[A-List] Between Actions

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

The other day, I was reading Brian Becker and other national anti-war
coalition leaders quoted in the papers.

    Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the Answer Coalition
    and a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, said
    the group held out little hope of influencing either the president
    or Congress. "It is about radicalizing people," Mr. Becker said
    in an interview. "You hook into a movement that exists -- in this
    case the antiwar movement -- and channel people who care
    about that movement and bring them into political life,
    the life of political activism."  (David D. Kirkpatrick and Sarah
    Abruzzese, "In March, Protesters Recall War Anniversaries,"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/us/18protest.html>)

    Ms. [Lisa] Fithian said she hoped Monday's events would educate
    the public about the cost of war and build more momentum
    for opposing it. "If more and more people took action to stop
    the war," she said, "we might be able to turn things around."
    (Libby Sander, "On 4th Anniversary of War, a Day of Vigils
    and Protests,"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/us/20vigils.html>)

But holding local and national demonstrations and getting people to
come to them obviously doesn't help "radicalize" people nor does it
bring people into "political life" except episodically, for between
demonstrations people have nowhere to go, except to business meetings
(which most meetings on the Left are) and occasional cultural
activities where such exist.  What has been done is not working, so we
have to think about things we haven't been doing (or used to do but
have stopped doing) but are worth trying (or resurrecting).
--
Yoshie