anyone want to skip school or work?

New York kids get to skip school all the time. Former mayor Guiliani used to encourage it when the Yankees would have their World Series parade.

Hilarious.

Seriously, could someone explain to me how stuff like this is supposed to bring about the end of a war?

They're war tactics. The idea is to disrupt a city, basically holding it hostage. The real goal would be to do this across the country, to create massive civil unrest that MUST be addressed by the powers that be.

Same reason we drop bombs on Basra. Part of the Shock and Awe campaign, or any bombing campaign is to disrupt the fuck out of the city under attack. Except that the anti-war movement can't (or won't) blow things up.

What's funny is that people who bitch about how blocking traffic is going to turn people against the anti-war movement suddenly change their tune when it comes to dropping 2000 pound bombs. I guess traffic makes people against you, utter devestation breeds love for your cause.

Your last paragraph confuses me. I think what you're saying is that blocking traffic is a good idea because it's more moral than dropping bombs? The question that should be asked is, what does this accomplish? Does it change anyone's mind about the war? Does it get information about the war out to people (as opposed to a general "we are against the war" message)? Or is it just fun?

Well, I think not killing people is always more moral than killing people. The last paragraph was just pointing out a funny disconnect in the way pro-war people think.

The point of these protests ARE to change people's minds and to make sure the POV of the protesters is at least to some extent put in the media. People who think this stuff doesn't work does not remember that civil disobediance was a tactic of the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, the person who taught me how to use these tactics was an old black lady who was a veteran of the sit ins down south.

Gandhi on civil disobedience
<a href="http://habitat.igc.org/gksnv/g-nvcd.htm" target="_blank">http://habitat.igc.org/gksnv/g-nvcd.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.fatherjohndear.org/pdfs/jesus_and_civil_disobedience.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.fatherjohndear.org/pdfs/jesus_and_civil_disobedience.pdf</a>

That second one talks about how Jesus was a civil disobedience proponent, "who time and time again broke the laws that oppressed people and kept them slaves to injustice."

And Thoreau:

<a href="http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/civ.dis.html" target="_blank">http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/civ.dis.html</a>

Good point, but I feel like the sit-ins were a more focused operation, ie. they were sitting in at locations that were the focus of segregation and refusing to leave. I don't really see any strategic logic behind randomly fucking up daily operations in the city. The analogy I would think of is UN sanctions. They were aimed at deposing Saddam (or in the case of the US embargo, Castro), but they end up hurting everyone else in Iraq while Saddam gets off clean, while at the same time turning the public sentiment against the US. Obviously, there's a huge difference between starving a populace to death and holding up traffic, but all I can see coming out of these actions is an increased distaste for the anitwar movement by the American public.

Well, that's a big problem with a protest of this nature. For example, the general rules of proper civil disobedience are:

1. protestors claim with good evidence that the law that is violated, itself violates a higher law (generally the Constitution, often interpreted in light of the Declaration of Independence).
2. the law breaking is non-violent, and morever is rooted in a spirit of love and respect for one's opponents. (The last half of this I don't believe, but I'm just cutting and pasting here)
3. the law breaking is open and public.
4. the law breakers are prepared to accept the ordinary legal consequences if they lose their arguments in court.

Obviously rule 1 is violated here, but the problem is that there is no way to partake in a civil disobedience movement in this anti-war scenario, short of going to Iraq and standing in front of guns, which is not viable.

That's the sticky thing: Gandhi believes that "Every citizen is responsible for every act of his government." So that makes us all responsible for the deaths of civilians and the illegal war itself. So action obviously IS called for - the classic Viet Nam scenario would be burning draft cards. What action makes sense in this kind of a situation?

The protesters partaking in this action believe that in this kind of a case, I think (and I was not at the meeting where this was decided - I did receive an email with a summary of the meeting, where this action was chosen unanimously by over 20 seperate groups), the action should be to be non-cooperative with the very workings of the State itself.

From the e-mail I received about the protest:

Here is one person's eye-witness (unofficial, but largely accurate) report on
the meeting where these decisions were made:

**Tonight I attended a planning meeting for direct action in NYC at
Washington Square United Methodist Church. Over 33 groups were represented
and over 150 showed up (I counted everyone but lost count after 152). The
group was consensus based and made no decisions without every person in the
room agreeing to it. United For Peace was there, Not in our Name was there,
Act Now ws there, No blood For Oil, The Green Party was there, autonomous more
anarchist oriented groups were there, and church groups.

The consensus was that Thursday, March 27th will be "NO BUSINESS AS USUAL"
and will be a day that will rival San Fransicso in the scope of civil
disobedience and direct action. The main mass action will be at 8:00 am at
the Rockefeller Center and will be a die in. People will lay down in symbol
of the dead in Iraq.

Rockefeller Ctr. was chosen because GE is there who makes much of the
military equipment, and several news organiztions are there, and this is the
center of many other busniesses like th eNY Post, Lockheed Martin, and many
other corporations that stnad to benefit and support this war in many ways.

That general area will be targeted heavily with massive civil disobedience.
But the main call is for Rockefeller Ctr. at 8am To go there
and there will be a cue to lay down. This will be an act of civil
disobedience and will be an arrestable offense, a misdemeanor. Most people
will be issued a citation and released. The massive numbers of people that
will likely turn out will preclude the police from detaining anyone for long
(exactly what has happened in San Fran.)

This action is meant to be the mass action, and there will be break off
groups throughout the city doing civil disobedience in many ways (all them at
this group were committed to nonviolence). They are also calling for strikes
or taking the day off work to have no business as usual. The goal is to
literally shut this city down and not allow people to go on with normal
routines as we drop bombs on others (bombs are dropping while you're
shopping...we are going to prevent the shopping).

That is basically the what came of the meeting by consensus, and it is
supported by all the major organizing groups in this city. And will be
advertised starting tonite on email lists and fliers. Plese distribute this
information to everyone you know...We only have three days to organize this
massive effort...but it can and will be done.

Hope this information was helpful and I am sure it will delight you as much
as it did me while we were planning it&gt;&gt;

<a href="http://www.fatherjohndear.org/" target="_blank">http://www.fatherjohndear.org/</a>

Take the Jesus thing up with that Jesuit priest.

And if your friend said so it must be so!

Your anti-Catholic hate is cute. The fact that this makes you so mad makes me happier than you can imagine.

Wow. How eloquent.

I mean, funny how a place urges kids to become political active and when it actually happens - "You dang-nabbit kids!"

Your rage is making you incomprehensible.

Today I have been the target of anti-semitism on these boards (even though I'm not Jewish!) and now anti-Catholic hate, which is at least the religion I was raised.

To smear this man with the abuse of children shows you to be a thoughtless person at best.

And Jesus was closer to a socialist than a capitalist any day of the week.

And you're a hater at whatever age you are now.

I don't do personal references. An anti-semitic slur in a non-religious thread is enough for me.

I went to a Jesuit HS. What Nelson said about them is basically true. They are kinda "The fringe" of the priesthood.

Now, can we get back on topic?

These "rallies" that have goals of blocking traffic, etc are dangerous and irresponsible. They delay significantly police, firefighters, and ambulances. Crimes are committed because of these people. People DIE because of these demonstrators. An anti-war rally is fine and dandy, and of course your constitutional right. But when you endanger the lives of American citizens, you cross the line, and that is undeniably outside the bounds of the constitution.

And comparing the anti-war movement to the Civil Rights movement is so ridiculous it's almost beyond comment. Apples and oranges, and should not be compared as such, esp from someone who jumps on any rightie who compares Saddam to Hitler.

"Crimes are committed because of these people. People DIE because of these demonstrators."

One example, please.

Especially the dying thing.

Let's see. The goal of these is to create immense gridlock so "people will take notice", is it not?

Police can't get to many areas of the city. Ambulances can't get to many areas of the city. Firefighters can't get to many areas of the city. Honestly, I can't name any exact examples, because these rallies haven't worked out yet how the planners want. If they did, do you doubt my logic?

OK, you haven't given an example. You've given a worst case scenario. You said people have died. Yet you can't show that one person has.

I can name a hundred things that cause gridlock in a city like New York, from parades to baseball games. On top of that, a city like New York, built on a grid, would be nearly impossible to shut down so fully that ambulances could not get through.

On top of that, this is public knowledge. If Nelson knows it I guarantee the city of New York, in the midst of Operation Atlas, the most annoying anti-terrorist measure in a while (which, by the way, is backing up traffic in the worst fucking way, but that's neither here nor there), will most assuredly be able to reroute emergency services.

I was honest and said that I can't give an example. The point is, in a city like say, San Francisco, or Seattle, or esp here in NO (which would never happen...to much war support here), much smaller cities than NYC, shutting down very major intersections, by PURE LOGIC, would divert traffic, cause gridlock, and cause police, firefighters and ambulances to fight traffic and take slower, less direct routes. This severly endangers lives. A football parade, etc, stick to certain ROUTES and are predictable. These are not and propose to cover vast areas.

It's purely theorhetical until one of these rallies actually WORKS to divert traffic, cause immense gridlock, etc. So of course I can't give an example. But I think most people get the point.

And of course, I'm not going the O'Reilly route who claims doing this diverts police away from potential terrorists. That's pretty ridiculous.

If a rally was big enough to shut down the traffic in an entire city you no longer have a rally. You have a popular uprising.

Nope. A city like New Orleans has a very limited number of main thoroughfares (sp?). If you had, say, 2,000 people (out of 1.5 mill plus in the area), separated them and put them at 20 main intersections, you would have chaos in this city. Trust me. Construction on ONE main road causes gridlock on almost all of them, from the suburbs to the Quarter. If you guys did your thing here, it would be a bad situation. Of course, no one would see it, because it's here. Maybe if you blocked access to the ports or something.

You really have no fucking clue what you are talking about.

Actually Rath, I would disagree to a certain extent with you on this one. I went to a Jesuit HS for 4 years.

But that's for another forum.

I think you would be surprised. I bet every major American city has riot protocols in place to deal with this stuff.

On top of that, I have never been to a protest that involved street blocking where emergency services needed to get through. I would think that the protesters would let them through. What I think you don't realize is that all of these types of events there are people representing the protesters - both lawyers and spokespeople - who are in contact with the cops. Negotiations, if you will.

The Jesuits have been "on the fringe" if you were because they encourage education and to some extent, free thinking. That's my understanding of 4 years of Jesuit H.S.

Ok. If some group like this comes into MY city and starts disrupting everything, blocking traffic and buildings, I'm going to beat the fuck out of them.

The finest example of the Ugly American.

Uh...he's German.

Yeah right. I personally don't like the war, but I don't agree with people illegally blocking the way to places that I need to go. Sorry for being rational.

You know they have police for a reason, right?

Yeah but that can take a lot of time on occasion. And these guys are just going to move to somewhere else, according to their plan, to fuck things up for other people.

The police do not respond immediatly and disperse the crowds immediatley, you know.

A question. If protestors are using what they consider to be "war tactics", is the government justified in treating them as enemy combatants? Does the war work both ways? Can the government shoot them (not within the law, but within the protestors own logic of "we're at war with the government")?

That's an extreme question of course. A less extreme one would be; is it fair for the government or those private citizens who oppose your movement to attempt to disrupt your life? If you are justified in attempting to disrupt the government, is the government justified in attempting to infiltrate and discredit your organizations? Would a group of neighbors who came to your house be playing fair if they broke your windows and stole your stuff to represent their opposition to your policies?

This is all rhetorical, of course. I don't want to see any protestors shot or robbed. I'm simply curious as to what you feel the government may do in response to your movement.

By the by, I went to a Jesuit college. There are some very, very conservative Jesuits, but the group IS fairly left in comparison to the Church as a whole.

"A less extreme one would be; is it fair for the government or those private citizens who oppose your movement to attempt to disrupt your life? If you are justified in attempting to disrupt the government, is the government justified in attempting to infiltrate and discredit your organizations?"

No, according to the rules the government has to follow. See the brouhaha over CoIntelPro in the 60s and 70s (although it's back).

OK, maybe I'm not clear on what you're saying. My question was not "would these things be within the law" or "would these things be permitted by the policies of various agencies". My question was "If you feel you are committing war acts as part of a protest movement, would you consider the following to be fair responses within the logic of the movement". Or is this a case of "we can break whatever rules we want and say we are at war with the government, but if the government responds in kind we will scream bloody murder".