One thing that we can all agree on is probably that the turnouts of anti-war demonstrations were larger before the beginning of the invasion of Iraq than those of anti-war demonstrations that have happened since then. Here is a poll that indicates what proportion of Americans may have participated in the anti-war movement in any capacity before the Iraq War began: "In the March 22-23 Gallup, CNN, USA Today poll, 5 percent said that they had attended a protest or made some public display of their opposition to the current war" ( Karlyn H. Bowman, "Majority of Americans Have Never Participated in Anti-war Protests," Roll Call, March 26, 2003, <http://www.rollcall.com/pub/48_74/bowman/1000-1.html> and <http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.16779/news_detail.asp>). What proportion of the 95% of Americans who were non-participants got to hear of anti-war actions, when such public anti-war actions never received front-page and prime-time treatment from the corporate media?
What of national, regional, and local protests and other public actions since then? What proportion of Americans have heard of national/nationwide demonstrations organized by ANSWER and/or UFPJ -- two main national anti-war coalitions? What proportion of Americans can identify local organizers and organizations sponsoring protests and other public actions?
What proportion of Americans know of American Friends Service Committee, Veterans for Peace, War Resisters League, and other venerable anti-war institutions that had existed long before the beginning of the Iraq War? What about new ones like Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans against the War, and the Bring Them Home Now coalition?
Those are empirical questions, and I'd love to hear answers to the questions from you, Doug, or anyone who believes that Americans have known about the anti-war movement and yet have chosen not to join it. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>