Marta Russell wrote:
>
> Boring enough that most of those who had participated in
> the march did not stick around for the rally to hear Ron or any one
> else. But perhaps it did give people an outlet for their
> frustrations. And there was a heartening mix of race -- lots of
> hispanics and black persons. Youth turned out too. What did it
> accomplish, however? How do we measure it?
It sounds to me like a pretty successful demo! I think there is a strong tendency to expect more of demos than it is reasonable to expect. They are simply (!) a sign of how good the work was _before_ the demo in mobilizing for it. Numbers good. March good. Motions gone through. Racial mixture. Back to work. What more do you want?
Carrol
> Marta
P.S. I'm not sure who you are quoting below, but it seems to me an example of pure sectarianism every bit as bad as any on the "paleolithic left." I think too many people had their brains washed by the Gary Hart campaign for president and its slogan of "new ideas." The demand for new ideas is simply a demand not to be made to think, because thinking almost always simply involves making known "ideas" work in superficially changed contexts.
>
> >TOWARD A MAXIMUM ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
> >
> >FEBRUARY 2003
> >
> >Are you outraged with the US government's arrogant practice of
> >policing the rest of the world, yet are you leery of having your
> >outrage exploited b y obsolete Leftists for their own bankrupt
> >agendas? Are you pissed off that the US military is once again
> >bullying tiny Third World countries and preparing to slaughter
> >innocent civilians, yet are you hesitant to give any credibility to
> >the Paleolithic Left's claims to leading a mass anti-war movement?
> >Are you disgusted with America's imperial business-as-usual, yet are
> >you also bored to tears with the Left's protest-politics-as-usual?
> >There's a simple, do-it-yourself alternative that effectively
> >challenges the US government's military adventurism while denying
> >the fossilized Left its organizing and leadership pretensions. This
> >strategy is based on the idea that thousands of grains of sand can
> >cause even the largest, most powerful machine to grind to a halt by
> >becoming wedged in the gears and stuck between sensitive parts to
> >gum up the works. The goal of this alternative strategy is to put
> >our anti-war activism and movement to maximum effect.
> >
>
> --
> Marta Russell
> Los Angeles, CA
> http://www.disweb.org