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No. The strategic objective is not to win public support, but to scare the political establishment and undermine its presumption of power, which critically depends on silence. That, and move some part of that established power toward some other position. That is divide it.
Who knows what or where public support is, in a country dominated by mass media organs devoted to manufacturing consent. Just tonight for example, ABC news is in Phoenix. That's how far out of the way the mainstream media have to go, to get what they want to hear. Why Phoenix and not five or six blocks away from their own studios overlooking Times Square? Maybe they don't want to hear, ``Up yours asshole'' from some LBO'er who happens by.
The tactics of carrying out a successful but illegal assembly are principally aimed at communicating the lack of consent of the governed, the dismissal of authority, and the exercise of liberty under oppression. All classic mainstream political objectives.
Meanwhile, the news tonight is saturated with terrorist threat crap from the CIA and FBI. I assume it is aimed at countering the growing anti-war sentiment here. Further I assume such national scare tactics from the establishment will be used to provide a pretext to halt public demonstrations, citing heighten security threats. Well, bullshit. The public doesn't need protection from the establishment, the establishment needs protection from the public.
Chuck Grimes