So, you think you can quell this by finally putting food and water on the ground? So you think you only have one fire to put out?
You're going to have to put us out.
We're not starving. We're well fed. Try to put us out. We're not hopeless. We're not oppressed. Try to put us out. They're our brothers. They're our sisters. Try to put us out. They're our mothers. They're our fathers. Try to put us out. They're our children. They're our neighbors. Try to put us out.
Or, more complicated and more on target: "If you try to put them out, you'll have to put us out."
It comes down to the tradeoffs involved in creating slogans, I guess.
If you have hundreds of these conflagrations popping up in every city center from coast to coast, it should create something of a stire. There are enough pissed off people, the whole Moveon gang should glom on, etc. etc. Sorry, but purity -- I have no interest in that. If Moveon can mobilize people to a demo, then I'm not going to complain.
Organize around nothing but solidarity. No making fun of the president. No demonizing public figures. No talk of the war. No talk of anything but: we're in this together, fuckers, and when you try to snuff them out, you'll have to snuff us out too. The pressure has to be relentless and we'd need to get it set up fast and furious. The media is going to lose interest as soon as they orchestrate some way to distract them.
I say no demonizing, not because I want to appease anyone, but because it's a destabilzing tactic. [1]
I can see that this might cause a lot of hard feelings -- the whole speaking for problem -- so I don't know. What do others think?
I can hear people complaining also that this is too america-centric. That's an issue, but I've forever argued that my experience is that, once you get people organized around something they care about, the struggle, the politicization process, brings them around to understanding that it's not "just in my backyeard" but a problem that has to be addressed globally. Yadda. Reasonable people will disagree on this one and minds aren't going to be changed, so Im not inclined to get in an argument about it. Think what you will.
[1] In the family systems lit, one way to deal with pathological relationships (say, between co-dependent and addict) is for the co-dependent to do something unexpected, to throw the addict off guard. Because you don't give them a predictable response, they have to face, in an extremely stark way, how dependent they are on the pattern. Or something like that. But, you get my drift? It's not about appeasing, it's about destablizing, it's about forcing people into a different "reality" for however short a time, so that maybe, just maybe a few will forever stay in that new reality. At 08:11 PM 9/2/2005, joanna wrote:
>John Adams wrote:
>
>>
>>http://www.livejournal.com/users/wrog/36982.html
>>
>>Also, I'll admit it--I'd feel guilty going to a demo on this basis. It
>>feels opportunistic, in a bad way.
>Absolutely! The only reason to organize now is to help the people of Gulf.
>"I told you so's:" demonstrations make me sick to my stomach.
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin