On Sat, 12 Oct 2002 Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> I don't think of support for and opposition to the war as matters of
> cost-benefit calculations in the very short term alone either. Reduced
> to such calculations, though, there is a reason that the anti-war side
> necessarily loses out in a cheap and short war.
>
<snip>
>
> [<Paraphrase within brackets:> Because they both get symbolic gains but
> the anti-forces in addition have] considerable pains in the ass spending
> time, energy, and sometimes even money organizing or participating in
> demos, vigils, sit-ins, calls to elective representatives, etc.
This is bit academic, since neither you nor I subscribe to this way of looking at things, and I think even Wojtek himself might have "producing himself" a bit here :o)
But, that said, if we take this scheme seriously, it doesn't apply to you or people like you, so your argument doesn't hold. I think it's pretty clear Wojtek only meant this calculus to apply to people who aren't committed activists, who don't do the organizing, but rather who wave along in the wake to professionals and activists. And for those people, going to the NION demo in New York was no more effort than going to Central Park on a nice day and feeling better.
There might even be a nontrivial conclusion hidden in there. Let's say we assume, like I think Wojtek implicitly did, that the real purpose of demos is to get the largest number of people to show up. Because by that act, they cross a line, they identify with our side, and when committed people are off later somewhere else breaking windows or writing articles or doing vigils and they read about them in the paper or see them on the news, these people who showed up once will see them as Us rather than Them. And some of them, having crossed the line, and done something unhabitual, the hardest step, will then think about doing something more committed later. Demos would then be seen a combination of an identification ritual and an entry level activity.
If we accepted that as true, it would be a very different picture of demos than we currently have. Now, demos are supposed to be the main event. They are supposed to be in Washington, which takes lots of energy to get to, and they are supposed build sort of verbal platforms, and they are supposed to serve a teaching function, and they are supposed to manifest resistance. All of which is lots of work and very tedious.
But if we took the view that demos actually are only one activity among many, and that teach-ins teach better, and breaking windows manifest anger better, and written articles and ads in the paper get across manifestos and ideas better, and that the only purpose of a demo is to enlarge the circle of sympathy, and entice more and more people to identify with the cause, then we would construct them very differently.
In a nutshell, we would make them as pleasant as possible. We would always have concerts, and celebrities, and only one or two speeches or pledges telling people what they already know. And instead of organizing platoons to Washington, we would hold them simultaneously in the local downtowns of more and more cities, so that more and more people could get to them more and more easily. We would consciously make them social events.
And then more committed groups would be entirely free to do more committed things whenever they wanted to. The purpose of the demos would be to improve the resonsance of those more committed actions. And perhaps to get more people to consider taking part in them.
Michael