loading . . . Chuck Darwin (@[email protected]) Anti-war activists in the '60s and early '70s did not just organize headline-grabbing mass marches. They patiently worked together to build a vast anti-war infrastructure – legal groups, GI coffeehouses, alternative newspapers and national anti-war coalitions – that could sustain a wide range of future actions. In working towards that goal, anti-war activists benefited from the rich social fabric of associational life in the US – a fabric that has significantly frayed. Anti-war initiatives were buoyed up by unions, social clubs, book stores, civic groups, movement organizations, professional societies, immigrant community centers and religious institutions. They also drew upon a network of informal organization, whether born of the working-class neighborhood, the intensity of student life, or the collaborative relationships of the workplace. This ecosystem helped activists fundraise, recruit members, secure meeting spaces, and reach wider communities. They ensured that when the anti-war call was sounded, there was an audience available to respond. Since the 70s, however, social life has been dramatically reconfigured: associational life has steadily declined, working-class institutions have been hollowed out, and Americans have become more atomized than ever before. In the absence of a sturdy associational matrix, Americans have now turned to the internet as a sort of surrogate social community, replacing the hard work of in-person organizing with consuming news, sharing posts or debating anonymous opponents on platforms owned by the very warmongers they oppose. Moreover, we live in a different international context. The anti-war movements of the 60s emerged at a time when emancipatory struggles were erupting everywhere – not just in Vietnam, but also in Cuba, Algeria, China, Palestine, South Africa, Guinea-Bissau. These struggles were winning. In Cuba, a tiny band of guerrillas worked in tandem with militant workers to overthrow Fulgencio Batista, then resist US invasion. In Algeria, anticolonial fighters expelled the French settlers. In Vietnam, revolutionaries held their own against the most powerful military in history. These miraculous victories, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre explained, expanded “the field of the possible”. They convinced millions that it was possible to unite across borders to create a new world. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/mar/29/how-to-end-the-iran-war?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other https://c.im/@cdarwin/116314243133840298
