> Right. Organizing cannot happen without a spontaneous rise of interest
> in action on the part of potential constituencies for organizing; at the
> same time, potential constituencies have nowhere to turn without
> experienced national organizers with time, energy, dedication, access to
> resources (money, facilities, lawyers, etc.), know-how, and most
> importantly, _a current (i.e., not outdated!] list of contact persons
> who are themselves good local organizers with good phone trees and
> mailing lists_. This last part -- a good and current list of contact
> persons who are skilled local organizers -- cannot be developed
> overnight. It has to be patiently developed over a decade or so
> (through trials and errors, through what may look like many failures)
> with constant updating. That's what WW/IAC/ANSWER has and NION, United
> for Peace, etc. have yet to match. Any "coalition" who fails to inform
> preexisting local organizers -- who have contact information of local
> liberal and left-wing organizations (churches, ethnic orgs, student
> orgs, community orgs, etc.) and activists -- of an upcoming nationwide
> action at the very least a couple of months ahead of time cannot hope to
> achieve a big turnout.
I'm sorry, but one can achieve a large national turnout and use democratic processes. WW/IAC/ANSWER uses a highly centralized, undemocratic form of organizing. This makes it easier for them to organize mass spectacles, but even they require several months before each big protest.
Here in Washington, DC, the Mobilization for Global Justice and the Anti-Capitalist Convergence operate on anarchistic principles and direct democracy. Both groups are capable of turning out large national protests. Unfortunately, this isn't alway evident, as last year's IMF/WB protests were washed out by 9-11. Prior to 9-11, the police were estimating that 100,000 people would be protesting and those of us involved in the activism were confident that tens of thousands would turn out.
Of course, we are measuring the effectiveness of organizations here by how well they can turn out a mass national mobilization. Not all activists agree that this is the smartest strategy.
Having phone trees and databases of local contacts are important, but perhaps Yoshie doesn't understand that other activists using more current techniques can use mailing lists, websites, and so on to do outreach and organize. I'll take a national decentralized network where each person involved is an organizer over a centralized organization any day of the week.
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)