing to put an end to your obnoxious actions.
Go do something productive.
Frank1569,
In claiming that the government doesn't care for us, you sound like THE GOVERNMENT is an entity like Daddy that's supposed to care about us. Why would they care about you at all?
If you want to get their attention, though, you disrupt their plans. You become a roadblock. You stop borrowing money from financial institutions that earn a fortune on the interest you pay. You basically stop doing what they want YOU to do-- don't consume the crap they produce, that earns them a living.
PLEASE quit strategizing around getting THE GOVERNMENT, THE PRESIDENT, OR DADDY, or some special congressperson or reporter or superhero to take care of you and act like an adult. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND YOUR PEOPLE.
Or are you too comfortable to do something that might actually make the powers-that-be think twice? I'm not talking a parade or a march or a die-in. I'm talking about doing without the crap they sell you.
Enough THEATER
TIME FOR ACTION
Drift. I've got a designer headband you can wear. It's a bit dated because it says "Peace Now -- Immediate Withdrawal from Vietnam". I got it on ebay.
The anti-war movement against the Iraq War started at a higher level than we reached during the anti-Vietnam protests after 4 or 5 years. Just prior to the bi-partisan invasion of Iraq, millions of people all over the world demonstrated for no invasion. We didn't get those kind of crowds until 1967. And we had a draft and at least a hundred US soldiers being killed every week.
The problem is in the followup, both strategically and tactically and a belief Democratic politicians will do the right thing. They won't. They support the war while talking against it.
It makes no sense to figure out which of the Democratic Party frontrunners to support based upon which one will keep one less soldier in Iraq. We have to make them realize they will pay if they vote to fund the war and not buy into the 67/60 garbage.
"You want to protest war, shut down the damn country for a week.'
That is a way to bring the troops home to fight the anti-war movement
Putting sand in the gears of the war machine.
You want to protest war, shut down the damn country for a week. That will bring the Establishment to its knees really quickly. Why can't Americans do what Ghandi suggested when he kicked out the Brits? It's not hard. Don't go to work, don't buy gas, or anything else for a week, no buses, no trains, no planes, no stock trading, no nothing.....and see what happens to the american economic illusion! THEN, you'll have an antiwar movement!
The Iraq Moratorium and is the most depressing thing I've seen in a long time.
The theory is that you will "[j]oin with actors, celebrities, writers, trade union leaders, Iraq veterans, Gold Star Families, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans" who want U.S. troops out of Iraq — "on September 21st, and every third Friday thereafter" to do "something to stop the war."
What something, exactly? "What you do is up to you or to the group of people you are working with. Labor unions in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere have called on their members to wear armbands and hold lunch hour rallies." The Iraq Moratorium web site recommends the following actions:
* Wear and distribute black ribbons and armbands
* Buy no gas on Moratorium days
* Pressure politicians and the media
* Hold vigils, pickets, rallies, and teach-ins
* Hold special religious services
* Coordinate events in music, art, and culture
* Host film showings, talks, and educational events
* Organize student actions: Teach-ins, school closings, etc.
(This isn't radical enough for some of the participants, who have advocated something they call "Non-Violent Action," — "proposed in the spirit of Ghandi [sic]" — to wit: "On the third Friday of each month, designated as Moratorium Day, organize all Peace supporters across the country to drive exactly 10 miles below the posted speed limit on whatever road they are driving, whenever they drive, for the entire day.")
In this way, because "the political process is moving glacially at best," we can finally "force the media and the politicians to recognize just how angry and how massive anti-war sentiment in this country has grown."
The Iraq Moratorium crowd is the political activism equivalent of the people who recommend prayer and crystals to patients with malignant tumors. Shun them, run from them, do not turn around until they are far from sight.
There is no antiwar movement. Any movement that does exist still sides with the pro war democrats. And no one in the antiwar movement has the balls to say "we don't support the troops." If you "support the troops", then you must support what they are doing in Irak. That would be like saying that you support Bush, regardless of all his policies you don't support! Please!!! How ignorant can these people be. During the American war against Vietnam, the protesters had no problem demonizing the soldiers who killed innocent Vietnamese. They even spit on them when they returned home. Maybe they should be doing that again...now. If you support the troops, you support the war. Hence, there is no true antiwar movement. I am an antiwar group of one, because I have no problem saying" I don't support the troops."
Anybody know where or how to get a good black armband? Yeah, I know, I could rip up an old black T-shirt, but I need something I can wear to work that'll look nice.
It's great to see articles by Mark Rudd and Tom Hayden. Some of us who were involved at the time fondly remember them. Those of us who remained politically active on the left are all old enough to have learned from past errors and might be able to give the Movement some serious direction, without beating the crap out of each other over the Hanoi/Washington/Moscow axis. Power to the People and to the Workers. (Workers are people too I think).
Maybe we need a new left get together of 55+ year old new lefties from the 60s and 70s to form into a political version of a peaceful, intelligent, creative Wild Bunch to bring this embarassment to our generation -- W -- to his political knees. It used to be never trust anybody over 30. Now it's just never trust anybody.
Except, unlike any other time in our history, "our" government simply does not care about "the people" one single iota. We could all stop working, eating and breathing tomorrow and they would not blink - if anything, we'd all be herded into Halliburton "special programs" detention centers until the "war against the Loonitary Executive" was declared over.
The other problem is that, unlike during the "Vietnam Era," the majority of the country is opposed to everything Cheneybush - so strikes and slowdowns and monkeywrenching only hurt our teammates (unless you're working for the military-industrial-media-government complex, and then, by all means, stop working and leak the truth.) And, again, this bunch of lying war profiteers have killed and maimed millions of innocents since stealing office - think they give a flying f**k about what we want?
Change will begin when the military arrests all Domestic Enemies of our Constitution and a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" is restored.
Wow, has Mark Rudd re-found his courage? Time for Rudd to stop backing the democrats. If you are ready to begin apologizing for campaigning for the war party , Mark, you know who to call.