JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:
>
> I frequently feel that it's not the speakers (specks on
> stage) or the organizers (nearly invisible) so much as the crowd that's just
> going through the motions.
>
I think this is fundamentally correct -- but I also think that it's not a negative. On the whole, demos inspirit the demonstrators, and they go back home and that spirit shows in their work. Moreover, the most important work is that which went on "back home" in recruiting the people to go to the demos.
Locally, we are using the Jan. 18 demos as a peg to hang a newspaper ad on (a printing of the NION statement with about a hundred or more local signers). And in the process of getting those signers (and raising close to $2000) a lot of people have talked to a lot of people. Who cares what they do in D.C. now.
In other words, "going through the motions" is precisely what demos are (and should be) about. The real work precedes and follows them.
I don't think it really makes much difference what the speakers have to say.
Carrol
> Jenny Brown