Actions are controlled by the police. The police can easily take the life out of a march by arbitrarily arresting anyone perceived to be an anarchist at any point during the march or rally.
Those standing up for peace all too often (as they did at the RNC) allow the police to impact what they do; they let the police become THE issue and forget what they really came to speak out for or against.
The overarching message which defines the rally/march is muddied by the cacophony created by the clashing of other groups’ messages.
Message discipline rarely exists at the organized rallies/marches I attend. Sorry, Mumia Abu-Jumal, but the running joke is that no matter what antiwar protest you go to, you will always find a “Free Mumia” sign.
There’s a Japanese proverb: Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
Now, I feel like I am part of a nightmare when I am out in the streets as thousands of visions collide and create a scene of massive disorientation for all Americans to see.
Meanwhile, as good, passionate, well-intentioned but lost souls fight the good fight, the Great Recession has grabbed a hold and suffocated all thoughts or feelings Americans may have had at one time or another in regards to the wars raging in the Middle East.
The sideshow---whose cast includes A.I.G. and Citigroup executives, Bernie Madoff, CNBC “journalists”, Timothy Geithner, and Congress and then Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, FOX News, and the rest of the pundits from the other news channels---is a mass distraction.
The anger at Wall Street is healthy and worth capitalizing off of. But, the antiwar movement does not know how to channel the anger at Wall Street into an effective strategy to improve organizing against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (After all, the wars cannot possibly be helping the U.S. end the recession.)
In fact, many groups within the movement are uncomfortable with holding nuanced positions on the wars. As a result, they have no strategy to leverage power.
For example, some antiwar groups disagree with employing any tactic or strategy that may connect the economy to calls to end the war. Such groups claim the “moral argument” is what should be used to end the wars; the economy muddies the “moral argument.”
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Strident belief in the power of “moral argument” has created significant dividing lines which impact what the antiwar movement in America is capable of doing for humanity. (For example, the argument over whether to march at the Democratic National Convention or the Republican National Convention or both was an argument which separated the movement significantly.)
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), a coalition with a network of activists that could be doing much more for the antiwar movement than it has thus far, has traditionally been reluctant to oppose the war in Afghanistan too stridently and has been uncertain about calling for the investigation and prosecution of former Bush Administration officials for war crimes.
UFPJ chose to not mobilize antiwar organizations on the sixth anniversary; instead, UFPJ chose to organize a national mobilization in New York City called “Beyond War: A New Economy is Possible” on April 4th (which marks the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech).
