JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:
>
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> I do--we should write surveys that ask, for example:
>
> Should our government
> (a) tax multi-millionaires
> (b) borrow from multi-millionaires and use your taxes to pay them back at
> high interest rates
>
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> Strategically, I think the international comparisons you're talking about are
> helpful, they certainly have been with health care. Also, the rich only seem
> deserving as long as people don't see that it's their unpaid wages that are
> buying all that luxury and power. Battering that myth should be a priority.
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Jenny, in order to carry out the survey you suggest, how many survey people would it take? How many hours from each? How much would the cost of surveyors cost?
How much would it cost (and how many people) to work out an accurate selection of people to question?
How many people would you question? (Presumably in the thousands)
How would you communicate the survey results to the millions we want, eventually, to influence?
Would the mass media give any publicity to the results of the survey?
How do we go about building the organizational structure to carry out these tasks?
How big a drag would this be on our _present_ resources? What would be the effect of switching people from anti-war work to building a polling organization?
I think the crucial questions _always_ to be asked first of any proposed tactic or tactical goal are:
A. Do we _now_ have the resources and political strength to carry out the proposed action(s)?
B. If we had sufficient strength to carry out the proposed actions would we _need_ the proposed goals (i.e., could we go beyond the goals proposed).
I ask these questions not only on the basis of past experience, but on the basis of current anti-war work here in Bloomington/Normal. I would estimate that at _least_ one-third, perhaps a half or more, of meeting time is spent discussing things to do that would not be necessary if we had the resources to do them. And then more and more people stay away from meetings because the meetings are so dull.
Incidentally, one of the discoveries made by JOIN (SDS) projects before they were killed (mostly by sexism in the National Office of SDS) was that one of the most powerful community organizing techniques was the Survey. But of course those projects started out with sufficient personnel -- and their domain of action was 00narrow enough -- that they could could make it work.
Carrol