Marches suck. The $$$ media won't report them ( they are ...

... co-conspirators and collaborators with the war makers after all; why should they?) And the policymaklers couldn't care less.

A better idea is a national day of non-cooperation.In the 60's.... '69, to be precise.... people protested at home on a designated day. If memory serves it was Nov 15, VN Moratorium Day.

No work ,no school. Meetings and teachings and black armbands. No business as usual and EVERYONE can participate. No train rides to DC and figuring out what to do with the kiddies.

We could add : no purchasing, no transactions of any kind.

Consciousness raising that the media can't ignore ( they can but it will be harder) PLUS a vicious blow to the $$$$ solar plexus.

. . .do you really understand what this often-spoken sentence means?

Wait and watch, PaulHo, the movement has just begun. . .and there will be many UNANNOUNCED protests. . .that's when the PUBLIC will start to see it LIVE.
:smoke:

You think the MSM is on our side? I was at those marches in the 60s and 70s and they were not, repeat *NOT* covered well at all.

:hi: I barely recognize the naems of posters here today.

President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, DC 20502

Re: Your Drinking

Dear President Bush:

I am a long-time Republican voter and a big fan of both you and your wife, Laura Bush. A few days ago, I was going through the checkout line in my local supermarket and I noticed an article about you in one of my favorite magazines, The National Enquirer. For some reason, they always have copies of The National Enquirer in the checkout lines of grocery stores here in Indiana. I managed to read the article while waiting my turn in line. I always seem to get in the slowest lines when I shop. Does that ever happen to you?

Anyway, the article said that due to all the trouble you had with Katrina you had started drinking again. In fact, it said that you had just poured yourself a “Texas-sized” shot of bourbon when Laura walked in and caught you, saying: “No, George, no!”

I don’t believe everything I read in The National Enquirer. But this article said it was based on statements from reliable White House sources. When I read that, I knew that it must have been Karl Rove. Karl Rove never leaks anything to the press unless it’s for your own good, so I figured that you were in denial about your drinking and Karl was trying to get you to realize you needed help.

Well, reading what had happened and Laura’s anguish on learning about the Texas-sized shot you were drinking really got to me. It reminded me of an old movie I once saw – “Days of Wine and Roses”. Maybe you’ve seen it too. Jack Lemon and Lee Remick were in it. It won an Oscar. Anyway, reading that article made me feel really sad –just the way Jack Lemon made me feel in the movie. Alcoholism is nothing to sneeze at. It wrecked Jack Lemon’s life in that movie.

Of course, I’m not an alcoholic myself. However, one of my relatives – my uncle Bela Toth – used to drink a couple of bottles of tokay every day. (Tokay’s a sweet Hungarian wine. I sometime have a glass of it myself after work. I like it better than bourbon, personally. But hey, I’m Hungarian. As Sly and the Family Stone say, “different strokes for different folks.” ). Bela was in denial too. We all told him he drank too much but he would never listen. He was really bad on holidays. One Christmas he took his Hungarian army hussar’s pistol out and started shooting the lights off of the Christmas tree in his living room. It ruined Christmas for everyone. It was only after that episode that Bela realized he had a problem.

Which brings me to the point of this letter. If you are drinking Texas-sized shots of bourbon behind Laura’s back, and Laura and Karl are trying to tell you that you have a problem, you should stop and listen! These are just a few of the tell-tale signs of alcoholism. Think about it. Didn’t you fall off your bicycle recently? Didn’t you almost choke to death once on your couch while trying to eat a pretzel? Haven’t you been slurring your words and speaking incoherently to the American public for a long time? Didn’t Karl Rove have to wire you up and whisper advice to you during your debates with Kerry? Haven’t you been really moody lately and snappy with your aides when they keep bringing you bad news?

Get my point? These are all signs of alcoholism. You’ve been in denial. But don’t worry about it too much. Recognizing you have a problem is the first step to recovery. Do what my uncle Bela did – get to an AA Meeting ASAP!! They know how to deal with booze. Laura and the kids will bless you for it.

If Alcoholics Anonymous isn’t anonymous enough for you, you might check in with the Betty Ford Clinic. She was another famous Republican alcoholic. See, you aren’t alone! Don’t let your alcoholic thinking deter you from what you know needs to be done.

Except for your alcoholism, I think you are doing a great job in Washington. The main thing is to just stay sober. Don’t let stuff like hurricanes get you down. One day at a time and the Serenity Prayer helped my uncle Bela. I’ll bet they’d help you too.

Your friend,

Lazlo Toth

Voting for Republicans (both indicted and unindicted) since 1952!


(Inspired by Don Novello’s Lazlo Toth Letters)

I never said the MSM "was " or "is" on our side. I'm saying precisely the opposite.

I'm saying that's why marches don't work. A coordinated, national , local action.... designed along the lines of the old moratorium model... has more potential to affect policy.

You said "Marches suck" and that the MSM doesn't report on it. I commented on what was in your subject header. If that isn't your main point, then perhaps you need to change your subject. That's where the main point of a posting needs to go to be understood. It's like that rule of writing where the first sentence of a paragraph speaks to the point of that paragraph. Hope this answers your question.

Btw, I disagree that marches don't work. They work because they give the participants a sense of being part of a very large group of like minded people from all over the country. Marches serve more than one purpose.

In the long run, it didn't matter that the marches of the 60s and 70s didn't get widespread coverage on the day or evening of the particular march. We had no internet, C-Span or much alternative media. I'd return home from D.C. to NYC and there would be a blip of coverage on the 11 P.M. news. All we had was word of mouth and mimeograph machines back then. The MSM barely covered us but we prevailed. We had a draft to contend with, the MSM be damned.

The moratorium model can work. But first, massive numbers of people need to sense that they're actually a part of a huge whole. Without the draft to accelerate motivation, this will take time. Pull back and get a sense of the big picture of how America works. We're not a homogeneous country but fragmented by our system of governance. It takes time for scattered peoples in a huge country to feel a part of something powerful enough to affect great change. Marches/demonstrations serve that purpose when the MSM is busy covering other issues as important at Rita. You did learn that Rita may be pushed eastward causing the Mississippi River to begin flooding? That's no small matter.

Peace.

Can you show the last time that a product boycott really affected change?

The problem here is that we need to rally, not just protest. We need to turn the anger and frustration to something positive and inviting...this is what happened in the late 60's.

No, the corporate media won't televize the stuff that was on C-SPAN today. But I'm certain hate radio show hosts were rolling tape galore. Even C-SPAN's camera couldn't help but catch the guy with the Cuba Cap or the Che T-Shirt or the large Palestinian flag or the Angry Grannies. It didn't say "STOP THE WAR", it didn't say "We want accountability".

Hopefully the next march will learn from the problems of this one and try to create a harmony among the organizing groups or for a singular entity to emerge that handles the logistics of a rally on a large scale.

got computer outfit ( MIcrosoft?) to drop support for gay marriage bill.

I agree that far-lefters damage the message. They'd hold less sway in a Moratorium-type nationwide -but-local coordinated action.

Oh, Christ... not another march. Can YOU name a *march* that has EVER changed government policy?

It happened in 1963...you might have seen the film clips with Martin Luther King Jr. on the mall.

Getting a government to give up a war for profit is nothing like forcing a corporation for whatever "support" they were providing for a gay marriage bill. Again, here's mixing one's personal issues that confuses the far bigger issue.

If this is to be a true American movement instead of a left wing one, it has to be inclusive...positive...make people feel they're all united in a common cause. I've seen Macy parade with more unity and focus than the peace marches i've witnessed in recent years.

BTW...I still boycott Pepsi and PepsiCo. from the Viet Nam days for putting Nixon on their executive board. I think I know what boycotts are about. However, we can't even get a dozen people on DU to agree on something without someone else throwing in a stink bomb....is this how you expect to change things?

whether or not there was a March on Washington, in my opinion.

Also the MOW in '63 was covered LIVE. On the networks. During the DAYTIME. People HAD to watch it. It's unrealistic, to put it mildly, that they will cover antiwar marches with the same enthusiasm.

Additionally, unlike Jim Crow, the networks LOVED the Iraq war. It's only lately that they're sensing that the public is losing patience.

You're so pessimistic! There is a model. It has a sort of track record. (The Moratorium really did heighten public awareness in '69.) I neither expect it to succeed or fail, I'm saying it MIGHT be effective and marches almost certainly will NOT be.

"Can you show the last time that a product boycott really affected change?"

Gandhi's march to the ocean to make salt busted the salt monopoly Britain set-up in India. In a hot climate, at that time, control of something we take for granted was a matter of life and death. Think of it like controlling food. Control salt and you control the people, in a semi-tropical environment. Plus, the salt monopoly was like a hidden tax. Even though it cost practically nothing to make is was something everyone needed.

It would be like control of the water in the Great Lakes today. A commonly owned commodity that can be turned over to the corporations to make money on something that by and large should be practically free. Just the costs to purify, pump and distribute should be the cost. Watch though, this will be privatized to make a profit by the republicans.

This is Leo Strauss in all his 'glory'. They will be charging us for the air we breath next, if these guys are not stopped.

Boycotts can work, if it targets something really important to them. I would suggest stop paying tolls to drive, get some truckers to crash all the gates and everyone not stop and pay the toll. Police will pull a few over then give-up if everyone says we aren't gonna pay a toll to drive on the roads our taxes already bought. What are the fuel taxes being used for anyway? Think about it.

The government can only operate IF the people voluntarily co-operate. Don't co-operate.

And boycotts still hurt Nestle and other companies. Well run, they are very effective.

You don't show for work, your job is shipped off to Asia.

affinity by wearing a black arm band to work like many did in the old days, and attending a local public event in the PM.

It was so much easier in the 70s.

Turn off the media and start marching already

I'm not even saying people don't feel better after doing it and I'm not saying that these things are not valid ends in and of themselves.

I'm saying they don't change POLICY.

that's why I don't bother with them anymore (physically & mentally I'm not up to it). I know people need to let the idiots in charge know that there is opposition but being realistic nothing (policywise) is going to come of it. Writing letters is just as effective (which probably isn't either) but it saves wear and tear on the body even though it isn't fun.

long hair and the hippies weren't afraid to stand up against Mayor Daly's club beating thug cops in 68 while the convention went on inside...! and they got it on film not like BS. corporate media of today.

Even though Rita was quite a bit less devastating, they could not stop the momentum of their coverage. It's sad but true - they only have so many reporters - and we're in a "all hurricane, all the time" mode now. It was bad timing for a march and we knew it before the march started so we shouldn't be too surprised...

at all.

Did anyone really expect them to? They are bought and paid for lackeys of corporate empires and the corps love bushco.

Why Marches don't suck is that they are the best and most poignant way to network. People never ever forget that they were there and who they met and became friends with and networked with. Do you know how many protest virgins ar ethere? I'd wager a good half that crowd has never been to a scene like this... that is a good thing no matter how badly the media screws us... shit so much the better a lot of those people probably aren't convinced of the medias blatant black outs and warping of news items... now they'll be able to experience it for themselves.

Those people will spread that knowledge like a disease... at least be a little grateful for that.