Reports are beginning to come in from around the country on Iraq Moratorium actions. Check the website, www.IraqMoratorium.org

…and I'm sure they're just drawing in dozens and dozens of folks, from the looks of this zesty little imbroglio up there in vibrant Silver Spring.

C'mon, Mike. Massive demonstrations don't materialize overnight through sheer strength of will. We're trying to build something, and that takes time, energy and patience.

This is the first time we've held it in Silver Spring. Previous actions (I think there have been six or seven) were held at Takoma Park. We got 15 people, which is about average for us so far.

There are valid criticisms that can be made, of course. This wasn't as well-promoted as it could have been. There were a few new faces, but not enough. It wasn't very energetic. And it was very, very white.

But we got good information out, received an overwhelmingly sympathetic response, and publicly confronted a pro-war racist. These are very small success, but successes nonetheless.

I would love to see general strikes and soldiers revolting, but that's just not happening. It's not even a remote threat; and unfortunately, it's only the *threat* of such -- at least -- that will end the war. None of us harbors the illusion that we'll end the war by holding signs outside Metro stations. Rather, it's a matter of getting from Point A to Point B.

The thing to do is *participate*. Come to a demo. And if you have ideas, share them. I assure you they'll be listened to, and maybe even well received.

The whole idea of Iraq Moratorium was that actions progressively escalate not just stay the same old lame sign holding on street corners. It is now time to do a sit at the recruiters then graffiti the recruiters then maybe throw rocks then throw bricks then figure it out from there but ESCALATE. Your never ever going to stop the war by holding a sign the whole time each 3rd friday you need to step it up a notch and if you look at the progression I provided you don't even have to get violent, no humans or animals need to get hurt and the war can be over faster (but everyone has to really escalate!)

In fact, the idea behind Iraq Moratorium was never to "escalate" in the manner suggested. No material the organization's produced suggests so, anyway. (Indeed, it originally suggested things like wearing black arm bands.) The point, rather, is to engage the majority of people who are privately antiwar but don't demonstrate to do so.

The war will end when there's a serious threat of people serving certain roles in society refusing to serve or even transcending them as a means of resisting the war -- when soldiers refuse to fight, for instance. As I pointed out in response to Mike, this is not the kind of resistance that can be built overnight.

You vandalize a recruiting station. So what? At best you'll do some negligible damage -- do you really think the best-funded military in the world will have trouble replacing a window? More likely, though, you'll provide an excuse for increased repression and possibly turn off some potentially sympathetic people.

Now, if a whole community were to mobilize to shut down a recruiting station -- that's something much different, and very desirable. But there's absolutely no evidence that "propaganda of the deed" would encourage this sort of mobilization. There's a good chance of it making it look like a fringe cause, though.