DFA, UFPJ, PDA, NOW, Move On call for Thursday protests

Bush will announce his escalation on Wednesday evening.  

Democracy responds the next day.  

Details below the fold.

True Majority Action (the group founded by Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream) has pulled together quite a coalition calling for emergency demonstrations Thursday in opposition to the Bush plan to escalate the Iraq War, under the banner: "America Says No!"

The groups that have endorsed the call include United for Peace and Justice,  the umbrella group for the antiwar movement, Democracy for America, the group that came out of the Dean campaign, Progressive Democrats of America, the National Organization for Women, three national Christian denominations and about a dozen more groups.  They have announced a national surge of protest under the banner "America Says NO to more Troops!"

It is hard to tell exactly how many demonstrations there will be, but it appears that there may be more than one hundred.

MoveOn does not seem to be a part of that coalition, but put out its own call for emergency demonstrations on Thursday.   At a MoveOn meeting tonight, no one had the information about the MoveOn demonstrations so they told us to go to the rally organized by True Majority.

We are seeing a very complicated dance between the Antiwar movement and the Democrats.  As the peace activists support but confront the Democrats, and the nation turns against the war, more Democrats will oppose Bush on the issue.  That strengthens the Antiwar movement and puts more pressure on the centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans.

This is an important convergence of the peace movement, its long time religious allies, and the newer online action groups and progressive Democratic Party groupings.  The stupidity and horror of the Iraq War drove the activists in all these movements to give the Democrats control of Congress.  Now they are using each other's tools and tactics to work together to ensure the political isolation of the Bush/McCain Doctrine of escalation.

George Bush is proving to be a uniter after all.