[Oct. 17 Seattle] Quick summary of Oct 17 action (weaimc - 3rd comment)

[chr2eemail at comcast.net]

Dear comrades,
I agree that the march was a big success, and would add that the whole campaign was a success---an issue that I’ll return to. But the really intriguing question is that while this was the largest anti-war mobilizing effort in a number of years, the turnout was 50-60 people. What’s behind this?
Pouring-rain in the morning doesn’t explain it because good weather would probably have only doubled the crowd-size. Some problem with the SAIC appeal doesn’t explain it because there were a number of other appeals made by quite different voices. Boycott by a couple of Trotskyist groups and most of RCP doesn’t explain it because they’re not big. Nor does some kind of deep demoralization among the masses seem to explain it. No, during mobilization we had tons of people expressing support for the effort, with numerous people wanting extra leaflets, and so on. We even got to talk with several Afghan and Pakistani people who were militantly on our side, and who took extra leaflets. And during the march itself there was a lot of support from the sidewalks. (And I’ve never seen so many people snapping pictures of a march.) 
So my not-so-brilliant explanation is that while the masses don’t like the war, they don’t want to go to demonstrations against it…but they support those who do! And this presents an intriguing puzzle insofar as divining tactics with which to advance the situation.
Of course one always-necessary thing needing to be done is work to raise the mass political consciousness (which is why SAIC mainly relied on a leaflet that dwelt on matters in some depth), and I think that our experience with the turnout shows how absolutely essential this hard-to-measure work---which few do---is. But besides this always-necessary work, work that can't be skipped over, as individuals or groups I think we’ll also be pondering other tactics to use in the present situation for some time.