> Hey, if the UFPJ started blocking troop deployments, that would be
> much more effective than having an annual anti-war protest in New York
> City.
Maybe you're too young to remember the train-blocking actions during the Vietnam War (they weren't "troop trains," because troops haven't been moved by trains since WW II, AFAIK, but trains carrying munitions, etc.), but I do. Folks sat on the tracks, the trains stopped, the cops pulled the folks off the tracks, and the trains started up again. This is your idea of effectiveness?
Draft resistance and GI coffeeshops helping guys desert to Sweden were a lot more effective. We don't have a draft, but we can support dissent among the troops (mostly reservists at this point, I think) and their families.
You ask what the government is afraid of. What they're really terrified of is their soldiers refusing to fight. That's what was starting to happen in the Vietnam War period, and I think it's primarily why they finally withdrew.
On Monday, April 19, 2004, at 07:19 PM, Chuck0 wrote:
> If anybody on the left has done anything effective against the war
> it's probably the left media. We've been keeping the fire to the feet
> of the Bush administration.
Not just the "left" media -- today the Wall Street Journal had a long piece summarizing a lot of the mistakes the administration made in Iraq. It takes all kinds of media to do the job. The problem with saying that only the "left" media are the good guys is that most of the American public never reads them, even on the Web.
> And "real organizing" can take other forms outside the building of
> mass organizations. I'm all for organizing, but my methods and
> strategies are different than what most leftists advocate.
Such as?
> Work on getting radical ideas and analysis out to the general public.
You seem to think that no one but you has been doing this. A hell of a lot of people are doing it. But the general public is generally not interested in them unless they are very down to earth and practical. Unlike people in some countries, most Americans just don't give a damn about abstract theories -- you have to show them how your ideas will help them make a buck and make their lives easier.