berber carpet bomb wrote:
>
>
> Nobody thinks it's worth going since they believe their voices are
> being heard -- not by the Prezdinet, but by others in Congress, among
> those running for Prez in both parties, etc. To most people discussing
> whether to demo or not, that's the issue. If they felt no one was
> listening at all, that no headway had been made through other means,
> then they'd see the point. This way, they think headway has been
> through other means and so there's no need to demo.
This seems essentially correct to me, though it tends to be more a description of what needs to be explained than itself an explanation. And I don't think that, on the whole, there is any way directly to persuade them of anything different, which is why I increasingly believe that our (left activists) is the recruitment and on-the-job training of more local leadership, in order to maintain an infrastructure for mobilizing renewed mass struggle when events impact on this perspective.
There will be little if any mass mobilization during 2008 (election) or 2009 (waiting for the new administration to act) and into 2010. I hope there are more local organizations with more experienced cadre by the late summer of 2010 to exploit the disillusionment that (perhaps) will be occuring by that time.
Another factor, of course, is that the curren opposition to the war is mostly passive and grounded merely in disappointment at the war's lack of success -- _not_ in any perception of the U.s. as a criminal state. My experience is that even when people say "Yes" to this argument they don't really mean Yes, the U.S. is a criminal state but "Yes, the U.S. is not being true to itself."
Carrol