> Not really. With the US public now disapproving of the war, and a
> majority wanting the troops out of Iraq within a year, why can't we do
> better than this? Has the old protest strategy lost its magic? Are
> people burned out on massive street demos? Does it seem too after-the-fact?
When was there magic? Three years ago during the February 15th protests? The direct action in San Francisco in the days after the war?
Is it a bad thing that anti-war protests are shrinking in numbers? Perhaps this is a positive sign. Maybe people have accepted that the war is wrong and stupid and they are just waiting for Bush to leave office.
The anti-war movements have cast their resistance in narrow terms: the problem lies with the Bush adminsitration and this war. There has been little effort to connect opposition to this war to a bigger campaign against the military industrial complex. There has been no attempt to connect the dots with economic problems. Protests outside the U.S. have probably decliend because other countries have pulled out and people see this as an "American problem."
These protests are probably "too after-the-fact." What is left to say at a permitted protest rally? No broader movement is being created and a majority of Americans oppose Bush and the war. The war doesn't personally affect many Americans, enbough to get them angry like a draft would do. The radicals are frustrated because all of the anti-war protests are comfortable middle-class affairs. The people I talk to are more interested in working on the bigger picture (capitalism, enivronment, sexism, etc.) and tend to see the war as a situation that is dragging down Bush, both parties, and the country.
So maybe the decline in protests in not such a bad thing.
Chuck