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DISSENSION IN THE RANKS OF THE RABBLE!
Found this on Indymedia. It is my opinion that the efforts of FReepers affected the Fayetteville protest in ways that were not apparent to us at the time. Read below how at the last minute the ISO speaker was forbidden to take the stage! These are the words of a hardcore lefty...

"Re: Fayetteville Iraq War Demonstration Photo Essay by J.. M........

21 Mar 2005
(I shared this report back with DAWN, thought it would be appropriate here since it offers a counter-weight to the report above)

A lot of us have been talking about our experience in Fayetteville, and generally the opinions range from lukewarm optimism of the event to downright pessismism.

(snip)

Contrary to what the people in Fayetteville are reporting, there was a maximum of 2,500 people at their march and rally (a number that many experienced activists agree on after surveying the crowd)...which is about half of the 4800 they claim to have. It was a mello march in a tucked away part of town over an extremely small march route that hemmed us in a park where participants all had to go through a search of bags and a sweep, the only purpose of which I could determine was to show the people in Fayetteville that the police were boss. Even the counter-demonstrators looked altogether bored by what happened.

One of the positives is that DC outmobilized any other city in getting people out there. We brought 84 on our buses; there was an ANSWER bus from DC that had 16. And, I estimate another 50 or so DC-area people came separately on their own. I kept running into them all day. If my numbers are right, DC was 6% of the entire crowd.

Another positive of the day was that it’s clear that there obviously is a growing contingent of veterans in the anti-war movement. They are energized and organizing, and my guess is that they looked at the day from a different prism than many of us.

However, the question looming over us all day was whether the rally and march accomplished anything at all. I’ve never been to a mass mobilization (and don’t blame it on the hours I spent organizing; I’ve had quite the opposite experience in other demos and been far more tired) where I left with such little energy (that was thankfully restored by the vigil that’s going on now). We didn’t reach people in the town, who weren’t there and couldn’t have cared less about it (the counter-demonstrators were from out of town by and large; I recognized some of our DC freeper friends). There was no call to further action that I could gather. And, the way the organizers caved into extremely unreasonable police demands left everyone feeling disempowered and like the bold speech from the platform was nothing short of a comical farce.

To their credit, Doug, Luke, and Karen refused to go through the search. In Karen’s case, she stood up for someone getting arrested whereas the Fayetteville organizers left the person in the lurch. I watched from across the park as a man was tackled by 5 police officers. He had been challenging the ridiculous searches going on by jumping over the fence at an unauthorized spot. When police then went in with full force to tackle him, a lot of us went over to understand the situation. Immediately, a sea of red-shirted Fayetteville volunteers did everything they could to turn us back to the stage. Okay, fine, their action, let them make sure that they are supporting the person being jailed, who turned out to be one of their speakers. But, what do they do? They turn there back and totally ignore the situation. It took Karen and the few legal observers there to help the guy out. The Fayetteville organizers couldn’t have cared less and were probably horrified that their tightly scripted event had led to an arrest.

This to me was symbolic of the day, but it wasn’t so much just Fayetteville, but generally this attitude that we can put all this energy into what amounts to a parade and a party without having any sense that we are moving forward in fighting war or protecting civil liberties. Mass mobilizations are intended to pressure the government and the population to notice injustice. Instead, this one seemed co-opted into the unjust system it hypocritically purported to be against.

It didn’t help that our bus was rather lousy…though the energy was great. Maybe the fumes from the burning CB put me in this foul mood.

An ISO person who was under impression he would be speaking since he appeared in a published program was kept from the stage by Lou Plummer (head of their steering committee), who threatened to have him arrested.

One bit of irony that arose out of a very sad incident…ANSWER’s bus, which only had 16 people (almost all organizers and volunteers), couldn’t make it back to DC because their bus driver had a heart attack. We gave all of them who wanted one a free lift home. I hope that the goodwill here will lead to better communication between the two groups."(snip)