my notes to this large, interesting article posted recently at:
 http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=04/02/04/1337213&mode=nest

ed&tid=16

excerpts:
"Some actvisits are anarchists -- but mainly out of temperamental reflex, not rigorous thought. Others are liberals -- though most are too confrontational and too skeptical about the system to embrace that label. And many others profess no ideology at all. So over all is the activist left just an inchoate, "post-ideological" mass of do-gooders, pragmatists and puppeteers?

"No. The young troublemakers of today do have an ideology and it is as deeply felt and intellectually totalizing as any of the great belief systems of yore. The cadres who populate those endless meetings, who bang the drum, who lead the "trainings" and paint the puppets, do indeed have a creed. They are Activismists.

"That's right, Activismists. This brave new ideology combines the political illiteracy of hyper-mediated American culture with all the moral zeal of a nineteenth century temperance crusade."
(...)
"Activists unconsciously echoing factory bosses? The parallel isn't as far-fetched as it might seem, as another German, Theodor Adorno, suggests."
(...)
"Though embraced by people who imagine themselves to be radical agitators, that thoughtless compulsion mirrors the pragmatic empiricism of the dominant culture -- "not the least way in which actionism fits so smoothly into society's prevailing trend." Actionism, he concluded, "is regressive...it refuses to reflect on its own impotence."

"It may seem odd to cite this just when activistism seems to be working fine. Protest is on an upswing; even the post 9/11 frenzy of terror baiting didn't shut down the movement. Demonstrators were out in force to protest the World Economic Forum, with a grace and discipline that buoyed sprits worldwide. The youth getting busted, gassed and trailed by the cops are putting their bodies on the line to oppose global capital; they are brave and committed, even heroic.

"But is action enough? We pose this question precisely because activism seems so strong. The flipside of all this agitation is a corrosive and aggressive anti-intellectualism. We object to this hostility toward thinking -- not only because we've all got a cranky intellectual bent, but also because it limits the movement's transformative power."
(...)
"the unwillingness to think about what it means to be against the war and how war fits into the global project of American empire, has also led to a poverty of thinking about what kind of actions make sense..."
(...)
"This movement's willingness to embrace radicals and non-radicals alike has been a strength, attracting both policy wonks and people who like to chain their throats to the dean's desk. Such flexibility is usually commendable. What bothers us about activistism as an ideology is that is renders taboo any discussion of ideas or beliefs, and thus stymies both thought and action."
(...)

See also the comment section, which includes response to this text:
"...protests in major European cities routinely dwarf our own, and activists there have far more influence on mainstream discourse and even government policy."
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The biggest reason that Europeans have huge rallies is because their mainstream media allows for people like Noam Chomsky to actually be heard and given credibility. Their media "exposes" US aggression, but at the same time (in my experience of living in other nations at separate times, and knowing a diversity of Europeans) their conception is as topical as our conception of the "backwardness of the Brits" (a notion we're allowed to have, surely to help vent mass frustrations).

As far as activists having more influence there, could that be because they are much smaller countries? So they are able to "wake up" to the evil aggression by the u.s.a., but not the most important point--the hand their "leaders" have in other facets of elite control; i.e. the globalist motions.

(dissent welcome!)