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my approach is the only approach and anybody who disagrees is a be-beaded, patchouli-drenched retread stuck in the '60s bullshit? You, too, Markos.
Protest marches have their purposes. And they didn't start in the 1960s. Ever hear of the suffragists? Of course, even those women didn't just walk in the street with banners and pickets. They worked doggedly hard for decades to get editors and citizens to take up their cause; and they worked hard on the phones and the floors of Congress and state legislatures to get the XIX Amendment adopted. Protest marches were only one of their many tools.
Just so the antiwar movement of the 1960s. Protest marches weren't the end-all, be-all then, just a tool. Contrary to what so many here seem to believe (apparently because they have accepted the media-distorted images of the movement) - 95% of what we antiwarriors did in the Vietnam era was NOT organize marches and rallies.
There were: vigils; sit-ins; draft counseling; election work; veterans advocacy; teach-ins; one-on-one persuasion of neighbors, friends, parents, professors, editors, business executives, Congresspeople; getting draft-age 18-year-olds the right to vote; civilly disobedient tax avoidance; letters to the editor; Op-Eds; building alternative newspapers (a parallel of today's blogs). Moreover, when we did hold mass marches, American flags outnumbered the North Vietnamese and VC flags carried by a few morons.
Today, we have more options, including technologically driven ones. You don't have to be 21 to vote, for one thing. Thus, while many of us in the 1960s had only extra-electoral options for our war opposition, we are no longer are so confined.
As I have argued since the 1960s, and continuously since I began participating at Daily Kos three years ago - and as I did in my Sunday Diary and TocqueDeville's about the October 24 march - local organizing and locally-based opposition is key to our success, whether that's electing more (and better) Democrats or finding other means to stop various policies, including the PNAC-inspired foreign policy of this grotesque Administration. And I offered a list of local things to do (scroll to the boldfaced items), which other posters added to.
To repeat, I think local organizing is most important, just as it was in the 1960s. I think influencing the media is crucial to our success, just as it was in the 1960s (even though it's far more difficult today, given mergers and concentration and the fear that Dan Rather says stalks the newsroom). I think electing antiwar politicians to office is crucial, just as it was in the 1960s, though we mostly failed in this regard, just as we have so far this time around.
I agree with the many people who complain that protest marches take prodigious amounts of time and energy and money to put together, all done for a brief moment of camaraderie and media attention (which isn't always positive). So, the 20-to-1 ratio of other antiwar work to protest march efforts should be our standard, or even 99-to-1.
But I've yet to hear anybody provide a compelling argument that mass protests are per se useless in the 21st Century, an utter waste of time, passé, counterproductive.
What we definitely need, as TocqueDeville and Ben Masel and others have eloquently argued, is new leadership for protest marches. And we need veterans, Gold Star moms, reverends, CEOs and elected political leaders - not the Kitchen Sink Liberation Brigade - to be key voices at such events, just as state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero was at the Los Angeles march on October 24. Just as Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic was at the Los Angeles march.
But, although they should be, must be, and are only a small part of our effort, jettisoning them altogether in favor of flash animations and letters to the editor is myopic in the extreme. Moreover, somebody will be holding such protest marches. Opting out means that the somebody will be A.N.S.W.E.R. or another like them. That, I think most of us agree, is not the image we want the media focusing on.
Take the poll.