We had the biggest demonstration in Portland, Oregon history today. Despite another in a long string of rainy days, some 50,000 people (perhaps even more) turned out. One of the most interesting and positive aspects of the demo was the growth of feeder marches.
In Portland, many of the more left groups have been unhappy with the limited political focus of our increasingly large gatherings. So, rather than divide the movement, an anti-capitalist tendency was created and organized a feeder march. For example, at the last big march the anti-capitalist tendency called for a gathering 1 hour before the main march at a separate location. Then those at that gathering marched with their own slogans, after listening to their own speeches, as a mass and joined the main demonstration. It is a show of force for a more radical perspective. The anti-capitalist tendency has done that for the last few demonstrations and has seen a noticeable growth in the numbers that attend its pre-march activities. This year, a labor, a queer, and a green tendency joined in the fun, organizing their own feeder marches, along with the anticapitalist tendency. While the choice of where to start is getting harder for some activists, I think this is positive because it begins to point to the creation of a movement rather than a demo. In other words rather then just come as individuals, people are now starting to identify with communities and to come as part of a community. This means that it becomes possible to maintain more ongoing contact and communication with people and easier to work with them to develop and deepen their political understandings. Have other communities used this technique? Marty Hart-Landsberg On Sat, 15 Mar 2003, Devine, James wrote: > My son & I went to a GIGANTIC anti-war demonstration today in downtown L.A. > I don't know how big it was but it seemed large given the torrential rains > and cold (57 degrees F.! Brrrr! ;-)) temperatures. The many umbrellas made > the demo look much larger... We were interviewed by a cub reporter from the > New York TIMES. It remains to be seen if it's in tomorrow's paper. > Jim >
