So what about all this movement going on. Did people just wake up in 1999 and start

protesting all of a sudden? No! So why all the hype? I believe we are all blind sheep

following the heard, there are more ways to fight battles than this! Our opponants want

us in the strets so they can kick our asses, they don't want us to fight in more effective

ways. Our ourgument is one of representation, so lets get innovative young minds!

The Fight Is Ours! let us not forget this, but let us not tag it to the first just fight that

comes our way. There will be plenty a time coming in the future where we will be in the

streets, lets not slaughter ourself, but learn to use it, tactically. By keeping a constant

communication with the mainstream we can propagate our message and the go on

'civil strikes'. It will be our well announced and broader accepted form of freedom of

speech! We must speak as much as we act, and our actions will speak louder than

words. Protesting has been around for a long time, the mighty forces have

suppressed far too long, it is blowing up. When we control this energy our opponents

will not be able to exploit it for their own benefit. By putting us in the streets they are

denying instant credibility. We must speak to the masses through any means

necessarry. The spray can is instrumental. Innovations are key. When we move

beyond the normal means and the abnormal then we have revelation. The tide is t

urning, let us not be discouraged. We must be heard before the violence in the street

escalades into lives lost, we must fight for our land, our people, and our control of what

the fuck goes on in our own lives, if we all took care of ourselves we wouldnt be

fucking with everyone else! PEACE from the Youth World Order

I think if people jused used sites like these and said they would all do something at the same time and every city in the country, you would attract a lot of attentions, consciousness and instantly get nationwide group identity and gain a social power and status, from there other groups would do the same and then police in every city would be called upon in one day, once they got tired out there would be no one to contain us and we could totally rock the nation!!!!

email me at smik21@hotmail.com and let the revolution begin

"networked our powers are organized and in masses, our enemy cannot compete with our numbers"

The link is not working.

A couple of observations from a friend on the other side of the country from L.A.

A) We need to concentrate more on the message we want to send via the protests. The one common critique that I've heard a lot was that this action was so diverse among different groups that it was hard for someone who didn't already know what's going on to find the message.

I don't want us to act like politicians, but they are professionals at PR and message. So it may not hurt to learn a bit from them. One is to keep the message simple, and another is to stay on message.

Suppose for example the LA protests had tried to communicate just two messages. One could be the corporate money flowing around that convention and how its corrupted our republic. Another could be the use of police force to suppress the first message.

Even then, there would have been a lot of slander in the corporate press about us citizens in the streets, but there would be a much better chance that the message would come through loud and clear.

I remember listening to someone from the Reagan White House, and they said that they would pick one message for a whole week. Then they would stick to that message and everything they did would be on that message. And they avoided getting off that message if they could.

I don't want us to be as regimented as the Reagan White House, that would be giving up on of our best strengths. But if everyone kept in mind that there is a purpose behind all this and tried to help that purpose along whenever they could during the marches and protests, it would be a step in the right direction.

And that also means that somedays you are marching in a protest that has a message other than your own. That's called teamwork and helping each other out, and its a good thing. Its a better thing than taking someone else's march and diverting attention from it because you insist on doing your thing that day.

B) We need to expand this movement. Right now it seems to be the same groups of people protesting at each event. I know its not identical, but we need to grow this movement beyond say 5000 people in the streets. Part of that is by doing the first part, getting a clear concise message out.

But the other part comes in planning and setting up the protests. There need to be events that a lot of people can want to come to. So sometimes we need to put a lot of effort into organizing some very large scale marches and rallies.

And that means more than putting up a sign that says we'll be protesting this cause on this day... ya'll come. One thing I'd like to see is to contact the big labor, environmental, human rights groups and try to organize one big mass protest march and rally. What I'm picturing wouldn't neccessarily be centered around an event. Instead, I'm picturing getting hold of the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club for starters, picking one day on the calendar, probably next spring would be far enough out to really organize this, and then trying very hard to get everyone to show up that day.

That means making compromises. That means everyone doesn't get to do exactly what they want that day. But it also means that we look back at Seattle and see how much more powerful we were when we worked together and had 50,000 people or more in the street.

Now picture how powerful we could be if we show up in Washington next spring with 500,000 people. Again, we should pick one over-riding message...I'd say Public Financing of Campaigns, but that might tee-off the unions. So maybe we keep it even more general and we just simply protest the fact that our government is not responsive to the people.

Do you think Congress would like it if 500,000 to a 1,000,000 people showe dup in Washington next spring to say "we want you to do our business".

A big rally on the mall could have different speakers making different points. The Unions could talk about organizing and corporate abuses in the workplace. The environmental groups could talk about protecting the environment. Granny D and the campaign reformers could talk about elections. But each could also hit the same note that says "our government should work for us".

Different groups could have teach-ins and meetings around town before and after the weekend. Those could be more targeted to each groups agenda. But we should really think about have one very large, non-violent, non-destructive, don't try to tie up the city other than by the simple fact that a million people are in the streets, big march and rally next spring in Washington.

In conclusion, I'm not saying that we should stop what we are doing. Civil Disobedience has its place and can be effective. But we shouldn't be predictable, and we shouldn't be doing the same thing over and over, and we shouldn't be repetitive, and we shouldn't be repetitive....

We need to think big, about how we want to proceed and what we want to accomplish.

The comments above this one is excellent.

A mathematician friend recently pointed out that our population is so large that even a movement that involves 75,000 people is less than 1% of the population. Its miniscule, as a matter of fact. So what is this movement (or movementS plural) going to do to involve more than a statistically insignificant (if we're going by cold numbers) portion of the population?

1. Do more to involve working people. I posted this on the Philly IMC website too, but most people, even those of us who WANT to participate in direct actions, can't. I am putting my husband through graduate school (to be a teacher, so don't yell at me for being selfish), we are a single income family. I can't just get up and run off to LA or Philadelphia for a week. If this movement really cares about the fate of working people, the working poor and the lower classes, they'd do a little organizing that could involve us. As it is the press is having a field day looking at the protesters and pointing fingers that they are all privledged college kids. Becuase college kids (ones that are privledged enough to not have to work all summer) are the only people who can travel the country getting arrested, aside from the very few who make their living (meagre as it may be) as professional activists. And as long as this movment requires the ability to travel freely and for long periods of time and is centered around direct actions that get people arrested, working people will be unable to participate.

2. Get local. This is partially my solution to the above problem. I can't take a week off to go to LA to protest. But I can take a day off and participate in local protests and actions that may coincide with larger actions elsewhere. In addition, local issues, issues that people can feel and see in the region or city that reflect larger national or transnational problems are more likely to get a big turn out of folks, locally. Tap in to already existing networks to find a couple representatives from each major city or region who will be responsible for setting up protests in their towns to coincide with larger ones elsewhere (such as what I'm hearing is being arranged for the debates in Boston).

3. I agree that LARGER over-arching issues of common ground among all the groups need to be emphasized. If this movement really wants to be communalist, groups should be willing to sacrifice their indivdual messages, for the moment, in order to achieve the greater good of a cohesive message that people who do not spend 10 hours a day following social justice issues and environmental issues can understand. The Shadow Convention seemed to do a pretty good job of picking large topics to focus on and staying on-topic all day long.

4. Just accept that the corporate media are lazy and not on your side. And work with that. You aren't going to change the entire structure and ethic of the corporate media overnight by yelling at them. Work with what you have,which is a media made up of people who are mainly unwilling to do research, who look for the sensational side of every story and who work on sound-bites. This is what you have, whether you like it or not. So the media are unwilling to do their own research: do it for them! Hand out detailed fliers (and not 200 different ones for different causes, ONE flier that briefly outlines the concerns of the major affinity groups) using BULLET POINTS that can be easily scanned and digested. If the media want soundbites, make sure that all the people assembled for the action have a couple ready at hand. ESPECIALLY the unconventional looking people, because those are the people the media will gravitate to. When you give each reporter that shows up a detailed list of what you are protesting, they will no longer complain they don't know what you are protesting. They just don't want to be bothered to do the research themselves.

5. Recommit to nonviolence. I know there are some folks with principalled reasons to advocate violence and property destruction, but I think those folks are in the minority when it comes to the total number of people wreaking serious mayhem. But even if you have a good philisophical reason, its just not practical. It give the cops a great excuse to bust everyone's skulls, even those who are nonviolent. It provides great TV footage of those wacky protesters acting like morons and getting the crap kicked out of them. It gives cops in the next city you are planning on going to an excuse to scare the bejeesus out of the entire city and turn the whole place into a police state with all the residents' approval (to keep those scary anarchists in line). You loose the moral high ground (nothing makes the authorities look worse than a well-televised scene of them beating the crap out of nonviolent protesters) when you act out violently. You become no better than the cops in the eyes of Joe Public. From a purely practical standpoint, violence and property destruction just don't work in the favor of the movement.

Sorry this has gotten so long. I've been sitting here in my cubicle following every angle of the movement, from the mainstream to the indy. These are my observations. Do with them what you will.

Cressida--Thanks for the comment. I am responding to #4.

The Twin Cities IMC produced a flyer that seems to answer some of your concerns--it even has bullets.

It can be found at http://www.minneapolis.indymedia.org/local/resources/why.pdf

Feel free to download it, change it for your own needs, etc.

I will mention, though, that many of the marches and rallies in LA were so cordoned off by law enforcement that contact with bystanders was difficult. Folks inside the protest pen at the Staples Center were not the audience of the flyer either. I did get a media person to take one, and even though it is highly abbreviated, he voiced dissatisfaction with it anyway.

Still, your idea is solid, and I offer this flyer as a starting point.