A Positive Program

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Sun Sep 23 05:09:35 PDT 2001


----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>
>Nothing I read on the WTO protests gave me any feel whatsoever of what
>was going on in the communities that the protesters came from -- and
>without that feel I didn't really auite beieve in the big
>demonstrations. But it was already becoming clear by early this week
>that there was immense local activity going on.

-Yes, certainly so in Columbus, OH. However, it has also become clear -(if it was not clear to everyone from the get-go), through a wave of -cancellations, which orgs & individuals are still committed to -American nationalism, unwilling to disrupt the appearance of -"national unity."

Ah yes, how much the hardline Left mirrors Bush in excommunicating anyone who dissents from the party line. Its is organization by subtraction that takes it as a sign of purity, rather than of misguided strategy, when members leave email lists and organizations cancel participation in rallies.

There is a vast number of Americans who do not support indiscriminate bombing and war, but do demand justice for the victims of mass murder. But that vast numbers find unaccepable the present formation of the "peace movement", which omits even mention of the demand for justice from almost all principles of unity - true with both the Sept 29 DC mobilization and the major mass coalition in NYC.

A failure to promote a positive program to get justice for the victims of Sept 11 as an alternative to war and violence is a fundamental moral and strategic failure of the Left. They are making war more likely by the day.

-- Nathan Newman



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