A San Francisco paper, that lasted for a few yrs., to the left of the Bay Guardian published by a character name Carlos Petroni, an Argentine exile who leads a sect that puts out a LARGE newspaper named Justice http://www.socialistalternative.com/december/Contents/contents.html
Ran for Treasurer in the November elections. I voted for him. Why not? A Trotskyist fot Treasurer! Got 14,911 or 13% of the vote against a center-right lesbian, Susan Leal. Michael Pugliese
By Fred Sanderson
Numerous coalitions and organizations have sprung up to do anti-war work in the Bay Area. Most of them have had similar politics, calling for an end to US military action, the defense of the Arab, Muslim, and immigrant communities from hate crimes and racist scapegoating, and defending civil liberties from government attack in the wake of the horrific acts of terrorism on September 11, 2001.
These coalitions have done okay. They have put on more teach-ins than one could count, let alone attend, all over the Bay Area. A couple of decent sized rallies were held in San Francisco. Over 5,000 antiwar activists met at Dolores Park on September 29. 3,000 marched on the streets of SF when the bombing started on October 7. 3,500 marched in downtown San Francisco on October 20. So far, San Francisco has produced the only demonstration anywhere in the country defending immigrants, particularly Arabs and Muslims from scapegoating and racism. This demonstration was held on October 13.
However, some left organizations, most notably the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and the Workers' World Party (WWP), have a tendency to create front groups for their own organizations and call them "coalitions." At the same time, each have a number of satellites who operate in agreement with one, the other, or both. One must ask why they aren't all in the same group.
Among the satellites are the so-called Committees of Correspondence (a group of a few people exchanging business cards at each event), Socialist Action (and its recent split, the Socialist Workers Organization), and a number of what is known as "rubber stamps." Competition between these two blocks repeatedly program different actions on the same day (if not the same action on different days), even though both blocks very often use the same rhetoric and bring the same speakers to "preach to the choir." This method of movement building is very divisive, and has led to a lot of wasted time and competing events over the course of the war drive and the war itself.
Further, Bush's war on terrorism has netted some early military successes, avoiding inflicting as heavy damage as originally expected to the population of Afghanistan. Polls released just after the November 6 elections also showed that more than 54% of Bay Area residents view George Bush as their "Commander-in-Chief," shattering the illusion that this typically progressive and liberal region of the country was a hotbed of anti-war sentiment, as in the 1960s. Better than Kansas City, to be sure, but far from an anti-imperialist headquarters. This political reality, coupled with the common politics and methodology of the different "coalitions," has led to common results over the last couple of weeks: they are all shrinking. <snip>
So now is the time to fix the glitches of the antiwar movement and get prepared to the new wave ahead. This hiatus in movement should be used to prepare better tools for tomorrow.
Fighting for survival
The Town Hall Committee to Stop War and Hate (THC, mostly a front group for the ISO and some other minor league leftists) understood some of these realities pragmatically and tried to bring together all of the, "diverse organizations and coalitions doing critical anti-war organizing work in various communities throughout the Bay Area with the objective of collaborating on a United Day of Action." This is an entirely appropriate response to the situation described: movement shrinking, band existing forces together to try to keep it going, for the war is likely to continue in the new year, possibly with some renewed opposition to it.
Between fifty and sixty people, representing some 28 different organizations, responded to the THC's invitation by turning up at the auditorium at New College on Thursday, November 29, at 7PM. Most in attendance were organizations or activists commonly associated with THC. Most of them had known each other on a first name basis for a long time.
A few students and faculty from City College of San Francisco were there, ditto for SF State, members of the Committees of Correspondence going by the name of Latinos Against War for the occasion, as well as those already mentioned. Two representatives from the International ANSWER Coalition, which is also known as the International Action Center, which is a front group for the WWP showed up. Maybe fifteen aging red-diaper babies from the Marin County Coalition for Peace and Justice were present. After about twenty minutes of settling down, signing in, and making nametags, the meeting began.
A representative from THC (who is also a member of ISO, who was also co-chairing the meeting) then delivered a welcoming speech, recognizing the "excellent and critical work that the different organizations in the room were doing in their respective constituencies," and emphasizing the importance of uniting. She then made a 180-degree turn, carefully explaining that the meeting was not called for the purpose of forming a coalition, but merely to see if any of these organizations could do anything together. The welcomer then called on those present at the meeting to endorse a five-point agenda, including introductions, creating a decision-making process, action proposals (with time set aside for discussion and voting), and making a plan for the next meeting.
At this point, a member of Socialist Alternative, an organization to the left of the ISO and WWP that is also promoting a broader form of anti-war movement, pointed out that elaborating a decision-making process and planning actions was a step perhaps best taken after constituting a coalition, and asked what the hold up to forming such an organization might be. This was clearly a diplomatic call to recognize reality and unite every group, putting aside petty turf interests.
The representative of the UC Berkeley Stop the War Coalition considered the fact that he was representing another coalition that had not granted him the authority to join another coalition in the name of all of the organizations within his coalition of origin as a hold up. A representative from the Labor Committee for Peace and Justice mentioned that he, also, did not possess the authority to join another coalition, that he was only there to report back to his coalition on what happened at the meeting, and they would take a decision then. Finally, someone from a Marin County organization whose name is too long to remember drove it home: she may not WANT to "coalesce" with some of the other organizations in the room.
Back and forth
The meeting moved into introductions. The chair encouraged everyone to include a bit of rhetoric explaining why he or she came to the meeting with his or her introduction, and most indulged themselves. The meeting here made its second 180-degree turn of the evening. It turned out that most everyone there wants to build a big united anti-war movement, even if the format of a coalition may not suit their needs. Translation: "We should keep our own shrinking little turfs to ourselves, but we should agree to call a common action, some time in the future. This will help us maintain the illusion that we are all united when we are not."
And so the discussion moved into what decision-making processes this gathering, which is not yet a coalition, should use. It was determined that any participating organization should be entitled to one vote. However, organizations that had done a substantial amount of their organizing as part of a coalition were encouraged to defer their vote to the representative of their coalition, thus fostering an atmosphere of "trust." Following this principle, most of the left organizations at the meeting gave up their votes to representatives of one of their front "coalitions," except for the WWP, who only brought WWPers to represent their "coalition," although they voted in the name of ANSWER.
Translation: Left groups like the WWP and the ISO pass as activists without affiliation and try to form "coalitions," not with already-established organizations to which independent activists could join, but by dissolving their members into a general body of people through which they can maneuver towards organizational control and keep the periphery unaware of their own group. Cadres of their organizations are surreptitiously sent to chair committees. Bitter, low intensity and low profile battles are conducted from the go over control of phone and mailing lists collected at meetings. They call this a "coalition." In reality, they are no more than amorphous collections of left activists, or organized factions of protesters.
It was also proposed that the discussion on action proposals be conducted with timed rounds, with the chairs taking speakers lists and checking at twenty-minute intervals to see if the discussion need continue. Now, the strange thing is that many of those who opposed forming coalitions because they lacked "authority" from their front groups (sorry, coalitions) cast votes on program, forms of voting and even dates and type of action as if they HAD the authority they claimed to lack.
The chair from the ISO opened the first round by proposing a coordinated mass march and rally. Some proposed a United Day of Action only with each group organizing on their home turf. By the end of the first discussion round, it was clear that everyone wanted to do a united action of some kind, perhaps a mass rally with smaller, more local actions building up to it. The chair proposed for the second round of discussion that speakers try to focus in on securing a date for said action. The WWP proposed that this new non-coalition call its action for a date they were already organizing another event, their typical way of controlling the mike at a given rally. People declined to bite, and voted the proposal down.
Disruptive chairs
But wait! Not everyone had said his or her piece about what kind of action was needed. That meant the discussion from the first timed round had no choice but to carry over, much to the chagrin of the chairs.
The representative from Socialist Alternative began his contribution by stating the date he supported and why, and then explained that he had had his hand up during the previous timed round, and began to say his piece. He pointed out that the anti-war movement in the US had thus far failed to break out of the left organizations and their immediate peripheries and continued to "preach to the converted."
Therefore, anti-war organizers needed to seriously consider changing the outreach methods that they use. First, it may be proper to emphasize the point in our platform relating to the defense of civil liberties in our outreach and at the United Day of Action, due to the fact that there are many people in the US who are against losing them, even if they support other aspects of the war on terrorism. He also pointed out that rather than giving every left group two minutes to speak, why not find speakers important enough, courageous enough, articulate enough, diverse enough and famous enough to be quoted by the media and give them more time to make their points in a way that people outside of the left will respond to.
Just as he was finishing, the chair interrupted to inform him that he was no longer speaking on the topic of the date. The representative from Socialist Alternative informed the chair that if he would avoid interrupting him, he could finish his point, and the meeting could proceed. The chair relented and the meeting continued. The chairs were not prepared to listen to anyone suggesting ways in which they could be more effective. That could divide the turf they had carved for themselves!
The chairs' insistence on keeping people from diverting from a rather dry discussion about what date to have a big demonstration on almost caused the meeting to break down just a few minutes later. The representative from the Immigrant Rights Movement (MDI), one of the few women of color at the event, expressed what date she supported and then began to speak to the character of the action, and how those present in the room's reticence to call a coalition in order to go back to their coalitions or organizations of origin was a poor use of time that could be spent outreaching to other organizations to make an even broader coalition.
This time, two of the chairs began to demand that she be quiet. A member of the obscure SWO grouping heckled his support for the chairs from the back of the room. The meeting agreed to call a day of action for February 23, and to reconvene the organizations present on December 14, location TBA. Topics of discussion are sure to include whether or not to form a coalition, making it clear that the discussion that evening was just a maneuver to win some time.
For one, big, democratic anti-war movement
It is apparent that despite the necessity of combining forces in order to continue building an anti-war movement and their expressed desire to team up and kick ass, these organizations are extremely reluctant to do so, even for an objective as limited as a United Day of Action a couple of months away. It seems as though there is a good deal of fright at the notion of losing control of a small and shrinking periphery of anti-war activists, particularly on the part of the ISO and the WWP. They subscribe to the conventional "wisdom" of the left: that normal, working class folks outside their circles cannot be won over to understanding and confronting the Bush's war drive neither at home nor abroad.
Of course, when a real anti-war sentiment develops, this petty maneuvering by tiny organizations will be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who feel the urge to confront the government's manipulations. So, people opposed to the war should not be discouraged if they stumble into this surreal, parallel universe of organizational stinginess and pettiness. Just participate and raise hell. We'll get what we need.
What we need is one, united, democratically-run antiwar movement to confront Bush both at home and abroad. A movement that will reach out to a broad spectrum of organizations and communities, particularly communities of color and immigrants. A coalition that will raise the issue at workplaces and union halls. A coalition in which every organization can put forward their proposals at meetings free of undemocratic rules. A coalition that will speak on the issues to workers, youth and people of color NOT yet involved, rather than those already convinced.
Is there any doubt that the defeat of Bush's war drive – gingerly supported by the Democrats – requires as much?