Fidel's Turning of the Wheel...

Report from Cuba on Fidel's Transition

[Note from CarlD: This is a down-to-earth report on the closing on an era. Fidel has been the leader of Cuba for my entire political life, and the very first demonstration I went to was a 'Hands Off Cuba' vigil of twelve of us at Penn State during the Cuba missile crisis.

Later, representing SDS, I had a chance to meet with Fidel. At the Cultural Congress of Havana in 1968, Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden and I were whisked away to a safe house, were we sat up with Fidel late into the night, discussing everything under the sun. He wanted to know our opinion of McGovern, Dellinger wanted to know about Che and Regis Debray, Hayden and I asked to start what became the Veceremos Brigade, and Fidel bugged me to explain 'hippies' to him, and I tried my best.

He is a remarkable man, with a photographic memory, wide knowledge and keen insights. Cuba will change after him, though, as brother Raul is already looking into the socialist market economy in China and Vietnam, but will undoubtedly make any reforms 'in the Cuban way.' We should all wish Fidel and Cuba well, and double our voices against the blockcade.]


By Marc PoKempner
Havana, Cuba


Subject: Castro's resignation

I thought you all would be interested in a bit of news from Cuba. I have read some of the US reports and, understandably given the bias, they don't get it right---though they have captured some of it.

There was no "police presence" that I detected whatsoever. Everything was completely normal. The so-called "independent journalists", supported by the US and Journalists Without Borders, have been floating a lot of totally fabricated stories lately about arrests, etc.

So be skeptical of all such sources, and keep in mind that one of the express strategies of the Bush administration is to destabilize Cuba from within. The most ridiculous of these was a report last week by an "independent journalist" that a young student was yanked from his home in Las Tunas after criticizing the government in a meeting at the university. Nothing of the kind ever took place. He stood up in a meeting and voiced some concerns and criticisms in an auditorium in a meeting presided over by Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly. The meeting was taped and broadcast internally to the entire university. Nothing happened to the boy and he appeared on Cuban TV to debunk the story.

The news of Castro's had enormous impact, but also wasn't exactly a surprise. Some people may have thought that Castro would be re-elected, but most people did not given his health. The emotional impact of the announcement before the parlaimentary session next Sunday came mainly from three aspects: 1) it is an historical moment in Cuba---whatever the US media says, Castro is the respected Commander in Chief and loved or revered by the majority of Cubans. Younger Cubans may want change, which is natural, but most have respect for Castro who has shown himself to be a brilliant leader, even if they chafe under some of the overarching controls; 2) he resigned with dignity. Most of the people I spoke to praised the content of the message as fitting of a great leader; 3) there is also sadness, not so much that he is resigning---which was to be expected---but because he was not able to be president when the US finally lifts the blockade. That is, he won't be president residing over the final triumph over the US.

If there was muted response on the street, it is because Castro has been ill for a long time and the resignation was just a matter of time. But also, people have been waiting during this transition period to see what changes and improvements will be made, what direction will the country take now to solve its problems. Since there are no easy answers, it wasn't as if Castro's announcement meant dramatic changes or chaos. So, the response to the announcement was quiet and reflective.

Cubans do want some changes. Life has been hard since the 90s, and I expect there to be some reforms. But no one expects an opening to a free market economy, even if some market mechanisms are introduced and even perhaps some kinds of cooperatives in the service economy (carpentry, construction, plumbing) and perhaps even light, small-scale manufacturing (furniture, clothing, leather goods, etc.).

US policy continues to weigh heavy on Cuba's potential for development. I could write pages about the harshness of the impact. And so there aren't any easy ways leading to dramatic economic improvement (and where in the world today are there such ways). Most Cubans do not expect dramatic improvements, but they do want to see some new strategies and some problems solved.

I do expect that the requirement of "exit permits" will be lifted, but that won't solve most Cubans desire to travel since most countries do not give Cubans visas easily and most Cubans don't have the $ to buy tickets, etc. If and when that control is lifted, I doubt many countries will give asylum so easily to Cubans who use travel as a way to leave Cuba.

I also expect that some of the restrictions on Cubans access to tourist hotels will also be lifted. These restrictions were first adopted to try to stem the explosion of prostitution in the 90s when the economy hit rock bottom. Prostitution has diminished dramatically since the end of the 90s, but there is still a notion of equity that keeps the regulation in place. That is, it is hard to swallow the growing differences in income between those who earn hard currency (artists, musicians, tourism workers who get tips) and those who get money from families abroad. So, seeing these people enter the hotels when ordinary Cubans do not have the funds is problematic in an egalitarian society.

The current generation seems to be willing to accept some deviance from egalitarianism as long as there is social justice. That is, everyone has equal access to health care and education, social services and housing are improved, and everyone has access to work that pays a living wage (i.e., wages have sufficient purchasing power). This cannot be accomplished with a free-market capitalist system. The government must maintain a strong hand in the economy and development of the society.

Next Sunday, the National Assembly will meet and elect the new president of the Council of State, which I assume will be Raul Castro, and the other members of the Council. This will be an important signal of who is in the inner circle of leadership--kind of like the cabinet. Raul will undoubtedly remain Commander in Chief of the armed forces, but there could be a new minister of the armed forces.

Marc PoKempner, photojournalist http://www.pokempner.net ph: 773.525.4567 cel: 773.505.4568 Chicago, Illinois, USA Member: ASMP - American Society of Magazine Photographers

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What Is A Knowlege Worker?

ECONOMISTS STRUGGLE
WITH RUSTY TOOLS
IN TODAY’S WORLD

By Alvin and Heidi Toffler

Economists around the world are belatedly admitting out loud that much of what they have been telling governments, businesses,
investors and students has been increasingly mistaken and misleading.

For some, this is old news, especially for economists themselves,who have long made fun of their errors. Their forecasts are so bad that Robert Reich, an economist and secretary of labor during the Clinton presidency, has suggested that "economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good."

What is new is their increasing willingness to admit that the tools
they have been using for a century or more – theories and assumptions originally designed for probing smokestack economies – are becoming more and more irrelevant or useless for analyzing today's knowledge-hungry, no-longer-industrial economies.

With the U.S. in the lead, Asian countries racing to catch up and
Europe struggling to keep pace, advanced economies are shifting from
the reliance on Second Wave assembly lines and muscle power to Third
Wave brain power. This transition is typically symbolized by computers,
the Internet, mobile phones, digital production lines, networks,
ad-hocratic organization, heavy investment in research and development
and other knowledge-intensive tools and methods.

Put all these changes together with corresponding changes in
institutional boundaries, and the roles of managers, employees,
consumers and prosumers, and it is evident that we are inventing
something new on the face of the earth – a revolutionary wealth system.

Economists first caught sight of this as far back as 1962 when
Fritz Machlup of Princeton published a prescient book called "The
Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States." It
showed that even then the U.S. economy was becoming more and more
dependent on knowledge.

In the 1960s, the polymathic Kenneth Boulding and a small number of
other economists began showing an interest in the economics of
knowledge. But within their profession these leading minds were
intellectual outriders whose ideas were usually pooh-poohed or ignored.
As a result, even as many economies grew more and more dependent on
knowledge, conventional economists continued to rely on industrial-age
measures, models and notions.

In the 1970s and 1980s, we, along with other futurists and
economists, repeatedly called attention to the growing gap between the
emerging revolutionary economy and the obsolescence of mainstream
economics. Yet little was done to correct the problem.

In consequence, as knowledge – admittedly hard to measure – grew
more and more important, the picture of reality presented to
businesses, governments and key international organizations – right on
down to the World Trade Organization and the U.N. – grew more and more
detached from reality, reaching a point at which the discrepancy could
no longer be ignored.

The gap is now so wide that Business Week recently devoted a
lengthy cover story to it, detailing many of the distortions and
mischaracterizations of trade, unemployment and fiscal and monetary
policy that result from continued reliance on wildly out-of-date
theories and data. Nor is the problem just an American phenomenon.
Similarly poor numbers and models are used by economists in most of the
rest of the world, too.

A key reason why economics has not kept up with the changing
economy is the sheer difficulty of properly defining and measuring
knowledge and knowledge work. Who, for example, is a "knowledge
worker"?

Many estimates about the workforce, present and future, for
example, focus on the most easily quantified employee categories. The
result is a very narrow notion of who is, and who is not, engaged in
knowledge work.

A widely propagated categorization scheme suggests that to be a
knowledge worker one needs to be a scientist or an engineer, a
mathematician, an information technology specialist, a teacher or a
member of one of the professions. The assumption is that if we tally
these up, we have identified the "knowledge labor force." From that, it
is presumed, we can calculate their contribution to gross domestic
product and many other variables.

But this is crude at best and misleading at worst, radically
underestimating the extent of knowledge work in the real economy and
the number of workers doing knowledge work, as we'll see next.

Part 2:

Many economists are belatedly struggling to catch up with the increasing importance of knowledge in advanced economies.

Even among the most sophisticated, the true role of knowledge in
the creation of wealth is still, for the most part, underestimated. And
economists still don't grasp the often-hidden aspects of knowledge
work.

Economists will have to subdivide knowledge into subtypes. Not all
knowledge is the same or has the same potential for creating wealth.
And building a knowledge economy doesn't require that every worker,
today or tomorrow, will need the cognitive or analytic skills of the
proverbial "rocket scientist."

Thus, economists must recognize that even many jobs categorized as
low skill – and therefore not counted in the "knowledge work" category
– have, in fact, a knowledge component. By ignoring that component, the
amount of knowledge work in the economy is radically underestimated.

Car mechanics may still install a new tire or a windshield wiper.
But, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, their work has changed
"from mechanical repair to a high technology job. As a result, these
workers are now usually called 'technicians.' . . . Technicians must
have an increasingly broad base of knowledge about how vehicles'
complex components work and interact, as well as the ability to work
with electronic diagnostic equipment and computer-based reference
materials." What percentage of these jobs consists of knowledge work?

What about farmers? Even the poorest peasants in history have
always needed knowledge about seeds, soil and weather. Today, in the
U.S., various agriculture organizations representing corn, cotton and
soybean growers have teamed up with the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration to teach "precision farming" made possible by data from
satellites and high-flying aircraft.

According to NASA, the farmers learn "where fertilizers are needed
– and where they're not needed. They discover pests – and spray only
infested areas. It's a remarkably 'green' approach to farming."
Precision farmers use GPS receivers, farm equipment with computerized
controllers and other digital equipment. As one farm-equipment dealer
puts it, today "it would help to have a college education just to
figure out the benefits in running the tractors."

Are farmers knowledge workers? Full-time or part-time?

Many other classes of employees also do part-time knowledge work.
Waiters punch orders into a computer, which not only sends instructions
to the kitchen, but provides data useful for purchasing, scheduling and
many other purposes. It has even been suggested that golf caddies are
"a simplified example of a knowledge worker" because "good caddies do
more than carry clubs. . . . A good caddie will give advice to golfers,
such as, 'The wind makes the ninth hole play 15 yards longer."'

If the definition of knowledge work is realistically broadened to
encompass part-time knowledge work, the role of knowledge in the
overall economy becomes far more important than current statistics
suggest.

The extent of knowledge work in advanced economies would be still
further enlarged if economists recognize that there are many
economically essential forms of knowledge. These include tacit
knowledge, personal insight, the ability to care for the ill or elderly
with warmth and gut intelligence, a talent for leadership, persuasive
expression, adaptability, a gift for timing and many other skills that
are primarily social, cultural and psychological. These skills were
seldom required for repetitive tasks on yesterday's assembly line but
are extremely valuable, especially in tomorrow's service sector.

Not all of these carry the same weight or have the same effect on a
company's bottom line or on the national economy, and they are even
harder to define and quantify.

Yet another way of categorizing knowledge work is according to
whether it is being generated, stored, exchanged or transformed. Or by
the different degrees of abstraction required by different jobs – from
data entry all the way up the abstraction ladder to research scientist,
financial "quant" or corporate strategist.

Knowledge workers in the same firm also perform different
functions. Some are good "knowledge importers" – they bring knowledge
from outside the firm, from customers, critics, competitors and others.
They are good gatherers. Others are "knowledge exporters" – they bring
data, information and knowledge to the outside world from inside the
organization. They might be publicists or salespeople, for example.
Others are "knowledge relayers" – they pass data, information and/or
knowledge back and forth within the firm. Still others can be regarded
as "knowledge creators."

Our knowledge about knowledge is so poor that we all – not just
economists – are unprepared for what lies ahead. One forecast that is
reasonably safe is that economists, trying to answer questions like
these, will devote more and more attention to the work being done in a
new branch of their own profession – neuroeconomics, the study of how
the brain itself works when making economic decisions.

With or without help from that quarter, however, until economists
understand all these dimensions of knowledge work, they will continue
to drastically underestimate not only the contribution of knowledge
work to the money economy, but the role it plays in the truly
revolutionary wealth system emerging on the planet.

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Getting Organized, Getting Engaged:

Independent Antiwar Intervention
in the 2008 Election Campaigns

By Carl Davidson
Keep On Keepin’ On

February 13, 2008

If our peace movement wants to make some far-reaching gains in the 2008 election cycle, it doesn’t have much time to waste. Super Tuesday is over, the remaining campaigns will end in November, and critical events are moving at a rapid pace.

Most important, ending the war in Iraq needs to be a greater part of everyone’s political decisions in 2008 than it is now.

In mid-February, we’re down to four main candidates, plus the Greens—two Republicans who promise to win the war, whatever the cost, even if it takes decades, and two Democrats who promise to end it, with less than desirable timelines and qualifications.

Large numbers of Americans critical of the war have decided to enter this arena in one way or another—but they are not necessarily part of the one million or so who have taken to the streets to date. Most have not. The most obvious is the insurgent wave of youth taking up Barak Obama’s cause, seeing him as their favored instrument to end the war and advance other progressive causes. They may make other choices later, but they have chosen to enter the fray this way, whether anyone else thinks it’s the best way or not.

Yet we, the more seasoned core of the antiwar movement, are not as engaged as we could be. Tom Hayden has elsewhere argued forcefully—‘After Super Tuesday, Time for Peace Movement to Get Off the Sidelines’--on why the peace and justice movements need to deploy more of its forces. At the risk on repeating some of his points, I’ll focus on some of the key ways it can actually be done, although just about any way would be better than doing nothing.

Political Intervention. With all the various ‘plans’ regarding Iraq being floated, it’s important that the peace movement stake out its position, and the one shared by the antiwar majority among the people themselves, of immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq and their return home. Every candidate of every party needs to be directly confronted with this at every public forum. While there are important differences among them, not one of those remaining completely shares this perspective. They are either lagging behind the electorate or opposing it. Those who claim to want to end the war, at whatever level they are contending, need to be openly informed that they only gain support by taking a stronger stand.

Ballot Intervention. We can also directly put issues on the ballot, as well as into the discussion. Near West Citizens for Peace & Justice, for example, put a cutoff of funding for the war on the ballot at its township level in a working-class suburb of Chicago in the recent primary, where it won by 77 percent. Since electoral law varies, this may not be practical in some areas, but wherever it can be done, it’s a great nonpartisan, non-endorsing tool to bring antiwar votes to the polls.

Expanding the Electorate. This is already shaping up to be an historic election with a record-breaking turnout, if for no other reason than the likelihood of the ‘White Guys Only’ sign being taken from the Oval Office. Growing numbers want to be part of that history, and not just watch it. Still, the sharper the differences are drawn with the unabashed defenders of prolonging the war, the greater the potential turnout. But it has to be organized. Some new voters register themselves, but many do not until they are encouraged, especially among young people. The antiwar movement has everything to gain from registering voters in a nonpartisan fashion, so that the contact list with the new voters belong to it, rather than any party. Most states make it easy for volunteer organizations to get new registrations on their own and turn them in. There’s nothing standing in our way but our own lack of initiative.

Shaping and Informing the Electorate. A few years back the average voter was a 60-year-old retired economically liberal but socially conservative blue collar woman in a ‘white’ working-class suburb. But everything changes, especially in times of crisis, and there’s no law of the universe or even demographics that says it has to remain that way. Expanding the electorate comes in many flavors—the promoting more war and injustice crowd certainly works on expanding it in their direction, and there’s no reason we can’t do it our way. Moreover, an electorate more educated on the war—disabused of notions that Iraq caused 9/11 and other such lies and illusions—is more likely to vote rationally on the war, and to make educated selections among the candidates on their own, with an assist from wide distribution of candidate position survey and score cards, candidate night debates, and so on.

Identifying the Antiwar Electorate. Knowing that a majority of the electorate is critical of the war is one thing. It’s quite another to know all the names and addresses of voters in your precinct who are opposed to the war, support the war, or waver in between. The additional information is empowering to those who hold it, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be in the hands of our neighborhood-based peace and justice groups. But you have to do old-fashioned, door-to-door organizing to get it. Fortunately, a voter registration drive in an election cycle is an excellent way to do it. And it’s an additional plus that the same information is more than useful for mass mobilizations and other projects beyond Election Day.

Mobilizing the Electorate. Potential voters who are registered and antiwar but don’t make it to the polls don’t help much. There’s no reason we can’t organize nonpartisan GOTV—Get Out The Vote—events, not only ourselves, but with all our allies among churches, schools and unions. This way the relationships and ties belong to you after the election, not to any party. No one’s campaign reaches far enough into every corner; there’s always work to be done in areas where it’s not crowded but important to us nonetheless. Again, you can get your antiwar voters to the polls without endorsing anyone. They’ll figure out what to do.

Protecting and Securing the Vote. Perhaps I’m biased by my years in Chicago, but, yes, this is crucial to know how to do. Getting all sorts of voters to the polls doesn’t help much if you can’t get a fair and reliable count. There’s lots of justified concern about electronic machines these days, but in the 1980s, I went through an excellent three-hour training on ‘100 things to watch for’ to prevent stealing the vote when all the ballots were paper. (One was to look for long, sharpened fingernails on those handing out ballots. A wink from the precinct captain would get an unfavorable person’s ballot ‘nicked’ for later removal). It’s definitely worthwhile getting a number of people trained and positioned as poll watchers and election judges, for the future as well as the present.

Staking Claim to the Vote. It’s not very convincing to politicians or anyone else for us to claim a positive gain from an election we had nothing to do with, save for cheerleading on the sidelines. But to the degree we can reasonably claim responsibility for favorable results and turnouts in one battle, it enhances our independent ‘clout’ in future battles, inside and outside the electoral arena. It enhances our ability to ‘counter-spin’ the outcomes and post-election battles from those who would marginalize us. Most important, no matter who is elected, the need for an ongoing, independent and election-savvy organization is going to be more needed than ever in the dangerous ‘end game’ to Bush’s disaster in Iraq.

There are different sets of rules for doing all the above, depending on whether your local group or coalition is a 501C3, a 501C4, a straightforward public interest group with a bank account and no tax exempt status, or just an ad-hoc group of volunteers. If you are in doubt as to what can or can’t be done, and have a status that needs defending, consult a lawyer with some experience on the topic. But don’t fall for the claim that you can’t do anything.

There’s a lot that can be done, preferably completely independent of any party or campaign. If your imagination fails, you can always get to the organizations of the candidates or party of your choice, but do it now. You don’t want to tell your grandchildren that you sat on the sidelines in the Election of 2008.

[Carl Davidson is author, together with Marilyn Katz, of ‘Stopping War, Seeking Justice,’ available at lulu.com/changemaker. He was founder and director of Peace and Justice Voters 2004 in Chicago, and a member of the steering committee of United for Peace and Justice. See carldavidson.blogspot.com for more information.]

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Rust to Renewal: Churches & Third Wave Change

Rust to Renewal:
A Case Study of the Religious
Response to Deindustrialization

Joshua D Reichard
Vision Publishing, 2007
180 pp, pb $12.99



Reviewed by Carl Davidson

"Rust to Renewal", as this book’s title implies, is about the decline of American steel towns in the 1970s and 1980s, the responses of their communities—most importantly, their churches—and whether there is still hope for the future in these places.

These are critical topics even in 2008, especially with an economic recession and growing unemployment on the horizon, along with debates over what does or does not constitute a proper ‘stimulus’ to the economy.

Author Joshua Reichard uses Youngstown, Ohio and the surrounding Mahoning River Valley as his case in point; and the story he tells may seem old news to many people still residing there. The Youngstown area, moreover, was only part of a wider region, stretching from Wheeling, W VA, through Pittsburgh, PA to Cleveland, OH. This was the country’s steel heartland, and by the end of the 1980s, some 100,000 steel mill jobs were permanently abolished, with great distress to those concerned..
Back in 1977, on ‘Black Monday,’ after being told repeated lies and given false hopes, thousands of Youngstown area steelworkers were summarily fired. The mills were shut down, and a community lost what it perceived as a decent future.

The workers, however, and their community allies, mainly churches, were hardly passive. During a series of protests, they formed the Ecumenical Coalition, which, together with the local Steelworkers Union, had considerable clout, at least for a time, and they forced the owners into negotiations. To make a long story short, they tried to buy out the failing mill, take it over, reorganize production, and run it themselves. They took the battle all the way to Jimmy Carter’s White House, but abruptly lost, sabotaged mainly by Beltway federal bureaucrats and rival steel bosses.

If you’re looking for a detailed critique of where the Ecumenical Coalition and the steelworkers went wrong, settling old scores, you won’t find it here. But if you think it important that workers and community allies waged a valiant battle, and want to look to the future with some fresh ideas to deal with ongoing problems, this slim volume is a good place to start.

It needs to be said that Reichard has been bitten by the ‘Toffler bug,’ a condition this reviewer shares. He’s read ‘The Third Wave’ by Alvin Toffler, a book published in 1980 but still reading like it was written yesterday about today. Toffler has analyzed modern society from the perspective of the revolution in the means of production wrought by microprocessors, where he posits a ‘second wave’ era of smokestack industry in decline, while a ‘third wave’ society based on high-technology is on the rise. That’s very condensed, but suffice it to say that, according to Toffler, smaller numbers of ‘knowledge workers’ replace larger numbers of unskilled and semi-skilled industrial workers, even in the new high-tech manufacturing firms that survive and thrive in the ‘third wave.’ Reichard explains:

“While the American steel industry lost 350,000 jobs in the 1980s and 1990s, it was simultaneously technologically advanced and more productive. (Youngstown Vindicator, 11/11/2003). Manufacturing productivity was $7634 higher per worker in 1998 than it was in 1979 and nonmanufacturing productivity was $461 per worker lower…” (‘Ohio’s Competitive Advantage’, E. Hill, Cleveland State University, 2001).

Finally, Toffler doesn’t just apply this revolution in the productive forces to the world of work, but broadly, against the entire culture of second-wave civilization.

As a sociologist as well as a faith-based activist, Reichard tries to apply a wide range of Toffler’s hypotheses to the Youngstown case, not only about the old battles, but mainly looking forward. What’s of particular interest is his application of the ‘third wave-second wave’ analytical tools to the city’s churches. Here he breaks some original ground in his discussion of Catholics and main-line Protestants as second wave and in decline, while Protestant evangelicals are third wave, dynamic and rising. Briefly, according to Reichard, looking at evangelicals as simply right wing and opposed to economic and social justice misses the mark, at least in the story of Youngstown and the Rust Belt. He elaborates, quoting J Straub in the March 23, 2006 Monthly Review:

“The left has all but abandoned these places where the factories closed and unions died…a right-wing network of churches and businesses offered exactly what the CIO once did: both short-term material gains for members and a militantly transformative vision of the world.”

Reichard’s perspective contains a number of benchmarks. First, he understands that unions and employees can’t win these battles, or even advance their interests, on their own, isolated from allies. Second, he understands that ‘the church’ is not just buildings and sermons divided up by creed and congregation. It’s the community of the faithful throughout the locality, and that community includes union members and their neighbor’s side-by-side with many others in the community. The church, then, can provide both common ground and a launching pad for broad alliances.

What vision and values hold sway among the community of the faithful thus becomes a matter of critical importance. Digging deeply into this, and trying to provide some guidance, makes up the heart of the book. To see where Reichard’s strengths and weaknesses lie, it helps to take a step back, and raise some broader questions.

Reichard sees a transition to third wave civilization as inevitable; what he wants to do is make it as harmonious and painless to the greatest numbers as possible. That’s fine, but the devil is in the details. Third wave civilization, like those before it, has a range of interests and views, running the gamut from far right to far left. Class struggle still exists, even if it’s manifested in odd and different ways.

In today’s policy discussions, it’s helpful first to segment the business community into two camps, ‘low road’ and ‘high road,’ or roughly, speculative capital vs. productive capital, regardless of their ‘wave’ status. Low roaders are focused only of the quarterly bottom line, are anti-union, and usually don’t care much for the environment, their community or even their customers. They would buy stressed industries to gut them, and then use the proceeds to gamble in derivatives. High roaders make money the old-fashioned way: they produce a quality product for satisfied customers, and reward their workers, and raise their skills and input, so they’ll continue doing the same, and part of the reward is everyone gets to live in a healthy, sustainable environment.

Reichard hints at this distinction early on, when he raises the competing development models of Youngstown, OH versus Allentown, PA. Allentown is the more successful by far, and the quote on the topic cited by the author even uses the ‘high road’ terminology.

“Allentown can be characterized as having adhered to the high road which has involved the transformation of existing companies to make them competitive on a global scale, attracting inward investment of high-skill jobs and the emergence of a strong entrepreneurial sector. Youngstown, on the other hand, has suffered from an inability to develop a coherence approach to attracting inward investment, a lack of entrepreneurship, and the inability of major local employers to transform in ways that benefit the community.’ (‘Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown, S. Safford, MIT, 2004, p. 27)

Reichard really doesn’t elaborate on this, even though it’s critical to where he wants to go. He wants more than worker-run or community-run second wave industries; he wants ethical concerns to be a component of the new and emerging marketplace.

But this is why the ‘high road-low road’ approach is so important. The distinction is drawn exactly by making wider human values central to economic development. Economies, after all, are made up of people, and it would be distorting and self-defeating to push human values out of the picture as some annoying ‘externality.’ ‘High Road’ values are rooted in respect for the environment (economies as subsets of the ecosystem), solidarity, democracy, community citizenship—all these form the core of the ‘solidarity economy’ emerging as a new development model, locally, nationally and globally. Reichard is entering this arena by a different door, as a pastor seeking to meet the economic justice concerns of his flock within the framework of the spiritual mission of the church. To do so, he has to identify and first do battle with a number of theological trends that block the way, rather the competing economic models others have to deal with.

Applying Toffler as a starting point, Reichard’s analysis of Mainline Protestants and Catholics as ‘second wave’ and Evangelicals as ‘third wave’ contains more than a grain of truth, but also has some serious limitations. Most established religions, for instance, rest on a value that reaches back to the ‘first wave,’ to feudalism and even earlier—the value of submission. With the Protestant revolt, the values of self-cultivation, self-salvation, or, to use Reichard’s term, ‘individualistic piety’ began gaining the upper hand over submissiveness. The practice of early Scots-Irish Presbyterians staying on their feet while praying, refusing the ‘papist’ practice of kneeling, comes to mind.

But the mainline churches do largely reflect the corporate structures and hierarchies of smokestack industrialism, even in their ‘collective bargaining’ and ‘electoral’ approaches to gaining any implementation of the social gospel of reform. Likewise, the evangelical movement would be nowhere near as strong as it is today had it ignored the revolutions in mass communications. Radio, television, the internet, computerized direct mail—all these are tightly integrated into the evangelical ministries. They make use of third wave technologies far more than their mainline rivals. Personal salvation, likewise, dovetails neatly with hacker libertarianism.

What’s missing here, however, is a broader picture of third wave religion and spirituality in the U.S. Taken as a whole, third-wave spirituality also has a substantial left or liberal wing in the rise of the New Age. This trend has self-cultivation at its core without the older dualist feudal trappings of a Creation submitting to a Creator. Overlapping with this is the multiculturalist rise of practices in the U.S. of Hinduism, via yoga, and Buddhism, via meditation and the ecological politics of its ‘socially engaged’ trend. The several organized centers of secular humanism also belong in this ‘left wing’ of third wave spirituality.

Reichard doesn’t have to go too far from Youngstown to see this up close. Cleveland’s favorite son (or problem child, depending on your viewpoint) is Congressman Dennis Kucinich, raised a Catholic, but now clearly influenced by the New Age, and a staunch fighter for the rights and concerns of the Rust Belt working class nonetheless.

The reason this is problematic in this context is that Reichard wants to make ‘Transformational Christianity’ the centerpiece of his resolution of tension between second wave and third wave Christians. This may be proper within that realm, but that’s only one sector across the whole range of the culture and religions of the third wave. The ecumenical alliances he projects would do very well to look beyond Christendom for partners.

Reichard uses a number of sociological instruments to explain the possibilities and obstacles to his faith-based coalition building. These are at once very useful and a little distracting; it’s evident that the book started as an academic document, and all the citations sometimes get in the way of easier reading. Suffice it to say that hardly anyone is written off; it’s mainly a matter of finding the right approach to win them over

But getting a keener grasp of today’s solidarity economics would serve his project well. The regional success of tens of thousands of workers taking control and ownership of 200 firms in the Mondragon region of Spain is the obvious place to start, but there are others in North America and elsewhere around the world. Likewise with the political depth and toughness required to build what the Gramscians call the ‘counter-hegemonic alliance.’ This is actually what Reichard is calling for, even if he’s not aware of it, and it would help considerably in not repeating the outcomes of an earlier era.

[Carl Davidson is a veteran activist and writer with the peace and justice movement, and currently working with the US Solidarity Economy Network (www.ussen.org) His daily blog and other links are at http://carldavidson.blogspot.com. This book can be purchased at http://www.rusttorenewal.com/buy.htm
Read more!

Debating Iraq In Blue-Collar America

Beaver County Times

Letters on the War

Painting: 'Night Shift, Aliquippa'

[This is a lightly edited selection of a thread of letters over several recent months debating 'Bring the Troops Home' in the main newspaper of Beaver County, PA. Situated on the border of West Virginia and Ohio, in 1960 it was noted as the most 'blue-collar' county in all of the U.S. It still is in many ways, although now it is the poster child for unstrained globalized deindustrialization. Many of its mill towns are now nearly ghost towns, which has done wonders for the environment, but has taken its toll on the people. As the last letter notes, the County is solidly against the war, but not necessarily for the same reasons as a college town. I have my home base here now, and jump into the debate about a third of the way down --CarlD ]

Bringing the Troops Home

Lonzie Cox - Thursday, December 27, 2007 7:15 AM EST

In March 2006, The Times printed a letter from an officer who was writing from Camp Victory Iraq.  He was writing to express his feelings toward those of us who were against the invasion of Iraq and would go so far as to demonstrate against the resulting war.

He felt that not supporting the war was the same as not supporting the troops.

I responded that the best way to support the troops was to bring them home safely as soon as possible.Last week, I saw a letter to the editor from him and noticed he's back home from Iraq.  Great.  That's all anyone wants - to get the troops home and the war over.

+++ SWV wrote on Dec 27, 2007 8:38 AM:

" We all want the troops home and the war won.  Unfortunately, Iraq is only one battle in the war on terror.  It won't be over for many, many years.  "

+++ Gary Seevers wrote on Dec 27, 2007 8:49 AM:

" I agree!  It's time to bring home the troops!!  The U.S cannot win this war!  Iraq is infested with Muslim terrorists!  It will never end.  If the U.S kills 5,000 terrorists, there will be 5,000 more coming at them!  If the U.S kills bin Laden, someone else just as wicked will take his place.  It's a never ending war!  BRING THEM HOME

+++ LMAO wrote on Dec 27, 2007 9:23 AM:

" Gary Seevers,  go hide from your fears and those you feel you can not beat.  Your defeatist attitude demonstrates why you probably have achieved so little in life.  If it is too hard for you your probably quit and run.  I am guessing your parents made excuses for you everytime things got tuff for you as a kid.  Now and more importantly you have probably created coward children that you probably make excuses for, and teach them it is easier to run and hide from things that are too tuff to take on.  What a baby.  If I was your kid I would be ashamed but fortunately I am not, I simply see you as a coward.  "

+++ Gulf War Vet wrote on Dec 27, 2007 11:52 AM:

" Bring the troops home after crushing the insurgents and organized terrorism?  Absolutely.  Bring them home before that, and the war will come home with them.  "

+++ Ron wrote on Dec 27, 2007 3:17 PM:

" Ok Mr Democrat a little history: WWII FDR (Democratic) began our involvement in that war by attacking Germany, Germany did not attack us, Japan did.  Truman(Democratic) ended that war and began another in Korea.  North Korea never attacked us.
John Kennedy(Democratic) began our involvement in Vietnam, Johnson turned it into an unmanageable mess.  North Vietnam never attacked us.  Clinton(Democratic) began our conflict in Bosnia, Bosnia Never attacked us. Janet Reno(Democratic) spent far more time liberating the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco that the 3rd ID did to take Iraq.  George Bush took less time to liberate two countries that it took Hilary Clinton to find financial records pertaining to her involvement in the Rose Law Firm. So when you want to point fingers,  look in the mirror and the finger is pointed back at you.  "

+++ Tommy S.  wrote on Dec 28, 2007 1:19 AM:
" Bring them home and don't stop there, bring ALL the US troops home from every foreign country and shut down the bases there.  Our involvement overseas gets us into trouble and its bankrupting us.  Our government is too big, too expensive and too dangerous.  "

+++ Rich wrote on Dec 28, 2007 3:29 AM:
" This blog has become infested with deranged Righty cranks since the new format was started.  There were Righty cranks on here before the change for sure, and they were wacky enough, but these new guys seem positively delusional.  By the way Ron, for your info Hitler declared war on America.  Read up on it sometime.  And are you referring to the day that idiot stood on the aircraft carrier and declared "Mission Accomplished" as the day he won the Iraq war?  Shame on you schmuck.  "

+++ James Lucci wrote on Dec 28, 2007 1:05 PM:
" Way to go Cox, keep spouting the party line.  I guess during the Cold War, your motto was better Red and than dead.  We all want to see our troops home but we want them to be victorious.  I believe the surge is in Iraq is working although you don't know it by the media reporting and we need to give Gen Petreous a chance.  I understand that Iran has cut back on the terrorists they were supporting.  I also believe there are troops now returing.  Thepictures I see on local TV when a unit comes home is one of gladness and never have I heard an interviewee say anything bad about the war.  In fact, since the army raised the age limit, I have an acquaintance who is a preacher that has applied for a commission to go to Iraq as a chaplain and his family supports him.  How much longer do you think the Vietnam war last ed thanks to the efforts of Hanoi Jane, Kerry, et al?  "

+++ Digger wrote on Dec 29, 2007 2:52 AM:
" Enlistment in our selective service is way down since the war began.  Our soldiers have not openly disgraced this war because it is their duty to serve our country.  I disagree with the involvement of our troops in this unjustified war declared by a fruitcake who falsified his facts.  I do not see any of you supporting our veteran's claimants demanding full medical benefits for your veteran.  As diligently as you so claim to be why are you not demanding your president & congress issue full medical insurance policies for life to our veterans?  No guts but love the glory as long as you don't have to fight.  I've supported full medical from day one; an excellent savings for any employer to hire a VET.  They are fighting for our freedom; it is the least we can demand our politicians give back.  The fruitcake attempting to show how knowledgeable he was in history: Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt answered the attack with his "a date which will live in infamy" speech and a formal declaration of war.  Germany then declared war on us not us on Germany.  "

+++ Russ wrote on Dec 29, 2007 12:40 PM:

Rich: RE: " This blog has become infested with deranged Righty cranks..." - to you, EVERYONE who doesn't accept every word of yours as Gospel is a neo-Con, Dittohead, etc., even if their only crime is NOT hating Bush as much as you do.  RE: "And are you referring to the day that idiot stood on the aircraft carrier and declared "Mission Accomplished" as the day he won the Iraq war?" - The original mission, driving Saddam from power, WAS accomplished.  The new mission began when al Quaida started the civil war, by blowing up Shiite and Sunni mosques to turn the rival factions against each other.  Neither Bush nor anyone else were prepared for that, which was a big mistake.  RE: " Shame on you schmuck." - I see you haven't lost your flair for name-calling in lieu of actual debating skills.  Happy new year!  "

+++ Carl Davidson wrote on Dec 30, 2007 10:00 AM:
" 'Victory' is Iraq is a delusion, held by Bush and the NeoCons, to justify a war for oil.

The bin Laden crew entered Iraq AFTER us, to torment both the people there and our troops.  The people of Iraq can deal with them, but AFTER we leave.  And we can deal with the criminal enterprise of theocratic terrorism best through global collective security, not endless 'wars on terror' that produce the opposite of their proclaimed aim.

The longer we stay, the worse is will get and the harder we'll fall.  Bush has sold enough lies; don't buy any more.  Bring all the troops home now.  "

+++ Duke wrote on Dec 30, 2007 10:23 PM:
" I laugh at these "patriotic" Republicans waving their Chi-com made American flags saying they support the troops.  If Republicans really do support the troops then they would demand a draft to give those serving a needed break from that hell hole.

But asked why no member of their family is serving, they'll say "but my child has a good job." Yes, in a Republican's eyes, serving in the military has nothing to do with obligation or duty to one's country, but an employment opportunity for the middle class.

Yea, Republicans support the boys over there, but not one would be good enough to date their daughter.  "

+++ Rich wrote on Dec 31, 2007 11:23 AM:
" Russ.  You must have lost track of the sequence of official lies put out by Bush and the Neocons to excuse their pointless, preventable war.  The "Original Mission" as you call it, wasn't specifically to topple Saddam; the original reason they gave for the invasion was that Iraq had WMD's and nuclear materials and had ties to el Qaida, and that there was no alternative but to invade immediately.  It wasn't until after the invasion, when those reasons were found to be untrue and had actually been fabricated by the Bush administration, that they decided the actual reason we invaded was to rescue the Iraqis from a ruthless dictator and to spread democracy. 

That's been pretty much the standard operating procedure of this administration; to lie, then blunder, then lie your way out of the blunder.  If Bushies like you and Ron are going to persist in defending that indefensible buffoon for the damage he's done to this country, at least try to get basic historical facts straight.  And don't complain when you earn only contempt from others for your dogged devotion to the worst president in US history.  Happy New Year.  "

+++ Jonathan wrote on Jan 2, 2008 10:43 AM:
" AMEN Big Dah...The DUMBOCRATS can't accept the fact that the Iraq war is going good and success is being seen.  They will bash Bush for everything under the sun.  This war will go down as one of the biggest successes' this country has ever had.  These dumbocrats won't say 2 cents when their dumbocrat leaders like Onorato [local pol] solves problems by raising taxes instead of controlling spending.  i.e.  drink tax and rental car tax.  Typical liberal policies tax and spend, tax and spend and tax and spend.  Wake up you DUMBOcrats "

+++ Russ wrote on Jan 3, 2008 4:30 PM:
" Rich - I stand by my statement.  The "Original Mission" WAS to topple Saddam.  The RATIONAL behind the mission was the WMD threat, which pretty much everyone agreed was real (including the Clintons, Kerry, Kennedy, Biden, etc.).  France, Russia, the UK and the UN concurred, based on their separate intelligence (are you going to accuse Bush of doctoring THEIR intel too?).  Saddam had WMD, and used them to massacre the Kurds and Iranians.  It was NOT up to us to prove he still had them - IAW the '91 cease-fire terms that HE agreed to, it was up to HIM to prove he'd destroyed them.  Meanwhile, while it's true the Shiites and Sunnis have had bad blood for eons, work on a power and revenue-sharing deal among them and the Kurds was underway until al Qaida successfully ignited the civil war with their bombings (remember when they started, how Sunni and Shiite leaders appealed to followers NOT to react with violence?).  Finally (one more time), people might take your "Daily Kos" opinions more seriously if you'd quit calling everyone who disagrees with you a "Bushie"!  "

+++ Carl Davidson wrote on Jan 3, 2008 6:51 PM:
" Russ, how do you prove you don't have something?

The bottom line is you can't.

'Proof' of a negative is practically impossible, especially if its of a fact, as in 'the WMD could have been taken elsewhere, and hidden anywhere on the planet...and so on, which we've all heard.

Listen to Alan Greenspan if you don't believe me.  This war is about oil, and the strategic control of the proceeds from it.  All the convoluted analysis you present is beside the point.

If it was about going after the perpetrators of 9/11, we'd have a completely different policy focused on the Afghan-Pakistan border region, but our macho bigwigs are rather impotent there, since the Pakistanis have nukes.

No, the invasion of Iraq was a big Neocon diversion, and, thank goodness, most people now see through it.  Bring all our troops home now.  "

+++ Russ wrote on Jan 3, 2008 9:04 PM:
" Carl - Great letter with great points!  You're a far better debater than Rich, who presumes anyone who dares defend Bush is a "Bush lover" (hey, I sometimes defend the Clintons too; does that make me a "Clinton lover"?).  Anyway, I agree with Greenspan's comments, specifically his later ones to clarify the one you cited: it IS largely about oil, and the need to keep control of it from those who hate us.  Imagine if Hugo Chavez were appointed Prime Minister of OPEC, or if al Qaida toppled the Saudi royal family.  We'd be in a world of hurt, and Rich would be blaming Bush (who you'd think was running for re-election, to hear some of these Democratic presidential candidates!).  As for bringing the troops home now, they probably would've been home months ago if al Qaida hadn't started their bombing campaign.  If they were smart they would've laid low until we left, THEN started their rein of terror.  As for the current high oil prices, which even OPEC wants to be lower (more long-term profits for them), we seem to be at the mercy of weasel Commodities speculators.  Cheers!  "

+++ Russ wrote on Jan 3, 2008 9:22 PM:
" Carl - Regarding "proving we don't have something", that's easy.  Russia and the US having been doing it for years, as part of our bilateral dismantling of our nukes and chemical weapons under supervision of inspectors.  All Saddam had to do was cooperate with the UN inspectors and he'd still likely be in power.  Instead he played his stupid shell games, trying to show the Arab world he was still the Big Man there.  He very possibly DID destroy the WMDs (which would've been easy for him to prove), but he still wanted Iran and the other neighbors to fear and respect him (per his alleged confession during his final incarceration).  In the end his bluff cost him his sons' and his own life, and cost us thousands of Coalition military members and untold Iraqi civilian lives.  Still, if al Qaida hadn't thrown their monkey wrench into the works, our troops would pretty much all be home, thousands of lives would've been spared and Iraqi oil revenues would be rebuilding the country (let's NOT get into Halliburton, please!).  Cheers!  "

+++ Carl Davidson wrote on Jan 4, 2008 9:09 AM:
" Russ, you forget that the inspectors concluded there was no evidence of continuing WMDs, and that invasion was unwarranted, Ask Hans Blitz or Scott Ritter, or read their books.

As for al-Qaeda, I think they want us there.  They came in afterwards, to wage 'the war of the flea' against us, using our troops for training, target practice and propaganda purposes.  They don't have much support in Iraq otherwise.  If we leave, the Iraqis themselves will be in a better position to toss them out.

That's why this war has been such a disaster.  It's never had a 'just cause', which means, in the Islamic world at least, a world of 1.2 billion people, the just cause is seen as resisting us, and bin Laden and his crew win that political point, even with any ups and downs on the battlefield.

If you think these guys are losing, just look at Pakistan, and ask what happens if their allies come to power their.  Once that was a remote possibility, now not so remote.

And I'm not the only one making these points.  One former top CIA guy, tossed by Bush, did so in Foreign Affairs recently.  "

+++ Gary wrote on Jan 4, 2008 9:12 AM:
" LMAO, Everyone knows the United States can't win the war in Iraq.  Do you realize how hard it is to go into someone else's land and try to defeat the bad guy?  American soldiers are committing suicide just to escape this misery George W.  Bush has created.  If you think it is bad now..  Just wait until the United States gets involved with Iran.  Then we are heading for a whole new trouble.  And the war would not follow us home if we had tighter boarder security!!!  Start with (A) before you go to (B) "

+++ Rich wrote on Jan 4, 2008 9:16 AM:
" Anyone reading this blog who still wonders if there's any doubt that Bush's invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake should Google the title "Iraq war timeline".  You'll find accounts from a wide variety of news and media sources which all tell the same basic story; that Bush rushed us into an unnecessary, preventable war.  Russ.  You ignore too many hard facts while drawing your revisionist picture of events. 

The UN weapons inspectors said in early March 2003 that they would need a few more months to confirm that Iraq had no WMD's, which would rule out the need for an invasion.  Bush used the absurd excuse that it would be too hot for the troops if we waited until summer to invade.  As for the chaos that ensued post-invasion, it's well known that Bush ignored the General's advice that a much larger US force would be needed.  With no plan by the US in place to consolidate a military victory, Iraq fell into rioting and mob rule.  The idea that everything was coming up roses until el Qaida showed up is ridiculous.  PS.  Anyone who supports or excuses Bush gets my contempt, not a debate.  "

+++ RR wrote on Jan 7, 2008 9:26 AM:
" One of the biggest decisions Bush got right was going on the offense against terrorism.  Every one of the current Republican presidential candidates give Bush credit for going on the offense against terrorists except for Ron Paul who is really a Libertarian.  When terrorists attack the U.S.  they can expect a response.  No President is perfect as there was some mismanagement and not enough troops initially but Bush adjusted and now conditions have improved dramatically in Iraq and our troops will come home victorious.  We have had no further attacks on U.S soil since 911.  The best defense is a good offense and Bush got that right.  "

+++ Russ wrote on Jan 8, 2008 1:19 PM:
" Rich - Anyone can Google "Iraq war timeline" and find revised timelines to support both our viewpoints - just pick and choose.  My position is based on following events in real time, as they happened during my former day job (where I had a vested interest in the outcome).  RE: your comment "Anyone who supports or excuses Bush gets my contempt, not a debate." - Please re-read the Comment Rules below.  This is a DEBATE forum, not a CONTEMPT forum.  I recommend you check three of my favorite far-Left sites, 'Daily Kos', 'Huffington Post' and 'Democratic Underground'.  There you'll find many people like yourself, united by a blinding hatred of Bush that renders them incapable of any objective reasoning.  There's more bile and hatred there than ANYTHING I've ever heard from Limbaugh, Coulter or Savage!  My favorite line from one DU poster: 'Even if (Bush) finds a cure for cancer I'll still hate him!'.  Meanwhile, to CPT Matt - Thanks, and may God be with you and your colleagues!  "

+++ Russ wrote on Jan 8, 2008 1:30 PM:
" Carl - I HAVE read Hans Blix and Scott Ritter, with all their self-contradictions.  I remember being especially baffled by Ritter's abrupt 180-degree reversal, until it was revealed he'd accepted $400,000 in laundered Iraqi 'Oil for Food' money.  It's obvious you and I will always disagree on this topic, but at least we agree we want the troops back ASAP.  The only difference is if we do it "your" way, the terrorists can once again claim the drove us out (as in Lebanon and Somalia), and all our troops would've died in vain.  Let's not give up just yet - I've got too many friends still over there who want to win this thing, without having their hands tied behind their backs by politicians!  "

+++ Rich wrote on Jan 8, 2008 5:09 PM:
" Russ.  Any US president who sends this country into a preventable war deserves to be hated, and should be held accountable for committing such an offense.  Our troops started dying in vain the day Bush sent them into that quagmire with a bad plan, inadequate equipment, and no justifiable reason for being there.  Leaving them there now, still in harms way, doesn't justify anything.  As for your claim of having a position based on actual events, I'd like to know which events those were.  They couldn't include anything about the reasons Bush gave for his blunder, which all turned out to be lies.
Concerning your displeasure with my lack of civility when dealing with people like you...  too bad.  You enable that abomination with your support of his crimes, and deserve the contempt you get.  "

+++ Carl Davidson wrote on Jan 8, 2008 8:46 PM:
" You make my point, Russ, that it's impossible to prove a negative, since you believe even the inspectors can't be trusted, Ritter or Blix.

But you have an assumption that you would do well to question, that our military is omnipotent, ie, it can win any war, any time any place -- so long as it's not stabbed in the back by politicians.

I'm looking at things differently.  Everyone has their limits, including our military.  That's why is important that the politicians use them wisely, in self-defense and for a just cause.  Bush squandered them for an unjust cause that had nothing to do with self-defense, and we're still paying the price.  A positive outcome in Iraq is the Iraqi peoples' national independence and their control of their own wealth, including their oil.  As long as that's not our goal--and it's not, read the oil law we're trying to impose on them--there is no victory to be had.  That's why we need to yank them out now, before it gets worse, and dump the bill on the politicians who really sold us out and stabbed our troops in the back, Bush, the Neocons and their oil buddies.  "

+++ Rich wrote on Jan 8, 2008 10:51 PM:
" Russ.  Thanks for sparing me any more of your disjointed reasoning and cockeyed rationale for condoning Bush's blunder.  You must have applied that same style of thought to your last comment, seeing my comment as somehow proving your point.  Yikes!  Anyhow… FYI.  I did two tours in Vietnam, so you can also spare me the snotty remarks about who did or didn't serve their country.  "

+++ Russ wrote on Jan 9, 2008 9:49 AM:
" Rich - First, I stand corrected.  My apologies, and kudos for your service!  Second, why do you have so much trouble understanding that I've been trying to help you gain some credibility around here, instead of being branded a "troll" (someone who refuses to participate in civilized debate, and engages in name-calling and verbal grenade-tossing instead)?  Also, you consistently call anyone who remotely defends ANYTHING Bush (who I have major issues with, BTW) does a "Bushie" or "Bush Lover". 

Okay - Clinton defied the UN and dragged NATO into Bosnia.  Millions around the globe took to the streets, calling Clinton a tyrant and chanting "Death to America".  Our troops died, and many are still there.  It turns out the "genocide" numbers were WAY overstated, and that the real motivation might have been poll numbers (a "Wag the Dog" scenario).  Yet after some initial skepticism (as with Iraq), I ultimately concluded our going into Bosnia was a "just" cause.  Now, does this make me a "Clinton lover" deserving of your contempt?  Or are all of your opinions affected by your seething hatred of Bush?  "

+++ SSgt Aaron P.  wrote on Jan 9, 2008 7:10 PM:
" I am a Staff Sergeant of Marines and a three time Iraqi War Veteran.  Personal opinions are personal opinions, but I have walked by a war protest in my uniform and.....believe me, they are definitely against the troops.  Most of them are either hippies who miss the 60's or wannabe hippy kids that wish they were born early enough to burn a flag and spit on a troop.  I want us to all come home when the job is over, and judging by my last tour to Western Iraq it will not be too much longer.  Then what will the Democrats cry about when we win?  "

+++ Rich wrote on Jan 9, 2008 9:45 PM:
" To Russ.  No need to apologize to me because I happen to be a veteran.  Any negative feedback I get on here for my caustic approach is deserved.  As far as engaging in a civil discussion with those who still agree with Bush about his war… or anything else about his presidency, there's no point.  We are polarized, period.  There are 70% of us who see him as the worst president in US history and can't stand the sight of him, and the other 30% of you who apparently are blind to reality.  I figure calling names makes sense under these circumstances.

To Staff Sgt Aaron P.  You got it way wrong if you think your welcome home from the Iraq war in any way resembles what Vietnam vets got in the sixties.  I see only praise, gratitude, and positive attitudes from all sides, both pro-war and anti-war, concerning returning troops.  Stop complaining about those who want to see this unnecessary war brought to an end and your fellow Marines returned home safely.  Find out that your real enemies are those who sent you into harm's way for no good reason.
"

+++ Carl Davidson wrote on Jan 12, 2008 8:17 AM:
" To SSgt Aaron: You'll find all sorts of people, including Iraq vets and Vietnam vets, at antiwar protests.  At the last vigil at the Beaver Courthouse, we had 'Vets for Peace' there, but not one hippy, unfortunately, since they're welcome, too.

By the way, no antiwar hippy, or anyone else, ever spit on any returning GI in the 1960s.  It's a right wing myth, an urban legend.  A friend of mine, the national chair of Vietnam Vets vs the War, has offered $500 out of his own pocket to any vet who will tell him when and where he was spat upon.  He's done this countless times on mass media, and never had a taker.  Just think about it--when returning, where did the GIs actually disembark from, and wasn't the first thing they did was to jump into their civvies?

Military families are an important part of this antiwar movement.  They hate the lies even more than the rest of us.  People understand service and sacrifice for a just cause, but for control of oil?  "

+++ AOL wrote on Jan 12, 2008 10:51 PM:
" I have a nephew who is currently serving his 2nd tour in Iraq.  He is a Sergeant for the Army.  He himself has said that this war is a waste.  But is we are going to bring the troops home..  we need to bring them ALL home.  Leaving minimal troops there will be like signing their death warrant.  He has told us stories...  and some are pretty gruesome.  He stated to us several times how him and his army buddies HATE Bush and feel they are fighting a loosing battle.  However he said he will do the job that he was sent there to do.  We are VERY PROUD of our SOLDIER....  I hope they ALL come home...  I feel we are making the Iraqi's madder the longer we stay.  We can stay there for another 100 years and the war will still not have been won.  Come on guys...The Iraq's did not cause 9-11.  Bin Laden did...  he is an Iranian.  So WTF...  Bush is making good on the promise he made to his dad.  Something he couldn't finish himself.  "

+++ Majority rules wrote on Jan 13, 2008 9:42 PM:
" This is not a military state.  The majority of Americans want the troops home now.  Case closed.  "

Read more!

Making the 2008 Elections About the War in Iraq

A Nonpartisan Approach
to Bringing the War into
the 2008 Electoral Process
and Building the Popular
Power to Stop It


I think it's good that United for Peace & Justice is stressing engagement in the 2008 electoral process and working with resistance to the military and recruitment, as well as an ongoing support for mass and direct action.

Many people, however, are perplexed and even discouraged. Some say the Democratic leadership has wimped out, so lobbying or working the electoral arena is 'useless' and 'doesn't work.' Others say we've had one mass mobilization after another, the war goes on, and thus demonstrations 'don't work' either.

But it's just one-sided and wrong to start off saying none of our tactics are working much, and the conditions are too difficult to accomplish much anyway.

No single tactic or protest 'works.' We fight, we fail, we fight again, fail again, fight again, over and over, until we win--and we will. We have a just cause, and if we do our work steadfastly and well, it will prevail.

That's because what does work is the accumulative effect of all our activities, over time and in combination. We are waging a 'war of position' where, step-by-step, we capture institutions and gather strength. In doing so, we are laying the groundwork for a 'war of maneuver', a time when people in their millions erupt decisively and bring the war to a halt.

And don't kid yourself for a moment that we're not listened too or taken note of by the powers that be. They may strike a pose that they don't, but take my word for it: they probably pay more attention to our activities, and take us more seriously, than we do ourselves.

Here's how I'd frame it:

This war ends when three things happen.

The streets are filled and ungovernable, the soldiers and officers won't fight and youth targeted for recruitment won't join up, and when a Democratic Congress cuts off the money.

Now think backwards in time, and then lay the foundations in strategy and tactics on how to get from here to there.

Here's another point I'd stress: How do you measure success in any given battle?

Certainly not by whether the war ends because of it, for the simple reason that no single battle is going to end the war.

You measure success by whether or not you are better organized and have more fighting capacity after the battle than you did before you engaged your adversary. Conversely, is your adversary more isolated, divided and thus weaker than before?

So when we do any of these things--filling the streets, counter-recruitment and GI support, and electing people who will cut off the money and/or defeating those who won't--the main focus is best put on how we build OUR organizational strength. Not only whether we can reach out more broadly and pull more new forces into our camp, but also whether we consolidate our gains and deepen our abilities with new skills and resources.

We are fairly skilled at filling the streets. We are catching up on our work with soldiers and military families. But we are relatively weak on our electoral skills.

So that's what I'm going to focus on here now--not because it's the most important thing for this year--it may or may not be--but because it's where we're weakest, relatively speaking.

It's also important to note that large numbers of the antiwar majority in the country, millions of them, are not activists and are not yet ready to take to the streets. But that doesn't mean they won't do anything. They often will take up other forms of protest. For instance, in Chicago in 2006, 800,000 cast a ballot for 'Out Now', but no more than 25,000 all told have taken part in street actions that were primarily against the war in Iraq.

We can't just lead antiwar activists; we have to develop forms of engagement for non-activist antiwar people as well, especially if we want the ranks of the activists to grow.

To start, we have a major obstacle to overcome. We have been corrupted by decades of ultraleftism toward the electoral process. Because we have a dollarocracy with rotten choices, some people think they have the luxury of avoiding this arena, except, perhaps, at the last moment when on Election Day, when they'll tail after the most liberal option and cast a ballot.

That's EXACTLY what the Democratic Party bigwigs want us to do, and it's exactly wrong.

We have the electoral system history has placed in front of us, not one we'd like to have. But that doesn't mean it can't be structurally reformed. Even if it isn't reformed soon enough, this is still where one of the major battles is, and if you want to wage struggle on that front, you better do it there, and you better build something of your own to do struggle WITH. Otherwise, you might as well go fishing or let the Democratic Leadership Council types eat you for lunch.

How do we do it?

Step One. Start where you are, with our actually existing neighborhood-based, school-based or workplace-based peace and justice groups. If you're not rooted in this way, then step zero-to-one is to form such a group, because without one, your electoral activity is so much cafe chatter.

Step Two. Take stock of the electoral capacity of your group. How many of you have worked an election before? How many of you are deputy registrars or certified poll watchers and election judges? How many of you know where YOUR PRECINCT stands on the war--for, against, and undecided--AND THE VOTERS NAMES AND WHERE THEY LIVE? Most of you probably score low here, which is the point I'm trying to make. Step Two's task is to bring almost everyone in your group up to speed on these skills; mainly by having those who know how to do it train the rest while you're doing the work.

Step Three. Build your lists. You need a list of every registered voter, you then need to survey and "ID" them of where they stand on the war. You need to know where the unregistered voters most favorable to us are, then register them, in the thousands, expanding the electorate in our direction. You need lists of supporters, lists of donors, lists of election activists, or who might become active. These lists and skills then belong to YOU, not the Democrats or any other party or candidate. In my book, the true Leninists, in non-revolutionary times or otherwise, are those who get and grow the lists.

Step Four. At this point, you have something to begin intervening in election campaigns WITH. You have a means to put referendums and initiatives on the ballot, and the means to bring your own voters, especially new ones, out to the polls to vote on these measures. It also means political candidates now have a reason the pay attention to you in a more significant way. Having an important popular and moral message is not enough. Politicians, for the most part, pay more attention to messages that have money or organized voters behind them. Since our money is not that significant, we make it up with voters. When you do so, you begin to amass what's called 'clout,' and the means to deploy it.

Step Five. Who are your friends and allies? We don't win on our issues by ourselves. As Jesse Jackson puts it, we are only one patch in quilt, one stripe in the rainbow. We have to find others, who may have other priorities, but still agree with us on the war, to form a wide nonpartisan alliance, rooted with similar forces at the base, that can focus even more 'clout' into the election season and beyond.

Step Six. With these previous steps in motion, we have much more ability to bring the war into all the campaigns of the two major parties. I would certainly make the presidential campaigns a priority, if for no other reason than that's where the public attention is. We can compel candidates or their spokespeople to address our issue, and to a degree, establish an antiwar pole--candidates' night debates, candidates' score cards, and nonpartisan public forums of various sorts--a pole that has some clout behind it, that can't be easily dismissed. Its nonpartisan nature means ALL candidates claiming to be critical of the war have to pay attention to it, precisely because they don't have it in their hip pocket. In fact, the day you declare yourself for this or that candidate is the day your clout gets severely reduced.

We need to pay attention to Congressional and other races as well, demanding of all candidates that if they won't serve the antiwar majority, then who will? Because if they don't, we'll find someone else to do the job, if not in this round, then the next.

Some of the Democratic strategists like to think we can be ignored because we have nowhere else to go. They couldn't be more wrong, since we can go Green or we can go fishing, and, if we're well organized, we have a measure of how many votes they can lose in the process. As a nonpartisan alliance with our own organizations, our own lists and resources, we can't be put in anyone's back pocket or be taken for granted. They do so at their peril.

Finally, there's very little I've mentioned above that a 501C3 can't do. If you don't agree, then set up a C4 or just an ordinary nonprofit with no tax exemption, to get the job done. In Chicago in 2004, we called our group 'Peace and Justice Voters 2004', and it served us very well, then and for years afterwards, including our ability to put the war itself on the ballot in Illinois, and many other matters.

At the end of this 2008 cycle, whatever happens directly around the war, we will come out of it much stronger, much more politically astute, and with much more enhanced grassroots popular power. Apart from ending the war itself, that's how I would measure success, and to achieve it, we need to set aside all the old ultraleft, semi-anarchist caveats about elections in this country--if you think they're bad now, wait until you get in the thick of them. I won't prettify them, but let's get on with it. It's a challenge, but it's a critical dimension of politics in non-revolutionary times, and it doesn't matter whether you like the task or not. It simply has to be done; there's no getting around it.

Carl Davidson
December 2007

Read more!

Breaking with the 'Left Bloc' Mentality

The Oct. 27 Debates, Round One

Note from CarlD:

What follows is the opening round in a series of sharp debates over how best to organize mass mobilizations against the Iraq war, in this case, the Oct 27 rallies and mass march in Chicago. It starts with a posting on Chicago Indymedia of an article from the People's Weekly World, newspaper of the Communist Party USA, supporting the upcoming events and quoting me as the project's director. Naturally, on Indymedia, it drew criticism from points further to the left, as well as from the anarchist movement. Stay tuned for more later...



"Every elected official, including Mayor Richard M. Daley and state and congressional representatives, will be invited to speak, along with presidential candidates," says Oct.27 Mobilization Committee project director Carl Davidson. "We are nonpartisan, but we're not anti-partisan. We want the program to reflect the range of politics that actually exists on the ground."

To End Iraq War, People Power Organizes
-by Susan Webb, People's Weekly World - Sept. 22, 2007
[ http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/11735/1/391/ ]

Now, Chicago's October 27 Mobilization Committee is working to do just that. The key, said Davidson, the committee's project director, is building new organizations and involving neighborhoods that aren't organized.

For example, he reported recently, "There has been a second meeting of Black churches, community groups and others on the South Side. They are starting with 50 church buses to bring their members to the rallies and back." The broad outreach "will also approach both Orthodox and Black Muslim communities, and should be seen not simply as a Black effort, but as an interfaith network throughout the area," he said.

"The question is, what will the unions do?" he said in a phone interview. Union endorsements are important, but the key is what the unions will do to bring out their members, he said. The committee is counting on labor activists to spur membership involvement.

The Chicago demonstration Oct. 27 is one of several regional actions United for Peace and Justice is organizing around the country to end the Iraq war, under the heading "Peace is possible."

The core of the Chicago mobilizing is focused on the local area, but two peace trains will bring hundreds from St. Louis and Detroit, along with scores of busloads from surrounding states including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio.

Every elected official, including Mayor Richard M. Daley and state and congressional representatives, will be invited to speak, along with presidential candidates. "We are nonpartisan, but we're not anti-partisan," Davidson said. "We want the program to reflect the range of politics that actually exists on the ground."

A poll conducted for FOX News - hardly a liberal-biased organization - indicates that the congressional testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crockett did not change American public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war. The Sept. 11-12 FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll showed 64 percent think the U.S. should pull all troops out of Iraq either immediately or over the next year.

"The president just had the most credible spokesperson he could have had," a congressional aide told the World. "I don't think he got much out of that. The American people aren't buying it."

President Bush's Sept. 13 speech, with the peculiar theme of "return on success," made clearer than ever that he plans to pass the war on to the next administration. The speech drew wide criticism and was seen as unlikely to budge the majority antiwar sentiment.

Calling Bush's remarks a "path to 10 more years of war," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "The American people reject the president's 10-year war in Iraq and want a responsible redeployment to end this war."

Democrats are pressing a variety of measures. Some call for specific withdrawal timetables or funding restrictions. Their supporters say these measures are long overdue and are the only way to change the dynamics in Congress, compel meaningful action and make Republicans take responsibility for the war. Other measures are less binding or involve partial steps but, their advocates say, can draw sufficient Republican votes to make them veto-proof and move toward the U.S. exiting Iraq.

While the Democrats won control of Congress last fall, their majorities are not veto-proof. Senate Democrats in particular are grappling with their razor-thin majority, which gives Republicans the power to block progressive legislation of any kind. And overriding a Bush veto requires a 67-vote Senate supermajority.

The key to breaking the gridlock in Congress is "for us to break our gridlock," Davidson told the World. So far, only the "militant minority" is involved in organized actions, he said. "We have to find a way to enable the antiwar majority to take action. We have to take away every obstacle to them participating. That's what Oct. 27 is all about."

Chicago has 120 neighborhoods, but only 15 have peace and justice groups, Davidson noted. "Even if we organized 40 neighborhood groups, that would be a huge step. That's what gets the politicians' attention. When the antiwar majority is independently organized at the base, then you have popular power. That's what we need."

When people complain about Democrats, he suggested, "Ask them how well their neighborhood is organized."

suewebb @pww.org

Comments

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Anti-War Rally or Democratic Party Rally?
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Friday, 21 September 2007
by Lev


Is this an anti-war event or a Democratic Party campaign rally?

After all, if you're going to invite an "anti-war" presidential candidate who won't take first strike use of nuclear weapons off of the table (Clinton), or an "anti-war" candidate who advocated bombing Iran and invading Pakistan (Obama), why not just round out the picture and invite John McCain too?

Opps, I forgot. This is a DEMOCRATIC Party campaign rally.

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Friday, 21 September 2007
by cliff


where do bush and rice fit in during the kick off speeches? will cheney get 5 minutes or 10?

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Friday, 21 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


This is a nonpartisan antiwar rally, and it's going to be an important one.

But as the article above says, it is not anti-partisan.

Those of you who think everything political reduces to pro-Democratic party or anti-Democratic party, well, you can cling to that if you like, but some of us have a view of strategy and tactics that's a bit more complex, like life itself.

We will have Greens and even elected GOPers who oppose the war, too. And people who don't vote for any of them.

But I'd guess fewer the a third of the speakers will be elected officials of any sort, and I'd bet good money that Daley, even with an invite, will find something else to do that day. Most speakers will be labor, community, faith, and other constituency and issue-oriented activists.

But you're right on the heart of the matter.

This is a left-center coalition, and will have speakers from the left, the liberals and even the center who oppose the war. The whole range, from hard-line anti-imperialists to some who are less steadfast, to say the least.

But they will do it--or not, if they stay away--under the banner, 'Stop the war now, bring all our troops home.'

Everyone is welcome to take part, but this is the basic orientation. I agree it's different. Maybe it will pay off, maybe it won't. We'll see.

I'd also guess that 90 percent of those who show up, who have ever voted, will have voted for a Democrat recently. Perhaps a few for a Green.

Shall we tell those who consider themselves Democrats that they're not welcome? Shall we exclude the PDA chapters that have endorsed, or the antiwar candidates running in the Dem primaries? Or Aldermen who have voted down the war twice?

I think not.

I guarantee you that the busloads coming from the South Side are ordinary folks who regularly vote Democratic, for better or worse. But we are not putting up any unnecessary obstacles or hurdles to their participation.

We suffer from the lack of these people, and others even less 'on the left,' not from too many of them.

Especially if we want to stop this horrible war. The left cannot do it alone.

You don't have to agree with this, or even march with us.

If you don't care for our approach, organize your own. But do something this Fall to stop the war.

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Friday, 21 September 2007
by hmm


Speaking of elected officials, I had the opportunity to attend a Cook County Board press availibity meeting around the cutbacks at County Hospital and heard Cook County Board President Todd Stroger state that Cook County government could pay for quality health care and staff at Cook County if federal dollars weren't being wasted on bankrolling the Iraq war. Clearly Stroger opposes the war as well and wasn't shy about saying so in public.

Are you going to invite him on stage on Oct. 27?
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Friday, 21 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


No, I think we have better speakers on that issue in mind.

But we are organizing a 'Health Care, Not Warfare' contingent of doctors, nurses and all others involved in health care who oppose the war. Stroger is certainly welcome to join its ranks, and help in whatever other way he can. He may have to put up with some criticism from others involved in the health system, but that's only natural.

He's not the first, and not likely the last, public official to assert the war in Iraq is destroying their programs. That's because it's true.

And we have Chicago Faculty for Peace and Justice, Chicago Lawyers and Legal Workers for Peace and Justice, and other similar contingents also in the works.

All are welcome to join in and lend a hand...

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Friday, 21 September 2007
by hmm


Excuse me, but are you implying that internal political considerations might trump inviting a senior black Chicago elected official who has publicly stated his opposition to the war? But inviting Daley -- a politician who has yet to condemn the war and is as corrupt and anti-labor as they come -- is ok? Too bad. This news may be received with some consternation by those African American ministers and others on the South Side who might otherwise be inclined to encourage their congregations to attend.

As for non-partisanship, there's always Ron Paul, who will be in Chicago this week for a campaign rally, opposes the war and is a firm member of the GOP

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Friday, 21 September 2007
by what hypocrisy


Will Forrest Claypool, aka 'Mr. Privatization' and the prince of pinstripe patronage during his tenure as head of the Chicago Park District be invited to speak? And what, pray tell, will you tell the Black ministers you say are organizing on the south side when they find out the beleaguered County Board President -- who they support and think is getting the royal shaft in the press -- is not invited? Why is it OK for Republican elected officials, notorious for their anti-labor positions, to speak and not an anti-war Democrat like Stroger? It'll be a pleasure passing your comments onto the folks on the south side. You've argued they don't share the political sensibilities of the uninvited left. It will be fascinating to see their response when they learn they don't share yours, either.
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Saturday, 22 September 2007
by Lev


'We will have Greens and even elected GOPers who oppose the war, too.'

Yes, very nice Carl, but again, will the Democrats who will undoubtedly be the vast majority of the pols on the stage, be ones who really 'oppose the war'? Richie M. Daley, one of the invitees, has never come out against the war, and has repeatedly used his sock puppet Alderman Balcer in rear-guard actions to torpedo anti-war initiatives in the City Council. He "opposes the war" as much as John McCain ever has (that's irony, boys and girls).

And what about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? Aside from their boisterous calls for yet more 'pre-emptive' wars, what sort of genuine "opposition" to the Iraq war have they actually demonstrated? Both have voted for EVERY single Bush war appropriation except for the last one. And as for that last one, every serious commentator said that their votes "against" the war funding bill were merely "demonstration votes" made for the benefit of primary voters once they were assured that the measure would pass. So basically, rhetoric aside, they have been staunch supporters of the Iraq war. And by the way, the notion that 60 anti-war Senate votes are necessary to stop funding the Iraq War is nonsense. Forty senators, much less than the Democratic majority, could decide to block any war funding bill if they so chose. But they won't. Watch the Democratic majority crumble once again in the next few weeks over the war funding bill for the next year. Opps, I guess the Oct. 27th "protest" will be a little bit too late to affect that -- how very convenient.

And what about the rest of the Chicago area Congressional delegation, many of whom presumably are among the invitees to address this "anti-war" rally? EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM voted for the last war funding bill. Everyone from Lipinski to Schakowsky.

And so the question remains, what with the "anti-war" notables we've reviewed who already have been invited; why not also invite John McCain to address this "anti-war" rally?

Opps, again I forgot, it's a Democratic Party rally. "Anti-war," aside from rhetoric, has nothing to do with it.

Prepare to be lied to again. It's a farce that the life-blood of the anti-war movement was sucked dry by the 2004 Kerry campaign, the man who said "I voted for the war before I voted against it."

It's a tragedy that those controlling the Oct. 27th action are trying to repeat that dismal history.

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Saturday, 22 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


First of all, 'hmm' and others, all elected officials, including Stroger, are invited to support and take part. But obviously, not all are invited to speak, since there are only 25 slots, and roughly a third, at most, will be for elected officials. And we have elected officials from other states to consider as well.

And don't worry, there will be plenty of representation, of various political views, for the African American South Side and West Side on the platform.

So lighten up, and stop playing this silly game.

It's a left center coalition against the war. And we'll find the best speakers we can for the left, center, and points in between. And you don't build a real left-center coalition by assigning all the speakers' slots to the left, and excluding the center.

So if you want to attack something, attack that orientation. That's the substance of the matter, rather than going after one imaginary speaker or another.

Our starting point was that the last election proved Chicago is an antiwar town and Illinois is an antiwar state, having voted on our main slogan, 'Stop the War Now, Bring All Our Troops Home.' So we'll challenge the city and state's top pols to speak under it and to it, but we're not holding our breath for any particular one of them.

It might not be your cup of tea, but it's the way we're proceeding. The old way, the anti-imperialist bloc against the two parties, has got itself in a cul-de-sac. The truth is that left cannot end this war alone, and we need broader alliances.

Whether we get them in an effective way or not, no one can predict. But we, meaning UFPJ and its allies, are going to give it our best shot. We'll see what happens.

Lend a hand if you want to help make it a success.

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Saturday, 22 September 2007
by m


Actually, Davidson, it's hardly a 'silly' game - but like the response of much of the white center-liberal milieu toward the Jena 6, LA protest -- one that reflects a much deeper problem. Here's a case in point: [ http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2007/09/why-progressive-blogosphere-silence_20.asp ]

As pointed out in an earlier post, both Daley and Stroger are corrupt, grifting Democratic politicians with terrible track records on a number of issues. No doubt about it. Still, your avowed strategy pivots on bringing together the broadest possible sectors and voices together exclusively around the war in Iraq, -- irrespective of their positions on other issues. It's a narrow approach I wouldn't take toward antiwar coalition building, I think the broader public is far more capable of connecting the dots and increasingly fed up with being lied to by those in power - but hey, it's your party.

In this case, one politician opposes the war and links it to the crisis in domestic funding for health care. The other has either dodged the issue of the war or has offered explicit support to the Bush Administration's war drive. Inviting Stroger won't be a winning idea with the SEIU or suburban liberals. But publicly inviting Daley may also piss off those myriad grassroots community groups - many in the African American and Latino communities who have been locked in mortal combat with his regime for years.

So who gets the nod here when it comes inviting local elected officials to speak? Beyond Munoz, Moore, Davis or Schakowsky? Da Mare.

Pretty telling choice.

Then there's Obama -- who was also noticeably absent from the Jena protests, along with every other Democratic Presidential candidate. Along with his stated position in favor of preemptive strike against Iran - now a very real possibility in the weeks ahead if the neocons get their way.

Finally, WTF is an "Orthodox" Muslim? Are you referencing the Nation of Islam (NOI)? Or the various independent mosques anchored in the African American community? Or other Sunna and Shia mosques in the Arab and South Asian communities of Chicago?
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Saturday, 22 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


FYI, 'm', some of our founding meeting members, Terry Davis for one, has been down in Jena for weeks, building the protests there.

We've also had our members turning out to and leafleting almost every anti-brutality and pro-justice gathering in the Black community. We are meeting regularly with church leaders on the South side to bring buses to the Oct 27 events. And 'orthodox' Muslim was a term they used, referring to the non-NOI mosques in the Black community.

But we are approaching all Imams, of whatever nationality, to make this an interfaith effort.

So I don't know what 'white' milieu you're talking about, but we're doing our best to break with some of the past ones we've known.

Finally, it's going to take working with politicians you and I don't care for to stop this damnable war. We can't do it with the left alone, so get used to it, and lend a hand, unless you just want to stand aside and keep on with the 'same 'ole same ole' stuff you've done up till now.

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Saturday, 22 September 2007
by double standard


"Finally, it's going to take working with politicians you and I don't care for to stop this damnable war."

So Daley is OK, and Stroger is not. The white boy is fine, and the black man doesn't pass muster. Are Daley's politics less 'corrupt' than Stroger's? What other litmus test is there here but race?

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Saturday, 22 September 2007
by m


Good news that the Oct. 27 Mobilization been leafleting events in the African American community. Your leaflet advertises your invited guest speakers -- including the Mayor?

I didn't think so.

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Saturday, 22 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


You're being silly, again, 'M'

First, 'Da Mare' hasn't been invited yet, so how could it be on a flyer printed a few weeks back, starting with the Bilikken parade? BTW, Daley probably endorsed that, too, but I doubt if it dampened the turnout.

Second, when he does get his invite, I'm not holding my breath for a positive response.

Third, when he did appear at the immigrant rights rally, and I heard he gave a more than passable speech, a personal breaththrough for him, did it hurt the immigrant rights movement? Did it turn anyone way? I don't think so.

You're making much ado about little--although the general policy of trying to involve elected officials is important. And the trashing of that policy in the M20 coalition disputes is just one reason why a good number of folks were fed up enough to do things differently this time around.

More interesting would be positive responses from Durbin and Obama, who are being supported by our South Side allies, or Edwards, who the Steelworkers are pushing.

I'd be glad to see all three of them on the platform, but I'd guess you wouldn't, even though both Obama and Edward like to use the 'connect the dots' phrase, not that they mean what you mean by it.

Again, if you want to defend or attack something, get to the heart of the matter. Speakers come and go, but a strategic and tactical line on alliances needed to end this war sooner rather than later, endures a lot longer, don't you think?

And is there anyone else out there who wants to jump in on this? 'M' and 'hmm' and I have crossed swords for nearly a decade now. Let's get some new voices here.

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Saturday, 22 September 2007
by what the hell


I have to say I'm flabbergasted by this strategy -- inviting a sitting mayor who arrested more than 800 peaceful antiwar protesters the night the war began, and who spent the next three years doing everything he could to continue to trash our right to free speech and public protest. Maybe, MAYBE I could see it if Daley’s completely reversed his positions, but he hasn't, and he sure hasn't renounced his support for a raft of other Bush polices. What the hell?

Democratic voters across the country are disgusted with the Democratic leadership in Washington for failing to take a strong and serious stand against the war. People are also plenty disgusted locally with the crookedness in ward and city hall politics. How will bringing those same politicians that have been ripping us off and taking us for granted for years build the grassroots movement against the war?

And how the hell can we expect people of color anywhere to take the white liberals organizing this seriously, when we invite a politician like Daley who isn't antiwar, turned a blind eye to police torture when he was state's attorney, has yet to reign in a police force that functions like an occupying army in many of our neighborhoods, and is gentrifying thousands of us out of the city we were born in?

We are in deep shit with this kind of strategy.

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by Stan Smith


I do not agree with Carl Davidson's orientation, but he makes some good points. (But, Carl, while it is true that Daley gave an ok speak at the anti-immigrant rally, it did give the illusion that he was some sort of reliable ally - and helped to conceal what he was: an opponent forced to give lip-service).

And I do notice that Carl Davidson can sign his name to his articles, while nobody else does. Maybe that in itself says something: the alternative to Carl Davidson's political strategy is nameless and faceless, and consists of faceless people complaining about his UFPJ views but not creating an alternative. Until there is a anti-imperialist alternative to trying to stop Democrats kow-towing to the right, the UFPJ strategy will control the field. After 6 years of the anti-war movement, UFPJ and the Democrats have been pretty discredited. But the anti-imperialist anti-war movement has been discredited by in-fighting, both locally and nationally. It has fractured into little groups bickering with each other over who wants to be No. 1.

After 6 years of war, there is no evidence this is going to change at all. Of all the anti-imperialist anti-war organizations, locally and nationally, I know of none who would disagree with this perspective: I prefer to be No. 1 in my little marginalized corner than be mainstream and not be No. 1.

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by n.


I was thinking about the same thing about Cuba. The Cuba support movement has fragmented as well...which is why there isn't more support for the Cuban 5 in this town. Stan know whereof he speaks

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by n.?


More lynch mobs at the workplace?

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


We'll soon see, won't we, 'What the Hell?'

The way things are going, I'd hazard a guess that we'll have a significant increase in African American participation over past events of this type, some of it organized by people you're in agreement with, but quite a few others being organized by people you might be more critical of.

I wouldn't worry about 'Da Mare' if I were you. In the outside chance he does accept and appear under our banner, it would be a shift.

Besides, if we're to bring this war to an end, well need alliances with forces with more crimes on their hands than Daley, for sure. As I keep repeating, the left can't end this war alone, and if you think we can end it, sooner rather than later, by only forming alliances with angels, I'd love to hear you make your case. I'm all ears.

Otherwise, it's time to get serious about serious things.

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by ?


I don't know which kills me more, the progressive Dem's calling the imperialistic occupation in Iraq "war" or the elected Dem's calling the U.S. service people and mercenaries in Iraq as the "coalition forces."

Ending "this war" is not saying much, again.

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by carol


"We can't just leave the Middle East. If we leave the Middle East, just let's just forget about the Middle East and just walk away from the Middle East. I don't think anybody wants that."

"What I think we are trying to do, some way, is trying to slowly allow Iraq to take full control of their country," the mayor said. "No one likes war because it's the death of someone's son or daughter, father, mother or son. . . . No one was for the Revolutionary War. . . . Maybe today they would doubt the Civil War - - whether or not slavery was worth fighting for. I think it was."

"I don't think it's a quick fix."

- Chicago Tribune, December, 2005

The mayor's comments came in the wake of a call for an American troop withdrawal by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and followed by one day a speech by Bush defending his Iraq strategy.

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


Well, Anon', 'ending this war' may 'not be saying much' to you, but I'd love to hear you make that case to Iraqi mothers burying there children or US parents burying their sons and daughters.

Set your 'left' blinders aside for a moment, and listen to yourself...Good grief.

And 'carol,' the most important thing in your quote from Daley is the date, '2005'

A lot changes in two years.

I'm not saying he's made any changes, but many of his cohorts have. The mayor of Salt Lake City is leading the Oct 27 mobilizations there, along with a new group, 'Mormons for Equality and Justice,' and many others. Who woulda' thunk it?...

What we have to say to our city elected officials is that we voted, 800,000 of us, by a margin of 81-to-19, to stop this war now. IF YOU WON'T JOIN IN THE LEADERSHIP TO DO IT, AND REPRESENT US, WHO WILL? Because if you won't, we'll have to take you down, and replace you with someone who'll get the job done.

Then put the ball in their court by offering them an opportunity to do so.

Some will pick it up, some won't. Some come to this movement early, some late, and some not at all.

But we should make as much of it happen as we can, for the simple reason that there's a dynamic relationship between these people and their base, and we're primarily interested in moving their base more solidly into our camp.

Learn to play Chess or 'Go' here, rather than checkers...


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Carl, why not demand that the Democratic leadership filibuster war funding bill?
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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by Bob Schwartz


John V. Walsh has challenged UFPJ leaders to demand that the Democrats filibuster the war funding bill when the criminal Bush asks for $2 billions more for carnage.

writes Walsh, "UFPJ has explicitly refused to do this. Why? Because, according to the UFPJ "leadership," their friends on the Hill (read Dems) say it does not have a chance? Of course that could be said of any of the antiwar measures. No, the truth is that the filibuster and the vote that would follow in its wake would expose each and every Dem Senator for what they are. And that is a no-no for the UFPJ leadership which more or less shares a bed with the Dems."

There is one way to push this forward. At FilibusterForPeace.org [ filibusterforpeace.org/ ]

Correction in war funding request. Its $200 billion.

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


Well, I'm one UFPJer in favor of filibusters over the war. And impeachment to boot, starting with Cheney.

I've been a fan of Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska, for a long time, especially when he pushed his recent notion of a bill--not a resolution--with four words, 'End The War Now,' to pass into law, thus making the war's continuation illegal and impeachable.

Let the GOP filibuster, he said, and call for cloture every day, so more and more learn who's really killing the troops and the people of Iraq.

But I'm wise enough to know that you don't win at the top what you haven't already won and organized at the base.

So my answer is, if you really want to see these things happen at the top, organize the base. I can name at least 60 Chicago neighborhoods with no peace and justice group, or antiwar group of any sort, despite the fact that a majority in each voted against the war.

I'd say much of our hard core anti-imperialists are a bunch of lazy bones; they can carry on at great length about one analysis or another, but I challenge them to take up these neighborhoods, hold a coffee to call together a core, build some lists and allies, and launch some new groups.

Then we'll have something to do politics WITH.

Otherwise, it's cafe chatter...

If you want some names to get started, come and see me.

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Sunday, 23 September 2007
by ?


Stroger didn't arrest 800 protesters, Daley did. Stroger didn't cover up police torture, Daley did. Stroger opposes the war, Daley has never said so publicly at least. Why wont you answer questions Carl that are put to you, or do you only want to answer the questions you like any politician. Why is Daley OK and not Stroger? Why the white elected official and not the Black elected official?

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Monday, 24 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


Why Daley?

Because Chicago is on record as a 'City for Peace,' one of 301 similar cities.

Its City Council voted overwhelmingly against the invasion before it happened, and by a solid majority against it in the middle. (And Daley made himself not present during those votes.) And the City's electorate voted 81-19 percent for 'out now,' with 800,000 votes, carrying every Ward.

We're asking Daley, (and Obama and Durbin, for that matter) to speak to and represent the City's position, and the position of its voters, not primarily his personal position. If he's moved on the war, so much the better, but we'll put the ball in his court, and see what he does. I'll be surprised if he accepts the offer. But if he does, it'll work mainly to our advantage and to his in a secondary way.

The County Board has taken no position on the war, at least not yet. Stroger is welcome to endorse and help out as an individual, but we have far better speakers on 'Health Care, Not Warfare' in mind.

But since you probably don't want either of them speaking anyway, and are likely to have it that way, why is this such a big deal to you?

As I said earlier, we're going to need alliances with people far worse than Daley to stop this war, unless you think the left can do it--ending the war sooner rather than later--alone. If that's so, make your case.

If not, and you're still confused, my personal advice, not our coalition's, is to dig out some old copies of Gramsci, Mao, Dimitrov and Truong Chinh on the strategy and tactics of the united front, and learn a thing or two. From Truong Chinh, read the section on 'alliances aimed at neutralization.'

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Monday, 24 September 2007
by puhleeze


Give us a break, CD. Your choice of Daley over Stroger was a tactical decision dictated by internal political considerations ( like not alienating the usual North Shore and suburban white liberals who supported Claypool, and SEIU's leadership whom you are courting ) Those considerations clearly trumped your professed strategic outlook -- which should have welcomed a African American politician - albeit a Dem. machine hack -- who has spoken out publicly against the war and has a significant base of electoral support in the Black and Latino communities, including from 22nd Ward Alderman Rick Munoz among others.

As for Daley speaking out on behalf of the City Council resolution, fat chance. That resolution was non-binding, didn't mandate the City of Chicago do anything and no more represents the executive branch of City government - where policy decisions are actually implemented than my Aunt Hattie. (who btw, is available to speak)

My hunch is we'll see the same calculus applied with other figures -- say like the Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Organizing Network whom might make some of your core supporters a little uncomfortable. Prove me wrong. Invite him to speak.

At this point it's pretty clear who your target audience is, and it isn't the majority of this city. But as was said before, it's your party.


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Monday, 24 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


"...was a tactical decision dictated by internal political considerations ( like not alienating the usual North Shore and suburban white liberals who supported Claypool, and SEIU's leadership whom you are courting )"

Really? You have got to be kidding.

Believe me, I was in the room when this decision was made, and absolutely NONE of these considerations were in play.

Besides, SEIU is already on board, no courting required, and they could care less about 'Da Mare.'

Second, 'Northshore liberals,' whoever that is, but if you mean some of the neighborhood-based P&J groups, they didn't care one way or another, or were even dubious about 'Da Mare.'.

Third, Stroger's name never even came up, in any context, although we did mention Maldonado from the Board. Our 'Healthcare, not Warfare' contingent and speakers mentioned were all from mass organizations, and we have some excellent people to choose from.

Our South Side community allies were mainly interested in Durbin and Obama as possibilities, as well as an interfaith alliance including Jews and Muslims. They never mentioned Stroger in any context either.

Daley's came up in the context of Cities for Peace, Chicago as the more powerful among them, and building a contingent of elected city officials from around the region, and the need to involve them all. So we decided to invite him in the same context of all the other cities and majors we would invite, but no one would be holding their breath for a positive reply, although, who knows, we might be surprised.

We also decided to try to get Cardinal George and the Archdiocese on board.

That was the actual discussion. You can fantasize about reading the minds of various individuals all you want, and make up whatever 'theories' or 'explanations' you want, but those plus $2.00 will get you on the CTA.


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Monday, 24 September 2007
by oneofthe800


Maybe Carl can convince Ritchie to announce a settlement of the civil liberties lawsuit underway in favor of those 800 folks who got to see the Mayor's response to the attack on Iraq up close and personal? After his impending change of heart?

As a bonus, maybe Cardinal George can offer mass absolution from the stage to all of us who support choice?

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Monday, 24 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


Naaah, "800," mass absolution only works if you make a sincere 'Act of Contrition.' Check your Baltimore Catechism, if you have one lying around from bygone days. In any case, on that matter, the church should make one.

But 'Holy Mother Church' has also been rather clear in opposing this war. The Cardinal's blessing would spur a great number of new participants and allies from among the faithful.

Say a prayer, make a wish, or do a good new age 'creative visualization' to help such a development along...

But I doubt if Andy's Pope and Cardinal outfits will fill the bill...

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Monday, 24 September 2007
by couple observations


Invited to speak:

>Daley, who has not come out against the war and arrested 800 of us the day the war started.

>Durbin, who has consistently voted to fund the war, although he's been willing to publicly call the war the greatest U.S. mistake 'ever' -- while still bankrolling this mistake.

>Obama, who has yet to retract his assertion that it's okey dokey with him to preemptively bomb Iran.

Not invited to speak:

>Todd Stroger, who's publicly opposed the war and whose political track record is certainly no less stellar than Mr. Daley's.

This, to me, doesn't look like it's just about race, bur rather about more broadly backing certain local political factions over others. If nothing else, that puts the lie to Mr. Davidson's avowed 'big tent' approach to organizing.

That said, there's also no question that the politics of race also play a role here, particularly considering the lovefest some organizers and backers of this action have with County commissioner and uber privatizing libertarian County commissioner Forrest Claypool. Perhaps they should review Claypool's track record as head of the Park District and as Daley's chief of staff before they embrace him as a screaming reformer. By the way, has Claypool been invited to speak? Has he tried to invite himself to speak -- as he has at past local antiwar mobilizations?

Of course, we won't see any strong statements from the stage condemning Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians in the occupied territories, either, despite the critical role this conflict plays in U.S. policy in the region. Why is this issue kicked to the curb? Because that might piss off congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a 'proud Zionist woman' in her own words, along with many of her supporters -- who are also central players in backing this mobilization under these narrow terms.

Any mention of Palestine as a critical component of the U.S. backed occupation strategy for unruly and unsubmissive non-western peoples might also create some discomfort for people like labor heavyweight Tom Balanoff of SEIU, who joined SEIU International President Andy Stern at an awards ceremony this past February held by the Anti-Defamation League that presented Mr. Balanoff with the Distinguished Community Service Lifetime Achievement Award. [ http://chicagojewishnews.com/forums/calendar.php?c=1&day=2007-2-5&do=getinfo&e=162 ]

Why raise these points? Because it's important to understand that local politics -- including political allegiances and interests that are shaped through the lens of race and ethnic politics right here on the ground -- have an impact on how this event is being organized.

I expect that the 5,000-odd anti-war protesters who come together every year to oppose the war will attend this event, particularly since groups like ANSWER have agreed to participate WITHOUT ghettoizing issues like Palestine.

But will this demonstrate some sort of political 'breakthrough', as Mr. Davidson asserts? Nope. It simply represents an action whose organizers are prepared to ensure that the voices and sensibilities of Zionists and white liberals are not discomfited by the appearance of Black politicians they don't like, or uppity anti-occupation forces like progressive Palestinians who oppose the U.S. bankrolled Israeli oppression of millions of Palestinian people.

Occupation is occupation. Until we stop insulting the intelligence of our base and call out all occupation for what it is -- whether it's Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran or whatever -- people will continue to hold the anti-war leadership and their agenda as suspect as the lying Republocrat leadership that backs our bogus foreign policy.


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Monday, 24 September 2007
by where are we


For those who weren't there, Friday's kickoff for the 10/27 mobilization included NO women speakers. Zero. Nada. It did look like the majority of those who attended and were doing the work were women, however. I hope the Oct. 27 organizers remember that we need to be represented on the stage as speakers, and don't make this kind of mistake again.

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Monday, 24 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


We had several women lined up for the events in Fed Plaza on 9/21, 'where we are'--Ald. Kyle, who got detained on another matter, Linda Beckstrom, Peace Pledge, who attended, but had to leave early. But Catherine Buntin, of the North Suburban Interfaith Peace Initiative, did speak at the press conference--not to mention the three women taking turns chanting the names and ages of the Iraqi dead.

I'm sure we could do better, but 'zero nada' is not quite right.

As for 'couple observations,' I'll wager that Palestine and other matters you point to will be heard from the stages. The difference is that we won't just hear from the left, but from the center and points in between as well. It won't just be an anti-imperialist bloc that's heard, but a wider range of voices and perspectives. That's because we're seeking to mobilize all trends of the antiwar majority, not just the 'anti-imperialist, pro-solidarity with liberation struggles' left sector of that majority.

That's the whole point. We make no apologies for it, because we need to do it to end the war sooner rather than later.

There seems to be no end to the complaints about this in this forum, but none of you have explained how the left is going to accomplish this task on its own, without broader alliances among progressive and middle forces, both at the top and at the base.

Frankly, I don't think you can. But I'm all ears.

Meanwhile, this effort is generating considerable enthusiasm and wide support, here and elsewhere. But we still need all the help we can get, so lend a hand...

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Monday, 24 September 2007
by alliances and comments


In Chicago, "couple observations" misses a key alliance: David Axelrod, the Dems' version of Karl Rove (OK, maybe he can only fill those shoes if he steps into them in conjunction with the equally tiny-footed Rahm Emanuel) and the principle political architect of Barack Obama's runs in 2004 and now, is thisclose to Forrest Claypool, who helped him start his business, AKP Message & Media. Under those terms, and given the allegiances that many of our friends in CAWI have with players in the Democratic party, Mr. Stroger will never, ever be allowed to speak at a venue like this. Carl Davidson's one big tent approach to speakers just doesn't have a tent big enough for Todd.

In addition, while Axelrod may have been successfully trumping against Stroger with the race card for the last 18 months among white liberals, his campaign on behalf of his pal Forrest (who occasionally holds his press conferences in Axelrod's office ... think about the message THAT sends to political beat reporters) is all about political power -- namely Claypool's, in what is shaping up as another run at the Cook County board presidency.

That Mr. Claypool has been no friend to labor over the years has been largely lost on the consciousness of the Anglos that have blindly rushed to support him over the son of John. Then again, how many of these alert ... not ... white people know that Forrest Claypool kept a photo of Ayn Rand in his office during his last run for county board president?

Don't take my word for it, either. See the Sun-Times article by Steve Patterson on March 6, 2006. Note that the other picture in Claypool's office -- that of Martin Luther King Jr. -- hangs there because Claypool apparently thinks Dr. King was some sort of rugged individualist. Perhaps someone should give Forrest a copy of Dr. King's essay, "A New Sense of Direction" (1968), where he calls for mass civil disobedience to advance the cause of racial and economic justice. Note that mass civil disobedience is hardly a solitary venture, a point apparently lost on the staunchly libertarian Forrest, who also opposed County legislation that would have banned cigarette smoking in County businesses because it is, after all, a person's 'choice' (his word, not mine) to smoke, and government should not be making that more difficult, the public health consequences be damned. I suppose that portrait in Forrest's office serves to prove he's not a cracker like some of the folks who reflexively support him.

But I digress. The real issue at hand in this thread is a vigorous disagreement about the best way forward. I'd have more faith in Carl's analysis if his assessment were rooted in fact. He asserts repeatedly that this 'appeal to the center' strategy is bound to bring the minions and stand on its own merits but he forgets an important point. Under his formulation, the mainstream projects he's lined up to support this effort have vastly deeper pockets than the left in this town that has largely shouldered the brunt of the work in organizing previous mass anti-war mobilizations.

So Carl's formulation starts out from jump with a vastly deeper well in which to dip, both financially and in other practical material ways, like large databases of union members and petition signers, for example. Bear in mind that all of us, no matter how lame and insulting to the base we think Carl's frame is, will show up at this action, as well. So they should be expected to pull at least 15,000 people to this action -- the six to nine that show up for annual anniversary mobilizations in Chicago, for example, and who will support virtually any public expression against the war, PLUS the additional 5-15 thousand CAWI should be able to organize via the unions that have signed on and the metro faith projects like AFSC.

I think it also bears noting that for previous mobilizations largely organized by those entirely too democratic anti-imperialist types that so stick in Carl's craw, these sorts of mainstream groups -- including Balanoff's SEIU locals and the AFSC -- have actively boycotted these efforts.

I think the deeper question is this: where would we really be at in terms of mass mobilizations if our friends in projects like AFSC and SEIU would play well with others and support the anti-war actions Carl now wants the rest of us to embrace? We will, Carl, we will, because it's the right thing to do, not because it's being organized in the right way. But who's really sectarian here? Who's really exclusionary? When will we get a flyer with details about this mobilization? When will we get a list of speakers that assuages the concerns that many of have about inclusiveness and diversity?

Or do we have to bring our own speakers and swap them out on stage on the fly?

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by DR


Out of curiosity, I scanned the Midwest antiwar links listed on the Oct. 27 webpage, looking for Oct. 27 announcements, but found only several promos for this regional mobilization. What gives?

Apparently to date, Madison organizers have rented two buses, and sold aprox 40 tickets. Milwaukee also has 12 school buses reserved, according to the WNPJ website. Racine reserved a bus, and the Lakeshore has a bus, starting in Green Bay going though Manitowoc and Sheboygan. St. Louis activists are promoting a peace train -- which they've done before for the March anniversary protests in Chicago - but no hard numbers.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul antiwar coalition organizing around the RNC appears to be planning their own Oct. 27 event. And despite the report of a 'trainload from Detroit', nothing has popped on anti-war websites there. Granted, this still may happen in the next three weeks and more organizing might be going on behind the scenes. But it increasingly looks like the Midwest turn out for this action will be far smaller than the organizers originally projected. Indeed, many of the endorsers listed on the Oct. 27 website have yet to advertise it on their home sites.

So do the CAWI organizers still expect tens of thousands to pour into Chicago? Because unless this regional march breaks 20 K or so in Chicago, it can't be reasonably projected as any type of real major advance, no matter what 'qualitative' spin organizers try to put on it.

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


You certainly do digress...Claypool? His name has never come in a single meeting. We're trying to stop a war, not pick the next county board. You've wandered off to some other ballpark.

Lists of speakers? They haven't been picked yet. We're delegating it around, Telling military families to find their best choices, the unions to find their best, and so on, not only in Chicago, but around the region.

And I even argue that the most important thing is not the numbers, but the organizing drive. Hell, it may snow or rain that day, perish the thought. That's why we're focusing on building news groups and new working relationships that will last beyond Oct 27.

Big bucks? I haven't seen much of it yet, but we'll surely go after it, especially if we're serious enough to want to bring this movement to scale.

The details? Believe me, as soon as we get them, they'll be posted. The Fed Plaza permit was obtained yesterday as the end point, the application is in for the streets and Union Park, but we're wrangling over fees, street blockoffs, and parking for a hundred or so buses.

The basic plan is feeder marches to union park up to noon or so. Rally in Union Park promptly at 1:30pm. Head for Federal Plaza no later than 3pm. Rally at the Plaza 4-6pm. Return to buses along Columbus drive at 6pm. All pending our discussions with the park district and the police, and the moment it's finalized, believe me, it'll be posted everywhere.

Same goes for the speakers. We have to reduce a potential pool of 200 or so down to 25 or so. If you know any great speakers in town, send a suggestion, and we'll put it in the hopper, but at this point, we have no big bucks to bring in outside folks, unless they have their own money.

So far, AFSC promises us a major, prominent Iraqi, whose name I don't have at the moment. That's the only firm commitment.

Yes, it is the right thing to do, and we want the entire range of voices heard--left, progressive, liberal and center-moderate, that want to stop this war now.

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by gigo


CD writes "And I even argue that the most important thing is not the numbers, but the organizing drive."

Planning on taking a survey of who attends? Because if you do, you may be in for a big surprise, one that just may compel a serious rethink about some basic political assumptions you've been operating on about how to 'broaden' support for the antiwar movement by titrating the message.

To wit: A few months back, Intellectual Affairs reported on the work of a couple of social scientists who were studying the contemporary antiwar movement. They have been showing up at the national demonstrations over the past several years and - with the help of assistants instructed in a method of random sampling - conducting surveys of the participants. The data so harvested was then coded and fed into a computer, and the responses cross-correlated in order to find any patterns hidden in the data.

The researchers, Heaney and Rojas, have kept on gathering their surveys and crunching their numbers, and they recently presented a new paper on their work at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Chicago. The title, "Coalition Dissolution and Network Dynamics in the American Antiwar Movement," seems straightforward enough - and the abstract explains that their focus was on the rather difficult relationship between United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), the two main coalitions organizing national protests.

The paper delivered at APSA looks at how relations between the two biggest antiwar mesomobilizers have affected participation in the national demonstrations. The differences between ANSWER and UFPJ are in part ideological. The rhetorical style of ANSWER normally runs to denunciations of American imperialism and its running dogs. (I exaggerate, but just barely.) UFPJ is by contrast the "moderate flank" of the antiwar movement, and not prone to tackling all injustice on the planet in the course of one protest. As Heaney and Rojas put it, UFPJ argues that "in order to build the broadest coalition possible, it should focus on the one issue about which the largest number of organizations can agree: ending the war in Iraq."

The groups have a long, complicated history of mutual antagonism that in some ways actually predates even the present organizations. Comparable fault-lines emerged between similar coalitions organizing in 1990 and '91 against the first Gulf War. But UFPJ and ANSWER did manage to mesomobilize together at various points between 2003 and 2005. This honeymoon has been over for a couple of years now, for reasons nobody can quite agree upon - even as public disapproval of president's handling of the war rose from 53 percent in September 2005 (when the UFPJ-ANWER alliance ended) to 58 percent in March 2007.

What this meant for Heaney and Rojas was that they had data from the different phases of the coalitions' relationship. They had gathered surveys from people attending demonstrations that UFPJ and ANSWER organized together, and from people attending demonstrations the groups had scheduled in competition with each other. (They also interviewed leading members of each coalition and gathered material from their listservs.)

The researchers framed a few hypotheses about contrasts that would probably be reflected in their data set.

"We expected that participants in the UFPJ demonstrations would have a stronger connection with mainstream political institutions and a weaker connection to the antiwar movement," they write.

"We expected, given ANSWER's preference for outsider political tactics, that its participants would be more likely to have engaged in civil disobedience in the past, while UFPJ would be more likely to have engaged in civil disobedience in the past."

They also anticipated finding significant demographic differences between each coalition's constituency. "Given the relative prominence of women as leaders in UFPJ," they say, "we expected that it would be more likely to attract women than would ANSWER.

Given that ANSWER explicitly frames its identity as attempting to 'end racism,' we expected that individuals with non-white racial and ethnic backgrounds would be disproportionately drawn to ANSWER. Further, given the relatively radical orientation of ANSWER, we hypothesized that it would more greatly appeal to young people and the working class. In contrast, we expected UFPJ to appeal to individuals with higher incomes and college educations."

These predictions were not, for the most part, all that counterintuitive. And so it is interesting to learn that very few of them squared with the data.

People who showed up at demonstrations under the influence of UFPJ's mesomobilizing framework were "significantly more likely to say they considered themselves to be members of the Democratic Party (54.1 percent) than ANSWER attendees (46.9 percent)." There might be a few Republicans mobilized by either coalition, but most non-Democrats in either case would probably identify as independents or supporters of third parties. And they tended to come for different reasons: "Participants at the ANSWER rally were significantly more likely to cite a policy-specific reason for their attendance (such as stopping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), while participants at the UFPJ rally were more likely to cite a personal reason for their attendance (such as the death of a friend or a family member)."

But in terms of important distinctions, that was really about it. There was no difference in degree of political involvement, or experience with civil disobedience, or previous attendance at antiwar protests. Nor was there a demographic split: "Despite the stereotypes that many people have of the two coalitions," write Rojas and Heaney, "they are equally likely to attract the participation of women and men, whites and non-whites, the young the old, those with and without college degrees, and people from various economic strata."

The paper also considers how the parting of the ways between ANSWER and UFPJ influenced their mesomobilizing capacities - that is, what effect it had on the networks of organizations making up each coalition.

The various spider-webs of organizational interaction did change a bit. ANSWER began to work more closely with another coalition pledged to denouncing American imperialism and its running dogs. United for Peace and Justice came under stronger influence by MoveOn - a group "much more closely allied with the Democratic Party than either UFPJ or ANSWER" and taking "a more conservative approach to ending the war." (Or not ending it, I suppose, though that is a topic for another day.)

The researchers conclude that the conflict between the groups has not really been the zero-sum game one might have expected - if only because public disapproval of the president has won a hearing for each of them.

"To some extent," write Heaney and Rojas, "ANSWER and UFPJ are vying for the attention, energies, and resources of the same supporters. But to a larger extent, both groups are more urgently attempting to reach out to a mass public that has remained largely quiescent throughout the entire U.S.-Iraq conflict....If public opinion were trending in favor of the president, or even remaining stable, the conflict might have been more detrimental to the movement as its base of support shrank."

The entire tome ""Coalition Dissolution and Network Dynamics in the American Antiwar Movement," can be downloaded here as a PDF file
[ http://plaza.ufl.edu/mtheaney/Coalition_Dissolution.pdf ]


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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by carol


Federal Plaza as the march end point and rally site? Whatever happened to Grant Park?


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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


What happened to Grant Park?

We deferred to the requests of the South Side ministers, bringing quite a few people in buses, who wanted a more comfortable setting, including seating arrangements for the elderly and parents with small children. Also, given the volatility of weather at the end of October, Grant Park might be too muddy and isolating for some.

Daley Plaza is occupied with a Halloween fest, so Fed Plaza will have to do, with the overflow going into blocked off surrounding blocks, where sound with be projected.

Not the best, but it'll work.

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by Fuck the Democraps!


If these pro-democrap right wing anti-war(?) leaders manage to get some of their politician friends to speak, let's give them the reception they deserve! "Fuck Dick Daley and His Buddy George Bush". Can not believe on a site that advocates for peace and social justice, some fools are defending hack assholes like Daley and stoger. Fuck the Democrapic party, pro-war, pro-imperialist, pro-military, anti-worker, anti-poor people etc. etc. etc.

The people must end this war by everyday militant opposition. Not once a year feel good events where the supporters of the system that makes war are invited to speak.

Another little scope for the fearless leadership, most people at such events pay little or no attention to the leaders who give their "Pat myself on the Back" speeches.

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by when oh when


If prowar Daley is good enough to invite, why not anti-war Stroger, since we're making this a MoveOn Democratic Party rally? When, oh when, will this be answered honestly?

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


We've answered it honestly, CAG.

If the County Board voted against the war, Stroger might be worthy of an invite the same as Daley's.

But somehow, you can't get your brain to digest this, even though I know you’re plenty smart enough.

So I figure you're just looking for ways to yank our chain, and toot a horn for a speakers platform where's everyone's comfortably part of the same 'left bloc' milieu. Especially since it's a very long shot that Daley would even appear.

But I'll stand on my main point. We're going to need people to the right of Daley, both at the top and at the base, to stop this war. We' can't do it alone, and that's why we're getting outside the old box.


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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by cag


Carl, please: Daley, who arrested 800 of us, is fine to invite. Stroger, who's publicly denounced the war, isn't. Explain it. If you're being truthful about your big tent strategy, explain it. Just answer a direct question with a direct answer. Explain it.

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by speaking of voting


Daley never voted against the war, and his proxy boob 11th ward Ald. Balcer negotiated a pathetically watered down version with Joe Moore -- and still didn't vote for it. So Daley never supported an anti-war ordinance. I'd like to see you answer cag cag's question directly, as well.

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


Sigh...once again, we're invited the mayors and city councils of every 'City for Peace' in the region, to represent the positions taken by their cities and under our 'Stop the War Now!' banner.

Chicago fits that description quite well. As we all know, Daley neither supported nor endorsed our resolution, but it passed twice anyway, and 800,000 voted for it in the election.

We're well aware of his personal pro-war and waffling-on the-war statements.

That's not the point here.

Our invitation is a challenge to him, as with the other mayors, to represent the antiwar position taken by their city governments and by their electorates. In his case, our challenge, in the form of an invite, puts the ball in his court, and he will rise to it or not.

I'm not taking bets that he will, but I'd love to be wrong. More and more big-time pols are breaking with Bush and the war every day, but I'm not holding my breath for Daley.

It's a form of struggle--an alliance aimed at neutralization--and an effort to bring the antiwar sentiment in Daley's base to bear on him and those like him.

That's the short and direct explanation.

And the point isn't even Daley as one individual, but developing a basic policy to utterly isolate, divide and defeat the warmakers.

In a shorthand formula, the strategic line is unite the progressive forces, win over the middle forces, divide the camp of the adversaries, isolate the worst of the lot, and crush them one by one via by encirclement, by capturing all possible institutions, step by step, fighting, failing, fighting again, until we win.

The tactical line that goes with it is to wage struggle on just grounds, to our advantage and with restraint.

In this case, 'just grounds' is opposing an unjust war, with the majority reflected in the resolutions and referendums passed. 'To our advantage' means asking mayors to appear under our 'Out Now' banner, with tens of thousands assembled. 'With restraint' means we take the high road of a proper invitation.

Does it have risks?

Of course, what fight doesn't?

Will it work to our advantage? We'll see.

But none of YOU and answering MY question: How in the world do expect to end this war, sooner rather than later, without building alliances with the moderate center, both at the top and at the base. Tell me how the left can do it by itself?

If you think this perspective of mine comes from being wishy-washy on Daley and his ilk, you're dead wrong. It comes from forming a very hard core, and having been trained in the work of the united front by some very wise people, in order to be extremely determined to do what it takes to win some very important battles, and come out stronger to win more in the future.

It's serious business for serious people, and, I'll admit, not everyone's cup of tea. But I don't think we can win without it, or something similar along the same lines, but even better.

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Wednesday, 26 September 2007
by Lev


Let's see. About 70% of the U.S. populations in polls have said they're against the Iraq war, which means that according to Carl's definition the United States, is an "anti-war" nation, so using Carl's criteria for inviting speakers we therefore should request that George Bush "represent" the nation by speaking at the rally.

The above example just illustrates that the stated reason for inviting Daley is a crass rationalization. Daley, who has done his best to wreck every City Council resolution against the war. Daley, who has sucked up as much federal militarization of the schools and Dept of Homeland Security moneys as he can.

The reason for inviting Daley has nothing to do with his ever making even the mildest anti-war gesture. It has everything to do with the long-standing political alliances of some of the Oct. 27th organizers -- anti-war principles be damned.

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by don't you mean popular front


I thought united front was where everybody brings their own convictions and is not forced to subsume them to a larger 'unity' line, whereas in popular front you toe the line on the main slogan and shut the fuck up about your own differences. I think you mean 'popular' front, Carl...

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Tuesday, 25 September 2007
by moderate center?


By moderate center, do you mean ordinary folks, who uniformly oppose the war? Because they're already down with this program. Or do you mean labor bureaucrats and Dem/Repub politicians, who will always put their own political expediency before the aspirations of their rank and file and district constituencies? Seems to me you're going after the 'leadership' instead of focusing on the base, and in selling out the position that ordinary people want to embrace, ending up with nothing -- no additional mobilized base to pressure the 'leaders', and a 'leadership' that remains as unaccountable and indifferent to popular opinion as always.



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Wednesday, 26 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


Well, 'moderate center,' your understanding of both the united front and the popular front leaves much to be desired.

And 'shut the fuck up' isn't good for any of them, popular front, united front or counter-hegemonic bloc. Rather, it's a matter of exercising both independence and initiative in whatever alliances you form, and doing it in a way that helps you win the goal. Read Mao on the topic if you like, or Troung Chinh for a more nuanced analysis.

Here's the bottom line: On one hand, the communists are always a minority, even under socialism. On the other hand, history is made by the masses in their millions, most of whom are not communists, leftists, or what have you, at least at any given time.

Individuals from among the masses, of course, can become communists all the time, if they work at it a bit. I and many friends and comrades are examples of that; there's nothing special about us.

But relating to people as they actually are, means you always have to work with, and unite with, people who disagree with you, largely or smally, both at the base and among the leaders of the base. You can't just unite 'from below' or 'from above', because in life, the two are interconnected.

While the base is always most important, as both the motive force and visionaries of change, the others are important, too, both as an opening to the base, and, in some cases, in their own right.

So by 'moderate center,' I mean both the working-class and middle class women who hate the war, but are also fans of Hillary or any number of mainstream pastors, or even the Pope, as well as the leaders of their organizations they look to.

(Yes, there are a good number of working-class women who hold even the Pope in some esteem. We can go up Milwaukee Avenue and knock on a few doors to find out, if you like.)

We have a war to stop, and we can't do it alone, with just leftists.

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Wednesday, 26 September 2007
by harry's ghost


Well, you gotta hand it to Carl. I haven't seen such painful contortions in print since seeing this image of the great illusionist himself, Harry Houdini ( http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=90093&rendTypeId=4 )

In his latest update on the Oct. 27 Mobilization website, Davidson writes: "In addition to music, the following speakers will be invited: Mayor Richard Daley, Senator Richard Durbin, Senator Barack Obama from Illinois. (Acknowledging that two city council resolutions and the antiwar ballot referendum in the last election put both this City and State solidly in the 'Out Now' camp, and they will be asked to speak to and represent the views of the antiwar majority.)"

Then he writes "Finally, all presidential candidates and their campaigns, critical of the war and ready to bring it to a rapid end, are encouraged to lend their support and the participation of their activists, but without a commitment to inviting any of them to speak. We are nonpartisan and non-endorsing."

But wait a minute, isn't Barack Obama running for President? Mayor Daley has endorsed him. Dick Durbin is one of his biggest campaign boosters.

Presto. Obama campaign rally on Oct. 27. Spread the word. Harry would be proud.



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Wednesday, 26 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


It never ceases to amaze me how little about politics, of any sort, our far left 'politicos' have a handle on.

I'll take the Houdini charge as a backed handed compliment, meaning a degree of skill in dealing with complicated situations.

Obama and Durbin are being invited as the top politicians of a state that voted well over 50 percent against the war, and asked to speak to it.

I think it very unlikely that Obama accepts. His team seems to want only audiences they can control, and where they control the message. Here we control the message: Stop the War Now, Bring ALL Our Troops Home' and the related slogans. If he does, so much the better, because in helps us more than it helps him. If he doesn't, we can still appeal to his supporters that they are welcome, and we set no obstacles.

Durbin, on the other hand, might actually show. He's made a few moves in our direction recently.

Now consider that you're in an alliance, a new one, with a number of major African American churches on the South and West Sides, who are renting buses to bring their people, and they tell you they think it quite important that these two Senators at least be invited, because THEIR base considers it important.

For me and the rest of our committee, it's a no brainer, especially since the main politics of the day are ours, not the Senators.

But in our old coalitions, it would be unthinkable. But that get's to the whole point being debated here, doesn't it?

So we're not seen as unduly partial to Obama, we invite all campaigns critical of the war, opposing Bush and want to bring it to a rapid end, not to speak, but to take part, sent up their tables, and mobilize their volunteers.

The difference between us is that we would see this as a major breakthrough, getting the liberal center to take part in an 'Out Now' rally, where, I suspect from the tone here, you would see it as a horrible setback.

Am I wrong?

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Wednesday, 26 September 2007
by What about Stroger


Why can't we invite Stroger, who's on record as being anti-war, to encourage him to push through an anti-war resolution in the County Board?

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Wednesday, 26 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


Everyone is invited to take part who opposes the war and will march under our main banner.

Stroger's welcome to join our 'Healthcare, Not Warfare' contingent, or our 'Cities for Peace' contingent of elected officials.

And we do encourage the County Board to pass a resolution against the war. If he got that through, someone might even propose him as a speaker. If you want Stroger to speak for that sector, get a group from that sector to join, and then propose him to the program committee.

But for now, no one has. We have far better proposals of people to speak on health care, from the African American community, and from among elected officials.

So enough already. Move on the serious matters.

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Ooops.
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Wednesday, 26 September 2007
by LOL


"Durbin, on the other hand, might actually show. He's made a few moves in our direction recently."

Funny how breaking developments get in the way of the best laid plans. Sen. Dick Durbin just voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment on Iran which Sen. Webb accurately describes as "Cheney’s fondest pipedream " [ http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/79522/index.php ]

How's that for serious?

You know how to pick em, Carl.

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Thursday, 27 September 2007
by Fred M


Once again the fearless leadership is touting their once or twice a year, holy days of obligation. Don't do anything the whole rest of the year, show up Oct. 27, and absolve yourself of the quilt you feel for doing "Nothing" the other 364 days. Ain't going to change shit!

The sad thing is old farts like davidson lived through the Vietnam era and learned nothing. Perhaps because of their years of rubbing elbows with scum like Daley, obomber and durbin, connections to the machine are something not to to be sacrificed. Note davidson's buddies voting on the Iran Resolution this week. Agree with Fuck the Democraps, shout down these phony pigs if they speak at this nearly worthless event.

It is nearly worthless because on a Sat. how many people will actually see it? Most people don't watch the news on weekends. Will the capitalist media give it coverage? How much? Will they give pro-war assholes equal time? It won't be in the Sunday papers. If a few thousand people are downtown that day and the overwhelming number of people in this area don't find out about it, was it really worthwhile?

But worse, there is this terrible illusion, fostered by the fearless leaders, that Oct. 27 will make a difference. Feb. 15, 2003, over 15 million people saying no to war, didn't stop it. What are the leaders screaming about the u. s. attack on Iran? Or is that O. K. because Hilldog, obomber amd the$400 haircut support it. People have to be challenged to do something every week, not once or twice a year. A rally for the other pro-war party next month is not the way to end the wretched wars.

We ended the VietNam war with a mass movement. Not these one or two time a year things. You know movements exist because everyday, people see signs of them and everyday people can do "Something" to sustain or build that Movement. What does the awesome coalition for Oct. 27, offer those thousands, gathered , to do next week, next month, or anytime. Go to their stupid meeting. Where the leaders thump their chests and say how much they are against the war and how much they support impeaching "w" (not going to happen).

My suggestion is getting out on the streets every week. Hold a sign. Bang a drum, scream a little and talk to total strangers about doing more on the street kinds of things. This is how people have always changed things. When was the time you saw a peace button, anti-war shirt or hat, sign in a window or bumper sticker. During Vietnam you couldn't go more than a few blocks in most of this city without seeing one or more anti-war statements. That was a Movement. Until we see Things against the war everywhere, everyday it will not end.

STAND UP AGAINST WAR

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Thursday, 27 September 2007
by Fred M


Got cut off the net, Back. Sorry about the typos at the end of my last post, older people don't always do well under time pressure. Try to keep it short.

Out here on the northwest side there is an explosion of people wearing camouflage pants. An obvious homage to the military. If you are going to fight endless wars for Big Business, people have to honor the goons who will do the fighting. During the VietNam war we didn't love the military. Now days some people claiming to be anti-war, say they love the military more than the republicraps. Hay obermer loves the military soo much, he wants 90 billion more to expand it when he gets elected. Peace candidate, No Way!

There are a number of anti-war weekly events. See the New World calendar under weekly/ongoing events. Please join one of them. We all need help.

Our group is Northside Peace Gathering, started Sept. 2, 2003. Just began our fifth year, Sat Sept. 29 is Gathering #270. The great thing about our events is 270 mini-demos and not one meeting. That is the way it used to be. Yes most people in this country are against the war, but only because they see it as going badly. They are not against war, Only wars that the u. s. is not winning. During VietNam there developed a Movement that opposed not only that War but all wars. Some of us are still around trying to raise hell. But unfortunately too many got suckered into supporting the other war party. We don't!

Let's just look at a few numbers. 269 demos at 2 hours. At a minimum of 1500 sightenings per gathering, that means, we have been seen over 400,00 times! A total of less than a hundred individuals have joined us but nearing half a million people have seen us at least once. We are sure similar numbers can be stated by other weekly events. They do have lots of power but even more if the numbers are larger. Which would be more powerful a dozen protests in neighborhoods of a couple hundred or one downtown? Let's get out on the streets, wear a button put up a sign. Spray paint a wall. But if you want to end these wars, do something in public or on the public every week!

Northside Peace Gathering
every Sat. 2-4 pm
Three Cornered Island of Peace
Milwaukee, Logan and Kedzie Aves.

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Thursday, 27 September 2007
by Carl Davidson


I see you guys every Saturday in my hood, 'Fred M', and always wave or give thumbs up. A few times, I've stopped for a while.

Bless your hearts for doing it, but believe me, it's going to take a lot more.

Organization is our main weapon, organization that can manifest, to use a fancy term, as counter-hegemonic popular power on a large scale.

You folks have organized 200 or so over the years, maybe a dozen at any given time, to stand on a given corner with signs and flyers. Good, that's a start. It beats idle cafe or barroom chatter by a mile.

But we have a military to organize from within, an electorate to transform with new insurgencies, streets, courts and jails to fill, and candidates, officials and presidents to take down, so long as the persist in this war. And put others in their places who will end the war.

We have to more to bring this to a far larger scale, sooner rather than later.

As for Durbin, I was referring to his half-step change of position on war funding, not his position on Iran, which simply stinks.

Let's just get on with it. Build a new organization in a new neighborhood. Bring them to Oct 27 if you like, or any other antiwar event if you don't.


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Friday, 28 September 2007
by Fred M


Had Countdown with Keith Obermann on last night and there it was. Obomber, Hilldog and the $400 haircut all said they did not think troops would be out of Iraq by 2011 if they got elected. Always said there was next to no difference between the dems and repubs, but that debate proved it. The three top democratic candidates for president agreed with shithead butch, they support troops in Iraq for many years to come!

So do we just forgive them and blindly vote for the other war party. I say fucking no! If I am not at Northside Peace Gathering on Oct. 27, when the fucking pro-capitalist democrapic politicians get up to lie, once again, to people, you will hear a few of us yelling at the creepy assholes. Hope others will join us.

Zapata said, "A strong people needs no leaders". This is the problem in this country. Instead of independent, strong willed, free thinking individuals this country is made up of scared, juvenile-acting, spineless sheep. That includes most anti-war people. They hide behind organizations, afraid to act on their own. A Movement is made up of individuals and the character of those individuals will determine the nature of that movement.

In this country not only are most people weak-willed but also selfish as all hell. Hurray for Me and Fuck everyone else, is the official motto of this damn country. And the real sad thing is these terrible traits, selfishness and sheepishness, have become much more widespread over the last 30 years. Most people don't give a damn about anything but themselves. Always said this is why most people don't protest the fucking war. But it is also why almost no one will give us a hard time about us opposing it. The overwhelming majority of people do not care enough either way to say anything in public about the most important issue of our day.

So 35 years later, we are protesting an evil, wretched war, in a country, were most people lack any moral compass. Saw a great bumpersticker a few months ago,"If You Are Not Angry, You are Not Paying Attention". Really don't have an answer on what it will take to give people in this country a backbone or a sense of what is right and wrong. But know it will take a profound change in the way most amerikkkans think. That is what some of us have been doing for decades, with few people bothering to even listen much less agree.

Christianity is a mass movement. But would it exist solely based upon a few people planning the easter and christmas bullshit and the silent obedient masses going the these event. No! That movement exists because things go on every day, every hour, every minute. The anti-war Movement to be successful must be every day, hour and minute. Complete preoccupation with events (1 or 2 a year) organized by a few is not the answer. As I said before if lots of people go to the thing on Oct. 27 and feel good about themselves and do nothing for the next 10 or 12 months, not only was that event meaningless, it was counter-productive. Finally, once again, What are the fearless leaders organizing the thing next month offering the people attending to do anytime soon? Some people coming out of the thing next month will fell empowered and good, unless they are offered something else to do, that sense of success and good felling will be wasted. Add something about that on the other post, soon.

END OF ROUND ONE Read more!