Thomas Seay:
> I am not sure what to think of these types of
> demonstrations. I am talking about these types of
> demonstrations that just go from point A to point B
> and end up with the same speakers giving the same
> stale speeches.
>
> Do they have any effect? (Maybe they do but I am not
> sure)...I mean, any effect other than give an
> adrenalin rush to the already converted and make them
> think they are actually accomplishing something.
Generally, I find the orthodox demo model pretty much of a drag, too. Not enough music and humor and celebration, too much whining and howling and preaching. We need to remember that the first rule of both survival and revolution is "Don't let the bastards get you down."
At the New York City thing a few weeks ago, however, there was one good speech (that I heard -- I wasn't there the whole time), a Puerto Rican woman whose son had been killed by the police, who gave a fiery oration connecting, very accurately in my anarchist opinion, police violence to imperial violence. I was reminded of the great tradition of Latin anarchism in both the Americas and Europe.
Of course, I'm prejudiced. More sober minds on this list, and down at the _New_York_Times_, no doubt, would have had her stop in the middle and remind us that, after all, some of the police and military are really quite nice and some Puerto Rican boys are not, and perhaps her son _ought_ to have had his brains blown out by New York's Finest. A lengthy but measured and _responsible_ denunciation of all Axis-of-Evil third-world dictators could follow, and she could have finished up by apologizing for having showed up at all. Then the Movement would have been _really_ energized.
Right, Dennis? There are several straight lines up there you ought to be able to work with.
-- Gordon