Robert Harman
28th September 2005, 21:10
After attending this past weekends huge, noviolent, peaceful march. I
realized that the way activists are organizing events are not helping
the movement at all. During the civil rights movement the success of
noviolent protest was solely because it attracted media attention to
the racist and oppressive policies that were in place at the time.But
this weekend there was little media covering the protest, the most I
heard on the mainstream was covering the pro-war demonstration and how
little people turned out for it. So what we as organizers of the
anti-war movement need to do is bring the media back to us. And in my
opinion several broad things need to be done before that will happen,
one, we need to not only have these huge massive protests and marches
in D.C. and New York, but we need them in Chicago, L.A. St. Louis,
Charlotte, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Houston, we need protests in every
city. We need to do what the media is not doing for us, showing every
American that the anti-war movement is growing at an amazing rate. And
second, we need mass direct action, mass cooridinated direction. Once
again in every major city.We need to take that risk of arrest and
blockade the highways, shut down the banks, delay the airports,we need
to shut these places down. That is the only way anyone is going to pay
any attention to us. We had hundreds of thousands of people in the city
of D.C. this weekend, imagine if all those people just decided to
blockade the D.C. metro, better yet all ride the D.C. metro at the same
time, imagine if the all marched right through the gaurd points at the
white house and just sat in the lawn, imagine if they blockaded the
major highways into the cities, you think the cops have enough jail
cells or manpower to arrest a few hundred thousand protestors? I think
not. The second we start using direct action in mass numbers, such as
sit-ins, blockades, occupations etc, is the second we will get the
media to pay attention to us. And once the media pays attention to us,
the politicians will get off their asses and do something.
It is because of this I have decided their needs to be an
organization, not one that just repeatedly organizes marches in exactly
the same location every few months. But one solely devoted to
organizing effective, direct action throughout the country. The
temporary name for this organization will be The Protest and Direct
Action Organizing Commitee. Although that will most likely change. So
lets begin the discussion on how we can organize and create such an
organization. We have to get this train moving, we can't take another
three years of this insanity,and if we don't do anything now we could
risk having a similar president in 2008. So stand up, get up, get loud,
and fight for what you believe in. Subscribe to the new e-mail list and
lets begin organizing!!
The link to the e-mail list, just copy and paste into the url box.
http://groups.google.com/group/pdaoc?lnk=li
realized that the way activists are organizing events are not helping
the movement at all. During the civil rights movement the success of
noviolent protest was solely because it attracted media attention to
the racist and oppressive policies that were in place at the time.But
this weekend there was little media covering the protest, the most I
heard on the mainstream was covering the pro-war demonstration and how
little people turned out for it. So what we as organizers of the
anti-war movement need to do is bring the media back to us. And in my
opinion several broad things need to be done before that will happen,
one, we need to not only have these huge massive protests and marches
in D.C. and New York, but we need them in Chicago, L.A. St. Louis,
Charlotte, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Houston, we need protests in every
city. We need to do what the media is not doing for us, showing every
American that the anti-war movement is growing at an amazing rate. And
second, we need mass direct action, mass cooridinated direction. Once
again in every major city.We need to take that risk of arrest and
blockade the highways, shut down the banks, delay the airports,we need
to shut these places down. That is the only way anyone is going to pay
any attention to us. We had hundreds of thousands of people in the city
of D.C. this weekend, imagine if all those people just decided to
blockade the D.C. metro, better yet all ride the D.C. metro at the same
time, imagine if the all marched right through the gaurd points at the
white house and just sat in the lawn, imagine if they blockaded the
major highways into the cities, you think the cops have enough jail
cells or manpower to arrest a few hundred thousand protestors? I think
not. The second we start using direct action in mass numbers, such as
sit-ins, blockades, occupations etc, is the second we will get the
media to pay attention to us. And once the media pays attention to us,
the politicians will get off their asses and do something.
It is because of this I have decided their needs to be an
organization, not one that just repeatedly organizes marches in exactly
the same location every few months. But one solely devoted to
organizing effective, direct action throughout the country. The
temporary name for this organization will be The Protest and Direct
Action Organizing Commitee. Although that will most likely change. So
lets begin the discussion on how we can organize and create such an
organization. We have to get this train moving, we can't take another
three years of this insanity,and if we don't do anything now we could
risk having a similar president in 2008. So stand up, get up, get loud,
and fight for what you believe in. Subscribe to the new e-mail list and
lets begin organizing!!
The link to the e-mail list, just copy and paste into the url box.
http://groups.google.com/group/pdaoc?lnk=li