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PASSING THE TORCHI’ve been the main author of War Times “Month in Review” column since its launch five-plus years ago. This will now change. Starting next month, a talented group of nearly a dozen younger writer/organizers will take over authorship, writing in rotation. They will also write, and War Times will publish, additional analytic and/or feature pieces each month. I will transition to the role of mentor-editor. War Times has been laying the groundwork for this transition for some time. Over the last few months we’ve held a series of analysis-and-writing workshops bringing together long-time collective members with these new writers. All of us have learned from the sessions and they have already started to produce results. Last month’s column focusing on militarism in Afghanistan, Gaza, Arizona and beyond was decisively shaped by our expanded collective discussion. In preparation for the U.S. Social Forum, a member of this new team, Michael Reagan, wrote “Previewing Peace: The Antiwar Movement Heads for Detroit,” which War Times published two weeks ago. We are excited about the potential this new arrangement can unleash. For starters, it will allow War Times to up our contribution to the antiwar movement. We will generate more articles and cover more dimensions of the multifaceted fight against war, empire-building, militarism, racism and all their inter-connections. The fresh voices of activists whose ongoing work is in many different organizations and struggles will bring new perspectives to an antiwar movement much in need of revitalization. Along with others, War Times believes that a key to re-energizing the fight for peace is rooting anti-militarist perspectives more strongly within grassroots movements of workers, communities of color, immigrant communities and other specially impacted constituencies. Fights for jobs, housing, education, social programs, immigrant rights, to end oil dependence, and to protect the environment drive the most vibrant movements in those sectors today. War Times has focused on the links between empire-building, racism and attacks on the most vulnerable populations “at home” since this project’s inception. We have tried to make our materials of most use to organizers rooted in these very communities. But since we were forced to cease publication of our bilingual in-print tabloid in 2004, our capacity to accomplish this has been limited. This transition provides an opportunity to do better. Drawing on these new writers’ rich experiences in key grassroots movements, War Times articles – in greater quantity and supplemented by flyers, fact sheets and even blog posts, along with more material in Spanish – can better serve on-the-ground campaigns from “move the money” to fights against militarization in high schools. There is a long haul consideration in this shift as well. The goal is not only or even mainly to make this particular antiwar project more useful for the next few years. It is to help develop the analytic and journalistic skills – and amplify the voices – of activists from the generation that must provide leadership in the decades ahead. Organizers in their 20s and 30s already provide the majority of leadership in direct on-the-ground organizing. This is one opportunity to develop leadership skills in writing, in assessing the motion of global and national politics, in offering strategic direction. Details about this new team of writers and War Times’ expanded efforts will be forthcoming soon. A major upgrade of the War Times/Tiempo de Guerras website will be part of this transition. Besides a new design, the site will be updated much more frequently. We hope by the end of the year to feature new material daily, especially spotlighting the on-the-ground experience of anti-war organizations and individuals in campaign, education and base-building work. THE RIGHT TIME: A MOVEMENT IN TRANSITIONThe timing of this shift doesn’t stem only from the logic of War Times’ development or the general importance of fostering new leadership. Another factor is that the antiwar movement as a whole is in the midst of a major transition. The period of 2003–2008 – when Iraq was overwhelmingly the movement’s central focus and the “invade-torture-and-proud-of-it” Bush administration was in power – is behind us. U.S. wars and occupations continue – indeed military spending has even increased. But the political landscape has changed. So organizers are compelled to change as well.
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