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April 29, 2006, Manhattan--Protesters took 2000 copies of MIM Notes in a march called by the various political expressions of the Democratic Party to oppose the Iraq War. Although we heard estimates of 150,000 people, we do not believe this march could have surpassed 50,000. Maybe it was 25,000--a slight disappointment considering how much time there was since the last major anti-war march.
The official leaflet of the march explained itself this way: "Unite for change--let's turn our country around! The times are urgent and we must act. Too much is wrong in this country. We have a foreign policy that is foreign to our core values and domestic policies wreaking havoc at home. It's time for a change. [a slogan that will be echoed much this year in elections for the Congress--ed.]
"No more never-ending oil wars! Protect our civil liberties and immigrant rights. End illegal spying, government corruption and the subversion of our democracy. Rebuild our communities, starting with the Gulf Coast. Stop corporate subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy while ignoring our basic needs. Act quickly to address the climate crisis and the accelerating destruction of our environment. Our message to the White House and to Congress is clear: Either stand with us or stand aside!"
These are slogans typical of the activist wing of the Democratic Party. There is no mention of socialism or capitalism, and definitely no sense of reparations owed to Iraq and similar countries. These are just Democrats who want the superprofits of oil plunder and other businesses shared at home. So this is not a proletarian march, but a march of the vacillating petty-bourgeoisie. It's OK, we still love all the people trying to do something to stop the war.
The front line of the march chanted "Si se puede" alternating with the usual slogans against the Iraq War. The slogan is a reference to the other great movement of this movement, the migrant rights movement.
As MIM has explained before, the first pillar of society to wobble in intensification of war is the gender aristocracy. By this we mean that the world's gender privileged people start with varying ideas of "make love not war." This likelihood is increased when as in the present situation a disproportionate share of young men are occupying other countries, in prison or just dead because men do not live as long as wimmin. The result is that a disproportionate share of the people left to march are female.
Code Pink is an organization of wimmin involved in anti-militarist politics. Code Pink was present having a good time in the march and festival with pink costumes and self-mockery. One contingent that looked similar to Code Pink chanted: "we're wimmin; we're marching and we're not shopping!"
As onlookers passed the march, the crowd chanted "stop shopping and start marching!" This was the innovation of the whole march with other people shouting their usual slogans.
The meaning that Code Pink tries to communicate is difficult to explain. The costumes are pink and bawdy. The message seems to be ambiguous, self-satirically sexy and still ultimately political. In theoretical terms, we would say Code Pink is nearly self-consciously gender aristocracy--gender privileged people responding to the war in their own way. Code Pink is an example of how the gender aristocracy can be shaken politically into anti-militarism.
The National Organization for Women had a contingent too. Again, getting right into the question of looks, some NOW people were wearing t-shirts that said "this is what a feminist looks like." The usual put-down from many typical Bush supporters is that feminists are too ugly "to get a man," so the shirts are meant as a retort.
We also heard the usual slogans about "this is what democracy looks like," with the underlying point being that participation and civil liberties are necessary. Democracy is marches by this view and with some good justification.
Various supposedly socialist and communist groups attended. We saw a Progressive Labor Party contingent of about 50 people carrying red flags for May 1st, International Workers' Day. Other watery Trotskyist groups had even larger contingents.
Largely composed of the Democratic Party "base" this march had a large portion that has already made up its mind that it does not want any socialist or communist newspapers. There was another significant portion of the march that obtains MIM Notes regularly and did not need it. MIM spoke with a pacifist at the rally who reads MIM Notes and delivered the April 1-15 issue to Phyllis Chesler, with the article about her in it. He groused that we left the anti-militarist blurb out of this issue of MIM Notes--contrary to a decision of our own Congress by the way that the anti-militarist blurb be permanent--so we have to make self-criticism! Some people are paying attention.
On the whole, the anti-war movement is aware of MIM's message to a considerable extent. Now we need to catch up with the migrant movement exploding across the continent. In other articles, we will handle the literature we picked up at the April 29th rally in New York against the Iraq War.