Imitations of activism

For a while now, I've been looking for my place in the antiwar movement, but have found disillusionment around every corner. First, it was the fringe politics - the rallies supposedly about peace but with speakers on every topic from communism to saving gay baby seals of color. Just for the record, I don't care if people choose to be communists (though I don't see the benefits) and I'm all for protecting the civil rights of disadvantaged wildlife, but a peace rally just isn't the place. Then there was the issue of being disorganized - tons of disparate groups all over the place, marching blissfully to their own drummer without any sort of recognition that such marching is a warm-fuzzy, but far from productive. Again, I'm all for people expressing themselves as individuals, but not at the expense of the American military dying overseas and the many Iraqis they're taking with them. And finally, my personal favorites, the love of getting arrested for its own sake and a seeming willingness to bend the truth just as much as those perpetuating the war.

As though to prove my point on that one: the march in Washington yesterday. According to the article run in our own News & Record, there were thousands of protesters. According to the ANSWER Coalition, there were nearly 100,000. My guess is that, as with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Moral high ground, anyone? It would be fast travels because the road is completely empty at this point.

Prior to the march, the ANSWER Coalition asked people to volunteer for a die-in to symbolize the military men and women killed so far, warning that arrest could result. Fair enough - arrest is an acceptable consequence of civil disobedience as MLK, Jr., and his followers proved. But in and of itself, it's not a useful tool - it is only impactful if it sends a message, if the disobedience is in defiance to an unconstitutional law. But it seems that some of those who agreed to risk arrest yesterday were bound and determined to get their finger-printed bragging rights, no matter the police reaction to the planned die-in. Again, according to the N&R, the die-in went off with nary a handcuff, so some protesters climbed the police barrier onto the steps of the Capital Building. Alternately, the ANSWER Coalition said protesters, "were arrested when they tried to deliver their anti-war message to Congress," a statement that confuses me a little. I mean, wasn't the march and the die-in supposed to be the message? And which member of Congress are in their office on a Saturday afternoon?

The newsletter goes on to say, "Police pepper-sprayed demonstrators without provocation." So, climbing police barriers wouldn't be considered provocation?

I'm nitpicking, but the big-picture question remains: what did they achieve yesterday?

This morning, I finished reading Waging Peace: The Art of wear for the antiwar movement by Scott Ritter. It was refreshing to see my concerns detailed by someone who knows way more about the movement than I do, and to see strategies for turning this hodge-podge, exclusive (by which I mean that tons of people are like me and don't feel comfortable participating as the movement currently stands) into a movement that could be truly impactful. Ritter talks about the distractions of fringe politics and the lack of organization that allows thousands of people (even it was significantly fewer than the 100,000 ANSWER reported) to come together without making any real forward movement.

Ritter suggests that the answer is organization: an oversight organization that sets the strategic goals and creates a common vocabulary and approach so that an activist in North Carolina could go to Arizona and jump right into the action, and so that each rally and action contributes to the overall goal, rather than being the masturbatory afternoons in the streets they currently are.

Even as I read Ritter's strategy, I could imagine the response of some of the local activists I have met - total, outright rejection. I can't help but wonder: are they so deluded that they believe what they are doing is actually making a difference? Or is it that they are more married to the fight than the goal? Or perhaps they just don't know there's a better way to go about it... I wish I knew...