Tactics for the anti-war movement
Dannyboy | 11.04.2003 13:26
There are many excellent ideas for tactics floating around at the moment, here are a few that should be implemented by the anti-war movement:
1) Continue protesting and creatively breaking though into the public consciousness. Many people came close to awakening to their responsibility and power as citizens (as seen in the F15 multitudes), only to fall back into a despondant slumber once their efforts were ignored. These people need to be given fresh hope, ideas, information and support to bring them back into the fold.
2) Targetted civil disobedience. I don't mean sitting in the road and blocking ordinary citizens getting home from work (and hence turning them against us). I mean heading down to your local pro-war MP's office with pictures of the Iraqi dead and refusing to leave until they have studied every one and explained themselves. I mean dumping shit on Labour-party offices and pouring (fake) blood on arms-dealing company's steps (a la Mark Thomas - genius, go and see his current tour for more ideas!). Blockading petrol stations, breaking into army facilities and throwing buckets of fake blood around... so many possibilities!
3) BOYCOTT!!!! There are many companies that are complicit in this murder. Stop buying what they are selling, don't let them get away with murder.
Check this website for boycott campaign info:
http://www.motherearth.org/USboycott/index.php
The boycott is the most important in all this - the other tactics are mainly strength-building exercises to build numbers. Recent events have shown that the "powers that be" can and will ingnore protest. They must be hit where it hurts - in their bloated wallets.
If we can harness and direct the masses of people who are thrashing around for effective methods of combatting this evil and channel their efforts into a coordinated boycott of all these morally dubious corporations, just maybe we can hurt Dubya's campaign contributers badly enough to make them reign him in.
It must become unfashionable to support this war with your money, the list of products must become household names synonimous with mass murder.
I became convinced of the power of boycott by the recent Nestle campaign. That company was forced to back down on its extortion of the Ethiopian government due to a co-ordinated boycott. I read an article in The Economist recently, written by some corporate bigwig, that basically said (in reference to the Nestle boycott) that CEOs shit themselves whenever they come under attack from influential NGOs. Profit margins drop like lead balloons when Greenpeace turns its guns on a company. Well we should be heartened by that and attack the warmongers with the only thing they fear. Withdrawl of our monetary support - the thing that gives them their power in the first place.
1) Continue protesting and creatively breaking though into the public consciousness. Many people came close to awakening to their responsibility and power as citizens (as seen in the F15 multitudes), only to fall back into a despondant slumber once their efforts were ignored. These people need to be given fresh hope, ideas, information and support to bring them back into the fold.
2) Targetted civil disobedience. I don't mean sitting in the road and blocking ordinary citizens getting home from work (and hence turning them against us). I mean heading down to your local pro-war MP's office with pictures of the Iraqi dead and refusing to leave until they have studied every one and explained themselves. I mean dumping shit on Labour-party offices and pouring (fake) blood on arms-dealing company's steps (a la Mark Thomas - genius, go and see his current tour for more ideas!). Blockading petrol stations, breaking into army facilities and throwing buckets of fake blood around... so many possibilities!
3) BOYCOTT!!!! There are many companies that are complicit in this murder. Stop buying what they are selling, don't let them get away with murder.
Check this website for boycott campaign info:
http://www.motherearth.org/USboycott/index.php The boycott is the most important in all this - the other tactics are mainly strength-building exercises to build numbers. Recent events have shown that the "powers that be" can and will ingnore protest. They must be hit where it hurts - in their bloated wallets.
If we can harness and direct the masses of people who are thrashing around for effective methods of combatting this evil and channel their efforts into a coordinated boycott of all these morally dubious corporations, just maybe we can hurt Dubya's campaign contributers badly enough to make them reign him in.
It must become unfashionable to support this war with your money, the list of products must become household names synonimous with mass murder.
I became convinced of the power of boycott by the recent Nestle campaign. That company was forced to back down on its extortion of the Ethiopian government due to a co-ordinated boycott. I read an article in The Economist recently, written by some corporate bigwig, that basically said (in reference to the Nestle boycott) that CEOs shit themselves whenever they come under attack from influential NGOs. Profit margins drop like lead balloons when Greenpeace turns its guns on a company. Well we should be heartened by that and attack the warmongers with the only thing they fear. Withdrawl of our monetary support - the thing that gives them their power in the first place.
Dannyboy
