Nathan Newman wrote:
>What kind of speakers' platform? If it is a platform that implies
agreement
>on strategies, anyone has the right to refuse such a joint appearance.
-It was a predominantly union rally against the first Dinkins -austerity budget, with 1199 in the lead. 1199 president Dennis Rivera -has a pink past, but that's long gone. The basic message was tax the -rich to preserve public services. -Another distinguished quote around that rally: then-president of -Teamsters local 237 Barry Feinstein said that "tax the rich isn't a -platform that labor can get behind."
Both stupid positions on their face that absent more info sounds like I'd be on the other side. And I wouldn't have been myself on the same speakers platform as any of the unions that supported Guiliani's reelection. Does that make me a union-baiter?
And how about all the groups that chose not to join the AFL-CIO in their rally against China's WTO deal with the US? Were those who refused to share that platform engaging in union-baiting? Or was it just differences in political viewpoints?
But if anyone then refuses to talk to anyone because of those disagreements, that would be sectarian idiocy. Days after I went to the union anti-PNTR rally, I hooked up with my friend Anuradha Mittal, who couldn't disagree with me more on the whole China WTO issue. We argued a bit, then hit the streets together around the anti-IMF and World Bank protests at A16.
Leo is right- Doug, you seize on single political acts by people you don't like and hold it up as a talisman for justifying full excommunication. It is your worst rhetorical habit and infects your view of political practice. Such incidents may matter and aren't to be completely discounted, but when they become a fetish and ignore broader patterns of action, they really are just irresponsible.
-- Nathan Newman