Protest ISO Cop-Baiting and Thuggery!/"Stanley Aronowitz, and his pro-imperialist "anti-war" position."

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 12:03 AM -0500 12/30/02, Chuck0 wrote:
>>Responding to surveys is one thing; organizing or coming out for 
>>actions is another.  My assessment is that Columbus anarchists 
>>(clustered around Anti-Racist Action) have the capacity to mobilize 
>>about 20 (during breaks and exam seasons in school calendars) and 
>>60+ (when kids are in school) mainly on their own.  The most recent 
>>action called by Anti-Racist Action (on December 10) attracted 
>>about 30, including myself (the only person of color in the crowd). 
>>Nationwide, I'd say that the anarchist mobilizing capacity is 
>>between 2,000 and 3,000.  "No War But Class War" is not yet the 
>>slogan to which millions in the USA respond.
>
>Our mobilizing ability is much more than that. That would have been 
>a more accurate estimate back in 1998, but the anarchist movement 
>has grown a bunch since Seattle. And as I pointed out earlier, you 
>can't judge an anarchist by the clothes they wear. There are many 
>anarchists out there organizing in predominantly non-anarchist 
>groups and they often aren't wearing the Circle-A on their sleeves.

We need to have realistic assessments of our relative strengths. 
Anarchists and socialists constantly work in predominantly 
non-anarchist and non-socialist groups and coalitions, whose 
mobilization can attract hundreds of thousands and possibly more. 
That's not the same as anarchists and socialists organizing as 
anarchists and socialists (in terms of what we explicitly advocate) 
and mobilizing the same numbers.
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>