9/29 SF's Failed Peace March

I agree that it was a huge disspointment to see the marchers going in a circle. It made it feel like the Gap had taken control and our protest was suddenly superficial. We left at that point to go eat lunch in the Mission.

I imagine it takes a huge committment to organize such an event, however, what if - as I hoped - people had simply ignored the 'permits' and went ahead and marched?? I've been in a Halloween march that was spontaneous in SF which went down major streets (not pre-orchestrated with permits) where none of us were arrested or detained, and we stopped traffic everywhere we went. WHAT IF people had just said screw those permits! The shoppers in downtown SF had no idea we were even gathering. Do you think they'll see us on the cover of the Chronicle??? The coverage on public radio of the Washington gathering cited 'hundreds' who marched. That's really sad, and not a word was mentioned about any gathering in SF at all, nor LA!

I don't like the idea of breaking the law, but when the media won't cover a gathering of thousands, what options do we have?

Well, do you know who the organizers were? International action Center. They were the ones with all of those internationalanswer.org ANSWER signs that they passed out. I don't know how many people are aware they they *are* the same thing as the Worker's world party, an organization with a stalinist bent. They organize a lot of big events in SF such as the Bush inauguration where there was a really stupid route through the Western addition, and also in DC and New York this weekend, where they're having a big thing even though the IMF meeting was cancelled. Another thing I don't like is how it's always "rally at stage - march - rally at stage" and it stretches on and on and on, and there is the stress that if you want to leave after only three hours instead of from 10am-5pm, you are somehow letting everyone down because you aren't going to be present for more speeches in the hot sun without water or bathroom. Really, if they kept it at a 2 hour event, we would show our numbers, which is the point, and network, run into friends and meet people, and then have some of our precious time left for doing effectual things later in the week.
And... okay, maybe there are socialists and communists around who fully support their entire agenda. That is fine. I can respect a diversity of groups, and I'm not saying this like "we should stop them" or fight them or anything of that nature. I can work with sectarians on many single issues (as long as they hopefully don't spend the entire time selling their newspapers instead of truly cooperating) and I agree on some points. I'd prefer more honest labelling. I was talking with friends, trying to decide whether the noncommunists were benefitting from them so maybe I shouldn't knock so much, or them from us, because on one hand, not many people are capable of organizing a thing like that, but there were tons of people signing up at their table, where they had a really neutral name. It's clear that most of those people there were generic liberals or progressives - refer to # voters for Nader vs. # for CommunistPartyUSA (anarchists never get a vote tally).
Here are some urls on the IAC
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/diaries/diary17.html
This is a pretty good writer. Look for other articles about the IAC on the same site.

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010927-80027688.htm

This is really right wing and almost comical in its mccarthyism, but it shows the damage that having 'leaders' like this can do if they are more visible than everyone else in the fair-trade and anti-war movements.

Please give your opinions.

Considering it is socialists who have organized all of the peace demonstrations I have attended in San Francisco for over 50 years, and this insanity has never happened before, the problem is not the socialists. The new factor is Willie Brown, who sits in the SF mayor's office with 40% of the vote plus election fraud. For more on his and the Democratic Party's history of election fraud in San Francisco, see http://www.brasscheck.com/stadium and http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown. Please read these websites thoroughly. Willie Brown and his organized crime thugs are viciously anti-communist and pro-war. The entire San Francisco Congressional delegation, namely Reps Pelosi and Lantos and Senators Feinstein and Boxer, wholeheartedly endorse the war declarations and tax subsidies. Feinstein is apparently trying to outdo everyone with her opposition to civil liberties. All of these people are part of the WIllie Brown-John Burton Democratic Party machine that has sat in office at San Francisco City Hall for the past 40 years. They are now losing their grip as they cannot deliver the goods and services, but Brown remains illegally in office, causing a great deal of harm to San Francisco. There are too many people in the Left who turn a blind eye to the evils of Willie Brown because he is a black Democrat. This is insulting, but it is reality. Willie Brown is just another capitalist politician and acquiescing to his contempt for our civil liberties is intolerable. Until further notice, I will blame Willie Brown and the San Francisco Democratic Party. If anyone has any solid evidence as to who made this disastrous decision to walk around in a circle instead of to City Hall, either with a city permit or with the First Amendment as our permit, we all would like to read this information.

And yet none of you organized this thing yourselves. You didn't take the initiative to break off the march into a different direction. You weren't even active in the planning phases, which was open to all.

Sorry. Even though I agree with most of what you say, I think you're just BITCHING and moaning, and that is really the most disheartening thing.

Organizing something as large as this is no easy task, yet it can be done. If you, Justice et al, dislike it, why not form your own organizing committee? I'd be happy to participate.

But I see your post for what it exactly is. A bunch of LAZY do-nothings (spoiled brats) who expect someone else to do the work so that they can run to the front of the parade and act like it's their march. Fucking pathetic.

You NEED to get over yourselves and get off your ass so that this country doesn't fall into the Dark Ages of the Bush Regime.

I had another obligation and could not go...I would like to know attendance and who spoke.

I personally handed out over 400 leaflets paid for by me at 7 cents each. I also told lots of people and I posted some of these leaflets on poles in the neighborhood. I always participate in organizing to the extent I can. As should be obvious, I am very familiar with these peace demonstrations right here in my hometown of San Francisco. We all do what we can, and what I am usually able to do is leafletting. There has never been this problem before. Rather than name-calling, we want to know who arrived at this unprecedented decision to have us walk in a circle. More importantly, we want it to NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

You are totally right that more people (and from more diverse perspectives)need to organize. I'm lazy. I have one most major project and I haven't been attending anti-war organizing meetings - only two rallies and an teach in. Communists put far more energy into organizing per capita than progressives - like greens, and progressives do a hell of a lot more than liberals (who often take the perspective that your entire civic duty consists of voting). anarchists can't organize their way out of a paper bag in groups larger than 10, due to their commitment to consensus. Organizing along democratic lines is a messy, complicated time consuming process. It's hell-of easier if there is a group that has some leaders who can supervise and direct the new 'recruits' in accomplishing the tasks that the leaders already decided on - which is the scene that my acquaintance Glen saw when he went to a recent IAC meeting recently, and was somewhat turned off. Yes, if activists groups were or are run like businesses with a hierarchical management scheme, they definitely will be more efficient.
anyway, most of the speakers at the rally were pretty good. How many do you all think were there? 10,000-15000? There was a good hiphop duo. Michael Parenti spoke, mostly very dynamically. I've seen him several times, and I was listening to him on tape yesterday on Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1. With him, I like how he tells stories, and how he presents a lot of things about history, but then he will throw in some thing that makes me wish that he just hadn't said it, or leaves me questioning why I can listen to him or like him. He implied that the Soviet Union was doing a positive or partly positive thing by invading afghanistan to help the indigenous social movement there. I don't care if the US helped the mujaheddin - but there is no defense for their entering the country. Especially with all the anti-imperialist talk on the part of sectarian groups - what exactly would describe the USSRs takeover of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan etc. if not 'imperialism'.

Yep - marching in circles in the Mission isn't ideal. Yes, I thought we should go Downtown, but like 10,000 other people this afternoon, I didn't personally do ANYTHING about it. Yes, I went to a planning meeting and gave my 2 cents and then didn't do any of the hard work in the 10 days between the planning meeting and the rally. I'm totally disappointed that there were 10,000 people instead of the 25,000 the Bay Area should've been able to turn out for this event. We're all culpable for this being less than it should've been. The reality is that its always the same damned people trying to put these things together and they are overworked and underpaid (if they're paid at all). Too many people just show up on the day on the event full of their opinions about what other people should be doing.

IAC isn't the only outfit in this town who can put on a mass rally, and 1000 people organizing instead of 100 and maybe its a different story.

There isn't any "us and them" - we're all a part of making this movement stronger, not innocent victims "forced" to attend someone else's inadequate rally.

So when are you, justice, and the rest of the unhappy folks putting together the perfect rally? Or more seriously, how are we ALL going to make the next one a better one?

I have been to literally thousands of peace demonstrations and marches in San Francisco. This was the FIRST one where the march consisted of a fund-raising circle. The knowledge of organizing the standard peace march in San Francisco is very widespread. It is usually a brief rally at Dolores Park, a march to the Civic Center, ending with a longer rally at the Civic Center. I have also participated in the organizing of many of them. In fact, I remember going to peace marches during the McCarthy terror of the 1950s, which has yet to return. Since the knowledge is widespread and the route well-established, obviously somebody forced the change, and that somebody is most likely Willie Brown and his organized crime, election-frauding Democratic-Republican Party gang at City Hall. Once again, the organizing of this kind of march is well-known and well-practiced in San Francisco. The people organizing this event are certainly well-versed in the standard peace march in San Francisco.

I volunteer about two days a week at the IAC (and, yes, as someone mentioned, they have a close relationship with the Workers World, though to say they're the same would be very misleading and to say they're "Stalinist" is not only name-calling and ignorant but just rediculous as they are technically a Trotskyist group, though I'd like to point out that I'm not personally a Trot). The event was planned and organized by International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), though the IAC certainly played a leading role in that coalition.
To be honest, the question of why we marched in a circle instead of to City Hall never crossed my mind, but I might as when I'm there next.
Someone recommended that if you didn't like the march that you should form your OWN coalition. I just got home from working on the rally since dawn (how many of you can say that?) and certainly don't have the energy to get into the politics of divisionism and fragmentation, nor do I think it would be particularly productive to start a flame war on the issue, but I think that forming another group runs directly counter to the fundamental idea of solidarity and unity. True, if you come to a few meetings, perhaps you won't be able to change the direction of the planning. It is very unfortunate that we do not have the ability to act strictly democratically within the movement. Instead, our democracy must be more fluid and natural, and if that is so, the voices of those who work hard every week to organize and educate will definitally be much louder than those who don't.
Further, I understand that it is not possibly for most progressive, revolutionary people's to be active regularly, whether they don't have the time or the funds or the health or the energy or the mental energy. I also do not mean to condemn the anarchist movement as a whole - I consider all socialist phylosophies to be one and the same, and they can all learn from those difference they have - but I really think those "anarchists" who tell us that we're not revolutionary enough, that we should do things like THEY tell us (from the sidelines), that we should put ourselves in physical and political danger by pretending that any official would listen if said that the First Amendement is our permit, should either get off their self-ritious asses and come see what really happens, or just piss off.

Also, to answer one person's question, all IAC staff are volunteers.

THe work on the standard route was done long time ago. This writer is certainly not an anarchist. Also, foul language is out of order. We all have a right and duty to protest. I can assure you that I, and many others, will no longer participate at all in these events if the only response we get is defensive statements to participate in the organizing more, which has nothing to do with the fact that the route was set long time ago and does not require any new organizing or effort, or we receive foul language such as "piss off." Rather than be defensive, the least anyone who made the decision for this fund-raising circle can do is apologize. After all, this little racket is a CHANGE. If the standard route had been followed, no new organizing regarding the march would have had to be done.

I attended the rally
not the march, The rally was phenomenal,
thousands showed up, charged with energy,
expression and color manifested in the puppets
signs, speakers and costumes wore by the participants.
Even thought you may not see it on TV or read it
on your local paper, I walked away feeling
enthusiastic and optimistic about
the peace/antiwar movement:
It is alive and kicking
The threat of war by the US has galvanize
many movements and causes into one.

Peace. Out!

Yeah, what I heard from people who went was that it was great.

So THANK YOU to the organizers!!!!!!!!!!!

The discussion is on the fund-raiser circle, as there was no march. It is not on the rally. I personally think 25,000 turned out for the rally. It was good to see people turn out. The fact that the peace movement is alive and well in the San Francisco Bay Area should be no surprise to anyone, but if it is, now you know. Meanwhile, I do not intend to ever attend any "marches" of this organization as they are not marches. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who have the same view I have.

Most people did not reconvene; most people left when we saw that we were being returned to Dolores Park. The streetcar was filled with protesters leaving rather than returning to the rally. Others went to restaurants for lunch. It would have been better to have no fund-raising circle. The fund-raising could easily have been done at the rally.

In my continued theme of IAC bashing, I'll relate another item. And again, I do realize that perhaps it would be appropriate of me to actually attend an IAC meeting to get firsthand knowledge or experience rather than waving my arms around. But anyway, my mother actually wrote me a letter earlier this week telling me not to go to go to the anti-war stuff because she had heard Sarah Sloan, a spokesperson of the IAC, give an interview on the radio where she came across as really harsh and radical, where she wasn't responding to the questions of the interviewer but was trying to press an agenda. My mother is an immigrant who grew up in a country at war with the US, and had her house firebombed by US planes when she was about 12 or 13 years old, and then was starving and suffered all the psychological trauma in the aftermath, so US war and bombing is a concept she is quite familiar with, and I think if she has this reaction to hearing representatives of our side on the radio, then we should be concerned about well-intentioned 'average americans' and what messages they're getting. I didn't or don't know who Sarah Sloan is, and I'd like to hear her rhetorical style myself, but it's just another thing to think about.

No one has mentioned that the S F Police had major access routes to the rally blocked off. Coming in from Marin after 2 PM, cars were not being allowed to do normal drives off Doyle Drive, into the Marina, and other downtown routes.

KCBS, a radio station that offers traffic reports every twenty minutes, would only state that this had happened, as a result of a "police action" but the rally and maerch itself was not mentioned. there is a total news blackout, unless of course you include KPFA.

The socialist politics of various members of International Action Center are good. It is the Democratic Party's police who attacked our civil liberties, and we must complain loudly and clearly to the Board of Supervisors to put an end to the attack on our First Amendment right to conduct political marches in downtown San Francisco and to put an end to the unprecedented frame-up by the SF police of the peace movement as being part of the problem, which they clearly did with their traffic diversion scheme described above. (The police are the foot soldiers of the party and class in power, the class being the capitalist class). I urge all San Franciscans reading this to complain to the Board of Supervisors about the SF police's actions and demand our First Amendment rights be restored immediately. They all are required to represent all of us and make decisions about all our lives. They also all have voice mail so you can leave a message at any time. They are:

Tom Ammiano
554-5144
Tom_Ammiano [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Chris Daly
554-7970
Chris_Daly [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Matt Gonzalez
554-7630
Matt_Gonzalez [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Tony Hall
554-6516
Tony_Hall [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Mark Leno
554-7734
Mark_Leno [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Sophie Maxwell
554-7670
Sophie_Maxwell [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Jake McGoldrick
554-7410
Jake_McGoldrick [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Gavin Newsom
554-5942
Gavin_Newsom [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Aaron Peskin
554-7450
Aaron_Peskin [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Gerardo Sandoval
554-6975
Gerardo_Sandoval [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Leland Yee
554-7752
Leland_Yee [at] ci.sf.ca.us

I agree: good march, and kudos are richly deserved by the people who put all their time into organizing it, but yes, we absolutely should've gone downtown instead of marching in a circle around the Mission. Believe me, I wanted to split off and do just that, but when you're in the middle of the crowd there ain't a lot you can do to re-direct the flow. Still, it's a shame to think of such a big crowd being seen by so few people. Who can people contact to get involved in the organizing of the next march to try to make sure that doesn't happen again?

I am not an activist, and I had never heard of the International Action Center prior to Sept. 20, but when I found out they were the org. putting on this event, I showed up to volunteer--and spent the last week and a half donating time to help promote the event.

I just want to throw out an FYI that this event was organized in *10* days. Most events of its size have a lead time of 2-3 months for organization and promotion. This is something to take into consideration when criticizing the event and the small local organization that organized it. All things considered (lack of resources, limited time) I thought the turnout and outcome was quite impressive--and is just the beginning of a powerful movement.

Someone asked who people can contact to help plan future events. The IAC is definitally a good organization to talk to about such things (http://www.iacenter.org, http://www.actionsfbay.org). Also check out the webpage of International ANSWER (http://www.internationalanswer.org).

I'd just like to clarify what Anon said above for some of those who may be confused. This event WAS organizaed in 18 days (if you count the time before we even decided to have the event), and it was NOT the same as the event that we have been planning months before. That event was going to ONLY be in Washington DC. That event changed its focus to the upcomming war but had the benifit of having essentially been organized for months, but the local one in SF was planned in a number of days. Given how long we had to get the word out, the outpouring of people is amazing (15,000 people is the best guess at this point, I think). And given how ALL the trouble we were having with permits in DC for months, I think we shouldn't complain to the organizers that we weren't able to march as far as we would have like to have (on the other hand, that's not to say that we should be HAPPY with this restriction of our basic right to protest).

The peace march in San Francisco was a good first step. Thousands of people marched peacefully in response to the Bush Administrations policy of hate, racism and war. Unfortunately a few Socialists complained that we followed the route that was made available to us,their comments is that we are the people and no one can tell us where we can and cannot march. My response to these narrow minded people is that, we acheived our goal, a peace march, you cannot begin a peace movement by openly defying and provoking the establishment. I was very happy to not be confronted with pepper spray and police batons as our friends in Washinton D.C. were. I plan to take part in more of these marches and hope that all future peace rallys are are peaceful and pleasant as this one.

Is this still USA? Remember the First Amendmant is our Permit. Have courage to defend it.

Now you see the law can be CHANGED by the power of the self-imposed Powerful. Adhere to the First Amendment and our principle of defending No Killing of humanity.

since i've worked with iac for many years and put in at least 80 hrs working on the march on the 29th, i think i can ad to this discussion. but first a comment, when we are facing one of the biggest war buildups in many years, i find it strange one progressive spends time trashing antiwar rallies. i think we should turn our criticism toward the capitalist war machine which controls the established media instead of using progressive media to trash anti-war work.

i can explain why the march was short. we only had 18 days to build a rally and march of thousands. we had a major struggle with sf rec and park just to get dolores park for 1 hour. we wanted to march to civic center but it wasn't available ( used by another group ). then we wanted to use jefferson square park in the western addition. the problem with using 2 sites was having 2 sound systems. sound systems cost thousands of dollars that we didn't have. we weren't even able to get a stage till friday the 10th and it also cost a lot of money. after much back and forth with the city, we were able to get dolores pk for 4 hours - 11 - 3 pm. it also seemed important that the rally and march be something that people could bring their family to and feel safe. we are trying to build a massive anti-war movement that can make it costly for the us to go to war and that means being as welcoming as possible to participants. its not like international action center never does unpermitted marches. during the gulf war in 90-91, we led permitted marches of 200,000 here in sf and also marches of thousands that met at powell and market when the war started and marched all over the city for hours including massive civil disobedience. the iac has done hundreds of rallies and marches through the years and we usually get more criticism for long marches than for short marches. we thought it was important to show solidarity with the owners of the cafes suffering racist attacks but we knew we needed to be out of dolores park by 3 pm. whether folks agree or disagree, i think this helps to explain why things happened as they did. most of the people i talked to on the 29th thought the event was great.