We've had extensive, combative, conflictual, tense, angry, whatever discussions about the protest movement against the invasion of Iraq. Among the items of contention has been the argument, some have made on this thread, that the most radical, most extreme elements should characterize the protests as a whole. Some of us have resisted that notion.
The New York Times has a long piece in today's edition that gets at the origins and conflicts within that movement. It would be better to characterize it as several movements, some of which are political infants who just wish to express anger and some of which are political adults who know the aim of a movement is to alter perceptions and to create a long term political movement.
I recommend this article if you have interests in the movement and if you think it is the worse thing since, . . . whatever.
It's a long article so it will take at least two posts.
1 of 2.
Antiwar Effort Emphasizes Civility Over Confrontation
By KATE ZERNIKE and DEAN E. MURPHY
nytimes.com
ith the war against Iraq in its second week, the most influential antiwar coalitions have shifted away from large-scale disruptive tactics and stepped up efforts to appeal to mainstream Americans.
One of the largest groups, Win Without War, is encouraging the two million people on its e-mail list to send supportive letters to soldiers. Other groups have redoubled their fund-raising for billboards that declare "Peace is Patriotic" and include the giant image of an unfurling American flag.
The changed tone comes after a week of street protests marking the start of the war that reduced San Francisco to anarchy, turned Chicago's Lakeshore Drive into a parking lot and paralyzed major roads in Atlanta, Boston and other cities.
This week, the nation's largest antiwar coalitions said they were abandoning their plan to disrupt everyday life. Instead, they said, they would direct protests at federal institutions, corporations and media conglomerates that "profit from war" in an effort to attract attention but not offend most Americans.
The shift reflects a tension that has existed within the nation's antiwar movement for months.
Radical groups like those weaned on the antiglobalization protests that disrupted Seattle four years ago sought more civil disobedience. More mainstream groups like the National Council of Churches were afraid that confrontational tactics would only alienate the American public.
At least for now, the more mainstream groups have gained the upper hand. They have sought to cast their movement as the loyal opposition, embracing the troops but condemning the war. Within the movement, which includes everything from small groups in small towns to a large alliance of more than 200 organizations, radical elements still exist. But the larger and more influential groups have sought over time to sideline them, deliberately excluding certain speakers, dismissing certain tactics, marginalizing certain protests, in a determined effort to avoid being dismissed as career malcontents.
The week before the war began, another major coalition, United for Peace and Justice, declined to join in sponsoring a rally put on by International Answer, a group whose names stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, saying its message was too left-wing and alienating.
And even the umbrella organization that helped shut down San Francisco's financial district last week began its more mundane protests this week with an announcement that demonstrators interested in thuggery should keep their distance.
"If we're going to be a force that needs to be listened to by our elected officials, by the media, by power, our movement needs to reflect the population," said Leslie Cagan, co-chairwoman of United for Peace and Justice, and a career political organizer.
"It needs to be diverse," Ms. Cagan went on, "it needs to be large, it needs to include the people who could be described as mainstream — but that doesn't exclude the people who are sometimes thought of as the fringes."
Even the more mainstream groups are full of people who have spent large stretches of their lives on the front lines of protest movements, from the civil rights struggles to antiglobalization campaigns. But they say they have learned from their own mistakes. So while attacking corporate America for driving this war, antiwar groups have co-opted corporate strategies, rolling out media campaigns as if opposition to war were a new kind of cola.
For weeks, public relations firms have sent news organizations daily suggestions for interviews and "great visuals" that feature protesters. Groups practicing civil disobedience make sure their designated publicity person avoids arrest, to remain available to television cameras. One organization even "embedded" reporters among protesters the way the Pentagon did with its troops.
"The great lesson from Madison Avenue is repetition," Ms. Cagan said. "If you get the same message out in different ways, you begin to break into people's consciousness."
The New Era
Rallying Round the E-Mail Lists
The last time a vast antiwar movement took American streets was during the Vietnam War, so comparisons between this movement and that one are inevitable.
The new antiwar groups take pride in the size of the crowds they have been able to mobilize. They have grown a protest movement the size of which it took Vietnam-era organizers four years to build — this time, without a draft and even before the first body bags might shock people into the streets.
United for Peace and Justice, for example, says it took only six weeks to get 350,000 people to a rally in New York in February, and Win Without War says it took four days to set up 6,800 candlelight vigils the week the war began.
"I am rather pleased with the way things have gone," said Michael N. Nagler, the founder and former chairman of the Peace and Conflict Studies Department at the University of California at Berkeley. "I have been monitoring the peace movement for almost four decades, and often wringing my hands in despair for its lack of savvy and lack of organization."
Still, it is a different era now.
Protest has become routine, no longer seen as an assault on the country's values and culture the way it was when demonstrators descended on Washington in the 1960's.
The Internet makes it far easier to organize swiftly and draw out crowds.
In fact, some might say this movement — which unlike the one during Vietnam began before the start of the Iraq conflict — failed in its most important goal: to stop the war before it commenced. Certainly the protesters say they have learned that they need a long-term strategy.
"It's tremendously saddening," said Eli Pariser, international campaigns director of MoveOn.org, a member of the Win Without War coalition, said of the start of the war.
"At the same time, there still is optimism that in terms of our larger goal, which is to end this foreign policy that is so dangerous, there's still hope, and quite a lot of it."
The Mobilization
In Diversity There Is Strength
The antiwar movement is a set of diverse groups that often overlap, swapping staff, money, and office space, acting in concert and alone.
Some are offshoots of well-known national groups with multimillion-dollar budgets, large paid staffs and other agendas: The Sierra Club and the National Council of Churches, the National Organization for Women and the N.A.A.C.P.
Others are more obscure or formed explicitly in the context of the war: Code Pink, September 11 Families For Peaceful Tomorrows, People for a Gasoline-Free Day. And many cities have their own organizations with their own distinct local flavor.
Direct Action to Stop the War, with no paid staff, no offices and no formal fund-raising efforts, dominates the protest scene in San Francisco.
One of its leaders, Patrick Reinsborough, had led an effort to pressure Home Depot to discontinue the sale of products made with old-growth trees. Another, Mary Bull, is the coordinator of the Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign. She was once arrested, dressed as a tree, outside the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington.
The coalitions against the war have drawn on the budgets and staffs of the larger national groups that have joined in.
Many of the newer organizations are too fresh to have reported finances to government regulators. But they say they have also gotten money from various other sources, including the Barbra Streisand Foundation; Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's; and Paulette Cole of ABC Carpet and Home in New York City.
They say they have also raised significant amounts of money in smaller increments online. Win Without War says it raised $400,000 online in 48 hours, with an average donation of $35.
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