This posting was originally a reply to "Ask not what Stop the War can do for you -Ask what you can do for Stop the War" posted on Medialens.
Ask not what the left can do for us...
nothing! has to be our working assumption until proved wrong by their actions
...but what we can do to stop the planned genocide in Iran.
A lot of excellent stuff is going around on the net and that is all very encouraging but certainly will prove insufficient.It must be combined with action on the ground. I propose setting up local bodies of some form, however informal, but with a name, an E-mail address and preferably a website. These should not be regarded as being "left" organisations i.e. the domain of representatives of a single philosophical tendency, but should be open to people of all beliefs backgrounds, political persuasions and denominations. They are citizen bodies for those who realize that in a democracy we are ultimately reponsible for the actions carried out in our name, if the word democracy is to have any meaning at all.
Realistically these will consist only of a few, perhaps only one or two activists to begin with but matters is that they exist and people come to know about them.
Our first job is to inform and convince: we need an extraordinary publicity campaign to alert people to dangers of which they have probably only the faintest notion. However, the increasingly hysterical campaign against Iran makes our case more than credible.
I suggest that we should attempt to integrate web work with work on the ground, meetings , educationals, leafletings etc. so that they mirror and reinforce each other- I see some kind of multiplier effect here. We must be able to create as much stir as possible in as short a time as possible- time clearly is running out for us.Each body must act and communicate - the net must be saturated not only with analysis of what they, the war party, are doing but of reports of what we are doing in each locality. In the process we draw together a national network, laying the foundation for regional and national conferences.
Even if we are unable to stop the next phase of the war it is most important that we establish these networks in order to have oppositional and organisational forces in place as disastrous war plunges us into as immense political, economic and even, existential crisis.
To this end I have called a meeting in Glasgow this Thursday and I appeal to others to do something similar.
Colin Buchanan
Ask not what the left can do for us...
nothing! has to be our working assumption until proved wrong by their actions
...but what we can do to stop the planned genocide in Iran.
A lot of excellent stuff is going around on the net and that is all very encouraging but certainly will prove insufficient.It must be combined with action on the ground. I propose setting up local bodies of some form, however informal, but with a name, an E-mail address and preferably a website. These should not be regarded as being "left" organisations i.e. the domain of representatives of a single philosophical tendency, but should be open to people of all beliefs backgrounds, political persuasions and denominations. They are citizen bodies for those who realize that in a democracy we are ultimately reponsible for the actions carried out in our name, if the word democracy is to have any meaning at all.
Realistically these will consist only of a few, perhaps only one or two activists to begin with but matters is that they exist and people come to know about them.
Our first job is to inform and convince: we need an extraordinary publicity campaign to alert people to dangers of which they have probably only the faintest notion. However, the increasingly hysterical campaign against Iran makes our case more than credible.
I suggest that we should attempt to integrate web work with work on the ground, meetings , educationals, leafletings etc. so that they mirror and reinforce each other- I see some kind of multiplier effect here. We must be able to create as much stir as possible in as short a time as possible- time clearly is running out for us.Each body must act and communicate - the net must be saturated not only with analysis of what they, the war party, are doing but of reports of what we are doing in each locality. In the process we draw together a national network, laying the foundation for regional and national conferences.
Even if we are unable to stop the next phase of the war it is most important that we establish these networks in order to have oppositional and organisational forces in place as disastrous war plunges us into as immense political, economic and even, existential crisis.
To this end I have called a meeting in Glasgow this Thursday and I appeal to others to do something similar.
Colin Buchanan
posted by Cailean Bochanan at 4:59 AM
2 Comments:
Colin, I am delighted to read your proposal. For many years now, I have felt that what the West needs is a loosely-knit network of Citizen Self-Defence Groups in order to act as the catalysing force for a wider social movement and, indeed, peaceful revolution.
It seems to me that your proposal may well harbinger such a phenomenon and Glasgow, with its history of social struggle, seems like the perfect place to begin.
You and I will agree that it is hopeless to expect the party hacks and committees of the existing anti-war movement to do anything. They are trapped by their own self-importance at one level and overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness at the other.
What these times desperately cry out for is a mass movement in the defence of peace, freedom and planetary responsibility.
If only 'ordinary' folk like you and I can see this then perhaps it is time for us to empower ourselves to just get on with it.
I wish you every success in Glasgow!
colin.
in the general case:
"These should not be regarded as being "left" organisations i.e. the domain of representatives of a single philosophical tendency, but should be open to people of all beliefs backgrounds, political persuasions and denominations"
couldnt agree more with this type of thing.
focus
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