Are Marches Pep-Rallies? (was Antiwar Protest Largest Since '60s)

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Nov 4 11:34:11 PST 2002


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> >grubby door-to-door organizing
>
> When we had dinner months ago, you kvetched about the PIRG model of
> politics, yet it seems like you're still pretty enamored of the basic
> strategy. Could you reconcile?

Door-to-Door "organizing" is not grubby at all -- but it does have to be organizing _for_ something. CISPES leadership was convinced that such one-on-one was too slow and preferred to put its energies elsewhere. I think they were wrong. Once we simply created our own local "statement-of-solidarity-with-the-People-of-El-Salvador." A black woman and I rang doorbells in a local public housing area. Both of us were not-yet-diagnosed sufferers from depression and anxiety disorder, and for both of us the walk up to the door was an incredibly heavy task. But we had a hell of a good time once we got inside. The circumstances simply weren't right in the '80s, however, to let such enterprises take off. Milton had it right -- sometimes all you can do is stand and wait.

Carrol
>
> Doug



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