Greetings Economists, I think this demonstrates a couple of things. The press emphasized Jane Fonda speaking which to me is a way of bringing up the sixties. That has been successfully limited to a 'generational' group. Secondly what does a demo do? On Jan 27, 2007, at 12:41 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
Altogether, the WP says, the DC rally, "orderly," drew "fewer than the 100,000 people."
Doyle; Demos, perhaps the French version aren't about how big the march but how well to express the current radical mood the people have. In the youth actions in France it was the spontaneous attacks against symbols of the 'regime' against immigrants. In the U.S. the left is not prepared to use the internet to get to the roots of protest. The tools are there, but the ability lies untapped. The ability to properly cover events in detail is missing in the big marches. I don't see coverage anywhere of the big march much less anything that would motivate me to get off my ass. This lack is not a super criticism, but reflects how learning how to express ourselves outside the traditional means of expression are still quite an obstacle to organizing. Any big action now is really dependent upon how well people link themselves in detail to them. I think for example the concept of connection is being neglected in the actions. The goal is march, the bus to the march, the announcements of the march don't carry much weight in terms of getting people connected. What is really interesting about connecting to a movement? Does the movement offer something that answers deeply felt needs? Well get out of the war of course, but is the answer we provide not lively, interesting and unavailable to the right to engage with? If we look back a ways to when people used to comment on being sold out to the 'man', the ability of commercial media to utilize music and culture as a means to subvert the counter culture is well known. Who cares what the Rolling Stones do by way of a cultural movement now? To me this signals that the means of media production is not being treated properly. What does a left think? It thinks about the commune, the collective, and the connection. There is still plenty of interesting ways to address that. For example the Totality. That being the whole is really a lack in the present U.S. The whole is an imperialism, that fails but the opposite concept of a whole is not a major conceptual presence to oppose to the imperialism. The lack of a clear political whole in the mass mind even if present in the thinking left makes it hard to get past the reformist goal of ending the war. To me the U.S. paints a global answer to statist ambitions. So we need a globalist opposite of their imperial structure. Rooted in the masses that respond to anti-war demonstration calls. To do that we need to provide gritty detail of how to build connection in the community, to collect the common labor into a unity. Unity is expressed by automated tools like search engines, so we need to consider what is necessary to properly unite people via the tools of expression of the era we live in. Or structured build up of content which is organized and focused (if not completely driven by centralization) to provide common events a much more intense and engaging environment for providing connection amongst the mass of loosely connected working class people. thanks, Doyle
