Ending the War: Squeeze for Peace
Lucy Kemnitzer
42,000, but we thought 50 thousand was a more likely number. I've
been in a bigger demonstration, but that was in the capital and the
was had been going on for a long time. 20-30 thousand is pretty big
for San Francisco, which is not a large city. We filled Market Street
-- the widest actual street in town, I think -- for a long ways. The
Chron says a mile. I can't prove it, because I never got above the
march.
We took BART from Glen Park, a neighborhood in the Mission District,
and the streetcar looked like a Japanese bullet train at rush hour. At
24th Street, and again at 16th Street, the train took on more people.
"We can squeeze for peace," I said. There were a few people on the
train not headed for the demonstration.
We were supposed to march from 11:00 to 1:00. We got to the
Embarcadero at 11:30, a good thing, because the march was so big that
it took us another hour to get into the street (also waiting for the
rest of the Santa Cruz folks). We entered the plaza at 2:15. My
father's neighbors, who got onto BART when we did both coming and
going, had gotten in at the beginning of the march and entered the
plaza at 1:00. When we left -- none of us wanted to try to hear the
speeches: I can never make out what's being said under the reverb and
the noise -- people were still coming into the plaza.
The group was tremendously diverse. Dale: a _lot_ of the people were
quite young. College students, even, though the young man that shared
a banner with my dad is not a student. But all ages were there. Old
folks that have been doing this since the Korean War, and on down.
Different colors, cultures, and classes were represented too. The
Longshoremen were there with a Dixieland rendition of "Down By the
Riverside" which I heard and "The Internationale" which I did not
hear but my brother did. There were Friends, and other church groups,
various parties, even a few RCP, which was interesting, but the most
represented single group was the Green Party. Peter Camejo, the green
candidate for Governor, was riding in a truck, hustling for votes for
all the world like a real candidate. I guess I'm going to vote for
him. I damn well don't owe Gray Davis anything, nor do I have any
expectations that he'll do anything for me.
My brother brought his dog, which is a Neapolitan mastiff, a rescue
dog, sweet-tempered and he enjoyed the crowds.
CMOT Dibbler's nieces were there, selling energy bars for a dollar.
They tried to sell one to my brother for his dog.
I meant to quote all the clever signs, but I can't remember them right
now. I'm tired. The walk was not far, just a couple of miles, but I
messed up my knee over a month ago and it's still kind of petulant,
and that makes me tired when I walk.
Well, I do remember a couple of signs. There was one that said
"Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity," which I know is not
new, but the interesting thing about it is that the very young women
who were holding it looked like they were wearing their mother's
clothes from the old days. There were a lot of handscrawled signs
saying "Regime change begins at home."
"Here's a great new idea -- democracy in the US"
"I'm doing my patriotic duty"
Another old-time sign: "Not In Our Name" -- a huge banner.
"Bush is a moron with a war on"
"All about the Oil"
"No Blood for Oil"
"Drop Bush, not Bombs"
"If we bomb Baghdad, are you going to feel safer from terrorism? Me
neither. And neither will Iraq's neighbors."
"Our grief is not a call for war"
I don't remember some of the best ones.
There were a bunch of guys in George Bush masks, and some big sparring
human-puppet skeletons, one dayglow orange.
The most puzzling thing was a bit of street theater. A number of
people -- five or six, mostly women, one man that I noticed -- all
dressed in diaphonous white clothes, had white ironing boards with
white shirts draped over the business end. In slow, dancing gestures,
they embraced the shirts, and placed the sleeves over their heads as
they lay their heads down on the ironing boards. Two small girls in
frilly white dresses danced among them. It was like a scene from an
Ingmar Bergman movie of the middle period. I didn't get it at all.
I don't know. I'm pretty sure we didn't stop the war today. But, as
my dad said "This time it didn't take twenty years to get to this
stage."
He recalled that during the Korean War, when he was doing the same
thing only there were about a dozen of them in the street, he told
somebody that he thought, based on the news at the time, that they'd
be doing the same thing for Viet Nam before long. He remembered the
conversation a few years later, and he thought he didn't like making
predicitions (which has not stopped him, I might add).
I didn't see a single counter-demonstrator. They must have been
there. They always are. But the sidewalks were filled with
spectators carrying anti-war signs. And you couldn't see across the
street, or very far in the plaza, either. So if the
counter-demonstrators were there, they were overshadowed by the main
event.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
> The San Francisco Chronicle put the number of people in the street at
> 42,000, but we thought 50 thousand was a more likely number. I've
42,000 was the police estimate, others said 80,000. Paleo and I went
from Rockridge to Civic Center BART (the Potlatch BART station)
arriving about 1300. The train was pretty full, but not that
packed. The Plaza was packed, and the march was still coming in.
> The most puzzling thing was a bit of street theater. A number of
> people -- five or six, mostly women, one man that I noticed -- all
> dressed in diaphonous white clothes, had white ironing boards with
> white shirts draped over the business end. In slow, dancing gestures,
> they embraced the shirts, and placed the sleeves over their heads as
> they lay their heads down on the ironing boards. Two small girls in
> frilly white dresses danced among them. It was like a scene from an
> Ingmar Bergman movie of the middle period. I didn't get it at all.
>
We also saw them, watched for a while, and then asked around, and as
far as we could tell, no one was getting it. Does that make it
ineffective?
> I didn't see a single counter-demonstrator. They must have been
> there. They always are. But the sidewalks were filled with
> spectators carrying anti-war signs. And you couldn't see across the
> street, or very far in the plaza, either. So if the
> counter-demonstrators were there, they were overshadowed by the main
> event.
>
> Lucy Kemnitzer
None seen by us, either. My legs hurt.
73, doug
Doug Wickstrom
<3dbb612...@cnews.newsguy.com>
rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) excited the ether to say:
>and the streetcar looked like a Japanese bullet train at rush hour.
Just to be polite:
The Shinkansen (new main line) trains never have standing
passengers. All seats are reserved. "Bullet" train is not a
Japanese term.
The trains shown as requiring "pushers" to get the passengers in
the doors are properly referred to as "densha," meaning "electric
car." The difference is as between Amtrak Accela and light
commuter rail.
--
Doug Wickstrom <nims...@attbi.com>
"You'll meet heroes and villains, numbwits and geniuses, dullards and
visionaries, gentlefolk and jerks and everything in between. The most
important part is, don't take this Internet stuff too seriously. Always
try to maintain a sense of humor." --Joseph "Doc" Thompson
Tim Illingworth
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>> The most puzzling thing was a bit of street theater. A number of
>> people -- five or six, mostly women, one man that I noticed -- all
>> dressed in diaphonous white clothes, had white ironing boards with
>> white shirts draped over the business end. In slow, dancing gestures,
>> they embraced the shirts, and placed the sleeves over their heads as
>> they lay their heads down on the ironing boards. Two small girls in
>> frilly white dresses danced among them. It was like a scene from an
>> Ingmar Bergman movie of the middle period. I didn't get it at all.
>>
>We also saw them, watched for a while, and then asked around, and as
>far as we could tell, no one was getting it. Does that make it
>ineffective?
"We call it 'Kynetyc Piece No IV'."
Tim
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Illingworth t...@smof.demon.co.uk Go not to Usenet for advice, for
Coveney, tim...@compuserve.com they will say both 'No' and 'Yes'
Cambs, UK tim...@cix.co.uk and 'Try Another Newsgroup'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lee Ratner
>
> We took BART from Glen Park, a neighborhood in the Mission District,
> and the streetcar looked like a Japanese bullet train at rush hour.
>
Bullet Trains are interurban trains that are more like airplanes on
the ground. They go very face and no standing is aloud (unless one is
going to the bathroom or getting a snack.) They may be full but are
never crowded. On the other hand regular Japanese trains, subways, and
buses are quite crowded during rush hour. I know this from personal
experience.
I am not sure what I think about the war. I oppose it more for
pragmatic rather than moral reasons. I actually think if we can pull
it off right it would be good thing for the Iraqis in particular and
the Middle East and the world in general. Even if we don't go to war
we can scare Hussein enough to abdicate. The only reason he freed all
the prisoners was because of fear of an American and British invasion.
Lucy Kemnitzer
wrote:
>On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 04:21:52 GMT, in message
><3dbb612...@cnews.newsguy.com>
> rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) excited the ether to say:
>
>>and the streetcar looked like a Japanese bullet train at rush hour.
>
>Just to be polite:
>
>The Shinkansen (new main line) trains never have standing
>passengers. All seats are reserved. "Bullet" train is not a
>Japanese term.
>
>The trains shown as requiring "pushers" to get the passengers in
>the doors are properly referred to as "densha," meaning "electric
>car." The difference is as between Amtrak Accela and light
>commuter rail.
>
>--
Correction received gladly: it makes more sense, too, than the picture
I had in my mind.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Lucy Kemnitzer
<fa...@panix.com> wrote:
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>
>> The San Francisco Chronicle put the number of people in the street at
>> 42,000, but we thought 50 thousand was a more likely number. I've
>
>42,000 was the police estimate, others said 80,000. Paleo and I went
>from Rockridge to Civic Center BART (the Potlatch BART station)
>arriving about 1300. The train was pretty full, but not that
>packed. The Plaza was packed, and the march was still coming in.
I would not be surprised by 80,000. Nobody I was with got up high
enough to see the whole march.
>
>> The most puzzling thing was a bit of street theater. A number of
>> people -- five or six, mostly women, one man that I noticed -- all
>> dressed in diaphonous white clothes, had white ironing boards with
>> white shirts draped over the business end. In slow, dancing gestures,
>> they embraced the shirts, and placed the sleeves over their heads as
>> they lay their heads down on the ironing boards. Two small girls in
>> frilly white dresses danced among them. It was like a scene from an
>> Ingmar Bergman movie of the middle period. I didn't get it at all.
>>
>We also saw them, watched for a while, and then asked around, and as
>far as we could tell, no one was getting it. Does that make it
>ineffective?
>
>> I didn't see a single counter-demonstrator. They must have been
>> there. They always are. But the sidewalks were filled with
>> spectators carrying anti-war signs. And you couldn't see across the
>> street, or very far in the plaza, either. So if the
>> counter-demonstrators were there, they were overshadowed by the main
>> event.
>>
>
>
>None seen by us, either. My legs hurt.
I thought it was tiring to do with a sore knee, because we had to walk
so slowly because the streets were packed. I'm afraid I flashed on
the times in history when such large peaceful demonstrations have been
fired on, and I worried that there would be no way for us to avoid
hurting each other.
It was a random thought though: the police were basically, as far as I
can tell, on our side, like everybody else in town seemed to be. We
got a free ride on BART, for example.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
>
> It was a random thought though: the police were basically, as far as I
> can tell, on our side, like everybody else in town seemed to be. We
> got a free ride on BART, for example.
>
> Lucy Kemnitzer
Paleo's take on the police guarding the state government building was
that they looked pretty "Seattle-like" to her.
We also got a free BART ride home, but I think it was that people at
the ticket machines were being a crowd.
At Rockridge, going over, there was a long line at the machines, so I
used one of the three BART cards I have with significant amount of
money on them, and then when we arrived, I put enough on the $0.55
card to make it the $2.50 to get home. I still had to look around to
find an available machine, even then.
73, doug
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>On 27 Oct 2002 11:41:23 -0500, Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
><fa...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>>
>>> The San Francisco Chronicle put the number of people in the street at
>>> 42,000, but we thought 50 thousand was a more likely number. I've
>>
>>42,000 was the police estimate, others said 80,000. Paleo and I went
>>from Rockridge to Civic Center BART (the Potlatch BART station)
>>arriving about 1300. The train was pretty full, but not that
>>packed. The Plaza was packed, and the march was still coming in.
>
>I would not be surprised by 80,000. Nobody I was with got up high
>enough to see the whole march.
The DC police don't estimate anymore, but the peace protest here is
being widely reported as 100,000.
--
Marilee J. Layman
Bali Sterling Beads at Wholesale
http://www.basicbali.com
Nancy Lebovitz
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>On 27 Oct 2002 11:41:23 -0500, Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
><fa...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>>
>>> The San Francisco Chronicle put the number of people in the street at
>>> 42,000, but we thought 50 thousand was a more likely number. I've
>>
>>42,000 was the police estimate, others said 80,000. Paleo and I went
>>from Rockridge to Civic Center BART (the Potlatch BART station)
>>arriving about 1300. The train was pretty full, but not that
>>packed. The Plaza was packed, and the march was still coming in.
>
>I would not be surprised by 80,000. Nobody I was with got up high
>enough to see the whole march.
>
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
I want to move to theory. Everything works in theory.
Mark Atwood
>
> The DC police don't estimate anymore, but the peace protest here is
> being widely reported as 100,000.
And the clams widely report memberships in the millions.
I am about equally inclined to agree with either.
--
Mark Atwood | Well done is better than well said.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Robert Sneddon
<m...@pobox.com> writes
>Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> writes:
>>
>> The DC police don't estimate anymore, but the peace protest here is
>> being widely reported as 100,000.
>
>And the clams widely report memberships in the millions.
>
>I am about equally inclined to agree with either.
Oh yeah. I recall the protest march against war with Iraq in London a
month ago. The police said 150,000 and the organisers claimed 400,000.
I'd be inclined to go with the police estimate. I think the anti-war
organisers were wanting to claim the same sorts of numbers as the
Countryside Campaign protest a month or two before, but it was visibly
much larger than the anti-war protest was.
--
Robert Sneddon nojay (at) nojay (dot) fsnet (dot) co (dot) uk
Nancy Lebovitz
Thomas Womack
><m...@pobox.com> writes
>>Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> writes:
>>>
>>> The DC police don't estimate anymore, but the peace protest here is
>>> being widely reported as 100,000.
>>
>>And the clams widely report memberships in the millions.
>>
>>I am about equally inclined to agree with either.
>
> Oh yeah. I recall the protest march against war with Iraq in London a
>month ago. The police said 150,000 and the organisers claimed 400,000.
At one point during the march, the police were saying 35,000 and I
was watching the column next to me, estimating densities and lengths,
and wondering exactly what the police were on. 150k seemed to make
much more sense.
>I think the anti-war
>organisers were wanting to claim the same sorts of numbers as the
>Countryside Campaign protest a month or two before, but it was visibly
>much larger than the anti-war protest was.
Migods! The anti-war protest was the most impressive mass of humanity
I've ever been part of; I have difficulty imagining something twice as
dense, or the logistics of being the same density for twice as long.
It was the first protest I'd been on, and it may well be the last;
standing with thousands of people saying things I didn't quite agree
with, and getting very loudly shushed by my friends when I started
chanting "Saddam Hussein! Tyrant!" in response to local chants of
"Arik Sharon! Terrorist!".
I left with a Palestinian flag; it's on my Pile of Stuff in my
bedroom, together with three copies of plokta, lots of tourist guides
to Chicago, and an already-yellowing copy of the special evening
edition of the Chicago Sun-Times from 11 September 2001.
Tom
Lucy Kemnitzer
<no...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Oh yeah. I recall the protest march against war with Iraq in London a
>month ago. The police said 150,000 and the organisers claimed 400,000.
>I'd be inclined to go with the police estimate. I think the anti-war
>organisers were wanting to claim the same sorts of numbers as the
>Countryside Campaign protest a month or two before, but it was visibly
>much larger than the anti-war protest was.
The police in San Francisco anyway regularly undercount, even things
where the synatax of the reporting suggests that they would like to be
overcounting for some prupose or another. But they unfortunately
don't regularly undercount by a particular proportion. I used to have
a person I would rely on for a more accurate count, someone I know who
is very experienced, careful, and clever about getting into a place
where he could see the whole group, but he's not local any more and I
have to gather estimates from different sources and guess who did a
better job.
Mother Jones says we were "almost 50,000" on Saturday. I'm inclined
to take that number as a lower end and "something less than 80,000" as
an upper end. I realize that is a very wide spread of numbers, but
there are problems in getting it more accurate than that:
-- do you count or not count the people lining the streets, who did
not march or go into the plaza, but who cheered on the march, and many
of whom carried signs agreeing with the march?
-- which is the number you're looking for -- the largest number in the
march at one time: the total number who participated throughout the
day: the largest number in the plaza at any time: the total number who
entered the plaza?
and so on.
If you went for the largest construction of all -- all the people who
participated, however briefly and however peripherally -- I think the
larger number may be more accurate. But if what you wanted was the
size of the crowd, the lower number may be more accurate.
Lucy Kemnitzer
marcus streets
The numbers are more impressive given the publicity budgets and level of
coersion involved in getting people to attend the two marches.
Marcus
Pete McCutchen
<mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>>I would not be surprised by 80,000. Nobody I was with got up high
>>enough to see the whole march.
>
>The DC police don't estimate anymore, but the peace protest here is
>being widely reported as 100,000.
I'm not sure who's doing this reporting. I was down at the
Smithsonian earlier in the day, and I heard the noise and decided to
see what was up. I heard the noise and wandered over and listened for
a couple of hours (hopefully staying far enough away to avoid being
'counted' as one of the demonstrators). There were *maybe* 10,000
people there. I could be off -- after all, I have little experience
in estimating crowd sizes, but no way were there more people than you
can fit in a football stadium. Maybe more came after I left, but I
doubt that it was 90,000. I can assure you that the crowd for the
Marine Corps Marathon was noticeably larger.
There was an article in Salon a while back which lamented the fact
that the "peace movement" has been taken over by a bunch of, well,
freaks. And boy has it. Ramsey Clark, now the official apologist for
every totalitarian regime left on the planet, was one of the honored
speakers. He comes on stage and gets a big round of applause. There
was little logic or coherence to his comments -- he spoke mostly in
slogans, with the obligatory references to Vietnam -- but the upshot
was that the US is responsible for killing at least a million and a
half people in Iraq. Despite the fact that Saddam Hussein has used
money from the oil-for-food program to build palaces for himself. He
also accused the US of war crimes in Gulf War I, apparently because we
didn't take enough casualties.
Another guy came on, and asserted that the activist formerly known as
H. Rap Brown is a "political prisoner." He had a long list of
additional "political prisoners," led, of course, by Mumia. Leonard
Weinglass discussed some obscure case that he's been working on, which
I'd never heard of. It might have been interesting if he'd provided
some background, but he seemed to assume everybody would already know
about this case. Nor did he explain its connection with the supposed
them of the demonstration. Somebody else got up and claimed credit
for preventing the planned US invasion of Nicaragua. That, at least,
had some relationship to the idea of "peace," though I don't believe
that an invasion of Nicaragua was ever actually under serious
consideration. Cynthia McKinney spoke, and her comments were
mercifully brief. Fortunately, she didn't even mention the Jews. A
few speakers alluded to the "struggle" of the Palestinians, but I
don't recall if she was one of them.
I'd say that more than three quarters of the speakers took the
opportunity to rant and rave about things that had nothing whatsoever
to do with "peace." Apparently it's all part of the same leftist stew
that we're supposed to swallow whole. "Send the troops to Free Mumia,
not invade Iraq!" Whatever.
When I got bored listening to the speakers, I approached a group of
young people to chat briefly with them. They were quite nice,
friendly, open, willing to talk, and quite sincere. I found out that
they're serial demonstrators; they've all been to DC to demonstrate at
least three times in the last year. They were all college students --
one majoring in "women's studies," two English majors, and the fourth
was in a design-your-own-major program. It had something to do with
"hegemony."
All were utterly convinced that capitalism was at the roots of the
world's problems, yet none had ever taken a college course in
economics. They assured me that such a course would be a waste of
time, since it would merely parrot "ruling class propaganda." None
knew who David Ricardo was, but, when I told them that he'd been an
influence on Marx, they liked him immediately. One of them knew
somebody who was an economics major, and he favored school vouchers.
Q.E.D., as they say.
I asked the women's studies major whether she thought Afghan women
were better off now that the Taliban had been overthrown. She said
that the Taliban should've been overthrown by peaceful means and
replaced by a socialist democracy.
They were all happy that the serial sniper had been caught, and they
thought that the case demonstrated that all guns -- not just handguns
-- should be banned. This struck me as a bit odd, since not five
minutes earlier, they'd earnestly insisted that the United States was
now a "police state worse than Iraq or North Korea." I asked them why
they would ever want such an oppressive police state to have all the
weapons. They seemed dumbfounded by the question. Finally, they said
something about "racist skinheads," as if that answered my question.
Oh, and they're convinced the two guys in custody for the sniper
shootings are innocent; the real perps are the aforementioned racist
skinheads.
I said goodbye and left when they began going on about how the
Wellstone plan crash was no "accident." He was killed by the
"Republican Death Squads," you see.
--
Pete McCutchen
Robert Sneddon
<two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes
>In article <knHNjWAj...@nojay.fsnet.co.uk>,
>Robert Sneddon <no...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I think the anti-war
>>organisers were wanting to claim the same sorts of numbers as the
>>Countryside Campaign protest a month or two before, but it was visibly
>>much larger than the anti-war protest was.
>
>Migods! The anti-war protest was the most impressive mass of humanity
>I've ever been part of; I have difficulty imagining something twice as
>dense, or the logistics of being the same density for twice as long.
The Countryside protest was the biggest protest ever seen in London,
period. It took most of the day for the march to complete its route and
the 400,000 estimate (0.75% of the British population) might be the
upper limit for a single-day mass meeting in London excepting, say, a
Royal wedding or a major funeral where the city centre would be totally
closed to normal business.
Aaron Denney
> slogans, with the obligatory references to Vietnam -- but the upshot
> was that the US is responsible for killing at least a million and a
> half people in Iraq.
I hope you mean "one and a half million people". Unless this was
someone's cue to segway into the "mostly dead is partially alive"
_Princess Bride_ schtick.
--
Aaron Denney
-><-
David Dyer-Bennet
> On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 09:31:15 +0000, Robert Sneddon
> <no...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Oh yeah. I recall the protest march against war with Iraq in London a
> >month ago. The police said 150,000 and the organisers claimed 400,000.
> >I'd be inclined to go with the police estimate. I think the anti-war
> >organisers were wanting to claim the same sorts of numbers as the
> >Countryside Campaign protest a month or two before, but it was visibly
> >much larger than the anti-war protest was.
>
> The police in San Francisco anyway regularly undercount, even things
> where the synatax of the reporting suggests that they would like to be
> overcounting for some prupose or another. But they unfortunately
> don't regularly undercount by a particular proportion. I used to have
> a person I would rely on for a more accurate count, someone I know who
> is very experienced, careful, and clever about getting into a place
> where he could see the whole group, but he's not local any more and I
> have to gather estimates from different sources and guess who did a
> better job.
Photos would be nice, but pretty much needs an airplane and
large-format equipment unless the protest is small or there's a
conveniently located tower with things not otherwise in the way.
Strangely, the police and the news media have these things called
"helicopters", and lots of photo equipment (though not really hi-res
aerial photography gear), and such photos never seem to turn up after
the event. I suspect it's just not their top priority, rather than
they're trying to help somebody inflate/deflate the numbers, but it's
still frustrating.
> Mother Jones says we were "almost 50,000" on Saturday. I'm inclined
> to take that number as a lower end and "something less than 80,000" as
> an upper end. I realize that is a very wide spread of numbers, but
> there are problems in getting it more accurate than that:
I don't know Mother Jones *that* well, but I wouldn't have pegged them
for the people who'd publish the *bottom* number for an event like
this.
> -- do you count or not count the people lining the streets, who did
> not march or go into the plaza, but who cheered on the march, and many
> of whom carried signs agreeing with the march?
You count those people, no question in my mind.
You should, however, try to count counter-protestors separately.
> -- which is the number you're looking for -- the largest number in the
> march at one time: the total number who participated throughout the
> day: the largest number in the plaza at any time: the total number who
> entered the plaza?
The total number, *and* the largest number at once. State them
clearly.
> and so on.
>
> If you went for the largest construction of all -- all the people who
> participated, however briefly and however peripherally -- I think the
> larger number may be more accurate. But if what you wanted was the
> size of the crowd, the lower number may be more accurate.
I'm sure that's part of the deal.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info
David Dyer-Bennet
> All were utterly convinced that capitalism was at the roots of the
> world's problems, yet none had ever taken a college course in
> economics. They assured me that such a course would be a waste of
> time, since it would merely parrot "ruling class propaganda." None
> knew who David Ricardo was, but, when I told them that he'd been an
> influence on Marx, they liked him immediately. One of them knew
> somebody who was an economics major, and he favored school vouchers.
> Q.E.D., as they say.
Oooh. That's a nice trick. For future reference, I'd point out that
Adam Smith was clearly an influence on Marx as well.
Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
> rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>
> > On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 09:31:15 +0000, Robert Sneddon
> > <no...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > Oh yeah. I recall the protest march against war with Iraq in London a
> > >month ago. The police said 150,000 and the organisers claimed 400,000.
> > >I'd be inclined to go with the police estimate. I think the anti-war
> > >organisers were wanting to claim the same sorts of numbers as the
> > >Countryside Campaign protest a month or two before, but it was visibly
> > >much larger than the anti-war protest was.
> >
> > The police in San Francisco anyway regularly undercount, even things
> > where the synatax of the reporting suggests that they would like to be
> > overcounting for some prupose or another. But they unfortunately
> > don't regularly undercount by a particular proportion. I used to have
> > a person I would rely on for a more accurate count, someone I know who
> > is very experienced, careful, and clever about getting into a place
> > where he could see the whole group, but he's not local any more and I
> > have to gather estimates from different sources and guess who did a
> > better job.
>
> > If you went for the largest construction of all -- all the people who
> > participated, however briefly and however peripherally -- I think the
> > larger number may be more accurate. But if what you wanted was the
> > size of the crowd, the lower number may be more accurate.
>
From the police POV, the largest number of people there at one time is
the most significant, and also likely to be the lowest number, so
that's most likely the number they give.
At this demonstration, we were there for over two hours, and people
were leaving as we arrived, and were arriving as we left. It's
possible that these were both small numbers, and even the same people,
but trickles add up.
73, doug
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
>> All were utterly convinced that capitalism was at the roots of the
>> world's problems, yet none had ever taken a college course in
>> economics. They assured me that such a course would be a waste of
>> time, since it would merely parrot "ruling class propaganda." None
>> knew who David Ricardo was, but, when I told them that he'd been an
>> influence on Marx, they liked him immediately. One of them knew
>> somebody who was an economics major, and he favored school vouchers.
>> Q.E.D., as they say.
>
>Oooh. That's a nice trick. For future reference, I'd point out that
>Adam Smith was clearly an influence on Marx as well.
I thought about that, but I thought that one of them might possibly
know who Adam Smith was. I should've given it a try, though.
--
Pete McCutchen
David G. Bell
<3DBD543E...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
mj...@chiark.greenend.org.uk "marcus streets" wrote:
The Countryside Alliance "Life and Liberty" march was a week before the
anti-war march. Counting was done on the basis of the number of people
passed between two temporary arches over Whitehall.
"Level of coercion"? There's been claims that rural, fox-hunting,
employers insisted that their staff went on the march, or lost their
job. It's a little difficult to see how something like that could
happen on any large scale -- think about the problem of ensuring that
nobody talks -- and certainly not on a scale that would make a
significant difference to the result.
It's funny how 400,000 peaceful marchers can be so easily, and
mendaciously, dismissed by the Government.
--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
"Let me get this straight. You're the KGB's core AI, but you're afraid
of a copyright infringement lawsuit over your translator semiotics?"
From "Lobsters" by Charles Stross.
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>Strangely, the police and the news media have these things called
>"helicopters", and lots of photo equipment (though not really hi-res
>aerial photography gear), and such photos never seem to turn up after
>the event. I suspect it's just not their top priority, rather than
>they're trying to help somebody inflate/deflate the numbers, but it's
>still frustrating.
That's how the DC police used to estimate. There's some kind of
count-the-people-in-a-square and count squares equation. However,
when the Million Man march was estimated at much less by the police,
the MM organizers challenged the police, so the police don't estimate
anymore.
Marilee J. Layman
>Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> writes:
>>
>> The DC police don't estimate anymore, but the peace protest here is
>> being widely reported as 100,000.
>
>And the clams widely report memberships in the millions.
>
>I am about equally inclined to agree with either.
The DC police did say it was the largest march since the Viet Nam
days.
Marilee J. Layman
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 23:56:16 -0500, Marilee J. Layman
><mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>>>I would not be surprised by 80,000. Nobody I was with got up high
>>>enough to see the whole march.
>>
>>The DC police don't estimate anymore, but the peace protest here is
>>being widely reported as 100,000.
>
>I'm not sure who's doing this reporting. I was down at the
>Smithsonian earlier in the day, and I heard the noise and decided to
>see what was up. I heard the noise and wandered over and listened for
>a couple of hours (hopefully staying far enough away to avoid being
>'counted' as one of the demonstrators). There were *maybe* 10,000
>people there. I could be off -- after all, I have little experience
>in estimating crowd sizes, but no way were there more people than you
>can fit in a football stadium. Maybe more came after I left, but I
>doubt that it was 90,000. I can assure you that the crowd for the
>Marine Corps Marathon was noticeably larger.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24432-2002Oct26.html
Mark Atwood
>
> It was the first protest I'd been on, and it may well be the last;
> standing with thousands of people saying things I didn't quite agree
> with, and getting very loudly shushed by my friends when I started
> chanting "Saddam Hussein! Tyrant!" in response to local chants of
> "Arik Sharon! Terrorist!".
Which, in a nutshell, pretty much summarizes the Number One problem
with "protest gatherings".
"Free Speech" and "Dialog" my ass.
Mark Atwood
It looks like the Fellow Travellers and Useful Idiots have, if nothing
else, gotten even dumber.
Ken MacLeod
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> writes
>
>I'd say that more than three quarters of the speakers took the
>opportunity to rant and rave about things that had nothing whatsoever
>to do with "peace." Apparently it's all part of the same leftist stew
>that we're supposed to swallow whole. "Send the troops to Free Mumia,
>not invade Iraq!" Whatever.
>
This is a real problem. In the movement against the Vietnam War, the
American SWP argued, and as far as I know largely won the argument, that
the antiwar movement should be a single-issue campaign. I don't know if
anyone is putting forward that line now, when it's needed more than
ever. (The SWP itself has long since turned into a peculiar sect.)
[leftist students]
>
>They were all happy that the serial sniper had been caught, and they
>thought that the case demonstrated that all guns -- not just handguns
>-- should be banned. This struck me as a bit odd, since not five
>minutes earlier, they'd earnestly insisted that the United States was
>now a "police state worse than Iraq or North Korea." I asked them why
>they would ever want such an oppressive police state to have all the
>weapons. They seemed dumbfounded by the question.
For future reference, you might like this quote from Engels, which puts
it in a nutshell:
'The Republic will always be in danger so long as the soldier has a
rifle and the worker has none.'
[...]
--
Ken MacLeod
Joel Rosenberg
Oh, real Reds are against gun control. Hobby reds usually aren't.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Kris Hasson-Jones
following for all the world to see:
>Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
>>
>> It was the first protest I'd been on, and it may well be the last;
>> standing with thousands of people saying things I didn't quite agree
>> with, and getting very loudly shushed by my friends when I started
>> chanting "Saddam Hussein! Tyrant!" in response to local chants of
>> "Arik Sharon! Terrorist!".
>
>Which, in a nutshell, pretty much summarizes the Number One problem
>with "protest gatherings".
>
>"Free Speech" and "Dialog" my ass.
Saturday we were at the mall (Mark needed a haircut) and while we were
in a store looking around a protest passed by, shouting "While you're
shopping, bombs are dropping"! We both laughed.
Then we looked at each other and started the questions. This mall is
an enclosed, covered shopping mall on private property. Was this
demonstration authorized by the property owner? I doubt it; and I
intend to register a protest with the owner, because as a shopper I
don't want to be impeded by the protest (the people were a crowd that
blocked shoppers) or bothered by the noise.
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
> On 29 Oct 2002 00:32:51 -0800, Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> posted the
> following for all the world to see:
>
> >Thomas Womack <two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> >>
> >> It was the first protest I'd been on, and it may well be the last;
> >> standing with thousands of people saying things I didn't quite agree
> >> with, and getting very loudly shushed by my friends when I started
> >> chanting "Saddam Hussein! Tyrant!" in response to local chants of
> >> "Arik Sharon! Terrorist!".
> >
> >Which, in a nutshell, pretty much summarizes the Number One problem
> >with "protest gatherings".
> >
> >"Free Speech" and "Dialog" my ass.
It seems your friends were the people who have a problem with free
speech, but maybe that's because they didn't want to be associated
with a counter-demonstrator. But that was your friends, not the
protest in general.
>
> Saturday we were at the mall (Mark needed a haircut) and while we were
> in a store looking around a protest passed by, shouting "While you're
> shopping, bombs are dropping"! We both laughed.
>
> Then we looked at each other and started the questions. This mall is
> an enclosed, covered shopping mall on private property. Was this
> demonstration authorized by the property owner? I doubt it; and I
> intend to register a protest with the owner, because as a shopper I
> don't want to be impeded by the protest (the people were a crowd that
> blocked shoppers) or bothered by the noise.
> --
I don't know if it was a Federal ruling, but IIRC there was a court
case about such demonstrations in the Pruneyard, basically saying that
shopping centers are enough of a public area so demonstrations are
allowed in California. Perhaps the same is true in Oregon.
Or perhaps the owners of the shopping mall believe in free speech.
73, doug
Kris Hasson-Jones
<fa...@panix.com> posted the following for all the world to see:
>Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> writes:
>> Saturday we were at the mall (Mark needed a haircut) and while we were
>> in a store looking around a protest passed by, shouting "While you're
>> shopping, bombs are dropping"! We both laughed.
>>
>> Then we looked at each other and started the questions. This mall is
>> an enclosed, covered shopping mall on private property. Was this
>> demonstration authorized by the property owner? I doubt it; and I
>> intend to register a protest with the owner, because as a shopper I
>> don't want to be impeded by the protest (the people were a crowd that
>> blocked shoppers) or bothered by the noise.
>
>I don't know if it was a Federal ruling, but IIRC there was a court
>case about such demonstrations in the Pruneyard, basically saying that
>shopping centers are enough of a public area so demonstrations are
>allowed in California. Perhaps the same is true in Oregon.
Not here; recently the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that private
property owners had the right to restrict free speech on their
property (the case in question was about petition signature gathers
but I believe it would apply in this case).
>Or perhaps the owners of the shopping mall believe in free speech.
That rather rudely implies that I don't believe in it; I simply prefer
to *shop* where I won't encounter loud crowds shouting slogans and
blocking my traffic. That's partly why I chose a mall, rather than
shopping downtown (as it is there is a protest every Friday evening
that blocks my walk from the office to the parking garage). If the
property owner authorized this demonstration I will discontinue
shopping there.
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Pete McCutchen
<mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>>I'm not sure who's doing this reporting. I was down at the
>>Smithsonian earlier in the day, and I heard the noise and decided to
>>see what was up. I heard the noise and wandered over and listened for
>>a couple of hours (hopefully staying far enough away to avoid being
>>'counted' as one of the demonstrators). There were *maybe* 10,000
>>people there. I could be off -- after all, I have little experience
>>in estimating crowd sizes, but no way were there more people than you
>>can fit in a football stadium. Maybe more came after I left, but I
>>doubt that it was 90,000. I can assure you that the crowd for the
>>Marine Corps Marathon was noticeably larger.
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24432-2002Oct26.html
So? The article says that the organizers said the protest was 100,000
strong; nowhere does it provide an objective source for that figure.
The police said that this demonstration was larger than a prior
demonstration, but didn't give specific figures.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but it sure didn't seem like 100,000 to me.
I'll also add that the article understates a bit when it claims that a
few other causes slipped in. The speeches were riddled with
references to a whole grab-bag of leftist causes, as were the signs.
Don't take my word for it; there was even a comment about this aspect
of the march on _The Daily Show_.
--
Pete McCutchen
Dale Farmer
Pete McCutchen wrote:
After the lawsuits over the official crowd counts of the 'Million man
march ' ( both showing numbers way below a million people. )
released by the DC police and Park Service, they both changed their
policy to never give out the numbers in their crowd estimates of public
events. They still do the aerial photos and count the crowds, but those
numbers do not make it into anything resembling a press release or
public statement.
--Dale
Lucy Kemnitzer
It's pretty clear to me that one of the things you get with free
speech is speech you don't want to listen to, and slower traffic.
It's kind of hard to not-listen to things you find unpleasant -- but
it can be done -- you could take some pointers from my students.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Marilee J. Layman
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 20:22:31 -0500, Marilee J. Layman
><mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>>>
>>>I'm not sure who's doing this reporting. I was down at the
>>>Smithsonian earlier in the day, and I heard the noise and decided to
>>>see what was up. I heard the noise and wandered over and listened for
>>>a couple of hours (hopefully staying far enough away to avoid being
>>>'counted' as one of the demonstrators). There were *maybe* 10,000
>>>people there. I could be off -- after all, I have little experience
>>>in estimating crowd sizes, but no way were there more people than you
>>>can fit in a football stadium. Maybe more came after I left, but I
>>>doubt that it was 90,000. I can assure you that the crowd for the
>>>Marine Corps Marathon was noticeably larger.
>>
>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24432-2002Oct26.html
>
>So? The article says that the organizers said the protest was 100,000
>strong; nowhere does it provide an objective source for that figure.
>The police said that this demonstration was larger than a prior
>demonstration, but didn't give specific figures.
>
>Perhaps I'm wrong, but it sure didn't seem like 100,000 to me.
The police said it was more than the 75K demonstration, which is still
lots more than the 10K you said.
>I'll also add that the article understates a bit when it claims that a
>few other causes slipped in. The speeches were riddled with
>references to a whole grab-bag of leftist causes, as were the signs.
>Don't take my word for it; there was even a comment about this aspect
>of the march on _The Daily Show_.
--
Marilee J. Layman
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>I'll also add that the article understates a bit when it claims that a
>few other causes slipped in. The speeches were riddled with
>references to a whole grab-bag of leftist causes, as were the signs.
>Don't take my word for it; there was even a comment about this aspect
>of the march on _The Daily Show_.
Well, duh. This is DC. There's never a one-idea march.
Pete McCutchen
<mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24432-2002Oct26.html
>>
>>So? The article says that the organizers said the protest was 100,000
>>strong; nowhere does it provide an objective source for that figure.
>>The police said that this demonstration was larger than a prior
>>demonstration, but didn't give specific figures.
>>
>>Perhaps I'm wrong, but it sure didn't seem like 100,000 to me.
>
>The police said it was more than the 75K demonstration, which is still
>lots more than the 10K you said.
I reread the article, and it's somewhat ambiguous. It says that
"officials" estimated the April pro-Palestinian rally at 75,000, but
it doesn't say which officials did that estimate. In fact, the DC and
Park Police don't do estimates any more, since they were impolite
enough to point out that the "Million Man March" was more like the
"400,000 Man March," and they got sued over it. So I don't know where
that 75,000 figure comes from, or how reliable it is.
The police said that this rally was larger than the one in April, but
they didn't say how much larger. I could well be off -- maybe it was
20,000, or even 50,000. But I've been in big crowds before -- big
city fireworks displays, football games, etc. And this didn't seem
that crowded.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
<mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 00:33:35 GMT, Pete McCutchen
><p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>>I'll also add that the article understates a bit when it claims that a
>>few other causes slipped in. The speeches were riddled with
>>references to a whole grab-bag of leftist causes, as were the signs.
>>Don't take my word for it; there was even a comment about this aspect
>>of the march on _The Daily Show_.
>
>Well, duh. This is DC. There's never a one-idea march.
OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear even
one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
--
Pete McCutchen
Mark Atwood
>
> Or perhaps the owners of the shopping mall believe in free speech.
I believe in free speech too.
But I don't allow protest marches in my living room.
Keith F. Lynch
Perhaps. I'm going to the one on Saturday, and I'll report back.
You might enjoy it too, given your comments about religion.
http://godlessamericans.org/
--
Keith F. Lynch - k...@keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.
Avram Grumer
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
> the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear
> even one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
> military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
How intelligent does the idea need to be? If one thinks Iraq isn't
enough of a threat to be worth going to war with, then what exactly
should one be agitating for doing, other than "not going to war against
Iraq"?
This is one of the pro-war arguments that I've been seeing around that
annoys me most, that the anti-war movement needs to suggest some kind of
alternative. It's an argument that assumes one of the points under
contation, and is therefore dishonest.
--
Avram Grumer | av...@grumer.org | http://www.PigsAndFishes.org
A man said to the universe, "Sir, I exist!"
"So do I," replied the universe, "but I'll be sober in the morning!"
Nancy Lebovitz
Avram Grumer <av...@grumer.org> wrote:
>In article <pkouru0roea0a36nh...@4ax.com>,
> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>> OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
>> the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear
>> even one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
>> military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
>
>How intelligent does the idea need to be? If one thinks Iraq isn't
>enough of a threat to be worth going to war with, then what exactly
One could go into detail about the evidence.
>should one be agitating for doing, other than "not going to war against
>Iraq"?
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
I want to move to theory. Everything works in theory.
Nancy Lebovitz
Quite seriously, maybe such libertarians as are opposed to the war
need to get more public about it. (If the blogs I've been reading
are a fair sample, there are libertarians on both sides of the question.)
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>In article <pkouru0roea0a36nh...@4ax.com>,
> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>> OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
>> the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear
>> even one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
>> military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
>
>How intelligent does the idea need to be? If one thinks Iraq isn't
>enough of a threat to be worth going to war with, then what exactly
>should one be agitating for doing, other than "not going to war against
>Iraq"?
The fact that people are wrong about so many other things makes me
skeptical about them getting this one thing right.
>
>This is one of the pro-war arguments that I've been seeing around that
>annoys me most, that the anti-war movement needs to suggest some kind of
>alternative. It's an argument that assumes one of the points under
>contation, and is therefore dishonest.
I you honestly don't think that a nuclear-armed Iraq is a threat to
the peace of the world, then I suppose you don't have to propose
alternatives. Doing nothing would be a viable alternative. Sometimes
doing nothing is the best choice. For example, I think that measures
designed to combat the current economic slowdown are likely to be
counterproductive; I would argue that we should instead do nothing.
But I think it's hard to make the case that a nuclear-armed Saddam
isn't a threat of some sort. Even if he refrains from passing nukes
on to terrorists, he might well believed that the US could be deterred
and decide to launch another invasion of Kuwait. Maybe he won't stop
with Kuwait this time, either. While watching the retainers from the
House of Saud flee madly from Saddam's ravening hordes would have its
amusing elements, I can't imagine that this would turn out well in the
end.
Most of the sensible opponents of military action aren't apologists
for his regime like Ramsey Clark; they admit that Saddam is a brutal
tyrant with dangerous ambitions. If you concede that a nuclear-armed
Saddam could indeed be dangerous, it strikes me that it is incumbent
upon you to propose alternatives. One such is inspections, but we
aren't likely to get real inspections without a credible threat of
force.
--
Pete McCutchen
Vicki Rosenzweig
14:21:26 GMT:
>On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 00:37:35 -0500, Avram Grumer <av...@grumer.org>
>wrote:
>
>>In article <pkouru0roea0a36nh...@4ax.com>,
>> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>>> OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
>>> the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear
>>> even one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
>>> military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
>>
>>How intelligent does the idea need to be? If one thinks Iraq isn't
>>enough of a threat to be worth going to war with, then what exactly
>>should one be agitating for doing, other than "not going to war against
>>Iraq"?
>
>The fact that people are wrong about so many other things makes me
>skeptical about them getting this one thing right.
>
>>
>>This is one of the pro-war arguments that I've been seeing around that
>>annoys me most, that the anti-war movement needs to suggest some kind of
>>alternative. It's an argument that assumes one of the points under
>>contation, and is therefore dishonest.
>
>I you honestly don't think that a nuclear-armed Iraq is a threat to
>the peace of the world, then I suppose you don't have to propose
>alternatives. Doing nothing would be a viable alternative. Sometimes
>doing nothing is the best choice. For example, I think that measures
>designed to combat the current economic slowdown are likely to be
>counterproductive; I would argue that we should instead do nothing.
>
I honestly think that a could-be-nuclear-armed-Iraq is less of a threat
to world peace--and to the safety of the United States, with emphasis
selfishly on New York City--than a nuclear-armed Pakistan, North
Korea, or Russia.
>But I think it's hard to make the case that a nuclear-armed Saddam
>isn't a threat of some sort.
Have you considered the case that a nuclear-armed Saddam is as
much of a threat as the Easter Bunny, because both are convenient
fantasies invented to distract the children from what's really going
on? The drum-beating for war against Iraq is a fine way of ignoring
the fact that our alleged ally Saudi Arabia is promoting anti-US
terrrorism.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Joel Rosenberg
> On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 00:37:35 -0500, Avram Grumer <av...@grumer.org>
> wrote:
>
>>In article <pkouru0roea0a36nh...@4ax.com>,
>> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>>> OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
>>> the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear
>>> even one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
>>> military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
>>
>>How intelligent does the idea need to be? If one thinks Iraq isn't
>>enough of a threat to be worth going to war with, then what exactly
>>should one be agitating for doing, other than "not going to war against
>>Iraq"?
>
> The fact that people are wrong about so many other things makes me
> skeptical about them getting this one thing right.
>
>>
>>This is one of the pro-war arguments that I've been seeing around that
>>annoys me most, that the anti-war movement needs to suggest some kind of
>>alternative. It's an argument that assumes one of the points under
>>contation, and is therefore dishonest.
>
> I you honestly don't think that a nuclear-armed Iraq is a threat to
> the peace of the world, then I suppose you don't have to propose
> alternatives.
Some don't. Pat Buchanan, I think, made the argument best, for what
it's worth: historically, nuclear-armed countries don't often use
their weapons directly for conquest, but to make it difficult to
attack them, and there's at least some reason to believe that Saddam
would follow the general trend. By Buchanan's model, nuclear
proliferation leads to increased stability, and there's the
the recent India/Pakistan nonwar to point to as an example.
I think that's a misreading of the situation in the Arab world -- and
even if you buy it, there's ample reason to believe that Saddam would
simply repeat something like the Kuwait invasion, and use the threat
of a-weapons to make kicking him out impractical -- but it is, it
seems to me, a better one than the notion that yet another UN warning
would be more effective than JDAMs.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Joel Rosenberg
Me, too, for two out of the three.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Lucy Kemnitzer
Lebovitz) wrote:
>In article <pkouru0roea0a36nh...@4ax.com>,
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 22:06:15 -0500, Marilee J. Layman
>><mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 00:33:35 GMT, Pete McCutchen
>>><p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I'll also add that the article understates a bit when it claims that a
>>>>few other causes slipped in. The speeches were riddled with
>>>>references to a whole grab-bag of leftist causes, as were the signs.
>>>>Don't take my word for it; there was even a comment about this aspect
>>>>of the march on _The Daily Show_.
>>>
>>>Well, duh. This is DC. There's never a one-idea march.
>>
>>OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
>>the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear even
>>one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
>>military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
>
>Quite seriously, maybe such libertarians as are opposed to the war
>need to get more public about it. (If the blogs I've been reading
>are a fair sample, there are libertarians on both sides of the question.)
If a person is honestly open to the reasoned, fact-supported
expression of a position, one looks for it in the appropriate place --
in print, in the web versions of magazines, in op-eds, at lectures
given by scholars. One doesn't go to a rally in good faith to get
that. At a rally you're going to hear sloganeering and what amounts
to "this is who we are and we support this cause" at length. The
sound quality and the attention of the audience do not make for a good
venue for nuanced and careful discussion.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Michael R Weholt
news:5tnvru443l0k2dg7a...@4ax.com:
> Most of the sensible opponents of military action aren't
> apologists for his regime like Ramsey Clark; they admit that
> Saddam is a brutal tyrant with dangerous ambitions. If you
> concede that a nuclear-armed Saddam could indeed be dangerous, it
> strikes me that it is incumbent upon you to propose alternatives.
> One such is inspections, but we aren't likely to get real
> inspections without a credible threat of force.
Well, this is sort of my position, except that I object we have
never been shown any evidence that Saddam is nuclear-armed. Those
who favor an immediate attack always seem to jump over that fact. I
don't happen to believe what the members of this Administration say.
I know that other people are perfectly willing to take the
Administration's word for it. I don't see that it matters either
way, whether you believe them or not, inasmuch as it seems to me
that in a matter of this importance, we ought to be shown the
evidence even if *everyone* was willing to believe whatever the
Administration told them.
My flow chart goes this way:
1) Get resolution from U.N. authorizing inspections anytime,
anywhere, without Iraqi interference, including, if possible, an
"immediate force" provision.
2) Start inspections, with or without "immediate force" provision,
destroying weapons as found.
3) At the first evidence of interference or deception, either:
(a) proceed with military force (if U.S. was orginally able
to get "immediate force" resolution), or
(b) pursue U.N. authority for force (if U.S. was not
originally able to get "immediate force").
i) if "immediate force" resolution is granted by the
U.N., proceed with force.
i) if "immediate force" resolution is withheld by the
U.N. *then* the U.S. (and whatever allies we can muster) proceeds
with force on its own.
The only excuse for skipping any of those steps, in my opinion, is
if we are in danger of immediate nuclear attack by Saddam, or
otherwise immediately threatened by him by means of some other
weapon of mass murder. Some in the Administration seem very eager to
convince us that we are. Well, fine. Show me the money. This is war
we're talking about so I won't accept "Take my word for it."
Except for a few nuts and loudmouths, I would say that something
like that is pretty much in the ballpark of what most people on the
left actually believe (and many if not most on the right, I'd hazard
to guess). I could be wrong, but that's my impression. I don't see
why this has to be such bone of contention between the left and the
right. I don't see why the question always has to be framed such
that it appears the left wants to do nothing except wring its hands
over this, while the right wants to kick some immediate butt.
I refuse to take the Administration's word on this, and won't be
railroaded. That doesn't mean I think we don't need to get cracking
on this particular nut.
--
mrw
Lucy Kemnitzer
Avram's sentence so that the whole is more readable. (aside to Nancy:
I would dearly love it if you would do this yourself)
On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:13:02 GMT, na...@unix1.netaxs.com (Nancy
Lebovitz) wrote:
>In article <avram-4E0FFD....@reader1.panix.com>,
>Avram Grumer <av...@grumer.org> wrote:
>>In article <pkouru0roea0a36nh...@4ax.com>,
>> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>>> OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
>>> the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear
>>> even one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
>>> military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
>>
>>How intelligent does the idea need to be? If one thinks Iraq isn't
>>enough of a threat to be worth going to war with, then what exactly
>>should one be agitating for doing, other than "not going to war against
>>Iraq"?
>One could go into detail about the evidence.
Not at a rally. I've been going to those things since I was a fetus
(literally), and I can tell you that the speeches like "I Have a
Dream" and "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (and I don't care if I die
in the service of the people) are rare, and even more rarely are they
intelligible to the audience. Even worse are the speeches that try to
do a Michael Parenti over a vast area, with feedback, reverb, natural
echoes, and crowd noise. People should not try to make _any_ points
at rally speeches. They should say who they are, who they represent,
and one or two key, short sloganny types of things that indicate what
part of the assembled spectrum their grouping stands in. Oh wait,
they do -- only they go on too long. And the sound system is always
lousy. It's best when they have entertainment, actually, since they
want to keep people there long enough to make the size of the thing
sink in.
There is a time for carefully reasoned, articulate, fact-filled,
footnoted speeches. In an auditorium with a good sound system and a
dedicated audience. Or written out to the appropriate length and
published (different lengths for different publications).
Honestly, I do the marrch, mill around briefly at the rally to check
out the various people and groupings there, maybe find some friends
(found the Mayor of Santa Cruz on a cell phone, helping to coordinate
the different Santa Cruz contingents and their banners), maybe sit
around and rest and eat and drink and be counted, then I go home. If
I want to know the spectrum of positions on the war, I'll read the
missives that arrive in my mailbox, or go surfing the web, or talk to
people on the street.
Pickets, leaflettings, and other sorts of demonstrations are
different, natch, I'm talking about the massive march and rally here.
(and of course, as in the last Iraq war, there are events which
contain more than one element -- like the massive march-and-rally that
calves off a civil-disobedience demonstration -- for example those
that shut down the Bay Bridge)
Lucy Kemnitzer
Kristopher
>
> Not at a rally. I've been going to those things since I was
> a fetus (literally), and I can tell you that the speeches like
> "I Have a Dream" and "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (and I
> don't care if I die in the service of the people) are rare,
> and even more rarely are they intelligible to the audience.
> Even worse are the speeches that try to do a Michael Parenti
> over a vast area, with feedback, reverb, natural echoes, and
> crowd noise. People should not try to make _any_ points at
> rally speeches. They should say who they are, who they
> represent, and one or two key, short sloganny types of things
> that indicate what part of the assembled spectrum their
> grouping stands in. Oh wait, they do -- only they go on too
> long. And the sound system is always lousy. It's best when
> they have entertainment, actually, since they want to keep
> people there long enough to make the size of the thing sink in.
They could always stay because they're sincere about it, instead
of hanging out to catch their favorite local band.
> There is a time for carefully reasoned, articulate, fact-filled,
> footnoted speeches. In an auditorium with a good sound system
> and a dedicated audience. Or written out to the appropriate
> length and published (different lengths for different
> publications).
>
> Honestly, I do the marrch, mill around briefly at the rally to
> check out the various people and groupings there, maybe find
> some friends (found the Mayor of Santa Cruz on a cell phone,
> helping to coordinate the different Santa Cruz contingents and
> their banners), maybe sit around and rest and eat and drink and
> be counted, then I go home. If I want to know the spectrum of
> positions on the war, I'll read the missives that arrive in my
> mailbox, or go surfing the web, or talk to people on the street.
>
> Pickets, leaflettings, and other sorts of demonstrations are
> different, natch, I'm talking about the massive march and
> rally here.
>
> (and of course, as in the last Iraq war, there are events which
> contain more than one element -- like the massive
> march-and-rally that calves off a civil-disobedience
> demonstration -- for example those that shut down the Bay Bridge)
Your post pretty much confirms my feeling that rallies and marches
are really about getting in the way, being seen, and spouting
catchy slogans.
--
Kristopher
"I'll never trust myself again, but I don't care...
Just set that plastic world on fire, and watch it melt."
Monster Magnet -- "Melt"
Michael R Weholt
news:3dc172ad$0$1460$bbae...@news.net-link.net:
> Lucy Kemnitzer wrote:
[stuff about demonstrations]
> Your post pretty much confirms my feeling that rallies and marches
> are really about getting in the way, being seen, and spouting
> catchy slogans.
"[G]etting in the way" and "being seen" are pretty much the point of
rallies and marches, aren't they? Why else have them if you don't
expect this exercise of free speech to actually result in the speech
being noticed? Not that I think wanting to have your speech noticed
justifies any sort of act. The unibomber wanted his speech noticed,
after all. But rallies and marches are perfectly legal while the
unibomber's approach was not.
And, depending on how charitable one cares to be about the definition
of "spouting catchy slogans", I'd say the same about that.
--
mrw
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>>I you honestly don't think that a nuclear-armed Iraq is a threat to
Of course I meant to write "If" rather than "I." That should be
obvious from context, but I apologize for the error.
>>the peace of the world, then I suppose you don't have to propose
>>alternatives. Doing nothing would be a viable alternative. Sometimes
>>doing nothing is the best choice. For example, I think that measures
>>designed to combat the current economic slowdown are likely to be
>>counterproductive; I would argue that we should instead do nothing.
>>
>
>I honestly think that a could-be-nuclear-armed-Iraq is less of a threat
>to world peace--and to the safety of the United States, with emphasis
>selfishly on New York City--than a nuclear-armed Pakistan, North
>Korea, or Russia.
If true, so what? Circumstances alter cases, and, in each case, our
freedom of action is limited.
I agree that Pakistan's posession of nuclear weapons is worrisome.
Indeed, given the behavior of adherents to the Religion of Peace(tm),
any Muslim country with nuclear weapons would be worrisome, even
Turkey. Pakistan isn't a democracy, and, even worse, the Islamists
are gaining ground. Yes, that's dangerous. Maybe not as dangerous as
Iraq, but dangerous nonetheless. We should be worried, but the barn
door isn't closing. They have nuclear weapons, which are presumably
dispersed in secret locations. What can we do, now, other than rely
upon deterrence?
If I could go back in time to the year before they did so and launch
an attack on their weapons-research facilities so as to prevent them
from getting the bomb, I'd certainly do so. For that matter, if it
were necessary, I'd use the time machine to get the President to
green-light an Indian invasion of Pakistan so as to prevent their
acquisition of nuclear weapons. If we could take out their weapons
_and_ their facilities for producing more _and_ the scientists and
technicians who know how to do it, I'd seriously consider
greenlighting such an operation now, today.
But we can't, at least until their use of these weapons becomes
imminent. Because they already have nuclear weapons, and they're
sufficient to deter us from taking action. Which illustrates why we
don't want other countries which could be our enemy to have them.
North Korea is also worrisome. Even more so than Pakistan, because
their "Dear Leader" lives in a bizarro-fantasy world. North Korea was
already a bad joke in the fifties, when people could believe that
nonsense; it's even more absurd now. It doesn't appear that they
actually have nukes yet, though they are probably very close. I
certainly favor pressuring them to abandon the program. But an
invasion is not practical because they've got about a million troops
and share borders with South Korea and China. If we could get the
Chinese and South Koreans on-board, and if we confirmed that they
don't yet have nuclear weapons, I'd certainly support military action
to reuinify Korea. But without Chinese acquiescence and active
military support from South Korea, it's out of the question. Not
because it wouldn't be desirable, but because it's not practical.
Finally, I'm not sure exactly why you're more worried about Russia
than about Iraq. The Russians may not quite be our friends, yet, but
we're no longer strategic adversaries. The Soviets, at least, could
be, and were, deterred. We are working on reducing our mutual
arsenals, you know.
Yes, all three countries represent threats, to a greater or lesser
degree. But why add to the list? If we can stop Saddam from getting
nukes, why not do so?
>
>>But I think it's hard to make the case that a nuclear-armed Saddam
>>isn't a threat of some sort.
>
>Have you considered the case that a nuclear-armed Saddam is as
>much of a threat as the Easter Bunny, because both are convenient
He's much more of a threat than the Easter Bunny, I'm confident of
that.
>fantasies invented to distract the children from what's really going
>on? The drum-beating for war against Iraq is a fine way of ignoring
>the fact that our alleged ally Saudi Arabia is promoting anti-US
>terrrorism.
Or it could be a part of a concerted strategy for dealing with Our
Friends the Saudis. Reducing the price of oil alone will reduce their
ability to do us harm. Conquering Saudi Arabia might well be fun, but
first things first, as they say.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
<awnb...@panix.com> wrote:
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
>news:5tnvru443l0k2dg7a...@4ax.com:
>
>> Most of the sensible opponents of military action aren't
>> apologists for his regime like Ramsey Clark; they admit that
>> Saddam is a brutal tyrant with dangerous ambitions. If you
>> concede that a nuclear-armed Saddam could indeed be dangerous, it
>> strikes me that it is incumbent upon you to propose alternatives.
>> One such is inspections, but we aren't likely to get real
>> inspections without a credible threat of force.
>
>Well, this is sort of my position, except that I object we have
>never been shown any evidence that Saddam is nuclear-armed. Those
Might that be because he isn't letting inspectors in? _Of course_
there isn't any evidence; he kicked out the inspectors almost five
years ago. Yes, I think that Clinton should've asked for the
authorization to use force back in 1998, but he didn't. That doesn't
mean we can't do now what we should've done now.
In point of fact, I don't think he has nukes yet, either. I think if
he did, he'd announce it, and rely on their existence to deter an
invasion. But we know that Iraq was working on getting nuclear
weapons. We know that he jerked around the inspection teams, and
finally kept them out. It's reasonable to infer that he's still
working on getting nuclear weapons. Maybe they're four years off, or
maybe they're six months off. We can't know, but I'm not sure exactly
why we have to wait until an attack is imminent.
>who favor an immediate attack always seem to jump over that fact. I
I don't favor an *immediate* attack. I favor an ultimatum to agree to
total compliance with all UN resolutions and all terms of the
armistice. If he fails to comply totally, then I favor an attack.
>don't happen to believe what the members of this Administration say.
>I know that other people are perfectly willing to take the
>Administration's word for it. I don't see that it matters either
>way, whether you believe them or not, inasmuch as it seems to me
>that in a matter of this importance, we ought to be shown the
>evidence even if *everyone* was willing to believe whatever the
>Administration told them.
I don't think it depends on believing the administration. The fact
that Iraq hasn't lived up to its agreement isn't under serious
dispute. The fact that it won't let inspectors in isn't under serious
dispute. The fact that it's resisted inspections of "Presidential
Sites" isn't under serious dispute.
Given those undisputed facts, it seems to me that military action is
perfectly appropriate.
>
>My flow chart goes this way:
>
>1) Get resolution from U.N. authorizing inspections anytime,
>anywhere, without Iraqi interference, including, if possible, an
>"immediate force" provision.
The administration which you so despise is trying to do exactly this.
I agree that this is the most desirable path. Note that _if_ they get
such a resolution, it will be only because the French and Russians are
convinced that we'll act unilaterally even if we don't get a
resolution. If we'd said, up front, "we won't act without UN
approval," then there'd be no way in hell we'd get authorization.
If the UN Security Council won't agree to a resolution authorizing the
enforcement of its own prior resolutions, then it seems to me that the
UN has proven itself a failed institution, like the old League of
Nations. If the UN Security Council doesn't authorize action, then I
think the US, as the world's sole remaining superpower, should gather
what allies it can, step into the breach, and do the job.
>
>2) Start inspections, with or without "immediate force" provision,
>destroying weapons as found.
Well sure. If Iraq agrees to unconditional
bend-over-and-spread-your-cheeks inspections and then actually bends
over and spreads 'em, then that's the end of it. I doubt very much
that Saddam will follow through on that, but if he does, fine.
However, if we do resume inspections, it has to be absolutely clear
that *any* failure to cooperate, any stonewalling, any refusal of
access will result in immediate all-out war. That is, there has to
zero tolerance for any Iraqi misbehavior.
Ultimately, I don't think he'll agree to that, but i think that's the
only way to resolve the matter peacefully. I think the Bush
administration would agree to such a regime, if Saddam seriously
offered it. And by that I mean "seriously offered it," not the "I
agree to inspections but we have to negotiate the terms and you have
to respect our sovereignty" bullshit that he's been pulling. The only
way he'll agree to that is if he has literally no choice.
>
>3) At the first evidence of interference or deception, either:
> (a) proceed with military force (if U.S. was orginally able
>to get "immediate force" resolution), or
That I agree with.
> (b) pursue U.N. authority for force (if U.S. was not
>originally able to get "immediate force").
What if the UN says "no"?
> i) if "immediate force" resolution is granted by the
>U.N., proceed with force.
> i) if "immediate force" resolution is withheld by the
>U.N. *then* the U.S. (and whatever allies we can muster) proceeds
>with force on its own.
That's basically what I'm suggesting; I'm just a bit more impatient
about it than you. And a bit less sanguine about the UN.
But the weird thing is, that's basically what the Bush Administration
is doing! They've said, "we want UN support, but if we don't get it,
we'll act on our own." That, it seems to me, is your position, except
that you want to say "if you don't act, we will" at a somewhat later
stage. It strikes me, however, that the threat of unilateral action
makes multilateral action more likely.
>
>The only excuse for skipping any of those steps, in my opinion, is
>if we are in danger of immediate nuclear attack by Saddam, or
>otherwise immediately threatened by him by means of some other
>weapon of mass murder. Some in the Administration seem very eager to
>convince us that we are. Well, fine. Show me the money. This is war
>we're talking about so I won't accept "Take my word for it."
The problem is, they're not skipping those steps. We haven't
attacked, yet. We're getting our ducks in a row, but we're not
attacking. Bush has gotten congressional approval. He's going to
the UN. What, exactly, are you complaining about? Or are you
supporting the administration?
>
>Except for a few nuts and loudmouths, I would say that something
Like the ones who were demonstrating?
>like that is pretty much in the ballpark of what most people on the
>left actually believe (and many if not most on the right, I'd hazard
>to guess). I could be wrong, but that's my impression. I don't see
>why this has to be such bone of contention between the left and the
>right. I don't see why the question always has to be framed such
>that it appears the left wants to do nothing except wring its hands
>over this, while the right wants to kick some immediate butt.
Well, the folks who oppose military action that I've read don't seem
to be saying what you're saying. Those who aren't saying "no blood
for oil" seem to be, well, wringing their hands.
>
>I refuse to take the Administration's word on this, and won't be
>railroaded. That doesn't mean I think we don't need to get cracking
>on this particular nut.
And that's what the administration is doing. It seems to me that
you've just outlined the Bush plan, in brief. You're certainly a lot
closer to Bush than those freaks who gathered out on the mall.
--
Pete McCutchen
Randolph Fritz
>
> I you honestly don't think that a nuclear-armed Iraq is a threat to
> the peace of the world, then I suppose you don't have to propose
> alternatives.
>
Containment. That wasn't hard, now was it? Especially since many of
the Bushies in fact participated in just such a strategy.
In the long term, reducing global use of fossil fuels is the obvious
solution to the problem of the Middle East.
Randolph
Michael R Weholt
> On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 15:37:38 +0000 (UTC), Michael R Weholt
><awnb...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> (b) pursue U.N. authority for force (if U.S. was not
>>originally able to get "immediate force").
>
> What if the UN says "no"?
See below.
>> i) if "immediate force" resolution is granted by
>> the
>>U.N., proceed with force.
>> i) if "immediate force" resolution is withheld
>> by the
>>U.N. *then* the U.S. (and whatever allies we can muster) proceeds
>>with force on its own.
>
> That's basically what I'm suggesting; I'm just a bit more
> impatient about it than you. And a bit less sanguine about the
> UN.
I think that about sums it up.
> But the weird thing is, that's basically what the Bush
> Administration is doing! They've said, "we want UN support, but
> if we don't get it, we'll act on our own." That, it seems to me,
> is your position, except that you want to say "if you don't act,
> we will" at a somewhat later stage. It strikes me, however, that
> the threat of unilateral action makes multilateral action more
> likely.
Well, the problem is, that's not where they started. If it's where
they are now, then kewl. In fact, that's what I was saying. If
that's where they are now, then I don't see what all the fuss has to
be about.
The fact that where we are now is not where the Administration
started accounts for a good many people attending the
demonstrations, in my opinion. The feeling is, if people hadn't made
a stink, then we'd already be into it up to our armpits.
You can argue that isn't an accurate perception, but it *is* the
perception, I believe, and I don't believe it's a completely
unjustified perception.
> The problem is, they're not skipping those steps. We haven't
> attacked, yet. We're getting our ducks in a row, but we're not
> attacking.
Now we are, yes.
> Bush has gotten congressional approval. He's going
> to the UN. What, exactly, are you complaining about?
I'm not complaining.
> Or are you supporting the administration?
I support getting our ducks in a row, to use your phrase. If the
Administration is now doing that, then I, by implication, support
the Administration. I don't support the Administration simply
because it is the Administration. I'm not saying you or anyone else
is, either.
I don't particularly care if people want to accuse me supporting the
Administration. I support doing this the right way because if we
have to go in, a lot of people are going to get killed or injured. I
think all us old pharts who are not in danger of actually having to
go in owe it to the kids who *will* have to go in to do whatever is
necessary to make sure that their having to go in is, in fact,
really necessary.
Just to be clear, I'm not accusing you or anyone else of being
indifferent to those kids. I don't think you are. I'm just
emphasizing my own view about how important it is to make god-damned
sure, for their sake, is all.
I think there are some Barcalounger Hawks out there and I just want
to make sure that they aren't the ones calling the shots.
--
mrw
Avram Grumer
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 00:37:35 -0500, Avram Grumer <av...@grumer.org>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <pkouru0roea0a36nh...@4ax.com>,
> > Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >
> >> OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening
> >> to the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't
> >> hear even one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument
> >> against military action, but all of the speakers were, well,
> >> idiots.
> >
> >How intelligent does the idea need to be? If one thinks Iraq isn't
> >enough of a threat to be worth going to war with, then what exactly
> >should one be agitating for doing, other than "not going to war
> >against Iraq"?
>
> The fact that people are wrong about so many other things makes me
> skeptical about them getting this one thing right.
That's very close to how I feel about the Bush administration's
arguments for war.
Avram Grumer
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> _Of course_ there isn't any evidence; he kicked out the inspectors
> almost five years ago. Yes, I think that Clinton should've asked for
> the authorization to use force back in 1998, but he didn't.
For peculiar values of "kicked out". According to what I've read,
here's the chain of events:
1) Richard Butler, head of the UN inspection team in Iraq,
files a report claiming that Iraq isn't cooperating with
the inspections.
2) Clinton announces that the US is going to launch airstrikes
against Iraqi targets, on the basis of Butler's report.
3) Butler orders the inspecotrs out of Iraq to keep them from
getting hit by the airstrikes.
That's not the same as the inspectors being "kicked out", even though
that particular phrase (or the first runner-up, "expelled") seems to be
getting a lot of air time nowadays. I'm open to refutations of the
above claims, if you've got them. I wasn't able to find any with a
quick googling.
Some people have claimed that Butler phrased his findings the way he did
in order to provide Clinton with a justification for attacking, and that
the non-compliance was exaggerated, but I don't know enough about that
claim to evalutate it.
Kevin J. Maroney
wrote:
>> _Of course_ there isn't any evidence; he kicked out the inspectors
>> almost five years ago. Yes, I think that Clinton should've asked for
>> the authorization to use force back in 1998, but he didn't.
>
>For peculiar values of "kicked out".
And for peculiar values of "almost five years". Butler withdrew the
UNSCOM inspectors on December 16, 1998, a bit less than four years
ago.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | k...@panix.com
Games are my entire waking life.
Lucy Kemnitzer
wrote:
>Lucy Kemnitzer wrote:
>>
>> Not at a rally. I've been going to those things since I was
>> a fetus (literally), and I can tell you that the speeches like
>> "I Have a Dream" and "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (and I
>> don't care if I die in the service of the people) are rare,
>> and even more rarely are they intelligible to the audience.
>> Even worse are the speeches that try to do a Michael Parenti
>> over a vast area, with feedback, reverb, natural echoes, and
>> crowd noise. People should not try to make _any_ points at
>> rally speeches. They should say who they are, who they
>> represent, and one or two key, short sloganny types of things
>> that indicate what part of the assembled spectrum their
>> grouping stands in. Oh wait, they do -- only they go on too
>> long. And the sound system is always lousy. It's best when
>> they have entertainment, actually, since they want to keep
>> people there long enough to make the size of the thing sink in.
>
>They could always stay because they're sincere about it, instead
>of hanging out to catch their favorite local band.
No, they _come_ because they're sincere about it. The point of the
rally part is to keep them in one place long enough to be counted.
And to encourage them, with the experience of seeing how very many
others are there. And to impress others with how many are there,
peacefully making this statement.
(snip for brevity)
>Your post pretty much confirms my feeling that rallies and marches
>are really about getting in the way, being seen, and spouting
>catchy slogans.
>
The great big march and rally isn't so much about getting in the way,
usually, unless it's in support of some other thing that's gett3ing in
the way. But you could say "being seen and spouting catchy clogans"
or you could say "making a show of support, bearing witness, and
making a massive statement."
There are times to get in the way. I recommend Malvina Reynolds' song
"It isn't nice," about the Civil Rights Movement.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Mark Atwood
>
> If a person is honestly open to the reasoned, fact-supported
> expression of a position, one looks for it in the appropriate place --
> in print, in the web versions of magazines, in op-eds, at lectures
> given by scholars. One doesn't go to a rally in good faith to get
> that. At a rally you're going to hear sloganeering and what amounts
> to "this is who we are and we support this cause" at length. The
> sound quality and the attention of the audience do not make for a good
> venue for nuanced and careful discussion.
The bluntly, what the fuck are they good for?
Bit open-air Events like, locally, Bumbershoot, Folk Life, and Bite of
Seattle (other cities have similar things) have all the good parts,
and none of the stupidity, idiocy, or window-smashing lefty anarchist
thugs.
Mark Atwood
>
> "[G]etting in the way" and "being seen" are pretty much the point of
> rallies and marches, aren't they? Why else have them if you don't
> expect this exercise of free speech to actually result in the speech
> being noticed? Not that I think wanting to have your speech noticed
> justifies any sort of act. The unibomber wanted his speech noticed,
> after all. But rallies and marches are perfectly legal while the
> unibomber's approach was not.
Jamming up the streets when you dont have a parade permit, or setting
out with the explicit goal of shutting down some meeting, gathering,
event, or public nexus, is different from the unibomber only in degree
(admittitly, a rather large degree), than in kind.
Michael R Weholt
news:m3znstk...@khem.blackfedora.com:
> Michael R Weholt <awnb...@panix.com> writes:
>>
>> "[G]etting in the way" and "being seen" are pretty much the point
>> of rallies and marches, aren't they? Why else have them if you
>> don't expect this exercise of free speech to actually result in
>> the speech being noticed? Not that I think wanting to have your
>> speech noticed justifies any sort of act. The unibomber wanted
>> his speech noticed, after all. But rallies and marches are
>> perfectly legal while the unibomber's approach was not.
>
> Jamming up the streets when you dont have a parade permit, or
> setting out with the explicit goal of shutting down some meeting,
> gathering, event, or public nexus, is different from the unibomber
> only in degree (admittitly, a rather large degree), than in kind.
'...On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights
marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as
far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and
local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove
them back into Selma. Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King,
Jr., led a "symbolic" march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders
sought court protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to
the state capitol in Montgomery. Federal District Court Judge Frank
M. Johnson, Jr.[1], weighed the right of mobility against the right
to march and ruled in favor of the demonstrators. "The law is clear
that the right to petition one's government for the redress of
grievances may be exercised in large groups...," said Judge Johnson,
"and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public
highways."'
Source: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/al4.htm
[1] 'One of Johnson's major accomplishments was his opening of U.S.
Route 80 for the Selma-to-Montgomery March. After watching the CBS
footage of "Bloody Sunday," he ruled that the right of assembly--in
this case, the right to march--far outweighed the right to
unobstructed sidewalks and highways. The enormity of the wrongs
being protested should be the deciding factor, he said.'
Source: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/al6.htm
The marchers had originally applied to Governor Wallace for
permission to hold the march, but he denied them permission.
So, OK, the difference between the Selma marchers and unibomber may
be a difference only of degree, but it is a degree difference
roughly equal to the temperature inside my oven while I'm baking
bread, and the temperature at the heart of the sun. Which is to say,
it is a difference in degree so great as to make the comparison
meaningless in the real world.
Now... I'm not saying it's the same with every march. Nor am I
saying it isn't irritating as all hell to be caught in the traffic
resulting from a march, legal or illegal. And maybe it *is* just a
difference in degree.
But if, in the real world, the only really important consideration
is this question of degree, then we'd all still be subjects in this
country rather than citizens.
--
mrw
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>Not at a rally. I've been going to those things since I was a fetus
>(literally), and I can tell you that the speeches like "I Have a
>Dream" and "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (and I don't care if I die
>in the service of the people) are rare, and even more rarely are they
>intelligible to the audience. Even worse are the speeches that try to
>do a Michael Parenti over a vast area, with feedback, reverb, natural
>echoes, and crowd noise. People should not try to make _any_ points
>at rally speeches. They should say who they are, who they represent,
>and one or two key, short sloganny types of things that indicate what
>part of the assembled spectrum their grouping stands in. Oh wait,
>they do -- only they go on too long.
Now I have some idea why going to a rally -- even for a cause I agree
with utterly -- is an absolutely repulsive idea, to me. I have no use
for any gathering at which, by the very nature of the gathering, one
ought not make any points.
--
Pete McCutchen
Kris Hasson-Jones
following for all the world to see:
>Michael R Weholt <awnb...@panix.com> writes:
>>
>> "[G]etting in the way" and "being seen" are pretty much the point of
>> rallies and marches, aren't they? Why else have them if you don't
>> expect this exercise of free speech to actually result in the speech
>> being noticed? Not that I think wanting to have your speech noticed
>> justifies any sort of act. The unibomber wanted his speech noticed,
>> after all. But rallies and marches are perfectly legal while the
>> unibomber's approach was not.
>
>Jamming up the streets when you dont have a parade permit, or setting
>out with the explicit goal of shutting down some meeting, gathering,
>event, or public nexus, is different from the unibomber only in degree
>(admittitly, a rather large degree), than in kind.
Baloney. The unibomber set out to hurt people as individuals in order
to get his message before the world; holding a march that shuts down a
meeting or blocks traffic hurts no one intentionally. And I reject
the idea that I need permission to exercise my First Amendment rights
(in the form of a parade permit).
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Kris Hasson-Jones
following for all the world to see:
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>>
>> If a person is honestly open to the reasoned, fact-supported
>> expression of a position, one looks for it in the appropriate place --
>> in print, in the web versions of magazines, in op-eds, at lectures
>> given by scholars. One doesn't go to a rally in good faith to get
>> that. At a rally you're going to hear sloganeering and what amounts
>> to "this is who we are and we support this cause" at length. The
>> sound quality and the attention of the audience do not make for a good
>> venue for nuanced and careful discussion.
>
>The bluntly, what the fuck are they good for?
Showing a lot of support for the general idea. Demonstrating that
there are people who are willing to come out for the idea. Bonding
with each other for further action. Showing to the shy or retiring
people who share the views that there are a lot of others like them,
in hopes they will gain courage from the knowledge and join in a more
active pursuit of the objective.
>Bit open-air Events like, locally, Bumbershoot, Folk Life, and Bite of
>Seattle (other cities have similar things) have all the good parts,
>and none of the stupidity, idiocy, or window-smashing lefty anarchist
>thugs.
Neither do they have the political message to convey.
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Matt Austern
> In article <pkouru0roea0a36nh...@4ax.com>,
> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> > OK, fine. However, in standing around for over an hour, listening to
> > the speakers and conversing with the demonstrators, I didn't hear
> > even one sing *intelligent* idea. I'd be open to an argument against
> > military action, but all of the speakers were, well, idiots.
>
> How intelligent does the idea need to be? If one thinks Iraq isn't
> enough of a threat to be worth going to war with, then what exactly
> should one be agitating for doing, other than "not going to war against
> Iraq"?
>
> This is one of the pro-war arguments that I've been seeing around that
> annoys me most, that the anti-war movement needs to suggest some kind of
> alternative. It's an argument that assumes one of the points under
> contation, and is therefore dishonest.
Reminds me of Bertrand Russell response to the question of, since he
was opposed to religion, what would he replace it with.
Matt Austern
> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
> news:5tnvru443l0k2dg7a...@4ax.com:
>
> > Most of the sensible opponents of military action aren't
> > apologists for his regime like Ramsey Clark; they admit that
> > Saddam is a brutal tyrant with dangerous ambitions. If you
> > concede that a nuclear-armed Saddam could indeed be dangerous, it
> > strikes me that it is incumbent upon you to propose alternatives.
> > One such is inspections, but we aren't likely to get real
> > inspections without a credible threat of force.
>
> Well, this is sort of my position, except that I object we have
> never been shown any evidence that Saddam is nuclear-armed. Those
> who favor an immediate attack always seem to jump over that fact.
I would also add that my list of things that "could be dangerous" is
very long, that Iraq is not at the top of that list, and that I don't
propose attacking everything in the world that "could indeed be
dangerous".
Pretending that Iraq is the most serious problem in the world today is
just goofy.
Matt Austern
> > The fact that people are wrong about so many other things makes me
> > skeptical about them getting this one thing right.
>
> That's very close to how I feel about the Bush administration's
> arguments for war.
Except that to make that sentence apply more accurately to the Bush
administration I would replace "wrong" with "lying".
Avram Grumer
Joel Rosenberg
> Michael R Weholt <awnb...@panix.com> writes:
>
>> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
>> news:5tnvru443l0k2dg7a...@4ax.com:
>>
>> > Most of the sensible opponents of military action aren't
>> > apologists for his regime like Ramsey Clark; they admit that
>> > Saddam is a brutal tyrant with dangerous ambitions. If you
>> > concede that a nuclear-armed Saddam could indeed be dangerous, it
>> > strikes me that it is incumbent upon you to propose alternatives.
>> > One such is inspections, but we aren't likely to get real
>> > inspections without a credible threat of force.
>>
>> Well, this is sort of my position, except that I object we have
>> never been shown any evidence that Saddam is nuclear-armed. Those
>> who favor an immediate attack always seem to jump over that fact.
>
> I would also add that my list of things that "could be dangerous" is
> very long, that Iraq is not at the top of that list,
But life isn't like Family Feud; you don't necessarily get all the
points from handling the #1 item on the list of Things That Could Be
Dangerous in order -- which is why, for example, there's no huge
groundswell of support for a space program that could divert Lucifer's
Hammer. A planet-killer asteroid/comet is manfestly more potentially
dangerous than pretty much anything else, but figuring in the
likelihood of a problem is properly part of the calculation.
And, in this case, there's some obvious possible interaction. That is
something that, as far as I can tell, pretty much everybody agrees on
-- smashing Saddam will have effects on other relationships. (Those
opposing Iraq II seem to feel that the deleterious effects outweigh
any beneficial ones, but are even less eager to show their work than
the Bush administration, which apparently feels otherwise, is.)
and that I don't
> propose attacking everything in the world that "could indeed be
> dangerous".
>
Sounds like the excluded middle fallacy, with the Family Feud
variant.
> Pretending that Iraq is the most serious problem in the world today is
> just goofy.
>
True. Then again, openly acknowledging that the Saudi entity -- among
other things -- is a more serious problem that can quite possibly be
ameliorated by a US military presence next door, in Iraq, would be
impolitic.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
David Bilek
>
>True. Then again, openly acknowledging that the Saudi entity -- among
>other things -- is a more serious problem that can quite possibly be
>ameliorated by a US military presence next door, in Iraq, would be
>impolitic.
Once we have Iraq, and it's oil fields, under friendlier control, it
may very well be possible to take a harder line with Saudi Arabia.
I posited a year ago that the administration was lining up their ducks
in a row, starting with the country that would cause the least
consternation (Afghanistan), and then moving on to more politically
difficult targets. (Iraq). Perhaps once we have a base in the Middle
East, the Saudis will be next on the list.
We can hope, anyway.
-David
Joel Rosenberg
> Joel Rosenberg <jo...@ellegon.com> wrote:
>>
>>True. Then again, openly acknowledging that the Saudi entity -- among
>>other things -- is a more serious problem that can quite possibly be
>>ameliorated by a US military presence next door, in Iraq, would be
>>impolitic.
>
> Once we have Iraq, and it's oil fields, under friendlier control, it
> may very well be possible to take a harder line with Saudi Arabia.
That's certainly my hope. It may well be that the problem of the
Saudi entity, and North Korea, can be handled without bloodshed,
although I think, in the long run, it's more likely in the case of
NK.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Marilee J. Layman
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>>
>> If a person is honestly open to the reasoned, fact-supported
>> expression of a position, one looks for it in the appropriate place --
>> in print, in the web versions of magazines, in op-eds, at lectures
>> given by scholars. One doesn't go to a rally in good faith to get
>> that. At a rally you're going to hear sloganeering and what amounts
>> to "this is who we are and we support this cause" at length. The
>> sound quality and the attention of the audience do not make for a good
>> venue for nuanced and careful discussion.
>
>The bluntly, what the fuck are they good for?
>
>Bit open-air Events like, locally, Bumbershoot, Folk Life, and Bite of
>Seattle (other cities have similar things) have all the good parts,
>and none of the stupidity, idiocy, or window-smashing lefty anarchist
>thugs.
Around here, they're just as likely to be stupid, idiot,
window-smashing rightish thugs.
--
Marilee J. Layman
Bali Sterling Beads at Wholesale
http://www.basicbali.com
David Bilek
>Joel Rosenberg <jo...@ellegon.com> wrote:
>>
>>True. Then again, openly acknowledging that the Saudi entity -- among
>>other things -- is a more serious problem that can quite possibly be
>>ameliorated by a US military presence next door, in Iraq, would be
>>impolitic.
>
>Once we have Iraq, and it's oil fields...
It's? Just shoot me now.
-David
Mark Atwood
>
> Baloney. The unibomber set out to hurt people as individuals in order
> to get his message before the world; holding a march that shuts down a
> meeting or blocks traffic hurts no one intentionally. And I reject
> the idea that I need permission to exercise my First Amendment rights
> (in the form of a parade permit).
Do you take the same approach towards unfettered exercise of your
First Amendment rights towards newspapers (stealing and burning the
print run), speech (picking the lock on the exit doors of a theater
and then walking into the middle of a show with a megaphone), or
internet use (massive multiposting, spamming, and website defacing)?
Because they are equivalent.
I consider myself a First Amendment absolutist, in that I feel people
should be allowed to say, write, and publish *anything* they want to.
But this does not extend itself to permitting people to say write
publish any*where* they want to, nor does it extend itself to a wide
ranging interpretation of "symbolic acts", especially when such acts
have real consequences on other people, as at that point, they stop
being "symbolic".
Mark Atwood
When someone makes their cause du joir into my problem, it's more than
"irritating as all hell". It is unacceptable. It's my number one
general complaint about lefties. In their pursuit of "*CO-OP*erative
action", they far too often think nothing of *CO-OP*ting the resources,
time and effort of other people that is not theirs to take.
Kris Hasson-Jones
following for all the world to see:
>Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> writes:
>>
>> Baloney. The unibomber set out to hurt people as individuals in order
>> to get his message before the world; holding a march that shuts down a
>> meeting or blocks traffic hurts no one intentionally. And I reject
>> the idea that I need permission to exercise my First Amendment rights
>> (in the form of a parade permit).
>
>Do you take the same approach towards unfettered exercise of your
>First Amendment rights towards newspapers (stealing and burning the
>print run), speech (picking the lock on the exit doors of a theater
>and then walking into the middle of a show with a megaphone), or
>internet use (massive multiposting, spamming, and website defacing)?
>
>Because they are equivalent.
No, they're not. Holding a march on public streets is a different
activity from the violations of private property you describe. Public
space is different from private space. (And I believe the Internet is
private space.)
>I consider myself a First Amendment absolutist, in that I feel people
>should be allowed to say, write, and publish *anything* they want to.
>But this does not extend itself to permitting people to say write
>publish any*where* they want to, nor does it extend itself to a wide
>ranging interpretation of "symbolic acts", especially when such acts
>have real consequences on other people, as at that point, they stop
>being "symbolic".
So where do you draw the line? From what you've posted so far, it
sounds like the moment it starts to inconvenience you, that's the
line. That's a pretty narcissistic way to look at it.
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Marilee J. Layman
>Michael R Weholt <awnb...@panix.com> writes:
>> Now... I'm not saying it's the same with every march. Nor am I
>> saying it isn't irritating as all hell to be caught in the traffic
>> resulting from a march, legal or illegal.
>
>When someone makes their cause du joir into my problem, it's more than
>"irritating as all hell". It is unacceptable. It's my number one
>general complaint about lefties. In their pursuit of "*CO-OP*erative
>action", they far too often think nothing of *CO-OP*ting the resources,
>time and effort of other people that is not theirs to take.
Don't move to DC, the righties do the same things here.
Michael R Weholt
> Michael R Weholt <awnb...@panix.com> writes:
>> Now... I'm not saying it's the same with every march. Nor am I
>> saying it isn't irritating as all hell to be caught in the
>> traffic resulting from a march, legal or illegal.
>
> When someone makes their cause du joir into my problem, it's more
> than "irritating as all hell". It is unacceptable. It's my
> number one general complaint about lefties. In their pursuit of
> "*CO-OP*erative action", they far too often think nothing of
> *CO-OP*ting the resources, time and effort of other people that is
> not theirs to take.
If we're using terms like this, I wouldn't exactly call those crowds
rallying outside abortion clinics "lefties".
It seems as if you are starting with the assumption that the only
motivation anybody could ever have in marching would be to support
their "cause du jour", meaning I suppose, that there is no cause
worth marching for. Which makes me think it's a waste of time for me
to try to discuss it with you. Unless you can come up with some
example where marching is "worth it", it seems like you're just
going to end up using me as a sounding board for your complaints.
So, never mind. Sorry I mentioned it.
--
mrw
Joel Rosenberg
Almost everybody does that every now and then, even those of us who
are highly allergic to it, like thee and me.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Kevin J. Maroney
<sni...@pacifier.com> wrote:
> (And I believe the Internet is private space.)
Whose?
Captain Button
Kevin J. Maroney <k...@panix.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 01 Nov 2002 20:11:41 -0800, Kris Hasson-Jones
><sni...@pacifier.com> wrote:
>
>> (And I believe the Internet is private space.)
>
>Whose?
Shub-Internet's, of course.
His private larder.
--
American Express says I'm deceased. Boo! Consider yourself haunted.
Captain Button - but...@io.com
Vicki Rosenzweig
>Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> writes:
>>
>> Baloney. The unibomber set out to hurt people as individuals in order
>> to get his message before the world; holding a march that shuts down a
>> meeting or blocks traffic hurts no one intentionally. And I reject
>> the idea that I need permission to exercise my First Amendment rights
>> (in the form of a parade permit).
>
>Do you take the same approach towards unfettered exercise of your
>First Amendment rights towards newspapers (stealing and burning the
>print run), speech (picking the lock on the exit doors of a theater
>and then walking into the middle of a show with a megaphone), or
>internet use (massive multiposting, spamming, and website defacing)?
>
>Because they are equivalent.
>
>
If you really think burning a newspaper's entire print run is the
exercise of _anyone's_ freedom of speech or First Amendment
Rights, I don't think there's any point in continuing this conversation.
This argument is about like claiming that telling someone to
"shut up" because what they're saying, or how, is annoying you,
is equivalent to shooting them so they can't continue
speaking. And I will point out that you are the one arguing that
people should shut up rather than annoy you.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Vicki Rosenzweig
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>>
>> If a person is honestly open to the reasoned, fact-supported
>> expression of a position, one looks for it in the appropriate place --
>> in print, in the web versions of magazines, in op-eds, at lectures
>> given by scholars. One doesn't go to a rally in good faith to get
>> that. At a rally you're going to hear sloganeering and what amounts
>> to "this is who we are and we support this cause" at length. The
>> sound quality and the attention of the audience do not make for a good
>> venue for nuanced and careful discussion.
>
>The bluntly, what the fuck are they good for?
Stopping a war. Getting people their basic civil rights. There are
things that can be, unlikely as you may find it, *more important*
than nuanced and careful discussion.
Kris Hasson-Jones
posted the following for all the world to see:
>On Fri, 01 Nov 2002 20:11:41 -0800, Kris Hasson-Jones
><sni...@pacifier.com> wrote:
>
>> (And I believe the Internet is private space.)
>
>Whose?
All the individual people and businesses (and I know, some of them are
publicly-owned or arms of government) who make it possible. My ISP,
and me, own little bits of it.
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Nancy Lebovitz
Actually, he's got "well done is better than well said" as a .sig.
This is all reminding me of C.S. Lewis' piece "Men without Chests",
which argues that people need emotional means of getting them to
do things--otherwise there's no connection between the head and the
body.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
I want to move to theory. Everything works in theory.
Mark Atwood
>
> >I consider myself a First Amendment absolutist, in that I feel people
> >should be allowed to say, write, and publish *anything* they want to.
> >But this does not extend itself to permitting people to say write
> >publish any*where* they want to, nor does it extend itself to a wide
> >ranging interpretation of "symbolic acts", especially when such acts
> >have real consequences on other people, as at that point, they stop
> >being "symbolic".
>
> So where do you draw the line? From what you've posted so far, it
> sounds like the moment it starts to inconvenience you, that's the
> line. That's a pretty narcissistic way to look at it.
So you don't like the "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose
begins" theory, then?
Matt Austern
Actually, I've been doing a fair amount of thinking over the last few
years about the question of what protests are good for in the US
today.
Demonstrations 30 and 40 years ago did do those things. (Or, to be
more accurate, demonstrations were one tactic in a concerted strugle
that achieved some important goals. The anti-war and civil rights
movements couldn't have succeeded without mass demonstrations, but in
neither case were demonstrations the entirety of the movement.)
What I'm wondering: what's the evidence that protests have been useful
within the last few decades? Is it possible that they're a tactic
whose time has passed, that the US ruling class has learned how to
ignore them, and that new tactics are needed now? I'd hate to think
that we're unthinkingly using stale tactics from a generation ago,
deluding ourselves by remembering a time when they were once new and
useful.
No, I don't have a better suggestion for today's anti-war movement.
If I had one I'd become a movement organizer, instead of just raising
questions.
Randolph Fritz
This might fairly be called public space; sort of the agora of the world.
If it's not public, it's a socialist collective.
randolph
Kris Hasson-Jones
<rand...@panix.com> posted the following for all the world to see:
For purposes of free speech, it's private space: some stranger cannot
speak in my name on my account (or post on my webspace that I pay for
through my ISP) and then claim First Amendment protection.
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Kris Hasson-Jones
following for all the world to see:
>Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> writes:
>>
>> >I consider myself a First Amendment absolutist, in that I feel people
>> >should be allowed to say, write, and publish *anything* they want to.
>> >But this does not extend itself to permitting people to say write
>> >publish any*where* they want to, nor does it extend itself to a wide
>> >ranging interpretation of "symbolic acts", especially when such acts
>> >have real consequences on other people, as at that point, they stop
>> >being "symbolic".
>>
>> So where do you draw the line? From what you've posted so far, it
>> sounds like the moment it starts to inconvenience you, that's the
>> line. That's a pretty narcissistic way to look at it.
>
>So you don't like the "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose
>begins" theory, then?
Sure, it's a good basic rule, but it's not the only thing going on.
Rights are more complex than that, and balancing them between and
among people takes more than a simple, physically-based aphorism.
Under your preferred theory, I could ban everyone else from smoking,
even out of doors, because it gives me an asthma attack (only
sometimes). But balancing their right to pursue happiness (by
smoking) against my right to control my health (which I can do without
infringing on their right, by staying away from smoking people) is a
better way to approach the problem than simply saying "once your smoke
enters my nostrils, you lose the rights test and have to stop."
Inconvenience is a very mild form of damage, and part of the trade off
for having free speech rights. As a community we decided to allow
almost unlimited free speech in public zones, and allow the owners of
private zones to decide about speech in their ownership zones. There
has been a lot of litigation about where to draw the line, but almost
no one argues that there is no line to be drawn.
You are free to not use public space if you don't like what happens
there; in fact that's what I was trying to do, by shopping in an
enclosed, privately-owned mall. If I didn't care about avoiding
protests, I could shop in the lively and thriving downtown Portland
has, with a lot of wonderful retail stores of all kinds. Or if I
wanted to avoid even the smallest chance of a protest, I could do
nearly all my shopping online, in the privacy of my home, where I
control the free speech (just ask Mark! or my son).
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Randolph Fritz
Kris Hasson-Jones wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Nov 2002 21:26:36 +0000 (UTC), Randolph Fritz
><rand...@panix.com> posted the following for all the world to see:
>
>>In article <6ps7sug1999g3a53u...@4ax.com>,
>> Kris Hasson-Jones wrote:
>>> On Sat, 02 Nov 2002 03:23:11 -0500, Kevin J. Maroney <k...@panix.com>
>>> posted the following for all the world to see:
>>>
>>>>On Fri, 01 Nov 2002 20:11:41 -0800, Kris Hasson-Jones
>>>><sni...@pacifier.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> (And I believe the Internet is private space.)
>>>>
>>>>Whose?
>>>
>>> All the individual people and businesses (and I know, some of them are
>>> publicly-owned or arms of government) who make it possible. My ISP,
>>> and me, own little bits of it.
>>>
>>
>>This might fairly be called public space; sort of the agora of the world.
>>If it's not public, it's a socialist collective.
>
> For purposes of free speech, it's private space: some stranger cannot
> speak in my name on my account (or post on my webspace that I pay for
> through my ISP) and then claim First Amendment protection.
That's theft-of-service and perhaps fraud (if there is intent) and
just as illegal in physical space. Even in physical space, speech has
limits. But the infrastructure, and things like Usenet are public
space; an older version of this, applied to other technologies, is
covered by "common carrier" law. Such law does not, so far, apply to
the internet. If MS, Sony, Adobe, & all have their way, it never
will.
Randolph
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
I would suggest instead that they have become diluted by the constant
protests about so many things. The anti-war-with-Iraq was the largest
protest in DC since 1975, but there's some kind of protest pretty much
every day. After a while, you just ignore them.
Mark Atwood
>
> I would suggest instead that they have become diluted by the constant
> protests about so many things.
> After a while, you just ignore them.
Ob"SF": "Slide Rule Aid"
Simon van Dongen
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>>
>> If a person is honestly open to the reasoned, fact-supported
>> expression of a position, one looks for it in the appropriate place --
>> in print, in the web versions of magazines, in op-eds, at lectures
>> given by scholars. One doesn't go to a rally in good faith to get
>> that. At a rally you're going to hear sloganeering and what amounts
>> to "this is who we are and we support this cause" at length. The
>> sound quality and the attention of the audience do not make for a good
>> venue for nuanced and careful discussion.
>
>The bluntly, what the fuck are they good for?
>
To demonstrate (in many senses of the word) that there are lots and
lots of people who disagree with some policy or position. This is
important both as a warning to those who advocate it, and as a bit of
moral support both for those attending and those not attending who
oppose said position/policy. (Reverse/invert as necessary for
demonstrations *pro* some position or policy.)
Rallies aren't about argument, they're about standing up to be
counted. (And about collecting and/or showing off clever slogans.)
Simon
--
Simon van Dongen <sg...@xs4all.nl> Rotterdam, The Netherlands
...For best results, avoid doing stupid things...
(http://www.kleinbottle.com/klein_bottle_hats.htm)
Mark Atwood
>
> Rallies aren't about argument, they're about standing up to be
> counted.
Then they are honest only for single issue causes.
Which the current round of "anti-war" rallies certainly are not about.