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.

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.”

‘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.