Published on Saturday, February 26, 2005 by The Nation
Peace Activists in the War Roomby Karen Houppert
At an antiwar summit called by United for Peace and Justice, 400 leaders from progressive organizations across the country gathered to hash out a plan to end the war in Iraq. UFPW is a two-year-old coalition made up of more than 1,000 organizations across the country. The umbrella group organized the February 2003 march against the war in New York City, which drew more than 500,000 people, and spearheaded the battle for the Central Park lawn during the Republican National Convention last year ...SNIP.....
(Tom Hayden's thoughts) ...SNIP..
To his mind, progressives need to knock down four pillars. First, they need to work with the troops to project a realistic picture of the war and to support the soldiers and families that are already dissenting and questioning the US occupation. (For more on this campaign, see *The Nation*'s upcoming article in the March 28 issue.) Second, they need to work with other countries, especially peace movements in Britain, Italy and Germany, to chip away at Bush's "coalition of the willing." Third, they need to keep up direct action against and Congressional pressure on the Halliburtons and ChevronTexaco's of the world, which are getting rich off the occupation. And finally, they need to force Congress to defund the war.
Interestingly, this last proposal was one of the few that sparked controversy. While many in attendance thought a combination of direct action, street heat and legislative pressure was required, many of the young people bristled at what they considered the mainstreaming of UFPJ's grassroots base by playing with electoral politics. As a plan for UFPJ's upcoming legislative strategy was introduced, tempers rose. In a time-honored debate over whether to work from inside the system or attack from the outside, proponents seemed to break down neatly-and predictably-by age: The older folks believed it was essential to play the game in the courts, in the voting booth and with local resolutions and referendums; the college students recognized that they'd have an easier time organizing their friends to block a recruiter from coming on campus than persuading them to e-mail their Congresswoman. (Where's the fun in that?) In the end, the old folks won, garnering 68 percent of the vote.
Still, there was something almost comforting about the fact that the greatest schism at the conference turned out to be between the young and the old-compared with, say, the deeper schisms of race, gender and sexual preference that have haunted so many of this movement's predecessors. After all, most of the older generation looked upon the younger one's angry demands for speedy action fondly: That was them some forty years ago. And the college students were doing what young people do best-providing an energetic and contrapuntal radical voice.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0226-30.htm