McReynolds on A20 controversies

Chuck Munson chuck at tao.ca
Tue Apr 9 08:15:00 PDT 2002


Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>
> >the only thing that counts is
> >numbers.
>
> And this is the reason why the antiwar movement has progressively lost
> support with every war. Numbers are not all that count; coherent arguments
> that appeal to people are far more important. There is an obsession with
> rallies and getting bodies to them that drains energy and intelligence from
> what the left needs to do.
>
> As I've said, if 20,000 people go to DC, that will be a far less valuable
> use of their time than if they spent the same twelve or twenty-four hours
> all collectively going door-to-door talking to neighbors about the issue.
>
> 20,000 * 12 hours is 240,000 person hours of outreach. Assume that you talk
> to only four people each hour. That one action would reach 1 million people
> directly, which is far more effective than a brief mention in a newspaper
> article that will be biased and won't convey the clear message that a
> personal discussion would.
>
> Rallies have some use but they have become the be-all and end-all for large
> segments of left activists. And they have a point of diminishing returns,
> largely because they are so predictable and stereotyped. Only when
> unexpected people show up at those rallies does it have any impact.

Once again, I find myself agreeing with Nathan, but I'll extend his argument in a direction that he'll disagree with. Numbers are important, but as Nathan says, symbolic protests in Washington, DC are of less value than door-to-door and face-to-face organizing. Many activists are tired of rallies-as-usual (typified by the WWP/IAC methods of protest) as being yesterday's flavor of dissent.

Coherent arguments and face-to-face organizing are important, but we also need a widespread campaign of resistance, sabotage, subversion, and outright opposition to the war machine. This can range from civil disobedience to grafitti campaigns to civil disorder on the streets. We need to raise the economic and security costs to the point where the American state is forced to keep troops at home in order to maintain order on the streets.

We also need to do more outreach to people in the military, especially those in the National Guard. If any of you have read up on the history of GI rebellion during the Vietnam War (as detailed in Kevin Keating's 'Harass the Brass,' and other sources) you'll know that internal dissent in the military really helped sabotage the U.S. war effort. The U.S. state invokes the spectre of the "Vietnam Syndrome" to justify military actions that don't require conscription. One of their tactics is to use the National Guard. Well, guess what, there is a growing dissent out in the hinterlands among working people who have family or friends in the Guard. Most of the people who join the Guard do so to get a little extra spending money. I've heard through my sources that at least in some areas of th country, there is alot of worry about the National Guard being sent to Iraq or wherever for the War on Terrorism.

Perhaps we need to find these people and get them hooked into the anti-war network.

<< Chuck0 >>

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