So how do we keep ANSWER from shitting all over the next DC peace march?

[derby378]

Sorry, but this rally has officially entered the "herding cats" phase. The people wanna march, but all ANSWER wants to do is talk.

[wndycty]

1. Simple, don't let them plan it. . .

. . .like most of you I'm not a big fan of ANSWER but its their event.

[KyndCulture]

6. Actually UPJ planned this first, they hijacked it as USUAL.

[helderheid]

11. That cannot happen next time. This is so irritating

[JHB]

17. HOW did they hijack it?

Who determined who the speakers would be? How did ANSWER hijack the mike?

[KyndCulture]

20. They got the TV coverage. That's how, there are others speaking

in other places according to the people I've been on the phone with that are there.

[blm]

23. That's why so many believe that there are GOP operatives at ANSWER.

You think they stopped at David Horowitz or Vietnam Vets Against the War?

They've been doing it for DECADES.

[JHB]

26. But **HOW** did they do it?

Are Cindy and UPJ on a stage speaking to another part of the crowd, and the ANSWER people just set up a competing stage and snowed C-Span into sending the cameras to them?

Exactly how are they usurping the spotlight so that we can prevent them from doing it in the future.

[Lars39]

31. I posted this in another thread...looks like they made a deal with UPJ

If you look at United for Peace and Justice' schedule, you'll notice that their part in the rally ended at 12:30 when the march stepped off.
Anything after that was 100% ANSWER.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Nf1f0-VY94AJ:www.unitedforpeace.org/septmobe+United+for+Peace+and+Justice&hl=en&client=firefox-a

[NMDemDist2]

2. i believe listening to the moderators on stage, the blah blah blah is

to help keep things quiet while they try to get the march moving. they keep saying they are blocked up and trying to get folks moving

[Mari333]

3. as a former protester during Vietnam war I remember

a lot of egos and splinter groups with messages hijacking the message. I admire the passion of everyone involved, but I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of middle america has turned the channel.

[seabeyond]

8. hey marie long time no see. i owuld have turned it off, i just want to

see the demonstration. i just went thru all the channels looking for it somewhere else

[JHB]

21. I'm not from that era...

but I did go to a protest of Poppy Bush in the leadup to "desert Storm" (Poppy's notion of 'going the extra mile for peace' amounted to derailing any attempt at negotiations until our forces were in place and he was ready to "send the baloon up").

The same thing then: the protest was supposed to be about Iraq, but the blittle old ladies next to me were chanting about El Salvador. And they had plenty of company.

This is what the other side means when they talk about "professional protesters".

[bluestateguy]

4. A dress code for demonstrators, no beards and mandatory showering

That should keep the ANSWER folks out.

Groups like ANSWER are an impediment to getting conservative white people on our side.

[KyndCulture]

7. that was hateful. check yourself man.

[derby378]

9. "No beards?"

That automatically excludes conservative Muslim men who are just as pissed off about the occupation of Iraq as you are. Please take it down a notch.

[JHB]

24. Hey! **I** have a beard!

I contest your hirsuteness profiling!

[Toots]

36. What an ass...

Jesus had a beard and went unbathed a time or two as well.

[GrumpyGreg]

5. E-Mail them-----often!

[malaise]

10. The people are marching

in the hundreds of thousands. CSpan isn't showing you the march.
http://cam04.trafficland.com/trafficimage.php?system=pub&webid=200126&pubtoken=0ce9eab3f850add5507659601fb58a69&random=0.976564433867309

[donsu]

18. yes, they anounced that there was so many people in the streets that

they wanted to wait for a short time before joining in.

[derby378]

19. Thanks for the trafficam link

I'm pulling images off and saving them as fast as my fingers will let me...

[stevietheman]

12. My eyes were rolling with the "Cuban 5"...

this may well be a worthy issue, but what the fuck does that have to do with getting out of Iraq or impeaching Bush???

[Atman]

13. Is he with the People's Front of Judea or the Judean People's Front?

SPLITTER!

[WA98296]

14. Concur...And, the Beard/Shower remark WAS funny, point taken

[lakeguy]

15. Email ANSWER and tell them what you think here:

[e-mail]

[Ladyhawk]

27. I just did. n/t

[donsu]

16. I don't think Answer is "shitting"

you disagree with the speakers?

[derby378]

22. It's not a matter of whether or not the speakers are right...

...but, in the context of today's march on DC, we've got to keep the focus on getting our troops out of Iraq and convincing Congress to impeach Nero. If you want to free the Cuban Five, an anti-war rally may not be the best forum for pushing that message across. It could lead to "message fatigue" - why settle for gumbo when you really wanted crab bisque?

[KharmaTrain]

25. Too Much Being Crammed In

Seems ANSWER has a LOT of friends...needed money or other favors to pull off such a huge rally...and I'm suspecting they gave away speaking slots as "payment".

Yes, this is definitely a display of verbal diahrea...and my suggestion would be to better plan times and places for these speakers.

I'd suggest two days of marches...the first to focus purely on opposition to Iraq. A day to unite everyone...get the largest number of people on that mall and stand united for one cause rather than dozens.

If organizers want to let the various "co-organizers" get involved, this is where a second march can happen. Let them speak to their hearts content and publicize whose speaking and when so those of us who want to hear speakers know when and where to find them.

This is new territory for most these organizers and "nostalgia" for the "old timers". While it appears the old timers didn't forget the washed-out look, they sure did about how focused that anit-war movement was and how long it took for it to get that way. Hopefully the next march will involve more and learn from the lessons of this one.

[derby378]

28. Here's a scary thought

The way ANSWER set up the speaker list, FReepers can now say "Cindy Sheehan shared the stage with admitted Communists, including Castro sympathizers." Really smart of ANSWER to skew the whole thing because they thought today was "US Out of the Phillipines Day."

[Eric J in MN]

30. What other issues did speakers talk about?

nt

[KharmaTrain]

32. Pick An Issue

For the hour I watched I saw a spokeperson for Palestinian Rights, returning Artistide to rule in Haiti, discrimination against gays, workers rights and so on.

Seemed like the mentions to end the war were a sidenote. The capper for me was seeing Nader speak...it was like this think had totally lost focus.

Again, my hopes are the next march is better organized.

Peace...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

34. The Seminal Issue Of Our Time

Self determination for Puerto Rico...

[Nikki Stone 1]

29. Don't have a peace march. (Flame if you like, but hear me out first)

If you are trying to reach the middle/working class voter, you need to figure out the best way to deliver your message and CONTROL that message. We found out today that if you lose control of the message, it doesn't matter how many people show up. You lose the ability to influence people.

Someone put up a thread a little while ago saying that if you really want to get news coverage and influence people, you need to pull a Cindy Sheehan: go out, a lone mother with a small group and stand in a dirt for a month. There is some truth to that. Cindy Sheehan got more attention than a month of peace marches. There are a few reasons for this.

First, we have to understand the average American's feeling toward marches: average Americans don't have a positive attitude about marches in general. A march is large, it's loud. It blocks traffic, it creates a certain amount of unrest, and it has dangerous unpredictable elements. It has speakers that often don't look like the average working or middle class person. It contains delinquent subgroups (over which organizers often have no control) and it contains "professional" protesters who seem to show up at every march, regardless of the message. The fact that a march contains thousands of real people with genuine beliefs and genuine outrage gets lost in a large and alien form.

The MSM is no help: we know that they don't cover marches well, either by default or by design. And here is the main weakness of marches: they NEED good press coverage to be influential outside their small area. Your average person NEEDS to know the real numbers of protesters and the message those protesters are sending in order to be influenced by that message. The average person NEEDS to see that the protesters are citizens like him or herself. The average person will be frightened off by the violent, the delinquent or the weird. In other words, folks, the march HAS TO BE CONTROLLED, scripted if you will.

The problem with marches is that we really can't control them in that way, for so many reasons. There are obvious philosophical reasons as well as logistical ones. A fist fight with ANSWER to get them the hell away from the cameras destroys everyone's credibility. And denying them a place in the march can cause its own problems.

In my opinion, we need to look for better strategies. Television-friendly ones, if you will. Because, ultimately, your average Americans are television watchers; they are accustomed to everything prescripted, packaged--even so-called "reality TV" is controlled, edited. Marches are too murky, too uncontrolled, and, as we saw today, one group can take over the press coverage and dilute the whole effect.

So, we need to create "press events" like Cindy Sheehan: a bona fide mother of a war hero who hates the war that took her son. A small, unthreatening group. A sympathetic woman. A compelling, very personalized story, perfect for the intimacy of television. Add to that an ARMY of PR people to both liaison with the press and keep on message as well as to keep the main people in the event on message as well.

These are the kinds of events that change people's minds and hearts--and votes. This is what we want.

The march is an old, blunt instrument. It's like trying to do brain surgery with a kitchen knife. If we want to stop this damned war, we need precision instruments and a small group of people to carry it out.

[Psyop Samurai]

33. Well said, thank you.

n/t

[1932]

35. Reading Naomi Klein's Fences and Windows, anti-globalization protests

post-Seattle, appear to have been very effective at getting out the debt-relief/pro-worker messages.

Anecdotally, I have to say that this is true. I really didn't appreciate the neoliberalism/globalization issues before Seattle. Since Seattle, my opinions have been influenced by ideas that first were aired around the time of the Seattle protests -- and there's seems to be a lot of resonance in other media since seattle (like, Bono with music, Sachs and Stiglitz in academics, and with documentaries, like The Corporation, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and even SuperSize Me, which all resonate out from post-Seattle ideas about corporations, international trade, etc.)

So, it seems like there is a kind of protest that has been effective.