How do you change the perception?

[marct]

Hi 120mm,

Perhaps (probably) we are doing this Small Wars thing the wrong way. Perhaps we need to approach it like the political parties approach a political campaign. Do we need a "McCarville-esque" "general" running the operation?

One of the biggest problems that Western Civilization has is that we have lost what Mao called the idea of "the People's War". To be more accurate, it has become "secularized" in he sense that we "fight" our "People's Wars" in the political arena and eschew them when it comes close to non-internal, non-"political" violence. Basically, in the modern West, and especially in Canada and the US, our "People's Wars" are what the Sociologists call "Social Movements".

This really shouldn't surprise anyone who looks at their historical development since the 1960's. Most of the New Left movement that dominated the social movements scene from the mid-'60's on was organized along Maoist principles, as were many of the groups in the Women's movement (e.g. the Consciousness Raising groups of the late 1960's were based on the Maoist idea of "Speaking Anger"). Radical organizers such as Saul Alinski frequently drew their tactics from Mao as well as other left wing organizers (e.g. Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, Trotsky, etc.).

In general, the only other group that has adopted a "People's War" strategy at the political level has been the neo-con movement. Fortunately, at least from my point of view, the neo-cons didn't bother to read any of the theoretical work on the subject, so they were really creating their tactics on an ad hoc basis. And, this time speaking from personal experience in the Canadian political scene, some of the early the neo-cons here were so ill-read that they thought that quotes from Mao were actually made by Hitler! (okay, that was a sidebar rant.....)

Back to your question, 120mm - and my answer is "yes and no". In both Canada and the US, I think that we need to redeploy the concept of a People's War as Social Movement but, this time, in support of our basic core values including informed discussion. Trying to organize along the lines of political parties is probably a bad idea, both here and in the US. In Canada, we have enough parties already, although I really wish the Rhinoceros Party would start again. In the US, it is too expensive to try to go up against the two entrenched parties - better to play SF with a social movement strategy and let a new party develop on its own (probably a centrist coalition party).

Marc

[Cori]

I don't think there's enough discussion here of the fact that any IO campaign has to be understood in large part as a response to an ongoing enemy campaign. Part of that campaign is based on an amazingly savvy use of all the latest communications and information technologies -- the Internet may be first among equals, but it takes a package of technologies to produce, for ex, a YouTube clip, and the production values on those things are getting higher and higher.

But I'd make the argument that much of what's done is in part based on their evaluation of its likely impact in the media/information realm. The violence in Iraq is heavily centered in areas the press has access to OR they go ahead and film it themselves, making those clips available to anyone with an Internet connection. Those clips therefore serve a dual function for them, working one way for audiences who seek them out directly on the Internet and another way for American audiences who view them when they're integrated into mainstream media news stories.

So any IO campaign can't be conducted in a vacumn -- it has to be constructed as a response to an ongoing enemy campaign. And as has been noted here, part of the difficulty in responding is that that campaign is being conducted at an extremely decentralized leveled. All it takes is for every small cell conducting any individual act of violence to take along a videographer, and for that guy with a camera to cooperate with a guy with a laptop to get those images edited and uploaded. Done. No need to have themes, messages, or final product sent anywhere else for approval.

[marct]

Hi Cori,

Welcome! Good points, to ... We've actually been discussing similar points in this thread. It's probably worthwhile for you to pop over and make a contribution to that one as well.

Marc

[Cori]

I hope you'll bear w/me -- I've never done this before, so I'm going to have to learn as I go along . . .

[marct]

I hope you'll bear w/me -- I've never done this before, so I'm going to have to learn as I go along . . .

No worries, mate . Many of the threads cross-link and it can be a real problem finding your way around them until you get used to it. That said, there are some realy good ideas and top notch people posting here.

Marc