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Reportback from the Sunday Morning Stanford Protest
When Condi came on to speak, several students unfurled an anti-war banner and - amazingly - were not stopped when they stood up and walked the length of the stadium with it
Reportback from the Sunday Morning Stanford Protest
I was glad to be a part of that small but very *important* protest, made up primarily of students, Veterans for Peace, and a handful of individuals, like myself, who came on our own. Red fliers were handed out as people entered the stadium and a variety of other leaflets were given out.
An important lesson I learned was that when you have a stadium FULL of thousands of relatively intellectual but uninformed people, have a *ton* of handouts - they want to know, they read, and they do care, despite the small number who are rude. *All* the red leaflets were gone by around 9am!
When Condi came on to speak, several students unfurled an anti-war banner and - amazingly - were not stopped when they stood up and walked the length of the stadium with it. We held our red pages up and also stood and walked to the front and marched back and forth in front of the crowd with them. Many students had taped the red fliers to their caps. This was not planned but done spontaeously, and people stood and joined in, although only a small number.
As we walked along, many many people wanted the red papers and asked us if we had more. People afterwards approached us - entire families came up to me! - asking for the red papers. I could only refer them to websites. It was *very* frustrating not to be able to provide people with information.
So I have to ask, where were all the groups who participated in April 20th?? Where was Global Exchange, IAC, ANSWER, Green Party, Peace Action, ISO, (Indymedia even!) and the many many kazillion other Bay Area groups that are critical to educating the public at this important time?? One woman who I joined up with there went through most of her materials, and we’re just individuals (she’s a mother of three on a bike with a cart) who don’t have a lot of resources to put into materials. I kept thinking, if only we had those stacks and stacks of xeroxes I see in the offices of places like GX and IAC . . . all these people would be sitting and reading them while waiting in the endless lines of cars as they leave, or during the boring speakers.
If groups will not attend events because of the possibility of police confrontation, or having an angry parent shake a fist, or the *huge* 45 min drive, or the potentially conservative attitude in Palo Alto, then we’re in bad shape! I’m not saying this to criticize - everyone is doing the best they can and it’s been wonderful - but I’m saying this to light a fire: We need to get more organized in the Bay Area and not so wrapped up in whom is endorsing whom, or which events we know certain other groups are going, or only going to events in Berkeley where everyone knows each other already, or only attending paid speaking events. We need to continue to step just a little further out into the public, further than marching from one permitted park to another permitted park - which is excellent and critical, but should also serve as a jumping off point for more extended and varied actions.
I know what it’s like to get very ‘group-centered’ (meaning so focused on your own group’s issues and plans) and forgetting about what the big picture is: stopping the violent actions of our government.
I was suprised at the number of positive inquiries in what I would imagine is a very conservative area, and people who ‘just wanted to stand and talk,’ and people who ‘feel alone.’ I was also surprised at the police not really stopping the few actions that there were - one person I talked with ignored their orders and they did nothing.
But we need to think about the many lives being lost around the world right now and ask ourselves what our reasons for *not* acting on an opportunity to educate a huge potentially receptive sector of the public, are.
Thanks so much to the Veterans For Peace! KTVU Ch2 interviewed one of them (My apologies to anyone who was there who I thought wasn’t - speak up if you were). To the various people who have complained that the red papers weren’t a real protest - I agree, so please take some action and help out! Things will only change when each one of us takes responsibility for a part.
Please discuss your thoughts on this here . . .
I was glad to be a part of that small but very *important* protest, made up primarily of students, Veterans for Peace, and a handful of individuals, like myself, who came on our own. Red fliers were handed out as people entered the stadium and a variety of other leaflets were given out.
An important lesson I learned was that when you have a stadium FULL of thousands of relatively intellectual but uninformed people, have a *ton* of handouts - they want to know, they read, and they do care, despite the small number who are rude. *All* the red leaflets were gone by around 9am!
When Condi came on to speak, several students unfurled an anti-war banner and - amazingly - were not stopped when they stood up and walked the length of the stadium with it. We held our red pages up and also stood and walked to the front and marched back and forth in front of the crowd with them. Many students had taped the red fliers to their caps. This was not planned but done spontaeously, and people stood and joined in, although only a small number.
As we walked along, many many people wanted the red papers and asked us if we had more. People afterwards approached us - entire families came up to me! - asking for the red papers. I could only refer them to websites. It was *very* frustrating not to be able to provide people with information.
So I have to ask, where were all the groups who participated in April 20th?? Where was Global Exchange, IAC, ANSWER, Green Party, Peace Action, ISO, (Indymedia even!) and the many many kazillion other Bay Area groups that are critical to educating the public at this important time?? One woman who I joined up with there went through most of her materials, and we’re just individuals (she’s a mother of three on a bike with a cart) who don’t have a lot of resources to put into materials. I kept thinking, if only we had those stacks and stacks of xeroxes I see in the offices of places like GX and IAC . . . all these people would be sitting and reading them while waiting in the endless lines of cars as they leave, or during the boring speakers.
If groups will not attend events because of the possibility of police confrontation, or having an angry parent shake a fist, or the *huge* 45 min drive, or the potentially conservative attitude in Palo Alto, then we’re in bad shape! I’m not saying this to criticize - everyone is doing the best they can and it’s been wonderful - but I’m saying this to light a fire: We need to get more organized in the Bay Area and not so wrapped up in whom is endorsing whom, or which events we know certain other groups are going, or only going to events in Berkeley where everyone knows each other already, or only attending paid speaking events. We need to continue to step just a little further out into the public, further than marching from one permitted park to another permitted park - which is excellent and critical, but should also serve as a jumping off point for more extended and varied actions.
I know what it’s like to get very ‘group-centered’ (meaning so focused on your own group’s issues and plans) and forgetting about what the big picture is: stopping the violent actions of our government.
I was suprised at the number of positive inquiries in what I would imagine is a very conservative area, and people who ‘just wanted to stand and talk,’ and people who ‘feel alone.’ I was also surprised at the police not really stopping the few actions that there were - one person I talked with ignored their orders and they did nothing.
But we need to think about the many lives being lost around the world right now and ask ourselves what our reasons for *not* acting on an opportunity to educate a huge potentially receptive sector of the public, are.
Thanks so much to the Veterans For Peace! KTVU Ch2 interviewed one of them (My apologies to anyone who was there who I thought wasn’t - speak up if you were). To the various people who have complained that the red papers weren’t a real protest - I agree, so please take some action and help out! Things will only change when each one of us takes responsibility for a part.
Please discuss your thoughts on this here . . .
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I think it is Pretty short-sighted for wealthy stanford graduates to be pointing the finger at everyone else because a few people from your graduating class decided to hold a banner and no one cared. Why should they care? Even the recent history of war criminals on campus involves some shred of commitment, like when netanyahu came to ucb. Going back further, wealthy college students in the 60s/70s better understood that their role was to use their privilege as a cushion for exciting actions, not an excuse for Lame actions.
If you want an honest answer about why people didnt care you should first ask why they should care. What is the goal of the action? Pretending to educate the class enemies of the movement is pretty shallow. If the goal is to strengthen the Democrats, you might have done some good towards that goal. But most people in the international anti-capital/anti-liberalisation movement do not see this as a worthwhile goal.
And it isnt just us that dont care. The Associated Press story also delivers a nice-sized yawn at the action, reporting an overall positive message for Rice, with a mention of 20 students holding fliers about "respecting international law." Most of the atrocities committed by the United States are well within the bounds of international law.
If what you said is what you believe (rice is responsible for thousands of murders, thousands of state kidnappings, and more) then holding a flier is an inappropriate response. You do not fight murder and state terrorism with fliers alone. Where is the Context? It reflects that You do not really believe in what you are saying, and it ends up coming across as partisan politics without much feeling besides a half-hearted attempt at embarrassing a republican. Which considering the generally neo-liberal (however leftwing) politics of stanford students, this might be an accurate analysis of the motivations.
So the things that would make this action better:
1) A commitment on the stanford students to acknowledge their privilege, use it towards creating a serious and/or exciting action, and do not look to political organizations from SF to be your "shock troops" who are arrested while the graduates go on to a life of capitalist luxury,
2) A clearer explanation of your political critique, listing off negatives about Rice is something that the Democrats do, without a broader context and a politically mature analysis, people will not be interested, especially since it is stanford students who are not really known for their radical politics,
3) Providing More than just an announcement and a request for funds ----- Do you really expect groups to subsidize the photocopying costs of stanford students?
If you want an honest answer about why people didnt care you should first ask why they should care. What is the goal of the action? Pretending to educate the class enemies of the movement is pretty shallow. If the goal is to strengthen the Democrats, you might have done some good towards that goal. But most people in the international anti-capital/anti-liberalisation movement do not see this as a worthwhile goal.
And it isnt just us that dont care. The Associated Press story also delivers a nice-sized yawn at the action, reporting an overall positive message for Rice, with a mention of 20 students holding fliers about "respecting international law." Most of the atrocities committed by the United States are well within the bounds of international law.
If what you said is what you believe (rice is responsible for thousands of murders, thousands of state kidnappings, and more) then holding a flier is an inappropriate response. You do not fight murder and state terrorism with fliers alone. Where is the Context? It reflects that You do not really believe in what you are saying, and it ends up coming across as partisan politics without much feeling besides a half-hearted attempt at embarrassing a republican. Which considering the generally neo-liberal (however leftwing) politics of stanford students, this might be an accurate analysis of the motivations.
So the things that would make this action better:
1) A commitment on the stanford students to acknowledge their privilege, use it towards creating a serious and/or exciting action, and do not look to political organizations from SF to be your "shock troops" who are arrested while the graduates go on to a life of capitalist luxury,
2) A clearer explanation of your political critique, listing off negatives about Rice is something that the Democrats do, without a broader context and a politically mature analysis, people will not be interested, especially since it is stanford students who are not really known for their radical politics,
3) Providing More than just an announcement and a request for funds ----- Do you really expect groups to subsidize the photocopying costs of stanford students?
We are proud of all the people who did show up at Stanford University to promote peace and oppose a war criminal, Condolezza Rice. I am pleasantly surprised at the widespread positive response.
Our peace movement is still small, as was the peace movement at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Our economy is in much worse shape, and thus there is far less money available to the peaceniks compared to the 1960s.
Most of our demonstrations from 1964 to 1968 were small, exactly like what you just did. We did not have hundreds of thousands marching in major cities until after 1968, and outside of major cities, most of the demonstrations continued to be small, albeit more numerous.
You took that important first step, demonstrating for peace at wealthy Stanford University. During the Vietnam War, we had a large peace community at Stanford, but like most universities, that was primarily an anti-draft community as students could be drafted once they completed school. Now, we have a "poverty draft," that is, the workingclass joins the military to get 3 square meals a day, and the poverty is so widespread that there is no need, at this point, for the military draft to be activated. That could easily change, if Bush makes good on his promise to promote a first-strike war policy.
What is fueling all of our protests is economic insecurity, and the people at Stanford are not immune from economic problems. The middle class property owners who may have just enough to send their child to Stanford, with or without a scholarship, with or without an inherited trust fund, are not secure in their wealth. They may be doctors or lawyers, but they are not necessarily assured of a prosperous future and retirement in these very unstable times, and the dollar is now threatened with sinking in value.
It is the Stanford community, and all the peace activists in the surrounding area, who will build the peace community there. As each community grows stronger, we will be able to help each other pay for leaflets and provide people to attend these demonstrations.
Take a bow, you did an outstanding job.
Our peace movement is still small, as was the peace movement at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Our economy is in much worse shape, and thus there is far less money available to the peaceniks compared to the 1960s.
Most of our demonstrations from 1964 to 1968 were small, exactly like what you just did. We did not have hundreds of thousands marching in major cities until after 1968, and outside of major cities, most of the demonstrations continued to be small, albeit more numerous.
You took that important first step, demonstrating for peace at wealthy Stanford University. During the Vietnam War, we had a large peace community at Stanford, but like most universities, that was primarily an anti-draft community as students could be drafted once they completed school. Now, we have a "poverty draft," that is, the workingclass joins the military to get 3 square meals a day, and the poverty is so widespread that there is no need, at this point, for the military draft to be activated. That could easily change, if Bush makes good on his promise to promote a first-strike war policy.
What is fueling all of our protests is economic insecurity, and the people at Stanford are not immune from economic problems. The middle class property owners who may have just enough to send their child to Stanford, with or without a scholarship, with or without an inherited trust fund, are not secure in their wealth. They may be doctors or lawyers, but they are not necessarily assured of a prosperous future and retirement in these very unstable times, and the dollar is now threatened with sinking in value.
It is the Stanford community, and all the peace activists in the surrounding area, who will build the peace community there. As each community grows stronger, we will be able to help each other pay for leaflets and provide people to attend these demonstrations.
Take a bow, you did an outstanding job.
This is what I mean by Context. There exists a large movement already, Socialist. This is not 1963. The movement is large and has been building up over the last 15 years. This action is divorced from that Movement for the reasons I posted. The Socialists are also divorced from this movement, because their benign quest for a socialist political party to lead us into a transitional (dictator)state has kept them out of the largely anarchic and communist movement that has really shown itself the past few years. This is also why they appeal to cross-class unity (a characteristic of national socialism if there ever was one), realizing that the political realities of capitalist democracy make it impossible for them to seize power without the same political bribery and corruption that affects the republicans and democrats.
The movement is very small. We only had 35,000 march in San Francisco, and many came from more than 100 miles away from San Francisco. We did not have the 200,000 for each of 2 demonstrations, a week apart, against the Persian Gulf Massacre, the last time we had a major peace demonstration.
This is certainly not 1963 when we had more prosperity, and thus more money to pay for leaflets, and the dollar of 2002 is not worth as much as the dollar of 1963, so we need more of them to pay for everything. I can easily remember 1963 as I was in high school that year.
In addition to more prosperity in 1963, we had the very recent, large civil rights demonstrations of the 1950s and 1960s to use as a base and the support of those who participated in the labor and anti-fascist movements of the 1930s and 1940s. The peace movement that did exist at the time was an anti-nuclear movement and there was a peace movement against the Korean War (1950-53). The Vietnam War was a repeat of the Korean War.
People may say they are for peace. After all, nobody wants to die in a war. However, when it comes to participating in demonstrations, it takes more than a general belief that peace is better than war. In the 1960s, the primary cause for action was to stop or avoid the draft, which made it a student-based movement. Today, it is to stop the decline in the economy, which is caused by the warmongers. That kind a peace movement will require the non-student adult, working community to organize, a more difficult task.
Students simply have more time to demonstrate. People who are working for a living and often have families to care for do not have much time, and if they are low wage workers, they have absolutely no time at all as they are working 2 or 3 jobs to provide basic food, clothing and shelter.
It certainly is not 1963; times are very tough now and it is much more difficult to build a peace movement. That makes the efforts of the people who participated in today's Stanford University peace demonstration all the more remarkable. Congratulations to all the peaceniks at Stanford!
This is certainly not 1963 when we had more prosperity, and thus more money to pay for leaflets, and the dollar of 2002 is not worth as much as the dollar of 1963, so we need more of them to pay for everything. I can easily remember 1963 as I was in high school that year.
In addition to more prosperity in 1963, we had the very recent, large civil rights demonstrations of the 1950s and 1960s to use as a base and the support of those who participated in the labor and anti-fascist movements of the 1930s and 1940s. The peace movement that did exist at the time was an anti-nuclear movement and there was a peace movement against the Korean War (1950-53). The Vietnam War was a repeat of the Korean War.
People may say they are for peace. After all, nobody wants to die in a war. However, when it comes to participating in demonstrations, it takes more than a general belief that peace is better than war. In the 1960s, the primary cause for action was to stop or avoid the draft, which made it a student-based movement. Today, it is to stop the decline in the economy, which is caused by the warmongers. That kind a peace movement will require the non-student adult, working community to organize, a more difficult task.
Students simply have more time to demonstrate. People who are working for a living and often have families to care for do not have much time, and if they are low wage workers, they have absolutely no time at all as they are working 2 or 3 jobs to provide basic food, clothing and shelter.
It certainly is not 1963; times are very tough now and it is much more difficult to build a peace movement. That makes the efforts of the people who participated in today's Stanford University peace demonstration all the more remarkable. Congratulations to all the peaceniks at Stanford!
Um. Again, this is what I mean by "divorced from the movement." I don't know if you noticed or not, but the whole point of indymedia is it is an outgrowth of a worldwide anti-capitalist movement which brought 300,000 out into the streets of Genoa, and millions more across the world from Ecuador to Canada to Europe to Africa. Part of the problem with the peace movement motivating the same numbers is that the "peaceniks" who have spent the last 30 years reliving their youthful glories while capitalism rolls over everyone are having a hard time making the connections between neoliberalism, capitalism and the "war on terrorism" ... which is again reflected in the reasons I posted above. And, again, most socialist or social democrat parties have had a hard time participating in this movement because they are primarily about controlling and channeling dissent into party-building, which most of the active groups (anarchist and communist) are solidly against.
I'm not actually a Stanford student, but a low-income SFSU student trying to help out a group down there called the Rainforest Action something, who - if anyone did a google on the 'milleu' of this protest in the Stanford U community - appeared to be up against a ton of 'smashtheleft' people there. I'm guessing that Stanford students probably have no clue about their priviledge . . . like most rich people, they're probably most intensely concerned about whether they have the right cell phone . . . but this group of students was incredibly strong to do what they did in this climate and I wanted to support them in any way I could. It felt good to help out and they seemed excited afterwards about what they 'could' have done if they'd known they would have had so much leeway from the cops.
I appreciate the discussion on here - I want to *know* why groups are ignoring certain things and not others, and I'm glad to get educated on what needs to get done.
My other reason for putting this on here like this was that it was this type of discussion - around a march in late 2001 which backfired by marching in a circle after a D Park rally - that made me realize that if I was going to criticize, I'd have to take more responsibility myself and get involved, not just *attend* marches, but start doing stuff: go out and stand next to people with signs no matter how small a rally was or how scary (i.e., the GGBridge), make my own xeroxes to hand out to the masses waiting in stalled traffic during demos and marches, go stand with only 2 other people on a corner away from the 30k others because no one else thought to, go to the various paid speakers and learn, join with bay area groups and start helping them, etc.
It's important that people respond on here and fill in the ideologies that I haven't learned yet, and am trying to. I do want an end to capitalism (passionately!), and it seems like we're in a critical time as that debate takes place amongst various corners about how that will come about, where it will go, how violent it will be, or not.
Tariq Ali said there is no alternative yet - so the collapse in Argentina, and now other places, had no where to go - but I think the solutions are being born as this movement grows all over the world. I just also think that nothing short of a nuke will stop capitalism in the West and neoliberal support of that structure. Still, when the capitalism nuke falls - be it metaphorical or a real one - we need to be ready as a movement, not leaving Tariq Ali with the last word, much as I like him.
Indymedia, to me, is the bedrock of the changes in the future - interactive media like this an incredibe unique global tool and we're in it's pre-historic times right now.
I appreciate the discussion on here - I want to *know* why groups are ignoring certain things and not others, and I'm glad to get educated on what needs to get done.
My other reason for putting this on here like this was that it was this type of discussion - around a march in late 2001 which backfired by marching in a circle after a D Park rally - that made me realize that if I was going to criticize, I'd have to take more responsibility myself and get involved, not just *attend* marches, but start doing stuff: go out and stand next to people with signs no matter how small a rally was or how scary (i.e., the GGBridge), make my own xeroxes to hand out to the masses waiting in stalled traffic during demos and marches, go stand with only 2 other people on a corner away from the 30k others because no one else thought to, go to the various paid speakers and learn, join with bay area groups and start helping them, etc.
It's important that people respond on here and fill in the ideologies that I haven't learned yet, and am trying to. I do want an end to capitalism (passionately!), and it seems like we're in a critical time as that debate takes place amongst various corners about how that will come about, where it will go, how violent it will be, or not.
Tariq Ali said there is no alternative yet - so the collapse in Argentina, and now other places, had no where to go - but I think the solutions are being born as this movement grows all over the world. I just also think that nothing short of a nuke will stop capitalism in the West and neoliberal support of that structure. Still, when the capitalism nuke falls - be it metaphorical or a real one - we need to be ready as a movement, not leaving Tariq Ali with the last word, much as I like him.
Indymedia, to me, is the bedrock of the changes in the future - interactive media like this an incredibe unique global tool and we're in it's pre-historic times right now.
:-))
ha ha, you guys definitely got too much time on your hands. two years in a gulag will enable you to see the bigger scheme.
ha ha, you guys definitely got too much time on your hands. two years in a gulag will enable you to see the bigger scheme.
WE MUST STOP THE MURDER OF INNOCENT KIDS
let me know if you will join me on ggb
let me know if you will join me on ggb
i must admit the sf chronicle has has very good coverage of the middle east and much of it pro-pales.
and anti-israel
and anti-israel
we must do something to let the pales. know we do not support the suicide bombers
to know the whole story - why not let the rest of us in on it? We'd like to hear about your important knowledge.
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