The LA Times has a typically clueless article on the anti-war movement at Berkeley and Mr. Shingavi in particular. The gist is that most students are politically apathetic but a small group of idealistic pacifists are keeping the faith.

His name was Snehal Shingabi. A 27-year-old graduate student and a member of the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition, he would spend the bulk of the afternoon trying to coax students into armbands. He was unfailingly polite and would bounce with enthusiasm toward every extended arm.

"This is the easiest thing I have ever done," he gushed at one point.

Still, most of the students would scurry by -- heads down, eyes averted, veering away -- displaying avoidance skills that must come in handy navigating the panhandlers who work the Berkeley streets.

For Christ's sakes, it's Shingavi. He was in the news all last year and lots of this one for the SJP protests, for the class description problem, and he's been on cable TV several times. I know that the Times has at least one reporter who graduated from Berkeley recently; don't they talk to each other down there? This might also explain why the reporter shows the ignorance of Mr. Shingavi that, say, searching Google would make up for.

He joined the campus antiwar group when it formed shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. His view is that the loss of the World Trade Center, however tragic, was manipulated almost from the start by an administration bent on war and empire-building in the Middle East.

But he joined it from a long-standing membership in the International Socialists, and it's hardly a secret that the anti-war movement is part of building a larger hardline Socialist movement. September 11th was not a call to action.. it was a redirection in purpose.

In the last few months, he said, awareness about the potential for war -- along with wariness -- has grown among students. More than 1,000 names, he said, have been added to the e-mail list -- and that's even before the first bomb has fallen.

It's actually 862 names, which includes a fair number of campus administrators and interested Republicans. Perhaps more tellingly, the BSTWC meeting I witnessed attracted no more then 30 attendees, although I suppose they could've been the officers.

Mr. Shingavi could be entirely right in his premise that bombs dropping will be the jumpstart for the anti-war movement. But the real question is: if a campus mass-movement starts to oppose the war, will they sign on with the International Socialists or start an anti-war movement free of overly ideological taint? I'd bet the latter.

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