First, let's be clear: organizers of the Chicago action, out of all of the Oct. 27 actions in the nation, have worked most aggressively to bring in Democratic Party elected officials whose voting record on the war is mixed, at best. Not public pronouncements, but voting records. People who vote are not morons. We have decent bullshit meters that have grown even more attuned since voting in a Democratic congress that has failed to deliver on it's electoral promise to stop the war. The congress COULD do way more, even and including without a veto-proof majority. But it won't, and people like the folks speaking on Monday won't press the leadership to do more by taking more aggressive action themselves.

Also, 8th Day has disendorsed the 10/27 action in Chicago. DISENDORSED. Carl can take credit for the balmy mid-October weather if he wants, or Santa Clause or Nelson Mandela, but that doesn't mean this appropriated credit is deserved. I invite him to find one -- just one -- 8th Day arresstee willing to cosign his assertion that the Durbin arrests earlier this week were part of the Chicago )ct. 27 'plan'.

But really, what's the bigger issue here? The key question is -- does the strategy laid out by Carl's friends, bringing in elected officials at the expense of more radical voices, serve as a more effecive way to reach the 'center' and end the war sooner? Let's unpack this.

Does it advance one of his three prongs -- to make the streets ungovernable? No. In fact, the entire action is designed to make the streets wholly ubergovernable. It is, in fact, an affirmation of permissible dissent.

Does it help the soldiers and their officers refuse to fight? First, there's an intrinsic misreading of history in this statement. For example, during the Vietnam war, it was much more typical for officers to be fragged by rank and file soldiers rather than take the lead and openly oppose the war, but whatever. It's unsurprising that Carl would give 'officers resistance' equal billing with soldiers resistance. But the bigger question is, does an action of this character help inspire troops not to fight? If the vets and soldiers themselves are to be believed, NO. IVAW has, in fact, refused to throw down for this action in Chicago, and has told Carl that they are not interested in being 'token' vets for his assembly.

Third, does this action help create a scenario in wihch a "veto-proof majority in Congress cuts the money." Hard to see how this works, either, since the action basically provides political cover to a group of congressmen who have voted at least once to FUND the war rather than leading in their party, bucking the leadership, and refusing to cast their pro-funding votes.

There is a reason support for this Democratic-majority congress has been tanking -- with its numbers dropping even more precipitiously than George Bush's in recent weeks. Why? Because people recognize that the party and its leaders could be legislatively blocking war funding, and won't.

Besides not meeting Carl's own litmus test for what needs to happen to end this war, there is another grave danger in this action -- namely that it further serves to divide and demoralize the anti-war majority in this nation. It's true that it's been structured to provide a space for labor bureaucrats like Tom Balanoff, who will only step up to the plate when the message has been sufficiently dumbed down to strip any pretense of overly aggressive progressive politics from the agenda. But these guys hardly represent the cutting edge of a movement, particularly when they're perceived by huge swaths of their own rank and file as failing to take the tough stands with management needed to rebuild a fighting labor movement in this country.

But worse, because this action basically functions as a Democratic Party rally for nice-sounding but lame-voting elected officials, it further disrespects an already alienated and frustrated base that is increasingly so disgusted with the hypocracy of electoral politics that they won't even show up at the polls.

This does not lift people's spirits. It further disenfranchises a sweeping anti-war majority in this country whose alienation gives the Karl Roves out there tremendous joy. Why? Because when they perfectly understandably opt out of the voting racket next November, the likelihood of Bush's party, by hook and by crook, 'winning' another national election is that much greater.

And this brings me to a point that I find most baffling in Carl's argument. This kind of approach -- his kind of approach -- does nothing to secure electoral victory for the super-Democratic Party Washington majority he claims is necessary to end the war (it's not, but whatever). In fact, by fostering voter disgust and grassroots alienation, it makes it even more likely that the antiwar base will simply walk away from the elections, as other more progressive constituencies -- from people of color to working class people -- have done in recent decades.

Carl's strategy is a strategy of ego, domination and control, and I might even give that a pass on this occasion if it were also a strategy to advance the struggle to end the war. Instead, it's the opposite, and that's what's really depressing here.