> Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
>> ----------------------------
>> Very well done, American friends, very well done. It was an impressive
>> demo
>> on TV, and I noticed the AP quotes the Washington police chief as saying
>> the
>> organizers easily "hit their target" of 100k. The point, I think, is not
>> that less than 1% of the US population took part, but how many more
>> watching
>
> Let me go over this again. Since the police have abdicated doing crowd
> estimates, the sectarians organizing these stupid protests know that it is
> much easier to establish the mass delusion that 100,000 or more people
> attended. I've dealt with this police chief on a basis that I really don't
> want to repeat. The guy is a scumbag and he has every reason to ditto the
> estimates coming out of the mouths of the organizers.
------------------------
Just so to be sure, Chuck, you really do see these demos as antagonistic
rather than complementary to your kind of activism, don't you? Until now, I
just couldn't imagine anyone opposed to the war in Iraq and in favour of
mass political engagement would have hoped the demo fizzled, or would have
wanted to create that public impression. Who could possibly benefit apart
from the administration and its supporters?
Perhaps you should review your history. The anarcho-syndicalists like the IWW, the defenders of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Spanish anarchists all understood the power of mass demonstrations - what you call "these stupid protests" - on participants and onlookers alike as well on sections of the ruling class. Of course, who wouldn't want recreate this kind of motion "at the local level", but this is not objectively possible at this stage, and highly visible venues like Washington, where it is possible to assemble masses, is the next best thing - and certainly better than doing nothing.
MG