[Peace] Not much interest in DC trip...

[Randall Cotton]

As of last Sunday at the AWARE meeting, I accumulated a grand total of 4
people who expressed genuine interest in traveling to Washington DC for the
April 12 march on the White House. I feel this low level of interest among
the local peace activist community doesn't justify an effort on my part to
promote and organize such a trip (which would require 2 weeks minimum in my
judgement). My efforts are better spent on other projects. However, I will
put those who expressed interest in touch with each other so that they may
join together either on the way or while in DC if they so choose. Also, FYI,
another possibility is that International Answer in Chicago is providing bus
transportation (see http://www.answerchicago.org/A12.htm )

I'm not sure how, but perhaps there was an impression that this trip would
involve civil disobedience (as erroneously reported in the minutes). Let me
just clarify that at no time did I ever mention civil disobedience in
connection with this trip and the DC events like this one (organized by
International ANSWER) never have either. Even the best-attended of these
events (on Jan. 18, when about 50 Champaign/Urbana folks attended) yielded
only 2 or 3 arrests, while even the most conservative attendance estimate
was 60,000. No organized civil disobedience took place.

It's hard to know what future trends will be for big-city demonstrations and
whether there will be much interest in local folks attending them, but I do
intend to keep an eye out for big demonstrations out of town (in DC, Chicago
or New York) and I intend on being prepared to promote, organize and raise
funds for a future trip if a critical mass of interest forms early
(Something like 10 people expressing genuine interest at least two weeks
ahead of the event would be a green-light for me, I think).

Anyway, keep in mind for the future that if there's interest in a big trip,
I'm willing to throw myself into making it happen.

R