I have seen a lot of the mass movement stuff from within the anti-war movement over the past few years. If you want a primer on anti-war movement politics, I sure could give it to you. And, frankly, I'm disgusted by it. In the so called anti-war movement for instance, the main organizing groups have been the ANSWER coalition, which is a front for the Stalinist Workers World Party (regardless of any supposed split you may have read about between ANSWER and another front, the International Action Center), and United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), which is headed by Leslie Cagan, herself a communist - in fact UFPJ is heavily dominated by Communist Party USA and Committee of Correspondence Types. They have a much broader appeal and tend to prefer a more single issue, liberal approach, but for any grassroots group that has tried to work with UFPJ, it can be nightmarish if you stray from the line or criticize the operating structure. Both groups rely heavily on the mass mobilization as its means of movement building, but by and large these mobilizations are ignored and often serve as gigantic fundraisers (when successful) for the big organization (who by the way hate each other) often for the purposes of having yet another mass mobilization. Both groups are heavy-handed top down organizations that in many respects mimic the power structures they supposedly oppose. It is nearly impossible for a true bottom up approach in ANSWER and only apparently possible within UFPJ (which has the trappings of democracy but is still actually run by the clique in New York). I raise all this because first of all, I know firsthand about the difficulties of building large grassroots movements, have worked on the local and national level within these movements (staying anchored in the local, but Leslie Cagan and I for instance know each other), and I agree with you that the anti-war movement has been an absolute failure. UFPJ is trying to take credit for the last election; ummm, yeah...no one has heard of UFPJ, and I think maybe the Iraqis had something to do with that. However, I have not lost hope in a mass social movement; I simply have lost hope in one that works on the basis of large national organizations who organize umpteen marches on Washington (which by the way, most people in Washington don't participate in and wish would go away). I think that building such a movement must take decades, and even if no one thinks we have decades, that's exactly what's required to do this right - nothing else is really worth doing. We don't have the luxuries of the indigenous cultures, say in Oaxaca, who already have communal organizing structures to fall back on. We have to build a movement from scratch while at the same time existing within a culture that stacks itself against such radical organizing models. Now, the tough part is getting traction and maintaining it when there's very little good news to come for such a movement for several years. It's full of frustration, heartache, missteps, betrayal, and severe shortages of material resources. And, when you finally succeed at all, you get repressed by the authorities. It's tempting to take shortcuts, but those shortcuts almost always destroy the work (like accepting that big grant from that big donor, who has now essentially bought you out - where I work, it's Gates Foundation money; in the movement, it's Ford Foundation or even a single wealthy donor as was the case at the Washington Peace Center). But, is this impossible? Who could say otherwise, and what other course is really worth it? With the National Parks, one reason we worry so much about them is because we've lost the sense of connectivity among our neighbors, with our own jobs, with the environment around us. We want to hold on what's still left of something we all long for, at least those of us living in this society. If we want to save those parks, the best way is to increase the connectivity of struggles and issues, people, plants, and animals among us. Easier said than done! But, again, what really is the alternative? Mass movements, like the anti-war movement, have failed because they don't really present an alternative way or organizing. They are avant garde movements focused around single issues or a small set of issues using an organizing process that is no less alienating than what we have in our normal lives. One wonders whether they are really mass movements at all; perhaps, they are simply panderers to something stressful in the mass culture. I think we can do better than this; it's not like it hasn't worked elsewhere to some extent. Maybe, the Oaxacans are currently being repressed, but I think they will bounce back because of all I've heard about their support mechanisms, about the ways that indigenous communities use consensus in organizing. If we see where we ourselves fail and how doomed we are if we don't do better, then perhaps people will start meeting to make something better actually rise up. As for blowing things up, I don't talk about that sort of thing. Without a real movement, what difference would it make? So, I have plenty of hope. It's not been a good year for organizing, but I still have no reason not to believe that this is the only likely path to any lasting success. Jim