United for Peace and ANSWER are experiencing major budget shortfalls as contributions drop precipitously. Code Pink saw the change coming and has been shifting away from the Iraq War to issues like AIG and Palestine. But even their fund-raising is flat.
Cagan, meanwhile, says fundraising at United for Peace has fallen by as much as 50 percent. “It’s been a really dramatic decline,” she says, and it’s because President Obama is in office.
Well, ok. But when situations change, organizations need to change with them and adopt new tactics. Attendance at antiwar protests has been dropping steadily for quite a while (and starting well before Obama was elected.) The March 2009 ANSWER protest in DC drew an embarrasingly small 3,000 people. But the organizing for it was stamped out of the same cookie cutter as all their previous organizing for antiwar protests, with no apparent awareness that the game has changed. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. The country has changed, and that includes liberals, progressives, and radicals. ANSWER and United for Peace haven’t changed with it.
Welcome to the real world, where those who adapt survive and those who don’t become extinct. Darwin called this evolution. Adam Smith called it capitalism. But call it what you like, neither legislation nor dogma will change it.