What is WWFOR Selling?

by John Repp

At a recent meeting of an expanded finance committee of WWFOR someone threw out the question: “What Are We Selling?” The meeting spent little time attempting to answer the question. The only idea proposed was “nonviolence.” 

   Ideas have power. We all know this, but in our materialist culture it is difficult to explain exactly how such an ethereal thing as an idea can be a powerful force in the real world. But did not the ideas of the think tank Project for a New American Century, which advocated a larger defense budget and “American leadership,” have real consequences with the invasions and occupations in the Middle East?

WWFOR did strategic planning several years ago, and at that time we talked about “our vision.” The “Bring Our Billions Home” (BOBH) campaign was one of the results of the planning. But a campaign is not the same as a vision. It is a more circumscribed idea that is defined by realistic goals. The BOBH goal is to reduce military spending by ending the active wars and using the resources to stop cuts to government programs that help people. BOBH, while a big project, is not the same “size” as the goal of world peace that FOR had between WWI and WWII.   I do not think we should give up the BOBH campaign but we might decide to “sell it” using more vision – e.g., as a step to ending the U.S. empire.

I was attracted to WWFOR because of the role of its activists in the founding of Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War (SNOW) before the invasion of Iraq. Having been involved in the anti-Vietnam war movement and having seen some of its most talented leaders fall into despair and advocate violence (i.e. the Weatherman faction of SDS), I saw the wisdom of the SNOW approach. After my first arrest, I encountered the ideas and traditions of nonviolent direct action, from Gandhi to King. One idea that intrigued me was Gene Sharp’s concept of civilian based defense. Briefly, Sharp believes that the people of a nation hesitate to give up their army because they believe they need it for defense. A civilian-based defense would organize and train the whole nation so it can use nonviolent methods to defend against invasion or internal takeover. When the nation gains confidence in this approach to defense, they can shed their military weapons.  This idea is a way to integrate the original FOR goal of world peace and nonviolent direct action.  The recent Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement should shake our belief that only circumscribed ideas that can be made into campaigns can have real power. An indefinite occupation of a public square is a higher level of direct action than a police-permitted march and rally. The brave action by OWS, when combined with the big idea that Wall Street and the 1% have a chokehold on our economy and politics that must be broken, turned out to be a political earthquake that we old old-timers wanted but could never produce.