What's Next?

Surprisingly, I woke up this morning to find the war in Iraq was still going on.  Who knew that this Saturday's march wouldn't be the proverbial straw that broke Bush's back?  Sadly, our Democratic majority's collective spines still seem broken so I guess we have our work cut out for us.

I really needed to finish some lecture podcasts today, but I couldn't concentrate.  Still very physically and mentally tired from all the activity this weekend and basically running on adrenaline--listening to the last Paxcast I realized that I am totally wired/hyper/manic and am also still very hoarse.  Good thing I gave my morning class a quasi day off tomorrow to watch some video online.

Anyway, part of my mania today has been thinking about next steps for me individually and, if I might be self-righteous and presumptuous, us as a movement.  I've already mentioned a few things previously, but I'm trying to get a handle on the strategic tapestry and how to interweave all these various elements.

At one point while I was recording, there was a knock on the door (which I ignored) meaning that UPS had stopped by.  I've left the Dogz at The Resort until Friday since I'm heading right back down to DC on Wednesday to teach at the USPTO, so there was blessedly no barking to interrupt me.  But curiosity got the better of me and I had to check out what was delivered.

I'd forgotten I had ordered A Force More Powerful and Bringing Down A Dictator on DVD a while back and was happy to see they'd finally arrived.  I decided it was better use of my energies to watch these than to ramble about Information Security, and hoped maybe that would help give me some inspiration and focus.  The former wasn't really new to me since I'd read the accompanying book years ago, but it was still powerful to see the footage and interviews and such as the stories of India, Nashville, South Africa, Denmark, Poland and Chile unfolded.  The latter documentary had the most impact on me today:

Milosevic's popular support was declining even in 1998, when a dozen students met to form Otpor, Serbian for "resistance." Analyzing the mistakes of 1996-97, they realized they needed much better organization, a strategy, planning, recruiting, and all the other ingredients necessary for a sustained fight. Galvanized by outrage over new laws that imposed political control of their universities and harassed the independent media, the Otpor students called for the removal of Milosevic and the establishment of democracy and the rule of law.

Declining popular support had no effect on Milosevic's command of a massively corrupt system, with the despot's usual instruments of repression, secret police and informers. But the Otpor kids had seen what happened to other resistance movements, and learned from their failures. The fate of Tiananmen Square's democracy movement taught them not to challenge the armed might of their opponent. Seeing that Milosevic maintained control by fear, they chose a kind of cheerful insolence, methodically mocking the state's power and renouncing any ambition to political office themselves.

At the start, Otpor simply improvised, using their wits and good instincts. Later, they studied nonviolent strategy, primarily through the writings of American scholar Gene Sharp, and discovered they had intuitively done the right things. They immediately adopted Sharp's ideas as the basis for their training manuals, combining them with a natural flair for marketing - evidenced in their catchy slogans and wry humor - and the creation of a sophisticated bilingual website launched even before officially opening an office.

By choosing irony and sarcasm as their means of confrontation, Otpor's student activists not only achieved the moral and political high ground; they also clung to a fundamental belief, quoted by one of the organization's leaders from a story by Jorge Luis Borges, "Violence is the last sanctuary of the weak."
...
Against Milosevic's traditional weapons of oppression and control, Otpor used intelligence, creativity, and irony, preserving its unblemished image by refusing to align with any political party. Meeting in cafes and communicating by cell phone and e-mail, against a government apparatus that was technologically hapless, they organized a sustained and disciplined effort to create a nonviolent army.

In the meantime, opposition political parties, whose bickering and rivalries had strengthened Milosevic, came under intense pressure - from Otpor and others - to join in a unified front. In the summer of 2000, as Milosevic saw his popularity slipping badly, he called for elections ten months ahead of schedule. Seeing their chance, the opposition formed a coalition behind a single candidate, a law professor and the leader of a small party, Vojislav Kostunica. Otpor went into action, with a national organization far superior to anything the political parties had. And Otpor's marketing department came up with a slogan - "Gotov Je" or "He's Finished!" - that took off like wildfire. Printed on stickers, "He's Finished" was attached to cars, walls, traffic signs, even faces. Otpor distributed six tons of the stickers in seven weeks. The regime tried frantically to choke off free expression, but Serbia's scrappy independent news media, especially in the provinces, refused to be intimidated.

By the September 24th election, independent groups had trained 30,000 volunteer election monitors assigned to some 10,000 polling places to prevent fraud. By midnight, independent tabulations showed that Kostunica had won.

When a desperate Milosevic demanded a runoff vote, a transparent ploy to buy the time needed to manipulate the official count, Kostunica called for a general strike. As more and more workers joined, and as Otpor mobilized to build road blockades, the country ceased to function. Ten days after the election, hundreds of thousands of Serbs - miners, farmers, men and women from all walks of life -- converged angrily on the capital, in convoys that clogged the highways in every direction. Police, with whom Otpor and the opposition had quietly worked for months, acknowledged their orders but refused to carry them out. On October 6th, Milosevic conceded defeat and stepped down. He was "finished" at last. In his victory speech, Kostunica declared, "We have answered their violence with nonviolence!"

I knew about Otpor and their victory already, but really didn't have a lot of backstory or awareness of all their organizational skills, amazing intuition and effective actions.  I come away even more impressed than I was before and wonder how they--who had help from US consultants after a while--could come help us in our struggles here.  Well, that might be asking too much, but perhaps we can learn a few things from them because I don't get a sense that ANSWER or any of our other groups has it all together (as Scott Ritter notes in Waging Peace and I discuss in the latest Paxcast).

One of the things they did well is build on momentum and escalate, all the while maintaining their sarcastic humor and fun energy.  They had a very good sense of political theater and I'd like to think some of the stuff we've been doing is, if not so effective as yet, at least offered in the same spirit.

Okay, so...going forward.  How about:

• Operation Mosquito is mating with Operation Vertebrae and evolving into Operation Mansquito.  No, actually, I don't think that moniker will fly (pun partially intended) but it's certainly apt.  This week I'm going to finish up with the regular letters and spine donations, then steal an idea from Avedon:

[B]uy a whole bunch of little plastic toy soldiers (buy them in serious bulk, the way things are going), and check the tally every day for the number of troops killed that day, and in the morning deliver that number of plastic soldiers to Nancy Pelosi's office, all tied together with a piece of string with a tag attached saying, "X killed yesterday in Iraq. End the occupation. We know you can do it if you want to." Then the same for my reps.

I figure a good day to start would be Friday, September 21st, as that coincides with the next item.

• The Iraq Moratorium starts this week:

    * Wear and distribute black ribbons and armbands
    * Buy no gas on Moratorium days
    * Pressure politicians and the media
    * Hold vigils, pickets, rallies, and teach-ins
    * Hold special religious services
    * Coordinate events in music, art, and culture
    * Host film showings, talks, and educational events
    * Organize student actions: Teach-ins, school closings, etc.

Everybody can do something to maintain visibility, show solidarity and demonstrate to people on the sidelines that they can get involved.  One of the chants this weekend was directed at the people who clearly supported our efforts but didn't join in the march: get off the sidewalks and into the streets! 

Spend a little time to consciously think about what actions you can take, even if only a small act of defiance.  We have to shake up the status quo.

• Shut It Down on October 17th:

We've marched by the millions across this country to stop the Iraq War since 2002, and the Administration and Congress will not listen; We've petitioned for universal health care, and yet our President vetoed a Bipartisan Bill expanding the sCHIP program, which would have ensured health care for millions of America's less advantaged children; This Administration has let the Post-Katrina Gulf Coast, particularly New Orleans, to fend for itself and/or rot away; We asked for our ports and borders to be secure, and yet the President vetoed a bill that would fully fund the 9/11 Commission recommendations, and offered to sell our ports to Dubai; They oversaw the biggest Real Estate and Credit Scam in the History of the Free Market System, and have bankrupted the Country. The list goes on and on. It's time we put a stop to the insanity, and since they don't listen when we take to the streets by the millions on a weekend, we believe that it is time that we leave our workplaces on a Wednesday. If we stop the wheels of their Industry, maybe they'll start paying attention and listening to us.

This is one protest that truly requires no effort-- just call in sick and stay home. Truckers, Teachers, Professors, Garbage Men, Engineers, Stagehands, Electricians, Plumbers, Landscapers, Laborers, Welders, Autowokers, Government Servants, Cashiers, Housekeepers, Hospitality Workers, Grocery Employees, Security Officers, Linemen, Longshoremen, everyone.

Write letters to your Local Unions. Talk about it at your local bar/pub, at the gym, at the barbecue, anywhere and everywhere appropriate, and get buzz rolling. Organize. It starts down here with us, not some monied org with a sidebar agenda. We don't need to go anywhere. We don't need to spend anything. Just stay home. We believe that October 17th would be a great day. The 25th Anniversary of The Solidarity Movement protests and strikes that shut down Poland, and brought down Communist/Soviet rule. We all need a day off... why not take it off together?

I think now is the perfect time for a general strike and boycott, and it ties in nicely with the moratorium as it's similar in nature and close in timing, but clearly escalates things.  It also gives us a starting point for more such powerful and persistent actions.

I'd also like to remind people of the 2008 War Tax Boycott.  It ain't everybody's cuppa, but I admonish you to seriously consider war tax resistance.  Don't be cowed by the IRS into continuing to fund this war. This method of protest can be very effective beyond the symbolism if many people engage despite their fear.  Heck, it's even easier than marching!

What else should we be doing?

ntodd

Comments

[spinoza]

The moveon.org Betrayus ad was an attempt to ridicule and eviscerate the war machine. The wingnut pushback was all stuffed shirt "How dare you!" "Why land's sake. That is just rude!" holier than thou garbage. It showed that the moveon.org ad struck a nerve. If Jon Stewart had said it, not one wingnut would have commented. It was having it in the NYT that scared them. Come to think of it, I am surprised the NYT agreed to run it.

[Buckeye, Dealer of Rare Coins]

I've thought for some time that we should have some of the Otpor folks come over and help train us.

'Tis funny, the Clinton admin helped to train them, and now we need them to help us.

Humor and mockery go a long way. And remember, they didn't have the media either.

[kelley b.]

Intriguing, this Operation Mansquito.

May the Farce be with you.

[sm]

It is time for people in the United States to relearn democratic basics, from people who have fought for it recently.

[Robert Green]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430334/

did you not know about this? operation mansquito has been in effect since 2005.

[anon]

Well, it would help to have massive CIA funding, similar to what Otpor received. On a per capita basis, something like, say, 500 million bucks put in the hands of, say, Answer/Code Pink/CAP/etc. would to do the trick. Mileage varies on the extent of CIA involvement in Otpor but, hey, they were involved, even if in a kinder and gentler way than previous CIA actions. Here's a very conservative estimate of their involvement: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0103.thompson.html
Other articles suggest a much deeper level of funding and support.

[Leah]

Wow, NTodd; wonderful post.

Man, I can't keep track of you; you're everywhere.

Where can I find more of your pictures?

Not only do I not think that ANSWER is or has the answer, what you'd hear from ANSWER is that Optor was an invention of the Clinton CIA, and that Milosevek was the true voice of the Serbian people.

But the kind of thinking you are doing here is exactly what we need.

I hope this is only the opening salvo, whatever a salvo is, in an on-going discussion that leads to action.

BTW, I've been looking everywhere for both of those DVD's; I always forget about Goggle; anyway I just ordered them, so double-thanks.

[Leah]

Meant to add: my own reluctance to participate in withholding of tax monies has to do with how hard it was get a progressive income tax, and even harder to keep it, and when one of the planks of a progressive platform should surely be getting back to an income tax that is genuinely progressive.

I could see it if one felt that enough people would participate to make our elected officials feel the pain of citizens withholding their most fundamental consent, and if what was withheld was only that which is spend on the military...

Still, worth thinking about...

[mdhatter]

Leah, RIGHT ON... or left on, i suppose.

[eRobin]

Local weekly vigils on busy corners. Gives people who see them strength to oppose the occupation.

[janinsanfran]

Building the movement for peace is partially about supporting a culture of willful resistance. I attended a wonderful event of that sort last weekend, Beach Impeach3. Total media blackout, but we need these things -- and to make our own media.

[Meteor Blades]

Nice work.