Sorry for getting pissed off, but this will only be a useful conversation if people stop drawing caricatures of my position. I in turn will try to refrain from further snide barbs and try to write more clearly.
The organizers of the Boston event included Charles Derber, a professor and author of several books. Other organizers spanned a wide age range. I also approached Lori Wallach and was brushed off. A number of the people I spoke with knew that Spotlight was antisemitic.
So let's cut the extrapolatory apologies based on false assumptions. This is part of a pattern. It is a global pattern as is described in my monograph Right Woos Left and at the Dutch site.
http://www.publiceye.org/rightwoo/Rwooz.htm http://www.savanne.ch/right-left.html
Halle sez:
> OK, I'm glad you agree that these should be "core concepts." That was not
> apparent to me from your initial remark, at least in part because I'm not
> sure all progressives would agree that either opposition to government per
> se or opposition to globabalization should be a goal of progressive
> organizing. (Doug has made clear his disagreement with the latter, for
> example.)
OK, that probably was not clear. I am not against globalization, I am against globalization that only makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Nor do I oppose government per se, what I meant by anti-government critiques was critiques that were critical of government policies. As Sara Diamond notes, right wing groups can be either sytem supportive or system oppositional.
> In any case, I agreed with you that Nader is making a mistake if he is
> building the cozy relationship with the parade of right wing demagogues as
> you claim. However, the real tactical question here is whether denouncing
> these groups wholesale and avoiding any contact with them is the most
> productive strategy if one's real objective is not to make alliances with
> their leadership, but to reach and begin the slow process of educating
> their rank and file membership. If progressives simply write off this
> constituency as hopelessly tainted by "racism, homophobia, antisemitism
> and sexism" as you seem to be doing, you need to provide some idea of
> constituencies which progressives might succeed in reaching and
> mobilizing.
>
> Do you, for example, also write off catholics because the church
> leadership has a history of "racism, homophobia, antisemitism and sexism?"
> Its not obvious to me that alliances with the catholic church are any less
> tainted that those with the right wing groups you mention. Any movement
> which, for whatever reason, writes off catholics, however, pretty much
> guarantees its own marginalization. In short, what price are you willing
> to pay for ideological purity?
Where did this idea come from? I have NEVER suggested writing off constituencies on the basis of some ideological purity. What I said was that it was not appropriate to forge UNCRITICAL alliances that MASKED the oppressive tendencies of the coalition partners.
In other words, don't pretend these right wing business nationalist interests are NOT anti-union, racist, sexist, homophobic, or antisemitic; and don't form coalitions that BUILD the right and cover their flaws.
Remember, I am someone who spent ten years working against racism in a White working class neighborhood where the multi-racial coalition I was part of helped break up a KKK organizing drive against open housing and integration. We organized relatively prejudiced people against the KKK violence.
What I find intellectually dishonest is the technique of making false assumptions about my argument and then flicking them off like some bug on your sleeves.
Are we as progressives so bankrupt that we can't be critical of Nader when he has a history of being insensitive about unions, women, and minorities? This is not ideological purity, it is common decency. It is not stabbing our current allies in the back for some fantasy short-term gain.
How about we all ask the Naderites to clarify their relationship to the Millikens, and Pat Choate, and the US Business and Industrial Council etc.? How about asking that if Spotlight is passed out a their meetings, that they have a policy of distancing themselves from it? If they insist on putting union busters on their panels, maybe Lori Wallach could mention in some polite way that there is a disagreement over the role of unions in our society?
Is this too much to ask?
-Chip Berlet