Some recent critiques levied at DSA's organizational strategies peddle in an aesthetic-radicalism that risks distracting the working-class from organizing itself into a disciplined political force.
Americans care far too little about foreign policy to build a mass movement centered on anti-imperialism. Try to imagine Bernie's campaign with Yemen substituted for Medicare for All -- it wouldn't work. You can talk to people who aren't already leftists about M4A; going after the sacred cow that is the military is far more difficult.
But if you get people on board with M4A, a higher minimum wage, and other policies to counter domestic exploitation? People who've already gone that far are a lot easier to talk to about foreign exploitation.
Lack of a draft and the sanitization of reporting are enormous factors by themselves. Another enormous factor is that even at the height of the Iraq War (and we're well past that now) we didn't have nearly as many American deaths as Vietnam.
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Americans care far too little about foreign policy to build a mass movement centered on anti-imperialism. Try to imagine Bernie's campaign with Yemen substituted for Medicare for All -- it wouldn't work. You can talk to people who aren't already leftists about M4A; going after the sacred cow that is the military is far more difficult.
But if you get people on board with M4A, a higher minimum wage, and other policies to counter domestic exploitation? People who've already gone that far are a lot easier to talk to about foreign exploitation.
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You could build a mass movement around opposition to a Vietnam-type war, but we're not fighting one of those now.
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Lack of a draft and the sanitization of reporting are enormous factors by themselves. Another enormous factor is that even at the height of the Iraq War (and we're well past that now) we didn't have nearly as many American deaths as Vietnam.