M1 Chicago Anti-war Car Demo Report

Strategically - brilliant.
Tactically - poor.
Success of demonstration - mixed.

A car demonstration is a brilliant strategy. The one in Chicago March 1st 2003 had mixed results success wise. While the seconds per demonstrator ration was very good on the 10pm ABC channel 7 news (about 1 second per 10 demonstrators 1/10) I didn't see the other major (NBC and CBS) channels represented by camera people at the Montrose collection point, so our audience was not as good as it could have been.

These numbers are all gut. I counted nothing. I guess 50 cars and 100 demonstrators at Montrose.

Now the tactics. I can't second guess the promotion for this event as I am totally out of the loop. I was the tall guy who knew about this event from Indy media here. That was my only notice of this event. For the Devon demonstration on F15 I had also heard mention on WBEZ and I think on WFMT. I'm not a thorough reader of the Reader so I saw nothing there on either event.

Tactically, the choice of Montrose was poor. Foster would have been a much better choice. The light at Montrose split up the cars and the 40mph pace of the lead cars meant that the second group of cars had to go 60mph to catch up. I can't speak for any subsequent groups. At Foster there are only stop signs to deal with when entering the drive. Standing traffic directors could have facilitated the group staying together. Also the pace should have been 25mph in the right or second lane until all the cars were on the drive together (a cell phone contact between the lead and last cars would be the signal.) When the cars were together then the 4 lane 40mph tactic would have worked well.

The flags were good. It reminded me of the Mexican May 5th demonstrations. Are there plastic devices (funeral procession?) that could clip medium sized flags to rolled up windows. If so that would have been good.

My daughter was excited to have participated, as was I.

Thanks to all who worked to make this event happen.

P.S. I expected to post this as a comment. I hope it is adequate as a report. [I have no objection to this being changed to a comment to an "official" story.]