Richard Day, Queen's sociology professor is an expert in organized protest.

Dr. Day is a radical who will be in Ottawa protesting President Bush?s visit. Although he supports public protest since it is an active rather than a passive response to disempowerment, he is convinced that attempting to influence state power is the least effective method of achieving radical social change. One is much better off engaging in various sorts of direct action, ranging from creating alternatives to existing structures, to resisting and impeding their operation. This latter tactic is obvious in Europe right now, with people doing whatever they can to hinder the movement of troops and supplies to the Gulf region as a way of directly counteracting the US/British escalation of the war in Iraq.

He is against the continuation of the war in Iraq because he doesn't accept any of the arguments put forward by the Bush regime to justify its desire to violently replace a government it no longer likes with one it thinks it might like better. Even the quest for oil should be considered as secondary to the desire to consolidate America's position as a centre of power in the emerging global capitalist police-state. This is to say that, for him, war and globalization are intimately linked. Hence, anti-war and anti-globalization activism are, or should be, intimately linked as well.

For more information contact Lorinda Peterson, 613.533.3234, petersn@post.queensu.ca or Sarah Withrow, 613.533.3280, withrows@post.queensu.ca.