DEAR SUSAN,WHAT IF THEY GAVE A VOTE AND NO ONE CAME ??THEN THEY COULD NOT LIE TO US ABOUT WHO WON !SHOULDNT WE BE DISCUSSING "BOYCOTT"BOYCOTTING THE NEXT ELECTION,INSTEAD OF DISCUSSING WHOM WE WILL VOTE FOR ??

"if ya go carryin' pictures of Chairman Mao,
ya ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."
Lennon, not Lenin

Nelson Terry:

Sorry I wasn't following this thread, your idea is great - definitely not the fierce vexation of a dream, more like an idea whose time has come. I don't have any technical expertise in making it happen though I sure am willing to contribute in whatever way possible..

Hi Marxymark,

I would be willing to give Socialism a chance, in fact I grew up in a Marxist Family.
I just don't think that you will be able to get this nation to convert to it soon, if ever. I think we should start with a better balance of public and private ownership. Kind of a Social Democracy... Would you think that would be better than what we have now?
It sure beats Fascism!

We could get into a discussion of all the old debates and wars of Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Castro and all but we need to go forward and be realists now more than ever. We also can't afford to bore others with old Ideology...It is our World now.

I may be all alone on this but I think the Peace Movement here and everywhere is makin some good progress... and we are winning! Just one or two dedicated folks on a street corner with a good message is great and I know folks who do that day after day and they don't care if it is not a huge turnout. They are doin good and they see the positive responses from the traffic.
i am not waiting for Socialism to come because what we need now is a new balance of Private and Public ownership with more power to the people.

Nelson Terry, you have a great idea and there is a link at the bottom to contact Common Dreams.
On my threads about my JFK investigations at the Education Forum there is a useful tool that sends me an email about a new post on the topic which is great.

I do have a new thread that seems to be working now on Tactics of our Peace Movement at
http://www.wtpnet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11

So in the meantime this might be of some use.

There have been so many great ideas right here on Common Dreams and I hope they get posted again everywhere.

NELSON TERRY: Sorry to enter this thread late (I am in the literary equivalent of a log jam, a bunch of stuff due for edit at once), but I did want you to know I LIKE and SUPPORT your idea. I have NO technical expertise, zilch, but I'd be happy to be of help with other aspects if something like this got up and running.
I am experiencing a bit of burn-out at the moment, so will make this short. Best of Providence, the forces of light be with you... as THEY truly are working every tributary they can to bring a higher awareness to persons on this planet lest the worst of war, earth change, etc gain yet greater momentum. A light can and does put out darkness, and there is the need to light many "candles." CD does so, and any expansion on its theme and outreach HAS to be a positive thing.

I see a few comments here lamenting a stereotype that only Marxists are organizing anti-war rallies. Marxophobia strikes again! Let's look at the sources of the Iraq War--oil, imperialism, militarism. Global capitalism will always keep the war machine well oiled and in use. We need an anti-war movement that is PRO-something. If you want peace, work for justice; if you want justice, give the socialist alternative to capitalism a chance.

I see where you're coming from ChChicano. Good point.
But the small town I live in (under 20 thousand), is almost entirely middle class white English speaking.

That's the problem, everyone is so "comfortable" they don't feel the pain of the homeless in the bigger cities, or the disabled, or immigrants, or the impoverished in other countries, or our own soldiers in Afghanistan, nor can they enivision the stamping out of personal rights that is looming on their own doorsteps.

As I may have said, my fear is that they will have to experience soup lines themselves, massive inflation, and the tightening noose of loss of private rights before they'll understand. I also fear that by that point they'll be so kicked down and afraid they'll be paralyzed beyond hope. It's the polite Canadian way never to say anything contrary, or frankly, to speak up at all. Safety in civilized numbers and all of that.

As others here have implied, the overwhelming rule of the herd mentality is at the crux of our society's problem -- and the discouragement of individualistic thinking. I remember in public school being utterly humiliated by isolation or laughed at or being thought of as "different" from everyone else. I could not imagine any worse fate - then. I still see that reaction in people, say, in an elevator, if you start talking to someone everyone starts moving away as though you are a leper or a criminal. It's a societal illness on a massive scale. And so sad.

"The U.S. war against the Third World."

Nelson Terry @ 4:17 pm today:

Thanks Nelson,
You have expressed it all very well in your second post above, (and obviously have better skills than I, in various ways!)

I sort of echo that which OuterBeltway has said above, and feel that there are the DOERS in this world, and then those that haven't quite reached that level of autonomous operation (-as yet), -so the latter would, I'm sure, feel happy to 'join the game' once such a thing were organized...

As Margaret Mead once observed: "A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
And also:
"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have."

I look forward to any future posts on this topic, ... and... hope this post stays around for a while yet, so that more folks can see our comments and maybe add their thoughts, (it occurs to me that many folk haven't caught sight of it yet, and such people as Kem, maybe Siouxrose and CeeMiracles? are away on hols or whatever.)

As to comments above re some current depressive attitudes, certainly the more we can help buoy up our co-workers who are flagging, so much the better.
A C-D 'adjunct site' or forum might possibly focus a bit more on helping that to take place?

I have often thought of the 'Strike the Root' site's operation (anyone here seen it?) --> http://www.strike-the-root.com/
They too discuss heavy-duty topics a lot of the time, but have useful, upbeat bits as well. I think those are useful. For instance, on the front page they always have someone's beautiful photo of some natural feature, and also have a 'Caption This Photo' section, where folks can poke fun at 'The Usual Suspects' and have a laugh...
Whilst not a 'Libertarian Anarcho-Anarchist' (or whatever!) myself, I do think the STR site has a winning formula there, maybe one worth emulating?

Onwards and upwards folks!

UCD.

Nelson Terry:

You are confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand, you know that some type of mechanism is required to convert all this sentiment and enthusiasm into action.

However, you're not getting the enthusiastic encouragement you hoped for. You know in your heart the idea's a good one, but others aren't picking up on it.

What do you do?

I'm asking you, is your idea a good idea or isn't it? Is it a crucial tool needed by the people who will roll up their sleeves, and do the necessary organizing work, or isn't it?

OK then. 'nuff with this tentative "oh, I'll stop asking if no one is going to act enthusiastic".

Just do it. The people you really need, the ones that actually DO stuff, will hit it hard. We're all looking for this tool, and it doesn't currently exist anywhere.

Spend your time building a good design, and finding some tech people that can implement it. Don't delay, and don't be discouraged by silence. When the people are beaten down, they're afraid to hope, and they're afraid to try again. They're out of emotional gas, and need some inspiration.

That's when the courageous and the determined stand up, pick up their worn-out tools, and start again.

Ever read "If" by Rudyard Kipling? No? OK, then, you're in for a treat. Here it is:

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm

My suggestion for adding a FORUM page to Common Dreams was not just to help people organize DEMONSTRATIONS -- which, I agree are problematic just now and certainly not the only from of reform-oriented activity open to people who want change.

The most important thing about a CD forum-like feature would be to allow us CD posters to have a subpage where we could INITIATE our own articles or topics (hopefully for more-focused discussion and multi action-oriented goals, including improvement of this website functionality.

You can see - just by what's happened here, with my suggestion about establishing a forum -- that it's very hard to keep focused even on the subject of improving this website! Discussions that might lead to conclusions that might, in turn, lead to actions (actions hardly limited to protest ralleys, etc.) -- just get scattered in a steady flow of not always relevant opinion -- however intelligent the opining.

That intelligent, free-flowing commentary is still fine for the original dimension of CD, and in no way needs to change -- but why not add a second, more participant-interactive dimension?

A dimension that allows participant initiation of subject matter, and a set of groundrules whereby the subsequent discussion of the subject is kept focused and MC'ed toward an outer-world, action-oriented conclusion? Rules and democratically-elected 'participant MC's would be needed, of course.

Much like Mason's or Robert's Rules of Order are used to keep a discussion focused toward action around a specifc subject, in a formal public meeting or lawmaking body, something like this could be added to CD.

This interactive/participan-initiative sub-site could also have other functions that allowed the option for instant dialoguing; personal email and/or biography registry; listing of political action categories, both proposed and active; further website-improvement suggestions, etc.

Thus, under one established, well-known progressive web site (CD receives over 150,000 independent URL hits per day), both opinion-oriented and action-oriented energies could be brought together more efficiently.

No open progressive website I've seen, so far, comes near CD for the intelligence and erudition of its posters, or for sheer progressive energy and passion. But if you take the time to read back through a year of CD postings on hundreds of lead articles (this takes days and days to do),
it's hard to know if any of the energy and intelligence is gelling into anything that has useful consequences, beyond education, perceptual clarifications, etc. Not to diminish these.

But this site, could, I'm convinced, be made more interactive than it is now. And not, I suspect, at any significant cost to its baseline operational cost at present.

Response to this general suggestion has not been significant, so far (though, thank-you, to those who have responded.)

If additional regular and respected posters, like Paul Bramscher, Sioux Rose, iammyself, Lobo Griz, Jim Glover, and many other regulars, don't think it's such a swell idea, then I'll probably drop it; concluding that it's nothing (as Shakespeare writes, in Mid Summernight's Dream) "...but... the fierce vexation of a dream."

Susan Lenfestey writes:
"I used to be a kick-ass fun-time girl until George Bush stole my joy."

So, this makes me think of Al-Anon, where friends and relatives of alcoholics go for help because their world is chaotic and they can't control it. Their Twelve-Step healing starts with admitting "powerlessness," and it progresses to "a spiritual awakening."

Isn't this where we need to go now? A place and a way where we can find true joy? I believe that this healing is a precondition for truly powerful functioning in this world. If we wish, we can relinquish our shame and our fear and move ahead and persevere in a true spirit of all-encompassing love.

"Dichterfreund" says: "Black Americans and their largely far-left allies had been marching for a decade before the first antiwar rallies took place; their experience & the perspective that had been formed were vital. An antiwar movement can only be effective when it's part of a larger movement of social & political change; it can't succeed simply of itself."

and "stepfour" says: "People are scared to demonstrate, and what frightens them most is a light turnout. It's OK to resist if everybody's doing it, but if you're the only one there, you look like an idiot."

... both of them are right and wrong at the same time. "Effective" is relative since only God knows EXACTLY how much influence you've had (see Capra's It's A Wonderful Life for details). Besides, if you've gotta be a one-man show for however long it takes, then so be it. Don't wait for it to be the hip, happenin' thang to do. Don't those recruitment commercials say to be "an army of one"? Well, be the leftist equivalent of a one-man army! Me? I wait for no group! I'm a member of no organization! My whole life, my entire existence is hinged on seeing if the pen is truly mightier than the sword ...

http://saablofton.org/

http://archive.coanews.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=1479

"mskitty" says: "The media is tightly managed to make us feel like we are alone and on the fringe."

AMEN to that twice! My background as a media insider is proof of that. Check out F.A.I.R. at ...

http://www.fair.org/index.php

Unfortunately, "Daniel Shays" says: "... if marches aren't being attended well now, it's probably because Americans know that there's no use. At this point, it would be like Germans marching in protest to Adolf Hitler. Well, maybe not that bad, but we know it won't do any good, either." And that's the WRONG attitude for anyone to have. There WERE anti-Nazi dissenters in Germany, such as the White Rose Society, and they DID do a lot of good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose

They want us to get so discouraged that we won't vote.
We go to demonstrations and put our lives on the line so why not go to the polls and vote with a protest that will count.

If you don't like the Big Boys and Girls the Corporations have picked for us, why not take one last shot at voting and vote for a third party or even a write-in that won't be counted ...that will show up as an under-vote which will be a virtual "None Of The Above" and that will be a first time protest of the winner take all two party system.

There are always other important issues and offices to vote for and if we vote for them but even leave the vote for President blank it will be recorded as an Under-Vote and that is much better than not being counted at all and it will be a valid protest more important than any rally in the street we could organize.

Please consider this all who are discouraged and lets give it one more shot.

jimglover@verizon.net

It's not being despondent that keeps some of us from the polls, it's that I think more people will begin to recognize the current government as -- frankly -- illegitimate, with a crooked ballot system and a propagandistic MSM that pre-selected candidates for us. What's the point in voting?

I suspect that most Americans are beginning to see D.C. as like a pain in the back, a bad knee, etc. Something you live with and tolerate unless it reaches a critical breaking point -- at which time surgery is needed.

If America can't get its act together and reform systematically, procedurally, legally, etc. we're clearly in for some rough times ahead.

We peaceniks are suffering from war weariness, from the bewildering abandonment of our cause by Congressional Democrats and presidential candidates Clinton and Obama. November, 2006 was our high-water mark. We thought we had won a great battle and that the balance of power in Washington would increasingly shift toward peace and justice. But in less than a year we have seen our leaders cave in to Bush on issue after issue, accept compromises we find abhorrent, and buy the Bush line that troops will be in Iraq indefinitely - - sounding the death knell to our dream that 2008 would bring peace and the righting of 8 years of wrongs. I wonder how many of us will be so despondent we don't even go to the polls next time?

to Nelson Terry @ October 11th, 2007 4:00 pm :::

Thanks Nelson,
Like others here, I feel your idea of a sort of 'meeting place' -or method for C-D folk who want to get in touch with each other is **an excellent idea**!

I think it's a good way to continue our work, and 'ground it' into more specific actions and groupings. And I'm sure our friends (the staff) at Common-Dreams would be willing to offer this, *if they are able*? - after all, they too are on our side! :)

If the C-D site can't encompass us lot actually contacting each other through this site, then perhaps the C-D staff could possibly just insert some sort of 'CONTACT LINK' somewhere on the main page?
This could link to another site (a sort of Common-Dreams 'sister' site?) -either run by them, or ... one of us?
Maybe to a *free* site, such as those hosted by http://byethost.com/ who seem to have a fairly good track record of reliability?

I think C-D is a great asset, ... AND... we might be more effective in our struggle to form a new and more peaceful world if we were able to move from the sort of 'ephemeral' C-D pages and posts (-not meant pejoratively!) and on to another site when we needed to, - as a kind've 'supplement' to our C-D discussions... and then our ACTIONS! :)

In the past I have been the manager of quite a large interactive website (approx 400 members), but had to drop out eventually and hand it on, as it took up a lot of my time and I (idealistically!) earned no cash from it all! (I'm also involved in a lot of other things, all in the way of trying to help my fellow beings, -so am generally short of time!) but maybe someone we trust could manage / co-manage such a site?

These are just a few meagre ideas of my own, -- but I bet other bright sparks hereabouts have even better ones! ;) so maybe let's hear them?

In unity,
U-C-D
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS:
Out of interest, I just clicked on our friend Caelidh's hyperlink (above), and it took me to: http://www.livejournal.com/login.bml
Maybe something like LiveJournal could be our leaping off point for contacting each other? I have had a few chats with C-D folk off-site, and have been very pleased to swap notes with them. I think it cements relationships and provides a closer bond with co-workers here.
~ Let's have more of it I say!

People are scared to demonstrate, and what frightens them most is a light turnout. It's OK to resist if everybody's doing it, but if you're the only one there, you look like an idiot.

Bush doesn't care how big the anti-war rallies are or how low his poll numbers go. He believes that history will show him to be right and that he will be exonerated in everyone's eyes when that happens. That is what makes him so dangerous to the U.S. and the world.

Lobo Gris

The corporate media is constantly doing everything in its ungodly and mammoth power to turn the public into idiots and cannon-fodder. Don't look at how small the rallies are, look at the fact that WE HAVE had huge anti-war rallies again and again both before and after the war started. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. Meanwhile, NOT ONCE have THEY had a pro-war rally. Not a single pro-war rally as big as 300-400 people. NOT ONCE.

Regarding Nelson Terry's idea of a Forum. I second that!

I think Common Dreams SHOULD do that. It would be a great extension.

I think that the comments section on Common Dreams is one of the more intelligent ones. Very rarely do I see immature crud being thrown around online here.

I feel very isolated in Cincinnati...

A place to organize.... a place to connect..

Namaste
Peace
Caelidh

This has been a great open discussion of Tactics and our Common desire for a future that must be fought for with the best leadership we can find and it is Us. I think we could find the tools to keep it going and I think you all are goin to keep it goin because we are goin through the valley of tears and we are gonna make it through. Us Old hippies too

Please Send all great new ideas to Folk Intelligence Bureau Jimglover@verizon.net

"As it did in the sixties, bringing back the draft is the only event that will really galvanize a large portion of the (draft-age) population. If only the powers that be would fall into that trap!"

Black Americans and their largely far-left allies had been marching for a decade before the first antiwar rallies took place; their experience & the perspective that had been formed were vital.

An antiwar movement can only be effective when it's part of a larger movement of social & political change; it can't succeed simply of itself.

Unionguy is right imho,

There is a "long train of abuses" to quote the declaration of independance, and each party has suffered his own specific abuse. Neocon Union workers, right wing doner guilt, unemployment line drop offs, commuters, scientists, journalists, farmers, minorities, the list goes forever....

We have to lock arms and draw a line in the sand at Iran.

NATIONAL BOYCOTT

NATIONAL STRIKE

demands:

1. Special Recall election of Congress and the White house

2. Immediate end to all three wars including the 45 billion dollar drug war

The phase of passive resistance is over

on your side,

pac

alda
I think that it is wonderful that you are dedicated to organizing and citizen action, and I'm not saying that you should have any more blood wrung from you, but perhaps you need to re-evaluate your organizing tactics if you're still not getting people out on the streets. Perhaps instead of going after the "educated" you might have more success with the uneducated, the underprivileged, minorities, immigrants, and, as I mentioned earlier, soldiers, who are victims, too. Soldiers played a very important role in the anti-Vietnam war movement, and more and more have so completely had it with fighting that they are willing to speak, and demonstrate, at great risk, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, support for them outside the military, from ordinary civilians, is very important in giving them the confidence to speak out. You say you have talked to media outlets--do you have Spanish-language media in your city, and if so, have you talked to them? You say you have contacted community groups. Does that include poor people's organizations? Immigrant organizations? What about student groups? The reality today is that mass mobilizations aren't made up of middle-class or upper class liberals. They are made up of people who quite literally have nothing to lose but their chains. If you spend your time mobilizing those people you might see bigger numbers at protests.

Seems to me that there's been a systematic effort to undermine dissent in this country. I hate to attribute intelligence to the ruling parties, but seems like they've done a damn good job marginalizing the population and making us seem irrelevant through a lot of different methods. Like buying us all off for example, that's difficult to get out from under for sure.

To me it seems kind of counterproductive analyzing how apathetic we all are, when that isn't quite true. That Ghandi quote at the top seems really good and deserves self-reflection.

There are serious problems brewing, but when the levee will break is anybody's guess. Perhaps at the moment it's best to prepare for that which will be, than to lament that which is not.

Two good relevant reads:

Letting go of Hope -- http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-21.htm

Befriending Despair --
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1209-30.htm

Additionally, if marches aren't being attended well now, it's probably because Americans know that there's no use. At this point, it would be like Germans marching in protest to Adolf Hitler. Well, maybe not that bad, but we know it won't do any good, either.

Not all the protests in America are led by Marxists. Only Marxists claim that. The anti-WTO rally in seattle was made up of a diverse group of people, everything from clergymen to farmers to environmentalists, to just plain folk like you and me.

Susan Lenfestey went to a rally that had only a few hundred people, but we have had huge anti-war and anti-Bush marches here, in Washington DC, in NYC, and all over the country. They have had anywhere from 100,000+ to 200,000+ people. This is a fact. Google it.

The msm tried to make it look like less at times and said there were 100,000 protesters there, but there were more like 200,000 at some of them.

One of the positives to happen at the 9/29 DC rally and march was the coalescence of the Troops Out Now Coalition: Anti-War Vets, Health Care Not Warfare, so called Marxists, Students for a Democratic Society, Internationals representing Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, Palestine and the Philippines. And while these are divergent groups with divergent themes there was a unifying thread, there and at the DC rally and march on 9/15 - that unifying thread being impeachment.

The vision of impeachment is not just to bring some justice to the war criminals, but impeachment will be an action of reconfirmation of America's social contract - this time inclusive of all the ethnic groups from all over the world that now compose the United States.

As James Wallis quotes in God's Politics:

"Without a vision, the people perish."
-Proverbs 29:18

"Write the vision: make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end - it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay."
- Habakkuk 2:2-3

The Call To Impeach is the unifying call from both 9/15 and 9/29 DC rallies and at weekly vigils around the nation. The Call To Impeach is simple, clear and can be read from a mile away.

To empower the Call To Impeach will require the human bonding that humanity will flourish with and without which humanity has no need to continue on.

The Call To Impeach will instigate a human dialogue of local and national levels that will culture the answers needed for removing ourselves from our genocidal/suicidal mess.

The Call To Impeach and Impeachment will throw off the myth of American Exceptionalism and tell all governmental representatives now and in the future that endless war as part of daily commerce is unacceptable, while again culturing the space that will create a new inclusive national and world myth.

As Wallis goes on to relay the story of Martin Luther King as he returned to the US after receiving his Nobel Peace Prize. His first stop was Washington where President Johnson said he'd have to wait 10 years for a voting rights act.

King went to Alabama, organized, and 5 months later there was a voting rights act.

One mind, one heart, one voice - impeach!

People have realized the current politicians are not responsive. If they take the next step and boot out the worst of the lot there will be a big change.

The challenge will to be to keep the next crop of crooks in government on a leash.

What if someone like Washington materialized and called for a revolution rally and 100 million showed up?

Usually about then one is interrupted by the morning alarm clock.

Or, Humanity Of Peaceful Experiences?

I know, sounds a little trite with genocide and suicide raging, but you gotta hold a vision right?

Start with palpation of the CranioSacral rhythm, follow with Awareness Through Movement, capture the creative space then coalesce the vision(?).

I like how the word "hope" has popped up in this commentary.

I was just driving around town trying to think of an acronym for organizing and had come up with:

H.O.P.E. - Humanity Of Peaceful Environments.

How do you like it?

Of course the first environment of concern is the personal internal one. Thich Nhat Hanh's work on anger has helped me greatly on re-channeling my energy manifestation of anger and resentment back to the creative space of peace. After and including the rightful mourning of the Iraqi/Afghanistan/American ghetto genocide of course.

Ty's work and others have also helped me to gain personal victories where others have found despair, like at the Sept. 29th DC event. The people I traveled with were on downers because a million people didn't show up. While for me it was a great day of empowerment to chant with Media Benjamin, Ann Wright and Code Pink ("We are the voice of America!") on the steps of Voice of America, and to gather in the determination of Adam Kokesh(sp?) of Iraqi Veterans Against the War.

(one last little bit of good helper boy input. Maybe those "older people" that can't get out of the house can fund some of us to be part time or full time "Peace Profits" - the peace communities bizarre altruism where we're supposed to martyr ourselves with volunteering and coughing up our life savings without at least a return on costs is masochistic with really little if any spiritual value.)

Nelson Terry:

I agree that we need more tools, like a forum, or threads, or some kind of action-oriented group-coordinating methods.

If you want turnout, you need tools to organize with. Why are we frustrated? Because we're not grouped together and fighting effectively. Let's change that!

Let's put our effort where our heart is. Let's concentrate our powers on some things that will actually produce change!

I hope all of you will give Nelson's proposal some serious thought, and more to the point, your enthusiastic support.

Nelson, thanks for taking the initiative. Just what we need.

what if they had a forum where you could exercise your powers of free speech.......posters unite...

Maybe Randy Weaver, Ted Kaczinsky, David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh were the good guys???? Except for Ted, all dead.

The media is tightly managed to make us feel like we are alone and on the fringe.

I went to a peace rally on Sept. 24 2005 in Washington D.C. The local papers gave the 200,000+ protestors "fair" & un-"balanced" space with the 150 or so pro-Bush protestors that showed up. Mainstream media, back pages and next to nada on TV. It was well attended by the usual lefties, AND ALSO veterans, churches, families, college students, senior citizens and business people, all races.

A well-organized, planned far enough in advance, protest will bring out hundreds of thousands if people think that someone else will be there. Only those of us who attended know that it happened. Everyone needs to go, bring friends, take pictures and send them to local media. Mainstream media has another agenda.

Find out who owns your medias and you will see why they are pro-war. Many are owned by companies that profit directly from war.

Another thing that may be intimidating people is the increasing reports of reckless tasing, intimidation with horses, police saboteurs actually trying to incite violence at peaceful rallies, and wrongful arrests happening more and more to people expressing discontent. (Don't forget anthrax being sent to Democrats and news media folks who didn't get the corporate memo in time after 911 on the eve of submitting and passing the Patriot Act)

Wake up folks! If we don't show our discontent in a big united way, we are going to be picked off one by one and disappeared. The vote is fixed, a plan for martial law is in the wings waiting for the "next 911 or dirty bomb".

Write all of your representatives. Now! Today! Get your friends to write your representatives. They are supposed to represent us, not the military industrial complex. Let's start with restoring the rights we are supposed to enjoy as citizens of the United States under the Constitution of the United States. Stop illegal spying, illegal and secret detentions, torture...lies to get us into war, voter caging lists, lost nukes.

Impeach Cheney for the coup de'tat during 911, when Bush, the commander in chief, sat mute in a classroom unprotected by the Secret Service, while the same Secret Service whisked Cheney into a command bunker under the White House.

Don't get depressed. Get active!

Thank you for your posts, Restive and Saab.

The young are out in numbers, organizing protests and filling them all around the world; such as was seen at the rallies against the G8 Summit, and the occupation of the universities in Greece. There is a new spirit, and one for progress that doesn't need to drag itself down to people who won't even advocate for themselves, but instead believe in the further empowerment of the rich and powerful. But they aren't constantly rallying against the same thing week after week for years without getting any results.

"The rally that the author spoke, unless I'm mistaken, was one of those called by ANSWER, an ultra-left grouping. Their nature is putting fwd public demands that are out of the mainstream ..."

The annual military budget is four to five Billion with a 'B' (seventeen billion alone for America's ten thousand nuclear missiles) ... Now, let's say the war ended today, do you REALLY think we're going to just let that money sit around in some vault collecting dust? HELL NO! We're gonna spend it on free, universal health care, free public transportation and a Greenpeace version of FDR's New Deal! And if your precious "mainstream" can't handle it, TOO BAD!

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3100

The right, the corporate media and elite policy makers persist in painting "mainstream America" as white and middle class. Even many white liberals cling to the notion that building a mass movement against war necessitates the use of techniques and rhetoric that "don't scare away" middle class whites. This way of thinking is anachronistic.

http://coanews.org/article/2007/the-slippery-slope

So many good comments, here, thanks to all!

LeeAnn,
My sympathies. It's happening up here, too. Land the size of Florida (one quarter of Alberta) is being churned into a toxic black lifeless swamp from oil sands extraction, mainly to support the US market for oil. People turnnon their taps and their water can be lit on fire. Yet Dick Cheney has said the American (SU gas guzzling) lifestyle is "non-negotiable." If that kind of obscene stupidity doesn't make a sane person ill, I don't know what will.

ChChicano,
Understand I'm not "whining," I am simply telling you the reality that people in my neck of the woods, at any rate, are as apathetic as dishwater, and in my opinion only soup lines and no roof over their heads for a good portion of them will change things.

As for volunteering to "organize." I'm extremely motivated and an action oriented organizer, someone who really objects to people just sitting around and talking about it without also getting things done. Yet, to get citizens out to events (even educated ones!), no matter how many doors we knock on, community groups we talk to, media outlets we talk to, simply does not work to a significant degree here. People seem to be only concerned with their own family life now, it's a very self-centered, "all-about-me" existence, where nothing else, and I mean nothing else, matters. I spend almost all of my "free" time on citizen action projects. You can't wring any more blood from me and others like me than that...
I'm not whining about those people, I'm bloody ANGRY.

To the last two posters: I agree this isn't an inter-generational fight, it's an iedeological one. Many older people who see what has happened are appalled and shocked by what has happened. They were duped by forces that were unimaginatively clever for the unsuspecting sheeple through the 50's to the 90's. I guess you can't envision how it happened unless you lived through it. They're as worried sick about their children's future as you are about your own life, and most of them feel perfectly helpless.

Yeah but I don't think I will trust the Trust-Fund Babies in the ISO in Chicago. It isn't hard to be Left with a silver spoon in your mouth.

::But we never actually felt that it was our last chance. Don't tell me I'm too grim. The damn north pole is melting… the world WE had is disappearing. What will replace it belongs to the young. Call it pressure and it keeps building… on the young.::

Well, you ain't dead yet. Don't leave us with the legacy quite so fast. :D

Something to consider: the people within a range of generations who see that the system is sick, and that as such, another way needs to be forged - these people have much more in common with each other than with the truly apathetic and indifferent in their own age group.

Inter-generational skill sharing, organizing and mutual respect is one of the most powerful tools that we have - don't fall for the generation gap BS when the ideological gap is much greater.

I agree mainly with Jim Glover's comments (above).

The problem isn't that "nobody comes to rallies!" The rally that the author spoke, unless I'm mistaken, was one of those called by ANSWER, an ultra-left grouping. Their nature is putting fwd public demands that are out of the mainstream, some would call them "too advanced." I would say that these groups don't trust the people, and think their small grouping needs to "lead" them (in many cases, in a direction they are unable to go).

We just held, on short notice, a rally of over 500 people at the atrium of the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. We've held a series of well-attended town hall meeting, at which regular folks offered testimony on the hardships the war has caused them and their families. We are taking bases to Chicago, where United for Peace and Justice (UPJ) is holding one of a series of huge regional protests against the war. The difference is that the UPJ rally will be marked by real mass organizations mobilizing their friends around the issues they feel comfortable with.

The vast majority of the American people strongly oppose this war. It is our job as progressives to find the actiivities that real people, burdened with the streeses that this profit system has forced on them, will feel comfortable attending, participating in and even helping organize.

The 'empty' streets? You would think that it isn't really hard to understand why they are 'empty' after all that has happened. But you would be wrong if you think it is a sense of hopelessness and impotency or any number of psychological or even sociological causative influences at play. Yet undeniably something is missing, isn't it? Why can't we 'fill' the streets like in the sixties, if most Americans are opposed to the war and the dismantling of our constitution and the debt et al? Why can't we and keep on doing it like back then?

The why is because we are not young and back then ...we were. Back in the sixties the same thing that is happening now would have happened then but for us... when we were young. The draft made it personal for the young (us) and the youngsters have the energy and that sense of pressing urgency and insistent commitment. The draft did that. Many of us still have committment but not the impatience of youth yet we still pull it all together and try to be the ones to get it done... just like when we were young. Just like we did then. But back then it was the YOUNGSTERS (us) that did all that. Now we try to do it as oldsters. The young of today should be getting it done but instead it is their parents.

Today's young seem almost unfamiliar with what we came to accept as the way of getting things done and how we could change them. What is missing good people is the fire that belongs to youth. Yeah we were angry then. We are older, wiser (?) and if nothing else ...polite now. We can be herded into security zones or contained behind police barriers set up far away from where a demonstration would be effective etc.

That is what is missing. The fire of the young. Heck we the firebrands of an earlier age probably do not even encourage our own kids to do what we did. We are more reasonable now. More tolerating of accomodation. Our urgency is intellectual and perhaps emotional but it is NOT the fire we possessed when once we were young.

For all our goodwill and well intentioned hearts, we can be reasoned with. At least now we can anyway. Not then. The draft was keeping it personal and very intense. I see my generation's intensity still but it is ... too adult. Too reasoned and reasonable. Too different from the way it was and the way WE were then.

Ever wonder why with troops forced by stop loss to endure extended tours that there hasn't been a draft? Personally I believe that 'they' (yes THEY...old fogeys from the sixties know exactly who THEY are...lol) are desperately afraid of awakening the fire in the young. WE are the reasonable ones (now) but not so the young. The young always want it done. The old understand and accept why it isn't done or can't be done or why it takes time etc. Not so with the young.

The streets aren't empty... only the young are missing.

But some vestige of that old me senses something else though. Perhaps I'm just an old fogey but something doesn't feel right does it? This author hit upon it... it's creepy... a bit unreal if not surreal. The calm before the storm? I'm not sure that I'm encouraged by that impending storm if and when it breaks. In this global warming age, storms are too powerful, too stormy in effect. If there is a war with Iran then a draft would arrive but too much has already happened and there is a hell of a lot of pressure out there already. Way too much.

These kids are not us. Peace and love was our generation. Discouraging? These kids see their world being used up and destroyed by whose generation? We didn't have that hanging over our heads. We saw a better future and strove for it. What do the kids see facing them in THEIR future? Worse if Bush puts us into a war with Iran... way, way too much will hit that fan.

Sooner or later ... ya know? The pressure is really building. Where do we offer hope to the young with all that Bush/cheney has done. A lot has happened to rob the young of hope for a better future A hope which in fact inspired us.

We were perhaps the anomally generation. The exception. Civil rights, women's rights and we stopped the war. We felt empowered and saw things had gotten done. If today's younger generation isn't given something to believe in like we had...? Bush has certainly done much to despoil the younger generation of faith in our system and our democracy.

This present 'generation in charge' offers what to the young ahead? Global warming, economic distress and possibly WW3. This ain't going to be fun...and it all depends on the young. It always did back then and now as well. We were rebels and firebrands, we wanted to change the world.

But fellow parents and old fogeys... if you want to understand why I'm getting scared ...think back to when you and I were young and how you would've felt (and then acted) if what we have done to the young had been done to us. I remember who I was... but we had peace and love. Give peace a chance. Remember?

But we never actually felt that it was our last chance. Don't tell me I'm too grim. The damn north pole is melting... the world WE had is disappearing. What will replace it belongs to the young. Call it pressure and it keeps building... on the young.

My friend sent me this http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=AntiWarSA

Take a look and see what happens when you just don't give up! Keep the faith, use your imagination, and stand up for peace!

As it did in the sixties, bringing back the draft is the only event that will really galvanize a large portion of the (draft-age) population. If only the powers that be would fall into that trap!

We need a Forum-type subpage on Common Dreams, so we can talk to each other more directly in sequence -- stay focused on specific projects, without needing to go back to old posts that get overtaken by CD's constant flood of new articles/posts.

Websites like this one could be more effective venues for organizing ACTION if the CD editors would add, on the homepage masthead, a menu selection for somthing like an open FORUM or ACTION PAGE -- while protecting the option to retain screen name anonymity, for people who want that too.

Some of us CD 'regulars' have been in-touch with each other, by phone and private email, to discuss how this website could facilitate better person-to-person communication - centered around projects like local protest demonstrations, etc.

But before any of us or someone else approaches the CD editors with this suggestion, some feedback is needed from the general 'posting audience' - showing that there is general support for something like this.

If you feel this idea might have merit, just post a short note below on this Article page here, sying you agree, and one of us will then draw the Editors' attention to this thread.

If enough positive posts show up, one of us will then ask the CD editors to consider immediately adding something like a PRE-FORUM page --on which everybody can further discuss, via posts, how to set up functions and ground rules for a permanent Open Forum site on CD.

Please don't use duplicate screen names to multiply your advisory 'vote' on this suggestion.
One post-per-real-person, only. Otherwise, the Editors staff (which may be able to detect such duplications) probably won't take the response seriously.

Nelson Terry

Norman Mailer is better known for his books on '60s politics than for his book on the 1972 campaign, "St. George and the Dragon". The corporate media then helped burnish Nixon, who was considered toxic after 1960 and 1962, and remake him into a national candidate, a "new New Nixon"; with the murder of a second Kennedy in 4 1/2 years, and Roger Fox-News Ailes first foray into dazzling PR, the Repugs put up their first "See what the druggie, pacifist, commie Hippies have done to YOUR wonderful America!" campaign.

The criminals know the '60s playbook by heart, it's what got them into power originally & aside from Watergate & the revelations of COINTELPRO etc., it's what's kept them in power ever since.

The enemy has treated this as a generational war against the left; but now they've eroded all their support, save for the most inhuman trash.

We can seize the initiative; the initiative has nothing to do, however, with mere rallies.

I'm sick of all these crybabies who are complaining about how nobody attends peace rallies. The demonstrations where I live are getting bigger and bigger all the time, because people here are doing outreach--to minority communities, to students, and most of all to soldiers, who need the support of the peace movement through GI Hotlines, coffeehouses, counselling services, etc. Don't mourn (or should I say whine)--organize.

Insanity everywhere. Right now, as I am writing, a company called PetroEdge, a subsidiary or business partner with Cabot Gas and Oil is in the process of drilling a gas well 230 feet from my water well on my property over my objections.

When I bought my land 26 years ago, I knew I did not have the mineral, gas, or oil rights because, as with nearly every other rural property here in West Virginia, energy companies came in and bamboozled the residents into selling "just what's under the ground" about 100 years ago. (See the wonderful book on this subject, "Night Comes to the Cumberlands" for more information.)

My 60 acres are pretty inaccessible except for my house site, which is 800 feet on a hillisde above the well, and my well site, which is situated in a narrow hollow between 2 hills. For 26 years, I was safe, but last spring I was informed that PetroEdge planned to drill in the only possible area - right next to my well!

I protested to the Department of Environmental Protection in WV, but was told that PetroEdge is within their rights. Of course, ever since Reagan, all the government agencies are simply there to protect Big Bidness. The DEP's purpose is to issue permits to pollute.

Anyway, they started work this past Monday. In order to drill ONE well, they cleared an area that looks to be about the size of a football field, rooting up trees and underbrush and denuding an entire hillside in order to create a plateau on which to drill the gas well.

My water is in danger of being poisoned, ground water will surely be polluted, the runoff from the clay is likely to spill over the neighbor's driveway, and the whole thing is an eyesore and disaster to the habitat.

My only satisfaction is that I told one of the construction workers that he shouldn't be working for a company that rapes other people's land and he must have a personality disorder that prevents him from having any morals or conscience. I managed to stop myself from telling him I hope he rots in hell.

There's a Surface Owner's Organization in West Virginia, but I emailed them twice and they have not responded.

I live in one of the most wonderful, beautiful places on earth where friends and neighbors grow their own vegetables, have flower gardens, play music together, create art, and are there for each other any time day or night. It's been an idyllic lifestyle for a long time. This situation is a nightmare for all of us because it's not just happening to me - I have heard so many horror stories about gas drilling from others since I first got the call from PetroEdge, I know it's a common occurance.

We are under siege.

::North Americans laughably believe they have the most educated populace on earth, when in fact the opposite is true.::

Thank you. It's as if the same spin doctors that turned "torture" into something malleable and highly semanticized have also turned the term "educated" on its ear - it's as if it's a representation of how well-indoctrinated you are, not how much you know, let alone how able one is at thinking critically. Ignorance = Education. War = Peace. Etc.

You were disappointed with 300-400 turnout? I live in a city of over a million in Canada and we can't get more than a paltry, skimpy rag-tag group of 40 out to a protest of our participation in Afghanistan.

I agree that liberals feel a familiar dread moving into 2008, but I'd add not only a familiar dread, but a terrifyingly new dread on the horizon as well, a much worse one -- as it's a dread at the thought of looming threat they may be beginning personally to feel as the noose of civil liberties and free speech is tightening every day.

I think your article is dead on, but I quibble with one point. I don't feel comforted at all by seeing people going about their regular activities (other than children playing), particularly leisure activities when those same people can't be bothered to protest and speak up about what is about to change the reality of their future in such a devastating and horrific way. It only depresses me that people think things are going to continue as normal, forever and ever, with no thought whatsoever to the future, other than what's for dinner tonight.

North Americans laughably believe they have the most educated populace on earth, when in fact the opposite is true. They've been brainwashed and propogandized and consumerized to the point that they see black as white, and vice versa. As Orwell said, "peace is war," and so on. It's all terribly depressing. The only ray of light in all of that are other bloggers I read who, on many sites, clearly also see what is happening. But I fear, this wonderful vehicle for grassroots communication is about to be rudely shut in our faces, as well, with new, draconian internet legislation coming to a computer near you.
Nuts? You bet.

::We either adapt, or tune out and switch to the Lindsay Lohan channel for hourly OJ updates…::

I think the liberal NGO vs. Marxist centralized leadership thing is seriously played out, and for good reason. While my own politics are definitely to the left of settling for a EU style mixed economy, what I unabashedly have faith in is the will of the people to work out our problems on our own terms, which is why I posted a link to Marina Sitrin's book on Argentina elsewhere on CD. If you decide to read it, please don't be put off by the title of the book (Horizontalism) - it's a way to describe people empowering themselves in their workplaces that doesn't involve hierarchical/vertical structures - or more plainly, it's a word that got attached to the uprising in Argentina against all political powers, both left and right. A description of the book is at http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/horizontalism/.

When the peace movement starts to see the reality that the majority of folks in the world do not want a pure Capitalism, Socialism or any "ism" except maybe more Humanitarianism, we will see greater unity and progress.
I say this because the main sponsors of most peace rallies so far seem to have been Marxist organizations.
This is to their credit but most of the folks in this country are not into the Ideological endless debate.
In the beginning millions joined the marches because we just wanted to end The Wars but as time goes on folks start to look at the agenda of the Peace march sponsors and might feel that they are bein manipulated by them. And then comes the infighting amoung sponsors.

We do need to move more to the Left now with less privatization and more public ownership economics and environment.. and I think many folks on the political Right would agree.

USA is the most distorted Nation when it comes to the realization that all nations in the world today have a mixed economy and will admit that truth but in the USA this is considered subversive to suggest we are anything but a Capitalist Christian Nation.

Whatever system becomes necessary in the far future, it would be a step for progress to just advocate the right of the people to a better balanced mixed economy and a better balance in the powers of the branches of government.

This is the kind of Revolution that the majority of the world could support.
ForUs, Jim

"Shell-shock" is a part of it, for sure, but most of us remember the rubber bullets and horse tramplings from the conventions in 00 and 04. And we remember the two largest world anti-war protests in history being wholly ignored. And we remember that the Cheneybush cabal have killed and maimed millions of innocents around the globe without blinking. And we know we already have the largest prison population in the world, with hundreds of thousands locked up for non-violent offenses. And we know both the Justice Dept and the Supreme Court have never been more corrupt. And we know the Decider now has the power to indefinitely detain, without charge, and freeze the assets of anyone he deems to be "undermining" his Iraq "policy." And we know the Loonitary Executive is so insane, he has chosen tobacco profits over poor children's basic health needs.

Worst of all, we know there are virtually no politicians on either side of the sewer we can count on for support. No matter how much we scream and yell, our "representatives" have already given the hi-ho to illegal mass slaughter in Iran while granting the Domestic Enemies of our Constitution occupying our White House more and more unchecked power.

Bottom line: we know the same old protests are no match for the Goliath we face, so why bother risking your job, family, house, physical well being?

New strategies are needed ASAP. Like, "The Perpetual Protest against Perpetual War." Or, how about a bizarro world protest: every sign and shirt is pro-war, pro-death, pro-resource theft, pro-Cheney, pro-Bush, etc.

We either adapt, or tune out and switch to the Lindsay Lohan channel for hourly OJ updates...

Cool articles. We're kinda saying the same thing here - although you make a good point, the way to get over despair is hope - as well as not trusting the mofos who never, ever, EVER want us to hold our heads high to begin with. Keep on rockin'...

Has it ever occurred to y'all that the right-wing WANTS us to feel "ineffectual"? To overtly, heavyhandedly come to our doors at midnight and drag us off to a Gulag/Guantanamo Bay as THEY'd like would tip THEIR hand to say the least. So from THEIR point-of-view, it's in THEIR best interest to kick back while we wallow in demoralized depression ..! Well, I say thee nay! KEEP HOPE ALIVE!

http://archive.coanews.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=2034

http://archive.coanews.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=1881

Hey everyone, great comments.
I wrote that piece about the rally and want to clarify a few things.
1.) It was not called by ANSWER, it was a coalition of groups -- Wellstone Action, Veterans for Peace,Gold Star Families for Peace, several labor unions and so on. But, it was not well publicized. I got a bunch of emails about it, but saw nothing else. I assumed every group was emailing to their own base and there would be a large turn out, but maybe just doing this on-line doesn't work. It doesn't build the buzz or excitement. Plus, sad to think that we need a celebrity to get us to turn out, but -- apparently we needed a celebrity. Say, Martin Sheen, who was in town several weeks later and was mobbed. Anyway, it was disappointing. And yes, most of us were of an age, remembering our protests against the Vietnam war and looking sadly perplexed that it isn't working this time.
2.) But, I do feel we're not very well organized, as there was a similar march a week earlier, attended by about 3000. So lots of people wrote to me to say I was wrong with my numbers, or that my editor had switched my numbers. (Not.) We were at different rallies. Two, within two weekends? Neither one very well promoted? C'mon. And I think we're burned out and discouraged to boot.
3.) And that's just where they want us. I just heard someone on NPR today talking about the goal of a totalitarian regime being to make the populace feel that nothing they do makes a difference. So they quietly shuffle along, compliant and numb. That was more what I was trying to get at, that they've silence us in this way. I wasn't recommending it.
4.) The piece was originally almost twice as long, with facts and data. But, as my editor (a friend whom I trust) pointed out, it lacked "crystalline focus." So he suggested cutting it down to a mood piece. I agreed. So it's a bit truncated and lost some of my intent.
5.) Someone said they did not find it comforting that the people I wrote of at the end were just going about their day. I hear you, I'm not recommending it as the solution. I think it felt comforting to me because it was a mix of the people Bushco seems most intent on locking up or keeping out -- African American males and immigrants. And it felt to me that in spite of their efforts, here were these disparate clusters of people quietly doing their own thing, getting along. That's what felt "normal" and healthy, not ignoring this horror of a war.
6.)Finally, hope. Is there reason to have any? I used to be a kick-ass fun-time girl until George Bush stole my joy. After some other dispirited piece I wrote, someone pointed out to me that I had "the luxury of hope" and therefore had to hold on to it for those who had truly none. Those at the far end of the spectrum where injustice prevails and poverty is the mainstay of every day life. And I instantly knew he was right. That it was only my enormous privilege that allows me the indulgence of this sort of hand-wringing. So, I will hold on to hope for all those who cannot, and on some days that's a whole lot harder than others. I wrote this piece on one of those other days.
Thanks for the provocative comments. Susan Lenfestey

>the left in this country is weak, disorganized and demoralized. but it will not always be so.

Indeed.

and then after that? taking a page from Mr. Chavez's oath would be a very good idea indeed.

As Naomi Klein has noted, shock therapy wears off, and the antidote is information. To which I would add that we need to take care of ourselves, and heal ourselves from the trauma we're experienced. We can take the streets again, we just need to be realistic and compassionate about what has happened to us.

The bastards have the American people where they want them. With 40+ hour weeks and mind-numbing jobs, they're too tired to think or even see, that they're in chains.

——————

Take the oath!!

"I swear by the God of my parents, I swear by my nation,
I swear by my honor that I will not allow my soul to rest,
nor my arm to relax until I have broken the chains
that oppress my people through the will of the powerful.
Free elections, free land and free men, horror to the oligarchy."

Oath used by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - the Great,
(when he was 28) and some of his revolutionary friends.
-copied from Page 80, !HUGO! by Bart Jones

==========

The revolutionary path is bathed in light. Take the oath and do what you can! To be complacent is to be complicit.

—————————

"Almost anything you do [to help humanity] will seem insignificant, but it's very important that you do it."
Mahatma Gandi

Thus my screenname.