Gary Younge (Guardian Unltd): For better - or worse

From the Guardian Unlimited
Dated Modday October 6

For better - or worse
The anti-war movement failed to stop the attack on Iraq, but it has already had a decisive impact on politics
By Gary Younge

There are times, such as during the euphoria of Mandela's release, when such optimism appears justified. There are others, such as after the Soweto uprising, when it seems deluded. Now, the week after a dismal Labour party conference and the day before Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to become governor of California, it feels like the latter.
In Britain we have a war-mongering, privatising, race-baiting administration that governs in the name of a party set up to represent the interests of working people. In America, the most rightwing Republican party since Nixon's time controls the presidency and both houses of Congress. Israel is intent on building its own version of the Berlin wall through Palestinian land. Fundamentalism, be it Christian, Islamic or Hindu, is on the rise, with all the intolerance and violence that goes with it.
At home, the largest demonstration, produced by one of the most broad-based political movements in British history, failed in its central objective. We did not stop the war. In short, there seems little to feel optimistic about.
And yet it is in these bleakest of moments that optimism on the left is most crucial. Extinguish the flame and there is no torch to pass on in more hopeful times. Wishful thinking will not help us. But a hard-headed assessment of what has been achieved can provide the basis for working out what still can be done.

Read more.
And for my fellow DUers who marched against the invasion last winter, hold your heads high. We will prevail.

This captures the heart of it all for me:

There is a necessary psychological optimism that goes with progressive politics. Its culture hinges on the notion that a better world is possible and that a critical mass of people could rise to the challenge of creating it. It is rooted in the belief that there is an essential decency in humanity that, given sufficient political space, economic resources and cultural capital, can override naked, narrow and short-term self-interest and be translated into power.

A better world IS possible! We must always remember this!

sw

:hi:

The main point from Younge is that the anti-war movement needs to find a viable electoral strategy. At least in the US Democratic primaries you lot have the chance to reform the Democrats towards a more progressive platform with Iraq as the battering ram and a number of candidates who opposed the invasion.

Here in Britain our allegedly progressive "new" labour is incapable of reforming itself from it's pro-PNAC ways, so the challenge is to find a worthy party to replace "new" labour as the party of the left.