The American Left...

[redstar2000]

The Campus Anti-war Network (CAN)

http://www.campusantiwar.net/index.php?opt...ntpage&Itemid=1 (http://www.campusantiwar.net/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)

What is CAN?

http://www.campusantiwar.net/index.php?opt...&id=5&Itemid=29 (http://www.campusantiwar.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=29)

Here is a report on their most recent conference...

http://www.campusantiwar.net/index.php?opt...&id=57&Itemid=2 (http://www.campusantiwar.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=2)

This looks like a very promising beginning for a nation-wide student anti-imperialist movement.

Will it become "the next SDS"?

It's too soon to tell, of course. :D

-------------------------------------------------------------

Left Hook -- A Radical Youth Journal

http://lefthook.org/index.html

Here is a good piece called "Elections as Ideology"...

http://lefthook.org/History/Haider120904.html

Another promising beginning...though they may be having financial difficulties. :(

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[SonofRage]

From my very brief time working with them (as a graduate student for only one semester) they, at least at the University of Illinois at Chicago, seem to be a front group for the International Socialist Organization.

[redstar2000]

Well, I'm sorry to hear that...but there's a long list of groups affiliated to CAN, and it seems improbable that all or most could be in the same situation as the UI-Chicago chapter.

In fact, looking at how things are set up on the national level, it looks to me that it would be a very difficult organization for a Leninist party to "capture".

Still, you're right to "raise the alarm" -- given the enormously destructive effect that Leninism-Maoism had on SDS, there's no reason not to be cautious about CAN until we know more.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Dio]

They dont really state that theyre anti-imperialist, even though that would be evident due the their stature on withdrawl of troops from Iraq, however they might not be fully aware of what exactly is going down for the middle east in the U.S. government grand imperial design. Well i dont know i havent read everything, just the "What is CAD?" part.

[SonofRage]

hmm, I was just looking to see who is on their National Co-ordinating Committee. The representitive from the "Mid-Atlantic", Monique Dols, is a student at Columbia University in NYC and I can confirm that she is ISO.

Ellie Houston, the representitive from the West is also ISO.

It's true hat this is only a small amount of evidence. However, based on my experience in Chicago, it does seem to be a bit of a "red flag" so to speak.

It has been over a year since my involvement, and my direct experience is limited, but I don't want anyone to get their hopes up.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, I checked to see who the contact for CAN is in UI-Chicago. It's Dennis Kosuth, an ISO member I know personally (he's actually a really good guy, but he's a staunch Trotskyist (at least a "Cliffite"))

[flyby]

forgive me if i distract the thread, but I can't let this pass.

redstar writes: "Still, you're right to "raise the alarm" -- given the enormously destructive effect that Leninism-Maoism had on SDS, there's no reason not to be cautious about CAN until we know more."

On the contrary, Maoism caught fire in SDS like a blaze, because it was refreshing, needed, and pointed the way forward.

SDS became SDS (i.e. the radical movement we all loved) once the early maoists of the M2M joined and injected a debate over radical politics.

In the end, SDS dissolved as the newborn revolutinaries struggled to develop revolutinary communist organization. But mourning that is like weeping over the eggshell as the chicken is born.

We can learn from the best of the SDS experience -- and build broad, radical, militant, focused, conscious, wrangling, debating organization -- with principled bases of unity. We need a revolutonary student movement! Let's build one!

Let's prepare to go out to the students this New Year! And really stir the shit up!

Let's do it, and lets do that while allso (the revolutionaries among us) building our communist core even further. Because a strong communist-Maoist core makes broad unity and struggle MORE POSSIBLE, not less (if we are really applying the most advanced understanding of communist methods and ideology).

Let me suggest: the best place to start, right now, is to take out the statement: THE BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE WILL BE FOUGHT FROM HERE FORWARD (http://rwor.org/future/index.htm) because it really concentrates in one nuanced, layered, rousing analysis the key things we need to say, to understand and to act on.

[redstar2000]

SoR, you are disrupting my "beautiful visions" with ugly facts. :o

Next thing you know, the RCYB (or some other sect) will "move in on CAN", there'll be a big ugly power-squabble and, no matter who "wins", all the sensible people will leave.

I find this news extremely frustrating...and I can only hope that the situation is not as bad as you make it sound.

But you may be right. :(

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Guerrilla22]

There's about a billion of these groups, with more than one on every campus, at least at American universities. However, I'd hardly say the American left is back from the dead. The movement still is considerably small, especially considering there were around a million members of the socialist and communist parties in the United States, before the red scare.

The problem is, these groups always get bogged down with bureacracy, that is what happened to the SDS, as well, eventually they began to factionalize, to groups such as the Weather Underground and in the end they accomplished very little, for all their hoopla.

[Zingu]

Couldn't say we are "back from the dead" hardly, let the war and America's recent rising imperialism and neo-conservative agenda get more bold and aggressive and with time, a large militant movement will start radicalizing and grow in numbers.

Oooo, I can't wait......