>
> What kind of direct action? Messing up the war supply chain will get
> you arrested in a second - and the number of people who'll do that is
> just too small for it to be more than a flash in the pan. If there
> were broad and strong public opposition to the war, that'd be another
> matter entirely, but with little or no assent from the masses, forget
> about it. Nathan's right that Bush could easily spin this as putting
> "our" boys & girls at risk, and could end up damaging the antiwar
> position.
>
> So what else do you have in mind? There's a bit of a macho mystique
> around direct action - it's bold, it's radical, it's not for pussies.
> But give some examples of some actions that could accomplish
> something other than making the actors feel tough & revolutionary.
>
> Doug
I just don't feel like waiting till the planets are aligned.
...Because writing position papers doesn't get the "job" done?
I disagree about messing up the supply chain... It's perhaps the most effective method of direct action, and worked like a charm for the Australian dockworkers to help crowbar Australia out of the Vietnam incursion.
The SF Maritime Union was no slacker either, among others, like protesters invading Dow Chemical... or freaks levitating the Pentagon (while the MOBE marshaled)... those things also affected the military's ability to function.
It literally "takes a village" to get the message "No More "Perception" of Business as Usual", out in the open and into the mainstream American brainpan, where it has the most effect.
Because it isn't "business as usual": (mild graphic) http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41134000/jpg/_41134669_bloody203ap.jpg
Start working on people's idea that it's all OK, because it isn't... in a very Christian sense of the word. And break down the popular notion that it isn't affecting us (US) personally, because it assuredly is...
Here's some of my tactics with the local kids:
I point out that the government's new 10 year sentence "add-on" for "gang" involvement could be applied to them, because their dreads, or deadhead patches, or sideways ballcaps whatever make them a "gang".
I talk about national IDs... I'm old enough to remind them how you ALWAYS had to have your draft card or the police took you off to verify your status (and your warrants...). I tell them all about it, about how nothing's changed, (including an ineffectual left) and how it's *their* turn.
Goading and prodding people... sharing ideas. I've brainstormed with HS kids for a 21st century version of "mailing a change of address card to the Selective Service twenty times a day(they were postpaid.. and you had to report it IMMEDIATELY, right? Hehee)).
Yup, we came up with a bunch of ideas, and no one had to keep minutes at the "meeting". (or claim "leadership" of the group)... Just BSing around about the possibilities and potential to say "FUCK YOU" to the "man", by any means necessary.
You want Mass Movement? Make it personal, take it personal, and it WILL happen (Can you say Hallelu-jah!... brothers and sisters! Amen!).
Organizing means more than "organizing" an office, it means organizing "other" people, because "the masses" are made up of *individuals* who decide "enough is enough" about whatever the issue at hand is, not theorists, and if the nasty reaction to Chip Bertlet's foray into dialogue with Christians is any indication, many folks on this list just don't "get it".
Leigh www.leighm.net
