So far the anti-war movement has been very tame and dominated by liberal
reformism (though the liberals are less influencial outside of North
America, fortunetly). If the movement stays like this it will fail. There
has never been a successfull anti-war movement which was not revolutionary.
The only way this war can be stopped is to use direct action on a massive
scale and to tackle the root cause - capitalism & the state. The recent
breakaway marches on F15 is a good start, but we need to go further. Below
are the results of some brainstorming I've done on changing the direct of
the anti-war movement towards more effective tactics.
(1) Call our own mass demonstration. In the past ANSWER or the liberals
would be the main organisers of these. Instead of waiting around for them
to call a demonstration, and then following their lead, why don't we
organize one ourselves? If we are the lead organisers then it will be
easier to incorporate direct action and also make it more decentralized,
non-hierarchical and fun.
(2) Dual anti-war/anti-"globalization" protests. Make a "summitt hoping"
protest be both one of these mass rallies against the war and the
"standard" summit protest. Both are two sides of the same coin, so why not
call a protest against "war and corporate America". The upcoming meetings
of the IMF in April could be a good time to do this.
(3) Setting up an ELF-style organisation to carry out sabotage against
weapons production & military installations. A lot of weapons production is
still done domestically and we can put a crimp in their plans if we do
enough sabotage. This should probably also be an international organisation
since foreign US bases & other military facilities would be good targets.
There are already cells formed to carry out these actions (a few have
already done so), all we really need is for someone to do the PR aspect of
setting up a website, taking credit for attacks, etc.
(4) Target the media. Chuck0 has already been pushing this and I think he's
right. On one of the listervs I'm on someone suggested we get a person(s)
or affinity group to follow each newscrew around with signs saying things
like "FOX is lying to you" so that every shot shows that message.
(5) Use the start of the (official) war to discredit the passive tactics
mostly used so far. When the war starts it will be damning proof of the
failure of such passivity and many of the less radical activists may be
more receptive to more militant ideas.
(6) General Strike. Everyone goes on strike right after war (officially)
starts. In the US it probably won't be possible to successfully pull off a
general strike, but in the UK it could be done. This could potentially
force Blair out of office.
(7) International Student walkout against the war. In every country
participating in the war anti-war students should do a class walkout the
day after the war begins. I've heard that there are already some schools
preparing to do this, but it needs to be done everywhere. It might also be
beneficial to try and network internationally between all the student
groups doing this.
(8) In countries where most people oppose the war but the government
supports it use that to deligitimize the government and push for it's
overthrow. Such a situation clearly shows the failure of reprentative
democracy. If the government opposes the war then push it to take actions
which will harm the US empire - such as expelling all US bases from their
country. If the majority can be rallied around such a cause and the
government doesn't go along then use that to delegitimze the government and
as further proof of the failure of representative systems. The anti-war
movement can only succeed if it becomes a massive movement(s) for the
overthrow of all pro-war regimes.
Link:
http://www.riseup.net/brady/propaganda/files/non_violence_and_its_violent_consequences.htm
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/02/17/7266308
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