Tag: Anti-Vietnam War Movement

‘Nothing So Powerful as a Movement Whose Time Has Come’ (II)

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In the “Afterword” to the book “Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the Movement in the U.S. to End the Vietnam War,” author Fred Halstead summarized the main challenges of building this movement, the key characteristics that allowed it to involve millions — including within the U.S. military, and its significance in the 1975 defeat of Washington’s war machine in Southeast Asia. As new imperialist wars shake the stability of the capitalist system, all generations seeking social justice will be better equipped to face today’s challenges by studying the lessons outlined in Out Now! — succinctly summarized in the book’s “Afterword,” from which we are publishing excerpts. This is the second of two parts.

‘Nothing So Powerful as a Movement Whose Time Has Come’ (I)

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In the “Afterword” to ‘Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the Movement in the U.S. to End the Vietnam War,’ author Fred Halstead summarized the central challenges of building this movement, the key characteristics that allowed it to involve millions — including within the U.S. military, and its significance in the 1975 defeat of Washington’s war machine in Southeast Asia. In its recent editorial on the blow Washington suffered in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, World-Outlook noted, to this day, the Pentagon’s ability to put “boots on the ground” to further the U.S. rulers’ interests around the world is hampered by the ‘Vietnam syndrome.’ As new imperialist wars shake the stability of the capitalist system, new generations seeking social justice will be better equipped to face today’s challenges by studying the lessons outlined in Out Now! In this spirit, we publish excerpts from that “Afterword.”

On the ‘Multi-Issue’ Approach in Anti-Vietnam War Movement

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In response to the recent review of ‘Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the Movement in the U.S. to End the Vietnam War,’ reader Mark Satinoff asked for clarification of author Fred Halstead’s views on the problem of trying to organize “multi-issue” organizations against the war. This “Discussion with Our Readers” column responds to Satinoff’s questions, providing some additional material on the subject.

A.J. Muste: The Radical Pacifist Who Played An ‘Irreplaceable Role in Anti-Vietnam War Movement’

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In this except from “Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the Movement in the U.S. to End the Vietnam War,” Fred Halstead gives a concise and illuminating biography of A.J. Muste. Halstead’s sketch provides valuable insight into how and why this radical pacifist played a crucial role in unifying and broadening the U.S. antiwar movement in the 1960s.

‘Out Now!’ – Lessons from the Movement Against the U.S. War in Vietnam

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‘Out Now!’ – A Participant’s Account of the Movement in the U.S. Against the Vietnam War by Fred Halstead should be in the library of everyone seeking social justice. It is a handbook for political organizing. It is a vivid and accurate narrative by one of the central leaders of the debates, street protests, and skirmishes of a movement that changed the U.S. political landscape in ways that reverberate today, a movement that helped the Vietnamese people hand U.S. imperialism its first major military defeat. The book was published in 1978. But the lessons of that era clearly outlined in its pages are invaluable in the current struggles to oppose Washington’s escalating wars and the march toward authoritarianism and one-man rule.

Strategies & Tactics for Social Change

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In the past year, millions in the United States have protested Washington’s attacks on democratic rights, ICE terror, and imperialist war. Among them are many young people, alongside others who have never before taken to the streets. These activists are testing strategies and tactics and debating how to push back Trump’s march toward one-man rule. Many of the questions they face have been posed before, perhaps most notably during the anti-Vietnam war movement in the United States in the 1960s and early ’70s. As a contribution to the discussion of strategy and tactics in today’s struggles, World-Outlook is publishing the 1971 column “Some Comments on the Mayday Actions” by Fred Halstead, a central leader of the anti-Vietnam war movement in the United States.

An Antiwar GI’s Story: An Interview with Howard Petrick

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“We would go into the barracks — big bays with 50 people in a bay — and we’d stand up on a footlocker and start talking about the war. We would try to get someone who was for the war to debate with us. We found that was the easiest way to bring up all the discrepancies of why we were fighting in Vietnam. There weren’t a lot of guys who would get up and speak for the war. But when there were, we wouldn’t try to destroy them; we would just try to reason. Having this open debate was how we could get many people to listen. It worked really well.”