>Nathan Newman's numbers are themselves ridiculous. Of course,
>"support for ending the war had a majority in 1968." Who didn't
>support ending the war by that point? The question was how...
>When you start asking that, then it is clear
>that true antiwar forces were in a distinct minority right thru to
>the very end.
Majorities declared the war a mistake by 1968. Two-thirds said so by 1971. Yeah, a lot of folks didn't want to just run, but the fact that they were looking to get out as quickly as possible is hardly a minor point.
Did a majority think the NLF were good guys? No. But that isn't the same as being antiwar, and if we are arguing over how many people are pro-Saddam Hussein, the numbers are even tinier.
I actually find the comparisons to Vietnam offensive, since Ho Chi Mihn deserves more respect than that comparison evokes.
>I don't know who Nathan's friends are who are turned off by left-wing
>rhetoric at antiwar demonstrations.
Pretty normal people who are pretty leftwing. If you don't have any friends who are alienated or bored by left rallies, you need an expanded circle of friends.
>All I can say is that, judging
>from the growing numbers at such events, far more people are turned
>on.
What growing numbers? The October rally had a nice turnout but nothing special by DC rally standards and pathetic by sports rally standards. The left is far too impressed by itself for pretty minor organizing. There are hundreds of millions of people in this country-- being able to convince one out of a thousand of them to show up for an event is a lot of work, but not terribly impressive as a statement of power.
>As for his suggestion that rallies are overrated and that people
>would do better to call their legislators, I think he really has
>little sense about how corrupt and benighted American political
>institutions really are. Calling legislators only gives them
>encouragement. Rather than lobbying the government, the Oct. 26
>demos in DC and San Francisco were designed to confront it.
"Confront it"? How? I was at the October rally where the WWP wouldn't even challenge the police over the fact that their rally had been penned into a space one-third of the space needed. I was quite willing to press onto the grass next to the designated space but the WWP/ANSWER "police contact" kept waving us back to be good. I'm totally with Chuck O on how pathetically law-abiding these folks are. SOme challenge.
Not that I think that the power elite cares if we drain the DC government's budget through police overtime. Why should they care if DC has to cut some health care funding to pay for more cops? How are they hurt?
Where is the power analysis on rallies? What power is being exercised? They are nice media events, nothing more. If they inspire attendees to go home and do real organizing-- which means making legislators nervous about their next election, nothing more, than they may accomplish something.
But if you aren't targetting legislators on their reelection, how do you think you are exercising power?
-- Nathan Newman