Me three

Although I’d prolly want to spin this line to be a bit more sympathetic toward the street-theatre crowd, this from Tim Burke is pretty close to what I’ve been trying to say about my own disillusion with the peace movement, ever since Gulf War I. I remember being out in front of the White House in ‘91, and hearing people chanting “the whole world is watching” while me and my friends were getting arrested, and all I could think was “no, it isn’t.” That was a cool slogan in Chicago in ‘68, but to repeat it now is to hope for the effectiveness of a particular shallow sort of ritualistic voodoo - or to have completely foresworn any hope for political effectiveness at all, in favor of the peace “demo” ritual itself as an empty exercise. I’m not worried so much about statist repression, although that may be a valid warning as well. But really, at this point the stakes are too high for the opposition to be cavalier about irrelevance. We’vegot the worst. president. ever. to contend with right now, and we need a plan for his political defeat that will actually make sense to people and win support.

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