Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>
> but if the purpose of a march is to
> demonstrate opposition and convey a unified message to the viewing world
> it might be useful to examine what effect counter-demos have on the
> visual communique's strength.
No.
Only a large number of demos over a considerable extent of time conveys any message to the state. Hence it is not the purpose of any one or even any 10 or 12 marches to "convey a unified message to the viewing world." Moreover, it is almost never the case that the demonstrations themselves, however mammoth, change state policy. Rather, only in comibination with large-scale local organizing, increasing civil disobedience, some scattered uncivil disobedience, endless small forums, rallies, leaflettings, picnics, public disturbances, as well as many things that I can't think of right now, effect state policy or the activity of various 'establishment' groups (including the two major parties).
(And of course the message by no means needs to be a unified one. In the first place, that is impossible to achieve except in the most general level. More importantly, the sheer number of _different_ and even conflicting messages being "sent" with varying degrees of clarity and force is what creates the political atomosphere in which more and more people will begin to participate politically. And I include here activity which does not even show up in the larger public realm: church committees, union caucuses, PTA programs, coffee shops near military bases, curriculum committees, academic departmental internal debates, girl scout troops, and on and on.
All of this will, of course, be accompanied (as is already the case in many ways) with increased repression and with growing reaction to that repression. (No guarantees _at all_ of whether the repression or the reaction to it proves strongest.)
So what are demonstrations _now_ for? For their impact on the demonstrators and those they talk to when they go back home of course. We are raising an army; more important (and keeping to the military metaphor) we are recruiting and training the non-coms and junior officers who are the backbone of such an army. Five women from the B/N area are in DC today; somewhere between 120 and 150 people showed up this a.m. for a 30 minute rally & speak-out that we called. (This part of Illinois, in the jargon so popular now, is "red state" territory.) I gave a 90-second speech entirely focused on the need for more of them to come to BNCPJ meetings, and when I stated that we needed more brains than two or three to carry on, it got quite loud applause. In other words, political activation is occuring in the Bloomington/Normal area of Illinois. And if it is occuring here, it is occurring in a large number of surprising spots.
This is what today's DC demo meant. The more numbers there the better, but it doesn't make too much difference. And poof to the counter-demonstrators. They are froth.
Carrol