>And yet a few weeks ago Newman wrote that "ironically" WWP had the best
>practice among the non-Marxist left. This is a perfect example of "Jack's
>rule" that "when you hate somebody, every fucking thing they do is wrong."
Context is everything-- I noted why people work with WWP, meaning that they didn't actively disrupt other groups and actually do organizing work, which is to their credit. On the other hand, they are complete hypocrites in what they say through their front groups and what they say through their WWP-- which is where some of the sectarian groups have it all over the WWP.
>It would be much easier for Newman
>if we behaved like the Spartacist League. Actually he would prefer it if
we
>went around ringing bells and yelling "Unclean! Unclean!"
No, but it would be good if you didn't go around claiming to be against war in general, when in fact you support wars waged by all sorts of dictatorships. At least the Sparts are honest.
>If WWP is hypocritical
>for working in coalition with pacifists, are consistent pacifists
>hypocritical if they work in coalition with, for example, Newman? Is
Newman
>hypocritical if he works with them? Does he recommend the medicine of
>sectarian purism to everyone else, or only to WWP?
What I recommend is honest politics. If I join a coalition or worse help setup a coalition that is different from my own politics, purely for opportunistic reasons, then that is hypocritical. Coalitions with differing politics should be clear in mission statements that their members disagree on broad principles but agree on particular goals. If the WWP had set up ANSWER to say "we oppose the bombing, some of us because we are principled pacifists, some of us because we want to see the US defeated in any conflict", then that would be an honest coalition. But the WWP is not honest-- they pose as pacificists to create coalitions, not acknowleding their own politics.
You don't oppose bombing Afghanistan-- you supported it when the bombs were Russian-made. So the ANSWER call was a lie and hypocrtical because it condemns bombing in general.
The problem of sectarianism is not honest acknowledgement of political differences. It's what's done with those differences. Sectarians sometimes are disruptive in propaganda opportunism, milking the work of other activists as a pool of propaganda targets. Other sectarians like the WWP are organizational opportunists, creating front groups because they can't engage with their own politics in honest coalitions. But both versions of sectarianism ultimately avoid real compromise and honest engagement with other groups as equals in coalitions.
-- Nathan Newman