ravi wrote:
>
> despite my "anguished" post of a week or so ago, i did not make it to DC
> and participate in the protests - so shame on me. i did however watch it
> on c-span when i was free and i was happy to see the number of people
> who had turned up and their dedication to these causes (the only
> troubling note was the frequent religious chants).
>
You missed a great occasion, ravi. Should I make you really miserable?
:-)
You missed an occasion you would have remembered for a lifetime.
On the other hand, if those pricks in charge of the US keep it up, there will (unfortunately) be many more occasions to have that experience. (Someone once said, woe to those who live in interesting times.)
On the religious chants. All mass movements encompass an extremely broad range of "positions" (positions in life, theoretical positions). In all anti-war movements the religious element is essential. I think it put it well in the following paragraph, from a post I sent to a Steering Committee member of the local anti-war group. She had sent out an AFSC statement on Palestine:
**** "On the AFSC Statement. It is an admirable statement, and I am glad it is in circulation, but I could not myself "sign my name to it" as it were. This too is of no immediate concern, but can become so. A few observations. I think the necessary/sufficient pair from rhetoric (or logic -- wherever) is useful. In all anti-war activity I have ever been involved with or heard about, pacifists have been a _necessary_ condition, but they have never been a _sufficient_ condition. Similarly, solidarity groups have always been a _necessary_ but never a sufficent condition. Hence it is necessary that all coalitions have room for both these tendencies (and others, but these two are representative of the spread). I have worn a number of political hats over the years, but what held all those hats together was the principle of solidarity."***
This is a long-winded way of saying, don't be troubled at all by those "frequent religious chants." Their absence would have been more troubling.
Carrol
P.S. In a way, the squabbles that led to two different rallies helped to create what for me was the most impressive visual moment of the whole day: those moments when the two huge streams of people from A20 and ANSWER were converging.