> This mobilization was the biggest since the war started. It was not made
> up of only the usual suspects. Anyone who was there will tell you that.
> You're simply wrong on the facts.
No, it wasn't. The UFPJ march in New York last year was bigger than yesterday's protest and the February 15, 2003 protests were the biggest.
Get your facts straight, Lacny.
> How many people were brought to the demonstration directly by UFPJ (I
> won't even ask the question when it comes to ANSWER because their
> numbers are surely smaller and less relevant)? My guess is that it was a
> minority. My understanding is that ANSWER got one of the permits, that
> UFPJ put the buses together in a lot of places, etc. -- and all of that
> certainly costs money. But how did people actually get to DC? By raising
> money and mobilizing people locally. I doubt very much that the majority
> of the money spent on this demonstration came from either of the two
> formal "coalitions" (I put this last word in scare-quotes since UFPJ
> actually is a coalition while ANSWER is not).
ANSWER always gets permits months in advance of their fall and spring protests. Their strategy is to use the permits as bargaining chips with other groups and they hope that the police will try to cancel or block the permits. Police interference gives ANSWER the grounds to launch a lawsuit which gets them publicity and help establish them as THE organizers of the movement.
I think it was Nathan who pointed out the total of money spent by *everybody* on getting to DC, not money spent by UFPJ and ANSWER on buses.
ANSWER relies on a network of local supporters who are expected to take the initiative to organize buses. ANSWER capitalizes on the existing local movements, who put people on the ANSWER buses or organize transportation of their own to get to the ANSWER protests.
>> There were anti-globalization protests today, which were
>> totally eclipsed by the opportunistic UFPJ and ANSWER
>> who picked this weekend to leach off of the anti-
>> globalization movement.
> This statement of yours is an example of why I sometimes just assume
> that you really don't believe any of the stuff you say. It's hilarious.
> Surely you're satirizing a cartoon anarchist, and you don't really
> believe this megalomaniacal nonsense?
I'm sorry if you don't like reality, but I was simply describing ANSWER's strategy going back to 2001 and the IAC's strategy going back further. They have consistently organized protests to compete with anti-globalization movement convergences.
If you don't believe me, ask some anti-globe organizer in Washington.
> That's not the majority of who was there. Believe me, I get annoyed by
> such people for the same reason that I get annoyed with you: they have
> no interest in reaching a mass audience, they go to demonstrations to
> play dress-up and to act-out instead of to do something real, and they
> actively marginalize themselves and the rest of the movement.
The media and the right wing portray the protesters as hippies. It doesn't matter to them who is actually there on the ground.
The rest of your sentences here are just jealous garbage. Typical leftist dismissal of radicals as young punks who just want to jack off at protests. I work with and organize with these people. They are more committed to the bigger picture than any of your comfy liberal jackass labor friends.
> But while
> the hippes, the grungy anarcho-punks and the newspaper-hawking
> sectarians were all out in force, they were a distinct minority. This
> was definitely a regular person's event. I would say that I am glad
> you've finally come around to my point of view and now recognize that
> message matters, that we have to reach masses of people, and that that
> "diversity of tactics" stuff is a whole lot of nonsense.
Again, you are smoking crack here. I have not come around to your point of view. I've always felt that messages matter. That fucking underlies everything I do as an organizer and all of the criticisms I make of these protests.
Diversity of tactics is here to stay. If that pisses you off, then we are doing the right thing.
> But you don't
> really believe that, either, because consistency has never been your
> strong point. Now you're talking about how mobilizations should be
> connected to a real strategy. Well, no shit. But who's putting that
> strategy together? You?
I have always been consistent. If anything, I probably sound like a fucking broken record each time an ANSWER protest comes around. But you know what? I've been right all along.
Who should put that strategy together? Not me! I want to see movements that are organized on an egalitarian, democratic basis. If I wanted to put myself out as the alternative leader, I could have done so years ago. But the anarchist answer to ANSWER is not to replicate that undemocratic, hierarchical organization and its repetitive lack of strategy.
But you know what, I think things are looking positive for the anti-war movements. There are many people out there doing a wide range of things.
>> The Cindy Sheehan ads reach ordinary people and speak to
>> them in an emotional way that mass demos on TV do not
> Fair enough, but guess where Cindy Sheehan was yesterday? Washington,
> DC. Supporting the demonstration yesterday is not mutually exclusive of
> doing other things.
That's her choice as an individual. My beef is with lefties who keep going to these damn things and aren't organizing something better.
> Like I said earlier, to the extent there's been
> media coverage, the people getting the coverage have been people like
> Sheehan, the military families, and regular folks in the crowd -- not
> the screeching trots on the podium or the godawful Radical Cheerleaders
> on the margins.
This is good for us, because it means that the large
> numbers of regular people in the demonstration swamped the wackjobs,
In my book, you are in the chapter titled "Jackass Former Trots Who Are Now Liberal Moonbats".
and
> furthermore the media are responding to the attitudes of their consumers
> who are increasingly anti-war. So ANSWER is exaggerating when they say
> 300,000 -- they're assholes, and I don't know why we'd expect them to do
> anything else. But who cares what they think?
The problem here is that many people will conclude that these demonstrations had an effect on stopping the war. This conclusion, or leftist myth, is what ANSWER and UFPJ exploit. It's pretty easy to organize a few thousand people for a permitted symbolic demo. But how do you actually go about stopping the war, future imperialist wars, or start some kind of bigger revolution? Imperialism is not going to end because people march around Washington, DC.
> Everybody here -- not just Chuck -- needs to cheer the fuck up once in a
> while. We actually have some momentum these days, so let's make the most
> of it and not be so gloomy.
I'm not gloomy! I see lots of encouraging things happening out there on the grassroots level. But it's really frustrating to watch another mass wankfest in Washngton, DC.
Chuck