-If people are willing to buy a million dollars -worth of pizza, it does not follow that they would forego pizza and spend -instead on Brussels sprouts. -I also find it amusing that Nathan is aggrieved that more people gravitate -towards fun than towards work. ANSWER is the McDonald's of today's protest -politics. They know what people want.
And the analogy holds, I agree. With bad leadership telling activists to take actions that feel good, but are bad for their political health, no wonder the antiwar movement has chronic heart disease and is on life support.
-Nathan doesn't realize, life is -short, so we eat dessert first. If we lived in Newman Nation, we wouldn't -be having this conversation. We would be in earnest three-hour meetings on -urban planning.
I'm actually all for the left building more life-sustaining attractions into their work. The mega-churches are a great example in attracting supporters through lots of such actions. But in contrast to offering fast food, they actually offer useful support for day-to-day activities of members.
Offering "fun" in your McDonalds terms is great for attracting people casually for an afternoon and not much more in building a movement.
I'm not in favor of three hour meetings-- its bad for pulling in folks with child care responsibilities. But I am for a range of other local organizing where people with shared needs and experiences are encouraged to talk and organize around how the war effects THEM, not just in a single McDemo.
The Left often has the worst tendencies of decentralized, unconnected groups with tiny spasms of unified action in generic actions. What is lacks are the institutions that on a day to day basis integrate small groups into the large whole of progressive activity.
I actually thought a New Yorker article a few weeks ago about the organization of megachurches into many networked small groups highlights why the rightwing is so successful these days compared to the left.
The sad reality is that too many leftists feel they have to travel all the way to DC to get a sense of progressive community in their day-to-day lives. What it highlights is the failure to build that more systematically at the local level.
Which to me argues even more urgently for not wasting resources on such national events when the need is obviously more chronic closer to home. Even if fundraising for local antiwar work attracted only a fraction of the $12 million I project, that could still be multiple millions for local organizing that might build more meaningful day-to-day interactions for progressives over the long-term.
Nathan
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]On Behalf Of Nathan Newman Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 1:22 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: Costs of big marches- Re: [lbo-talk] DC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Sure they are-- but are they necessary at a national level, where travel
>costs time and money?
-Networking, man. Isn't it important for sympathetic people to meet -each other, make friends, share strategies, and generally feel less -lonely? I agree with you on the importance of institution-building, -but the affective side counts too.
I'm not against all marches and such. I'm just against the single-minded focus on them among too many activists, abetted by the ANSWER folks who are incapable of any other organizing.
And it's a reasonable debate on resources to ask whether the networking on a national basis is worth $12 million? A lot of folks are allergic to leadership but it's cheaper to elect delegates to a national meeting do that networking, while other folks do other tasks.
Part of what bothers me is that marches are more fun than other political work and we basically have the national leadership spending their time telling people that the best use of their money and time is to eat dessert.
So they spend $12 million and 2 million volunteer hours on dessert, while leaving most day-to-day organizing on antiwar work chronically underfunded and with with few volunteer hours on boring outreach work.
My criticism is of the antiwar leadership. If they were spending most of their time promoting institution-building and the more prosaic mobilization work, I'd be far more friendly to the occasional march to raise morale.
But it's the disproportion between priorities that gets my ire.
Nathan
___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk