April 5, 2003                                   Dave Silver
 

The invasion of Iraq is a trial run of the feasibility for ongoing regime
changes and world domination.  It is therefore imperative that a national
independent political vehicle be organized which is informed by a
consciousness of a common corporate enemy—the transnationals and banks –
which alone unite all of the significant issues of war, oppression and
exploitation.    However it is crucial that we learn the lessons of past
attempts to build a Resistance.  I refer to a vehicle that could be capable
of changing some policies and institutions and leaders for instance the
elimination of the death penalty, universal quality health care, the
elimination of racist practices at the workplace and Universities and
perhaps deter future imperial aggressions.   This effort would involve both
electoral as well as non-electoral activities dictated by the economic,
political and social conditions at the time.  We are not talking about
revolutionary or systemic changes.

Over the past 40 or so years we have seen a Peace and Freedom Party, Spock’s
Peoples Party, the Unity Party, the National Committee for Independent
Political Action and other formations.  We have to learn the lessons from
their ultimate failure to become a viable vehicle of struggle.  In my view
several factors contributed to their demise.

First there was the dual inside-outside approach to the Democratic Party
which fed illusions that it could become part of a People’s solution.
Secondly the view that the Black Liberation struggle was a “special
 question” rather than central to the economic struggle within an
institutionalized racist system.  There was also the failure of these
movements/Parties to gain the confidence and proportional participation of
Blacks and Latinos in the membership and leadership of these organizations
We, in the Veterans Peace Coalition, can act as a catalyst in bringing
together into one political fist (a Unity Conference perhaps) of the
hundreds of organizations, groups, Parties and individuals that we see
listed as endorsers of the two main anti-war coalitions- International
Answer and the United for Peace and Justice.  We must also expose the pseudo
“independents” such as the Working Families Party, the Libertarian or Reform
Parties which are appendages for the system in a liberal disguise.
I propose that our Veterans Coalition contact as many of the anti-war and
broad Left communities that we can to suggest the convening of a preliminary
conference to develop a Mission Statement of Principles which will also
establish a coordinating body for the eventual  formation of a national
independent Movement/Party.
(dm.silver@verizon.net)
 

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