[Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] Peace and non-tranquility

[Ricky Baldwin]

It seems unfair to tar the entire anti-war movement as 'feckless' because the local group asks that one individual limit his remarks in a certain group-run forum on subjects not directly related to the mission of the group.  Or because war hasn't suddenly stopped.

Besides, from the early days of AWARE the agreement was that the group maintained two lists - one ('peace') for announcements only, and another ('peace-discuss') for discussion.  It's also pretty obvious that at some point people actually interested in the goals of the group ought to consider whether continuing some discussions past that point is actually furthering the goals of the group.  So someone may legitimately complain that this point has been reached, and of course others may disagree.  This is not the same as some authority cutting off discussion or banning a person from participation; it's persuasion.  But, again, I think if someone wants AWARE to do its work, he or she really ought to weigh whether pursuing an individual concern helps or impedes that, perhaps becomes a distraction for example, in a context with time or other logistical constraints such as a meeting or a list.  Specifically, if people are leaving the meeting(s) or lists(s) because of an activity that is not vital to the integral of the goals of the group, is that activity necessary?  Sometimes I suppose it may be.  Often not.

But the alleged 'fecklessness' of the anti-war movement is a more serious charge.  It is true, looking at one measure of local support, that AWARE meetings were much larger in 2001-2, and included puppetry, ukulele, poetry, etc.  Debates in those days went on much longer over each project, but outside working groups multiplied and so did the excellent work the group did.  No, the invasion of Afghanistan was not prevented, nor the war stopped - which was of course the goal, but a big one for a small group.  Those meetings shrank as the war dragged on, reaching a kind of plateau at about 30 for a few years, but those 30-50 people held regular demonstrations, handed out reams of propaganda that educated and inspired hundreds or thousands of people at the farmer's market and public events, spoke at local churches and other gatherings, marched in every July 4th parade for years, organized a campaign that put referenda on the local ballot and arguably changed one US representative's voting on the war.  All that took considerable pluck and courage, and was not at all feckless, even though the Administration's wars continued apace.

For another measure, it is true that the demonstrations on North Prospect (at that time) swelled to well over 300 on a weekly basis only in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, not before invasion of Afghanistan, and although a few people stopped coming when bikers and holy-rollers (together at last!) began holding pro-war counter-demonstrations and intimidating or even attacking passing cars and anti-war protesters, the real decline in participation came after the invasion went ahead and it became clear that the military excursion was not going to be a short one.  Judging from statements of people as they apologized that they would not be back, it was largely disappointment and a sense of hopelessness that sent them home, or at the very least a sense of short-term failure (some promised they would be back 'if needed' or otherwise implying that turning points are when they would turn out).  The big change happened well before 2007-8, so it was not elections or the oft-alleged cooptation that made the biggest difference, though these probably had some effect, too.

Many people have also said they were tired (some after 4-6 years of continuous protest, weekly meetings, planning, arguing, etc) or just too busy (with growing families, jobs or personal struggles, etc), and yes some say they won't be back at meetings because of certain individuals' behavior (not always the same person).  Others are simply looking for a better way to contribute.  It's easy to claim that none of these stated reasons are the real reasons, but harder to demonstrate that all these people are lying or in denial.  It is speculation.

But the 'Occupy' movement enjoyed a similar heyday and decline, locally at least.  And no election intervened.  And so have others.  Perhaps people do just get momentarily excited about the prospect of accomplishing something good and great together, and then easily despair when the reality of regular people organizing against rich and powerful and tightly-networked interests is much more mundane than the Cliff notes on revolution.  People at meetings are annoying, they get off topic, they fight, they do not follow through on commitments, they distract, they dissemble, they have bad ideas, they sometimes seem to sabotage the very project we are working on, they get sick, they die, they have children, they get new jobs, they get fired, they move away, and even under the best of circumstances we usually do not accomplish our main goals.  That's because the deck is stacked against us ordinary human beings to a pretty obnoxious degree.  But history seems to say (Howard Zinn, Frances Fox Piven, Richard Cloward) that it usually takes a long time to make any significant change, and that even with such a change the need for struggle never seems to end.  The ex-revolutionaries start rounding up former comrades, the candidate we supported turned on us or turned out worse than we thought, the bill we supported was so changed in committee or otherwise that it didn't accomplish the main objective.  But does that mean we accomplished nothing?

I'm tempted to insert that "you don't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need" - but of course I won't.

I personally think it is important to win small victories - like the anti-war referendum, a citizens' police review board, a candidate, a minor reform, such as raising the minimum wage or enacting even a limited local living wage, that kind of thing.  I believe that these things help real people, even if we still have big battles to fight and we may lose what we gained and have to re-fight some battles.  

But I also think it's well worth it, even when we don't obviously 'win'.  We used to say we are always organizing against the NEXT war.  We could equally say we are organizing against the NEXT administration, or law, or corporate policy, or whatever injustice.  Because the effect we have may be hard to discern at times, but it is not nothing.  We are not useless, or feckless, or otherwise cipher-like.  The things we do have a long-range effect, ripple, cascade, and erode away the power gradient that we resist.  We have to be smart, have courage, and do our best, and stay focused, of course, but one thing we must always do is educate ourselves and others about what we have accomplished, even though it was not all we wanted, and what others have accomplished with great time and effort and intense planning and careful organizing, and NOT just because one person was tired one day and decided she did not want to move to the back of the bus, or some other mythological fantasy-explanation.  It's damn hard.  And people ought to know it up front.  In the labor movement we call it 'inoculation': keeps people from getting discouraged too easily.

The next thing we must always do, because people leaving an effort is inevitable, is organize: recruit if you like to say it that way, but also learn and teach how to work together to accomplish limited objectives in service of larger goals, and so on.  We may change out venue from time to time, but wherever we are working for justice we must always be organizing.  And in my view that means that we must consider the effect of just about anything we are doing on that organizing.

My 2c.
Ricky



-----Original Message-----
From: occupycu-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:occupycu-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. Estabrook
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 9:38 PM
To: Stuart Levy
Cc: Peace Discuss; Gregg Gordon; ocCUpy
Subject: Re: [OccupyCU] Peace and non-tranquility

It's a sign of the fecklessnes of the anti-war movement that a local organization designed to hamper the government's crimes has been reduced to spending time trying to stop an elderly academic from posting to its email list.

On Sep 3, 2012, at 11:33 PM, Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Please - Stan, Carl, Paul, everybody - don't reply to the Peace list even if someone else did.  Jenifer is right.
> 
> I've already heard from one dear friend and long-time AWAREist who is (only) on the peace list.  He wrote me this afternoon in distress, asking to be taken off the peace-discuss and occupy lists because he is receiving more messages than he can handle.  In fact, he was already on *only* the peace list, not on the other two.
> 
> Also, I'm with Chris Goodrow.  As a reader of peace-discuss and occupyCU, I'm really not that interested in disputes over the history of News from Neptune, even though I've enjoyed the past and present incarnations of that program.  Is this an argument that needs to go before hundreds of people?
> 


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