[lbo-talk] dalai lama in nyc

Chuck0 chuck at mutualaid.org
Tue Sep 23 14:17:49 PDT 2003


Doug Henwood wrote:


> Chuck0 wrote:
>
>> Perhaps what we need is another way to call national and international
>> days of anti-war protest, perhaps along the lines of People's Global
>> Action or how the February 15th protests were organized. Why should we
>> have to wait until ANSWER calls for a protest? Why should we settle
>> for just going to ANSWER protests?
>
>
> Maybe anarchists, who hate laws, hierarchies, discipline, and all those
> other icky things, have a problem organizing demonstrations, unlike the
> "Stalinists" of ANSWER, who have no such problems.

No, anarchists are quite capable of organizing demonstrations. There are many demos out there that were organized by anarchists. And from my experience, anarchists are quite capable of organizing everything from direct actions to protest marches to large conferences (such as NCOR, which cocks in at over 1000 attendees).

The answer to the question you pose is that anarchists aren't simply going to compete with a group at ANSWER in organizing national demos in Washington, DC. Most of us reject that kind of centralized organizing. We're going to think outside of the box and figure out which strategies are most compatible with our political practices and goals. The ANSWER to opposing a war is not necessarily going to be a series of regular ineffective demos in Washington.

If you look at February 15, which was organized more on anarchist lines and involved the participation by many anarchists, you can see an effective counter-model to "bring everybody to Washington" strategy used by ANSWER ad infinitum.

Chuck0



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