How many people stomped door-to-door for Democrats without getting paid? My hypothesis is that paid activists went back home after their paymasters stopped paying them to plug Democrats.
>Why shouldn't activists concentrate on electing antiwar politicians
>as a more effective use of their time and money than going to a
>random rally with no strategy. What's your argument for why
>someone should go to a rally against the war? What is the plan?
>What will it accomplish? In what way will such a rally cause Bush
>to change his policy?
Democrats in the Senate didn't even filibuster the bankruptcy "reform." Why would they -- except the few usual suspects on the margins of Congress -- do anything to bring the troops home, especially since lots of liberals in the opinion-making caste are now very impressed with the White House's idea of bringing "democracy" to the Middle East, through the Palestinian elections, the "Cedar Revolution," etc.?
Rallies -- even extraordinarily big ones -- do NOT, by themselves, end any war -- they never have, and they never will. They get local -- and sometimes national -- media coverage, which is one of the important things to do. That's what organizers need to make clear to activists, that is, *if* there are still a few activists who don't know that yet.
One of the tactical goals of the anti-war movement is based on the idea of No Troops, No Wars.
Military recruitment has been falling: "The Army National Guard fell '30 percent below recruiting goals' at the end of last year.4 Black volunteers for the Army have fallen 41 % (from 22.7% to 13.9%) since 2000.5" (<http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/03/iraq-war-fact-sheet.html>). See, also, Monica Davey, "Un-Volunteering: Troops Improvise to Find Way Out" (<em>New York Times</em>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/18/national/18soldiers.html">March 18, 2005</a>); and Ann Scott Tyson, "Two Years Later, Iraq War Drains Military" (<em>Washington Post</em>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48306-2005Mar18.html">March 19, 2005</a>, p. A1).
What activists can do is to call attention to the costs of the war (in terms of lives lost, bodies and minds damaged, money wasted), to support soldiers who refuse to follow orders or go back to Iraq, and to support working-class youths who say No to military recruitment. I've already talked about one example of such campaigns: <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050228/004425.html>.
Doug wrote:
>By the way, Liza & I have a piece in the new LBO ("Reflections on
>impotence") on the unwisdom of calling for actions that are doomed
>from the start - like the Million Worker March - that only
>underscore our weakness & marginality. I'm afraid this round of
>antiwar demos has done just that - it may have hurt the cause more
>than it helped it.
If you and Liza came up with how to hold only huge demonstrations that attract millions without holding smaller ones before and after them, I would be all ears. I suspect, though, that you have only complaints, rather than practical things to do. I'm afraid that, if it had been up to you and Liza, we would have attended the February 15, 2003 demonstrations before the invasion of Iraq, and that's that. -- 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/>