-----Original Message----- From: Chuck0 <chuck at tao.ca>
>Yoshie: I think you are missing Liza's point. The WWP always organizes
>the same *types* of protests: permitted marches and rallies. They don't
>engage in direct action, civil disobedience, or anything militant or
>illegal.
>
>There's nothing wrong with a specific group that doesn't want to do
>those things, but if you want to pretend that you "lead" a movement,
>then you can't be stifling coalition members who want to do somthing
>different.
Chuck0 is misinformed here. Possibly he hasn't seen us in action in different settings and situations. No one tactic is always correct. Sometimes we have organized demonstrations with permits, and sometimes we have engaged in more militant activities. More times than I can count, really.
As to "stifling", what on earth is he talking about? On Sept. 29, members of the ACC were burning flags immediately in front of the security people we had provided for the ANSWER march/rally. Nobody "stifled" this. When the ACC march was "detained" by police, rally organizers led a chant for their release. I'm told that ANSWER sent legal people over to where the ACC was blocked.
The irony of all this is that after Genoa, when people were trying to marginalize anarchists and "direct action" forces, WWP stood up against dividing the movement, defending Chuck0 and his trend against Newman and his trend. I wrote some things about this myself. In fact people who are following the recent discussion on this list are twitting me about this in e-mails now and comparing me to the woman in the story who rescued the frozen snake. However, principle is principle; we were -and are- right to defend anarchists from such attacks, regardless of whether Chuck0 is appreciative of this.
Just now I ran across this page, which is devoted to the crusade against direct action:
http://www.carolmoore.net/sfm/marginalization.html
And who gets pride of place among the evil sympathizers with the "street fighters"?
Links to Groups Whose Leading Members/Employees Actively and Publicly Promote or Condone Street Fighting and May Discourage Members of Their Organizations from Speaking Out Against It
Workers World Party http://www.workers.org International Action Center http://www.iacenter.org/ http://beatbackbush.org/
Doesn't seem like stifling direct action to me.
Lou Paulsen