Internet stokes anti-war movement

Catholic New Times, Feb 9, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO -- According to Wired.com, recent anti-war protests were the first mass demonstrations in memory to occur before a conflict, a testimony to the organizing power of the Internet, observers say. While the Vietnam-era anti-war movement took years o gather momentum, hundreds of thousands of protestors turned out in dozens of U.S. cities recently to protest a possible war in Iraq.

The two biggest gatherings took place in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Estimates of the turnout are contentious--authorities cited 100,000 for both cities, while organizers say crowds topped 850,000--but it's probably safe to say the marches were the biggest since the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s.

The rallies attracted a broad spectrum of protestors, from campus firebrands to elderly Republicans. Many religious groups were involved ("Who Would Jesus Bomb?" read one banner), as well as trade unions, a wide range of political groups and a lot of ordinary citizens.

The disparity of protestors is a sign the anti-war movement has gone mainstream, observers said, and it's thanks not to the media, but to hundreds of antiwar Web sites in cyberspace together. Protest organizers said the Net played a key role in disseminating the anti-war message, motivating and mobilizing people and efficiently communicating details like travel plans.

"The Internet played a very significant role," said Sarah Sloan, an organizer with International A.N.S.W.E.R., the group that planned the rallies. "It made a major difference in getting our message out there, especially because the mainstream media isn't covering the anti-war movement." Sloan said for many people, joining the movement was as simple as typing "anti-war" into Google and being directed to hundreds of anti-war Web sites.

The range of online anti-war resources is big and growing. MoveOn.org, a political Web site based in Silicon Valley, recently raised $400,000 through 10,000 or more individual donations to remake the 1960s "Daisy" anti-nuclear-war ad.