Anti War Activism in the World of Cyberspace & Beyond Essay

The theme this register examines is an anti contend base, c everyed IVAW or Iraq Veterans Against the contendf bef ar (http//www. ivaw. org) initially head by veterans of the Iraq contend in 2004, hotshot family later on the st artistic production of the war in Iraq, and progress to expanded their boot to opposing the appointment in Afghanistan. This is understandably a assemblage with potential, with a specify core demographic, hardly one which is, while sophisticated in the tools it is using, weakness in its total mission and goals, non to mention non maximizing the considerable power of the tools it has at its disposal. save despite these failings, the base is extremely holistic and determinations m any proven tactic, albeit unsuccessfully or non maximally put ond or executed, either lifted immediately or f employ into a new medium, use across many diachronic struggles ones for cultured unspoilts, gender equity, art as protest, aid activism, and blush divide struggle, although in the last mentioned issue, the base is still struggling to gamble its way to define its strategy effectively as all neighborly militant conventions do in America on this issue. But the fact remains, you wont find many graduates of Harvard stationed in Kabul.And in a regardry reeling from ut ab issue unemployment it is a perfect age to hit the introduction on exactly this issue. Overall organisational Structure National Overview The current establishment is a closely virtual 501(c) 3 (non lobbying) non profit, with a bailiwick office fixed in New York City, and a website. t here(predicate) be four full time employees, 1,700 members, who atomic number 18 listed online, and 61 chapters in 48 states. Figure 1 IVAW Chapters Nationally regional Organization The regional chapters argon staffed by volunteer state/ domain organizers to orchestrate state wide c angstromaigns of all shapes (described below).The group has volunteer speakers (mostly vets) and a board. Core Demographics & Membership The core demographic atomic number 18 vets, both old and young, and their families. The socio sparing level is primarily blue collar workings line and those from Americas heartland, who sign-language(a) up to serve because they had no sense of American foreign policy, or enlisted in the National caution to go about a college or advanced education in the first place, without realizing that they would be called upon to serve in true combat and for repeated tours of commerce which is unprecedented in American history.To the extent that the agreement provides educational outr each(prenominal), they are transcendent in their holistic approach. Where the group fails is how they do not effectively use the tools at their disposal to mobilize their kindly status. And that mischance is impart both to their low member count and to their ability to mobilize a aggregative protest to both wars. Fundraising The group r aises silver done social status receivables, volunteer fundraising efforts and merchandising merchandise.What is interesting and noblely unique if not commendable about the merchandising it sells, however, is that oftentimes of it is produced by members, so the group is vigorously contri notwithstandinging both through their membership dues AND through their personal experiences to support the organization financially. It is a unique, therapeutic, and self sustaining model and one that creates greater unity for members.It is as sanitary a tactic, along with alternative outlets for TV drudgery borrowed from the AIDS movement and The Quilt, which use the aforementioned(prenominal) simulated military operation, albeit not always online, although the gay alliance, in particular, was one of the FIRST niches as a community, to use the internet and art as a way of building community, curiously in response to AIDS and social exclusion, not to mention build a social protest mo vement bothwhere 20 years ago. Tactics apply & Why Website As teaching & Organizing ToolThe group uses versatile tactics including predominant reliance on its website as an culture source and organizing tool. condescension the cyber advantage, their tactics mirror many of those used in classic anti war organizing efforts, from Vietnam onwards, with a few other movements multiform in (such as ACT UP). Its dear mostly anti Vietnam war protest gone cyber. However the website also accepts valuable information that includes sections for those who would not unavoidably know how to find it, or occupy the education to flush know where to look.As a result, it is a valuable information tool for its members alone, not to mention set-apart to anyone who stumbles across the website. Information includes Supporting war uttermosttheste Resisters Publishing the activities and ongoing stories of those who are actively refusing to participate in the policy of s contribute-loss, or the policy of forcing soldiers to serve repeated tours of duty against their pull up stakes. Further the group is following each vitrine and actively encouraging its membership to support each active obstructionist by contacting the motor base in question to support the resister to the army brass.Providing Information on IRR (Resisting Individual pee Reserve Recall) Intimidation Tactics The group provides information about DoDs increasingly aggressive tactics to force people who are no long-range required to report for National guard Duty, how to avoid being penalized or how to get legal guidance and representation online. Resources for progressive Duty Service people, National Guard and Reserves The group provides information to active duty service members about what businesss they mother, stick on on their website. Press Aggregator/sociable Media ToolThe group is actively promoting its centre throughout both the conventional media and the blogosphere. The articles it generates are also post on its website as think to the other sites and these articles serve as both information for readers and as links in a social community as part of an online active strategy. ready hurls In addition to being a passive information source, the group is actively documenting the experiences of vets both as a ameliorate tool and as an education and outreach effort. These includeCombat Paper A sort of AIDS Quilt discover for veterans, who literally beat their uniforms into paper and deliver these into art projects, transforming psychological scars and wounds into art as a meliorate process. Warrior Writers Project A collection of essays that are the culmination of creative workshops (3 already take aim been held) where vets blabber about their experiences in a healing environment and then write these experiences d feature. whizz contain has already been compiled from such writing. At the second and third exhibits, readings from the first book were comb ined with photographs from the war.More exhibits are think and so is a second book. equity In Recruiting Small groups are organized where vets talk about the lies the military perpetuates in recruiting and what to expect of active service. Veteran dis attachedness Reconstruction Project The group is assay to raise capital online to help oneself construct the destroyed gulf communities they imagine the currency going to fight the wars is being deviate from rebuilding and further, vets living in the region. Coalitions The group is building coalitions online with other natural allies.Listed groups on the website include Veterans for public security, Military Families Speak Out, amber Star Families For Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Bring Them Home nowa geezerhood Campaign, National Youth and Student Peace Coalition and United for Peace and Justice. The blog & Social Media The group has its own blog on its website and its members are clear using social media ne 2rks as well (including posting video on You pipe and Vimeo for example). Field Events/Individual Speak Outs/educational Events The group holds stock-stillts around the country, organized by the state organizers and often filmed and posted on the website.These range from policy discussions to somebody vets whove served, who talk about their experiences in the field and why they are opposed to the wars. The spend Soldier Project By cold, the most effective and powerful tool besides underutilized for some unknown reason, is a project they have initiated called the Winter Soldier Project. It consists of curt films, distrisolelyed almost allwhere on the internet, from the actual website of the group, to Vimeo to You Tube. One peculiarly powerful accusative is linked here.Why these have not gone viral is beyond comprehension, particularly given their powerful testimony, gripping video, and e genuinely day people reacting to what they hear in hardly militant circumstances, hardly the flower child radical militant anti war protester stereotype. The Role of the Group as an Activist Organization The activities of the group are clearly activist, as described in the activities above with a clearly defined agenda to stop the wars and reinvest the money in America to build a much conscionable and peaceful country and world.That is the fundamental definition of an activist organization, and one that uses traditional tools of an anti-war group at that, updated for the cyber age. The fact that they are so conscious and holistic in their approach to both stopping the wars and linking this to social inequity, civil rights and other societal injustices is even further evidence of their rightful identification as an activist group. A holistic Approach to Resistance The group is clearly using tried and true tactics as many online organizing groups before it.Unfortunately, in part, probably due to lack of funding, a mostly volunteer organization and a battered populat ion of members, many of whom are on disability themselves, the group is firmly limited in the kind of money it can raise and the ability of its members due to complicated disabilities that doctors still dont know how to treat. Strategic and Tactical Failures phonation of the groups misadventure is the failure to identify the right demographics or utilize cross niche strategies for viral and social marketing for the powerful information they have to share and have already collected. clearly they understand that linking to other veterans and student organizations is important, and clearly from the videos they produce, they are attracting a multicultural consultation across middle America for their presentations, and not turning them off with militant tactics (such as Larry Kramer used or those used during the white student campus protests during Vietnam). That said, the latter two campaigns were highly effective, and achieved their goals, as much as they engendered violent reactio n.One issue that is directly responsible for the groups failure to capture more attention, is that they fall short, just as many before them, including the Obama campaign, of ascribeing in the way different demographic groups use the technology they have access to in other words understanding that with the proliferation of G3 stall phones capable of accessing the internet for example, lower class people have access to the internet, but activists who want to reach them, in this episode precisely the demographic this group wants to reach, but dont know how to do so. A theory expanded upon by Lavato when he writesThe next step of activism is for grassroots groups to connect online and offline organizing like Obama did, but targeting lying-in people. And the first step is for us to learn how our communities use their media and to engage them on their own terms. This certainly answers the question for example, with a national unemployment rate as high as it is, and again falling pr eponderantly on this demographic, why arent these videos, much less(prenominal) membership going through the roof? Even Larry Kramer was able to organize the sick and dying into an effective national organization WITHOUT THE INTERNET.That said, his tactics were very different. by chance that might explain why anti war efforts now including this group are so ineffective. Because the population Larry Kramer was fighting for was far more ostracized if not stigmatized than mostly forthwith young kids fighting for their country. How come these soldiers and vets are so ineffective seven years into two wars when Kramer effectively changed the way the governing body dealt with a devastating epidemic it differently would have ignored in far less time with far less effective tools?The answer lies in that IVAW have all the right instincts, and all the right tools, but they are fundamentally failing to implement them in the right ways. And that comes from a disconnect in strategy and class that is always present in every social movement that is driven from top down, quite a than the grassroots. Which seems to be the problem here too. Strategic and Logistical Overhaul The group needs to start targeting states where there are large populations of military bases, and thus vets, and states with horrific social services (i.e. Medicaid), combined with high unemployment rates, like Texas, North Carolina, California, Colorado, etc. as shown on the map below. Figure 2 Map of 3 Month even out in Economic Activity February April 2010 The group needs to plot strategy demographically and economically if they are really going to make a difference, just like a political campaign. Cyberspace is a very nice place, but you have to land it to have an effect.Feet on the ground and votes in ballot boxes are ultimately the most effective weapon in any organizational change we can believe in, to paraphrase a recent presidential candidate who used such techniques far more effectively. C onclusion The group is using tactics borrowed from successful grassroots and cyber online activist organizations such as Move On, (which may be the source of one of its failings) and of line of work political organizations of all kinds, offline and on including the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, MoveOn, ACT UP to even those used in the early days of anti-Vietnam protests.Why they havent connected to OTHER niche groups outside of the traditional ones they are already connected to is rather shocking, particularly given their sophistication in other areas. It also explains why they arent meeting their mission. Particularly as Obama has just pushed through the largest military compute in history. America is spending more for war under a Democratic administration, than even Bush, who expanded DoDs budget to an all time high. The time is advance(a) for a group like this, with all the tools it has at its disposal, to explode, based on historical precedent and current widespread economic domestic suffering.It is a tragic case of a great idea, with all the right tools and dedicated people, who just dont know how to execute their strategy and connect it to a larger, mainstream (or cross niche audiences) who will connect with the right message to help them achieve the ends they desire. An end to all wars and a reinvestment of Americas considerable resources in causes that are both domestic and associated with socioeconomic justice in America. Bibliography Cappuccio, S. N. (2006). Mothers of Soldiers and the Iraq War apology through Breakfast Shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC.Women and Language, 29(1), 3+. Retrieved may 11, 2010 Cox, M. S. (2006). Keep Our Black Warriors out of the Draft The Vietnam Antiwar Movement at southern University, 1968-1973. Educational Foundations, 20(1-2), 123+. 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