Now that the USA is in attack mode it will be hard to defend the line against expansion of aggression and retaliation.
The nature of the peace movement is therefore very important. There is no point in just making gestures to dissasociate oneself from what is morally repugnant. In the valuable report below, my reaction is that there is no clear message from the peace demonstration that half gets the attention of any member of the public, and lots of frustrated detail about individuals or individualistic groups who are pulling in different directions. There is also the strong message that the left and right are polarised and there is no way of talking to the 94% of the US population who were said to support the strikes the night they started on Afghanistan. This reduces political campaigning to rival baseball cheerleading opposed tribal displays, not designed to communicate.
It is necessary seriously to understand why an overwhelming majority support the attacks on Afghanistan, unite with what is positive in it, and then pose a wider question which links up with the interests not only of ordinary people in the USA but with ordinary people in the world.
The demand is for revenge. Not so surprising. The attack on the WTC was designed to promote wild revenge. The rulers of the USA have already modified this to be a demand for Justice. The slogans of an opposition demonstration must have JUSTICE prominently displayed. That message however is invisible in the pictures as far as I can see. The demonstration must then that the concept of JUSTICE and make it wider, articulating concisely an idea of justice that can bring greater peace not only to citizens of the USA but also to citizens of the world.
The demonstration must have an accurate understanding of the weaknesses in the imperialist counter-attack, which can be developed in a series of demonstrations over the coming weeks. The aim being to stop a blind attack on Iraq.
It would be helpful to hear Leo Paulsen on this, so long as I do not have totally to agree with him, if he understands the logic of the question. I am a bit guarded however that he said in his opening post that the WWP may often pride itself in being at variance with public opinion. That is no way to beat bourgeois hegemony.
It should always be a matter of serious debate in planning a demonstration and evaluating it, how much to put the emphasis on immediate tactical questions: eg Justice but Justice under the United Nations!
and how much to make wider strategic points.
IMO when you think of how the terrorist attack deflected a very powerful serious of demonstrations against the capitalist world order, it is essential that the movement for peace and justice includes the demand for economic justice. Now is the moment where at least ten percent of the US population might just realise that their security is imperilled if the economic conditions in a third world country are so dire that millions of ordinary people feel so insecure that they must migrate.
The particular demonstration therefore needs to be within a new democratic radical global framework that calls for Global Economic and Social Justice.
But if that is too difficult to get across except as a marker, with a well phrased leaflet, it would be better that the next demonstration jjust consists of a silent mourning with candles for the additional innocent people who have lost lives as a result of the cycle of events. That would echo the demonstration that took place in Copenhagen immediately after the attack on Afghanistan. It would also resonate with all those US citizens who could recognise sadness in their response to the WTC bombings, and did not have to conceal this under an overwhelming emotion of blind anger.
It is therefore essential to combine a global strategic internationalist perspective with a fine sense of the tactical way to unite with the understandable responses of a large section of the local population. Visual displays are important. eg large paired pictures of a mourning relative of someone killed in the WTC, and a mourning Arab of Afghani. Excellent we can see photos on an email list. How about people forwarding some photos of more successful visual displays at peace demonstrations?
The test of any political organisation supporting such a campaign is whether they can join in the planning discussions with some tolerance and creativity, and argue for what will help the collective effort, rather than to rubbish their opponents by proving that they are and have always been inescapably wrong.
Chris Burford
London
At 08/10/01 21:02 -0700, you wrote:
>Here are pictures I took of rallies today in Berkeley
>http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~berlin/oct8ral.html/oct8.html
>
>In the first three, that is on Sproul plaza at UC Berkeley. A coalition
>against war had the steps and a microphone. It was a bit spartacist heavy
>for my taste (I keep bitching to my friends about the various sectarian
>front groups that manage to take over leadership for more centrist issues
>- like BAMN with affirmative action, and IAC/worker's world with Iraq
>sanctions/Bush impeachment/Afghanistan). There were about 250-300 'against
>the war', and there were 200 young democrats and republicans who made a
>really loud crowd with flags and signs, and they really needed a poet to
>give them a better chant than 'usa, usa', which they kept shouting at
>intervals. Halfway through they did a move where they mobbed the steps and
>completely surrounded the people on the microphone and wouldn't go away.
>The guy with the yellow signs saying '3am' 'front yard tipi' is a Berkeley
>nut who is at all the rallies because sproul is his spot, but the falun
>gong 'dalai lama is a cannibal' guy was absent. A SF nut with a sign
>'STANFORD
>12 galaxies to an ultramegalogical rocket society, impeach Buchanan' (a
>sandwich store pays him for ad space on the rear side of his sign) is in
>picture #6 with sunglasses). in picture 3, there is a democrat or
>republican who is really uncivil, and he's yelling at this 19 year old guy
>in a Model UN shirt, and with his head cut off is an African american
>homeless guy who is collecting tin cans, and he is siding with the frat
>guy and is telling the younger guy "if you hate america so much, leave!"
>Joe Anderson came along and tore frat guy to shreds, ha:
>http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=4963&ref=search Everyone else is
>just yelling at each other, and the level of rhetoric is along the lines
>of "oh yeah.." "yeah!" "USA"
> Later, at 5 there was the main Berkeley rally where there is a different
> sort of crowd. they talked for an hour, and there were a lot of sectarian
> socialist groups again. Then over 1000 started walking, and I noticed we
> were going right for the freeway, and everyone kept going until the
> police stopped everyone at the onramp - as seen in the last picture.
> There were some anarchists along so they thought of some better chants
> which could replace stuff like "what do we want - Peace, when do we want
> it - now!" which don't quite capture the message. "first we dropped
> bombs, then we dropped bread - Too bad they couldn't eat it because
> they're all dead!"
>Christine
>
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