I certainly don't have "mobilization envy," since last weekend's protest was small by Washington standards. I also feel strongly that this kind of protest is detrimental to anti-war activism. It was more encouraging to see all the local protests that happened last weekend.
Anarchists are capable of turning out numbers like that, if we transformed ourselves into a well-funded sectarian organization with no sense of strategy. On the other hand, anarchists are better at working with other groups and people of different political persuasions. You mention Seattle, but why not look at the anti-globalization movement as a whole which has been greatly helped by the numbers of anarchists who go around doing this shitwork instead of hogging the stage at what a friend of mine called "a boring picnic in the park without food."
Your suggestion that the anti-war movement is "lead" by Stalinists is hyperbolic. The WWP Trotbots are capable of organizing a few easy spectacles, but anti-war protests happen everyday without their help. I mean, shit, their own protest march around the White House took off without them on Saturday.
> Once again, I'd love to see Chuck doing more than criticizing what actually
> exists, taking the anarcho-punk "too cool for Foghat" approach. Why doesn't
> he do some serious analysis of why bourgeois anti-imperialism is, for so many
> now, the name of the game?
Why? I relate my criticisms of ANSWER and the WWP as an anarchist activist in Washington, DC. I work with a range of anarchists, socialists, liberals, NGOniks, and community activists. I've been to more than a few IAC demos in my life, as well as many Washington protests. I think that my criticisms, as a local organizer, is more valuable than some long anti-imperialist analysis.
OK, let me just say that the WWP subscribes to a simple-minded brand of anti-imperialism, otherwise known as "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." As for a broader anti-imperialist analysis, I'll leave that to anarchist writers like Noam Chomsky and leftists like Tariq Ali.
> Apart from that there are several minimal programs which could hurt the war
> effort. For instance, in order to prevent further arms mobilization in Iraq
> is for workers in weapons factories to refuse to produce them, and transport
> and dock workers refusing to ship them. Additionally, the workers in the
> armed forces would have to refuse, along class lines, and along the fact that
> they too are going to be commodified as inexpensive weapons, to go abroad.
> But only when capitalist production grinds to a screeching halt will these
> wars be stopped.
I've been advocating this for some time and have gone so far as to give people a target. It was good to hear that activists in St. Louis protested that target several weeks ago. We're talking here about the plant that builds cruise missiles. George W. won't be less willing to go to war if his toys can't be delivered.
Chuck0
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"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)