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BOSTON, March 20--MIM attended a rally on the Boston Commons of about 2000 people against the u.$. war on Iraq. Among the speakers was historian Howard Zinn. According to him, 600 towns and cities inside u.$. borders held rallies against the war the weekend of March 19-20.
A number of political tendencies in the anti-war movement were present at the Boston rally. We had the "peace is patriotic" crowd. For the patriots, the focus was on the u.$. troops dead, not the countless Iraqis. There was an exhibit with the face of every dead soldier near coffins with u.$. flags. An activist working on international issues confided in MIM that he wished we would jointly approach the coffins and rip off the u.$. flags to raise the profile of the Iraqi dead.
Amerikan patriotism was one ideology at the rally.
One of the main organizers of the event was a young womyn. She took pains to say it was a "lie" that today's youth are politically inert in the united $tates, because the rally had youth leaders joined by the older generations. At the same time, she made it a point that there were a number of parties scheduled for anti-war benefits in the coming months. The rally also featured several excellent musical performances.
A 73-year-old Black Korean War veteran voiced his disgruntlement to MIM as he was leaving the rally. He kept saying that thousands of Iraqis were dying and it's a "very serious matter." He contrasted that with what he called the "entertainment" approach he saw at the rally.
There were also flyers for "Hip Hop Anonymous" in which an upcoming musical presentation had advertisements featuring people confessing that they cannot go anywhere or do anything without seeing hip hop music.
MIM's position is that the leisure-time dynamic does work against us in the majority-exploiter countries. However, it's not exactly the same problem as profits, oil and contract salaries arising from war. At times, the leisure-time dynamic does pose problems for the imperialists as well.
Chanting "out of the rally and into the streets," some anarchist youth marched around the rally circle attempting to draw off rally participants for a march. Eventually, the organizers did march past the military recruitment center nearby and through the streets of the Boston area.
Anarchist youth organized separately.
At the end, we had discussions with some people about whether it is appropriate for people living within the borders of the united $tates to take responsibility for their government's actions; even though we oppose them. We pointed out that spiritual or political purity of the individual is not the objective: being done with imperialism is the goal.
It's not "pro-terrorist" to remind people of the German historical example--just responsible.
The problem with the prevalent Amerikan "left" view is that it substitutes any standard of ineffective spiritual purity for actually getting the job done of ending the imperialist wars. That's another reason it's a good idea in the majority-exploiter countries (and not in the majority of the world) to encourage people to say "we" when we take responsibility for living in an oppressor nation. Listening to death metal or hip hop and thinking well of the Iraqi people is not enough. Until we get the job done, we have to say "we" and take the blame and when u.$. imperialism does fall, we will still have an obligation to speak straightforwardly about the history preceding that collapse.
