Reflections

...Undemocratic in structure, The Great Peace March also marks the first nationwide demonstration in memory that is by invitation only...

...Such an action would almost certainly trigger a nuclear response from the Soviets...

...I'm not afraid of strong leadership...

...Even Ronald Reagan talks unblushingly about nuclear war as unwinnable and embraces the need for disarmament...

...We will call upon our leaders to make multilateral nuclear disarmament a reality and to inspire other citizens of the world to change the course of history...

...One of the rules is no civil disobedience...

...It means addressing the ^rsustrike nature of the U.S...

...PRO-Peace's call is so vague that even Ronald Reagan could conceivably support it," Cagan writes in the winter issue of the Mobilizer...

...This may be the largest single disarmament event in 1986, but I, and others, fear it will be just that—an event, nothing more...

...But the amorphous and toothless rhetoric coming out of PRO-Peacedoes little to advance the cause...

...And, indeed, Reagan has paid lip-service to disarmament, especially when it comes to Star Wars, which he claims as the ultimate tool of peace...

...The implications for peace activists are clear: Conventional warfare and "low intensity conflict" (the Pentagon's pet concept for Third World counterinsurgency in the 1980s) must be vigorously opposed in El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and South Africa...

...A similarly grandiose fantasy seems to be afflicting David Mixner, founder and executive director of a Los Angeles-based group called PRO-Peace, which is launching a media extravaganza humbly entitled "The Great Peace March...

...I've given up my company, I've given up my assets, I've given up my money, and I'm doing it out of a deep personal commitment...

...We're developing a mailing list of five to ten million people," says Mixner...

...It would be unthinkable of me to further any Presidential candidate of my personal choice...

...Certainly the participants in The Great Peace March are not devoting nine months of their lives to amass an impressive mailing list Our goal is global nuclear disarmament," says Mixner, "until the planet is no longer in danger...

...we won an important victory...

...Weekly...

...To counter this move, the peace movement should embrace a call for immediate unilateral disarmament by the United States...

...As long as we make it an act of political courage to take the morally responsible action, ain't nothing that's going to get done...

...Hart has endorsed The Great Peace March "100 per cent," says Terzano, and has met with Mixner about it...

...The questionnaire, which requires a physician's report and signature, asks such questions as "Have you ever been convicted of a felony...

...The nuclear freeze movement, "The Day After," and the steady activities of nuclear protesters succeeded in raising nuclear consciousness during the last five years...

...That is our dream, our vision...

...The hierarchical structure and regimentation of the march have turned off many peace groups...

...arms build-up, and it means assaulting the cherished >eoncept of the American empire...

...Mixner's top-down approach takes on a special Los Angeles flavor when it comes to fundraising...

...I don't want to rain on their nine-month parade, but I have got some serious problems with The Great Peace March...

...Mixner makes no apologies for this style of organizing...

...The MX, Cruise, and Pershing missiles, the Trident II submarine, and now Star Wars, all point in the direction of launching a nuclear war...

...I tajke Mixner at his word here...

...We are not a coalition organization," he told me...

...It just seems all wrong—its organization, its political strategy, and its focus...

...Campaigning for unilateral disarmament and opposing U.S...

...You need a grass-roots, mass-based approach to feel a sense of empowerment...

...A Los Angeles-based campaign organizer and public relations man who served as a national co-chair for Gary Hart's 1984 Presidential campaign, Mixner came up with the idea for the march and established PRO-Peace Matthew Rothschild is an associate editor of The Progressive...

...The peace movement must face the reality that the United States, more than the Soviet Union, is desperately" trying to develop and perfect a first-strike capability...

...By now, the American public has by and large been made aware of the dangers of nuclear war...

...Solomon's criticism speaks to the heart of the problem with the march and raises important questions for the peace movement as a whole...

...RKFLKCTIONS Matthew Rothschild One Step Backward One of the Nineteenth Century Rus^ sian anarchists, I think it was Ba-kunin, claimed that if he could spend just five,minutes talking to every Russian peasant individually, revolution would sweep the country...

...The Great Peace March is David Mix-ner's baby...

...poll after poll shows a vast majority of Americans realize that nuclear war is un-winnable...

...Navy recently acknowledged, for instance, that if a conventional war broke out between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Navy would attack Soviet submarines carrying nuclear missiles...

...We are hoping that if Gary runs for national office again, David will serve in the same capacity...

...interventionism around the world may not be as glamorous as participating in The Great Peace March...

...I know what it takes to make it work...

...For if Solomon is right, and I believe he is, that the American public already recognizes the dangers of nuclear war, then a whole range of peace activities—and not just The Great Peace March—need to be reexamined...

...This would force the issue on Washington and leave no room for hemming or hawing...

...The march itself will be heavily regimented...

...Causes are obscured...

...Even as the Soviet Union calls for total disarmament by the year 2000 and unilaterally holds a moratorium on nuclear testing, the United States keeps right on the path of nuclear supremacy and nuclear devastation...

...But his critics, have a point when they wonder about the power and influence—and financial resources—that a list of five million names can place in Mixner's hands...

...Paul Newman, Madonna, Martin Sheen, Rosanna Arquette, Sally Field, and a gaggle of other celebrities have drummed up $4 million so far in this Hollywood Squares (Paul Newman to block) version of peace organizing...

...It's a setup for being outflanked," agrees Solomon of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who calls the march a "political non sequitur...

...Since then, those fears have been legitimated—but alsb co-opted...

...Also clubs and organizations of which you are currently a member...

...One point Mixner has made is the great mailing list he's developing," says Norman Solomon...

...That puts him in a position to deliver a constituency to a Presidential candidate...

...Even on its own terms," he says, "the determination only to focus on nuclear weapons is counterproductive since it detracts from the little war-big war thing, the leaping of the firebreak...

...to disbelieve him—to assume that he is secretly planning to assist Gary Hart—requires a level of cynicism I can't sustain...

...The march is "five years out of sync," says Solomon...

...But the peace movement also must recognize what Solomon and Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at the five-college consortium in Amherst, Massachusetts, have called the "nuclear firebreak"—the risk that a conventional war might quickly escalate into a nuclear war...

...Mixner's past affiliation with Gary Hart, and his expertise in public relations, have raised suspicions in some sectors of the peace movement that PRO-Peace may have a hidden agenda: helping Gary Hart gain the Presidency...

...Every one of the marchers must apply to PRO-Peace, fill out a six-page questionnaire, and submit to interviews...

...What needs to be done, instead, is to focus on how a nuclear war is most likely to get started and by whom...

...The U.S...

...Other peace groups—the Freeze, Mobilization for Survival, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the War Resisters League—were left out in the cold and only asked to come in once all the plans had been set...

...I think they're tied to a political campaign for the Presidency," says Ardelle Hough, national vice president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, though she says her concern about a Hart tie-in is based on "wild speculation...

...The Great Peace March could offer Hart names—lots of names...

...It doesn't reflect the lessons we've learned about what it takes to empower people," says Leslie Cagan, program coordinator for the National Mobilization for Survival, which has not endorsed the march...

...platitudes pervade...

...But Mixner emphatically denies any ulterior motive to aid the prospective Hart campaign...

...It no longer suffices to harp on the evils of nuclear weaponry...

...and requests applicants to "list previous political and community involvement...

...Disarmament is a laudable objective, and The Progressive promotes it month in and month out in these pages...

...The United States not only places itself on the wrong side in each of these conflicts, but it also courts nuclear disaster, especially as it concejves the conflicts in starkly Cold War terms...

...No blame is placed at the feet of the Reagan Administration, which is leading the arms race on Earth and in space, scarcely a word is mentioned about the military-industrial complex, which powers the drive to nuclear annihilation...

...Using his public relations experience, Mixner has tapped movie stars and rock musicians to help raise money...

...That's a lot of cabbage to blow on a media event...

...It makes no sense, then, for peace activists to keep hammering away at the horror of nuclear war as if that alone were sufficient to prevent one...

...They are raising millions of dollars to streak across the country, and afterwards there will be nothing left," says Norman Solomon, disarmament director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation...

...David was one of our earliest financial and political supporters," says Ginrty Terzano, press aide to Hart...

...Preventing nuclear war takes hard work...

...The purpose is to be as well organized as the Falwells and the Viguer-ies to make things happen," he told me...

...That's part of the obligation and responsibility marchers have accepted, and they're going to know pretty much what the rules are...

...From the start, he has called all the shots, acting as if he were the only person in the country working on disarmament issues...

...Mixner says the total budget for the march may reach $ 16 million...

...to bring it about...

...There have to be rules and regulations in the march," Mixner told the LA...

...The Great Peace March is an idea which will inspire the world," says PRO-Peace literature...

...But glitz and hype do not a "movement make...

...He defends the building of a mailing list as an essential tool for doing peace work in the 1980s...

...Cagan, too, wonders whether "what's going to come out of this is just more foot-soldiers for the Hart campaign...

...There's a whole world of difference if you go to your Congressman with a list of fifty namesof constituents who want him to do something or a list of 10,000 names...

...From 1,000 to 5,000 marchers are to walk across the country, starting in the Los Angeles Coliseum on March 1 and ending up in the nation's capital on November 15...

...Talk of "bilateral" or "multilateral" disarmament only lets Washington off the hook...

...Asked if there was a connection between 'Iw^Pfiace and Hart's Presidential anibitiojis, Mixner responded: "Absolutely none...

...His ties with Hart are close...

...Jimmy Carter was roundly ridiculed in the 1980 Presidential debates for invoking the fears his daughter Amy had about the world blowing up...

...In conversation, he invokes the names of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King at every conceivable turn...

...It isn't conducive to this type of effort...

...This large list, which Mixner has promised to share with other peace groups for the cost of the tape, carries with it a certain potential power...