As Corn notes, with 40% of the population agains the war, the numbers at these rallies are not that impressive given the large size of DC rallies that have happened with other crucial issues in the past. In my stay in DC over that weekend -- for other reasons although I went to the rally -- I saw a close friend and some family members, all three with decades of organizing history, from disability work to homeless advocacy --- and all three of them didn't feel it was worth the effort to go downtown to the rally because of the alienation from this kind of rhetoric that they knew would happen.
If activists who only needed to take a Metro ride to the rally didn't show up, you know that literally hundreds of thousands of other people were not mobilized for action who could have been with a broader organizing message and effort.
--- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Marta Russell" <ap888 at lafn.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 1:50 AM Subject: Re: Fw: David Corn: troubling origins of the anti-war movement
David Corn left out that Ben of Ben & Jerry's also spoke at the protest -- for a long time. I'm tired of these people like Corn who make a living off what others do, in this case bashing the ones who take action. What has he done? What IS HE anyway -- another armchair liberal it seems from here. The Cooper-Hitchens-Corn axis. Have any of them ever organized any protest in their lives? Marta
>http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/50/news-corn.php
>------
>
>L.A. Weekly | NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2002
>Behind the Placards
>The odd and troubling origins of todayís anti-war movement
>by David Corn
>
>FREE MUMIA. FREE THE CUBAN 5. FREE JAMIL AL-AMIN (thatís H. Rap Brown,
>the former Black Panther convicted in March of killing a sheriffís
>deputy in 2000). And free Leonard Peltier. Also, defeat Zionism. And,
>while weíre at it, letís bring the capitalist system to a halt.
>
>
>When tens of thousands of people gathered near the Vietnam Veterans
>Memorial for an anti-war rally and march in Washington last Saturday,
>the demands hurled by the speakers extended far beyond the call for no
>war against Iraq. Opponents of the war can be heartened by the sight of
>people coming together in Washington and other cities for pre-emptive
>protests. But demonstrations such as these are not necessarily strategic
>advances, for the crowds are still relatively small and, more
>importantly, the message is designed by the far left for consumption by
>those already in their choir.
>
>In a telling sign of the organizersí priorities, the cause of Mumia
>Abu-Jamal, the taxi driver/radical journalist sentenced to death two
>decades ago for killing a policeman, drew greater attention than the
>idea that revived and unfettered weapons inspections should occur in
>Iraq before George W. Bush launches a war. Few of the dozens of
>speakers, if any, bothered suggesting a policy option regarding Saddam
>Hussein other than a simplistic leave-Iraq-alone. Jesse Jackson may have
>been the only major figure to acknowledge Saddamís brutality, noting
>that the Iraqi dictator ìshould be held accountable for his crimes.î
>What to do about Iraq? Most speakers had nothing to say about that.
>Instead, the Washington rally was a pander fest for the hard left.
>
>If public-opinion polls are correct, 33 percent to 40 percent of the
>public opposes an Iraq war; even more are against a unilateral action.
>This means the burgeoning anti-war movement has a large recruiting pool,
>yet the demo was not intended to persuade doubters. Nor did it speak to
>Americans who oppose the war but who donít consider the United States a
>force of unequaled imperialist evil and who donít yearn to smash global
>capitalism.
>
>This was no accident, for the demonstration was essentially organized by
>the Workers World Party, a small political sect that years ago split
>from the Socialist Workers Party to support the Soviet invasion of
>Hungary in 1956. The party advocates socialist revolution and abolishing
>private property. It is a fan of Fidel Castroís regime in Cuba, and it
>hails North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for preserving his countryís
>ìsocialist system,î which, according to the partyís newspaper, has kept
>North Korea ìfrom falling under the sway of the transnational banks and
>corporations that dictate to most of the world.î The WWP has campaigned
>against the war-crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan
>Milosevic. A recent Workers World editorial declared, ìIraq has done
>absolutely nothing wrong.î
>
>Officially, the organizer of the Washington demonstration was
>International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). But ANSWER is
>run by WWP activists, to such an extent that it seems fair to dub it a
>WWP front. Several key ANSWER officials ó including spokesperson Brian
>Becker ó are WWP members. Many local offices for ANSWERís protest were
>housed in WWP offices. Earlier this year, when ANSWER conducted a press
>briefing, at least five of the 13 speakers were WWP activists. They were
>each identified, though, in other ways, including as members of the
>International Action Center.
>
>The IAC, another WWP offshoot, was a key partner with ANSWER in
>promoting the protest. It was founded by Ramsey Clark, attorney general
>for President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. For years, Clark has been on
>a bizarre political odyssey, much of the time in sync with the Workers
>World Party. As an attorney, he has represented Lyndon LaRouche, the
>leader of a political cult. He has defended Serbian war criminal Radovan
>Karadzic and Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who was accused of
>participating in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Clark is also a member
>of the International Committee To Defend Slobodan Milosevic. The
>international war-crimes tribunal, he explains, ìis war by other meansî
>ó that is, a tool of the West to crush those who stand in the way of
>U.S. imperialism, like Milosevic. A critic of the ongoing sanctions
>against Iraq, Clark has appeared on talking-head shows and refused to
>concede any wrongdoing on Saddamís part. There is no reason to send
>weapons inspectors to Iraq, he told CNNís Wolf Blitzer: ìAfter 12 years
>of brutalization with sanctions and bombing theyíd like to be a country
>again. Theyíd like to have sovereignty again. Theyíd like to be left
>alone.î
>
>It is not redbaiting to note the WWPís not-too-hidden hand in the
>nascent anti-war movement. It explains the tone and message of
>Saturdayís rally. Take the question of inspections. According to Workers
>World, at a party conference in September, Sara Flounders, a WWP
>activist, reported war opponents were using the slogan ìinspections, not
>war.î Flounders, the paper says, ìpointed out that ëinspections ARE warí
>in another form,î and that she had ìprepared party activists to struggle
>within the movement on this question.î Translation: The WWP would do
>whatever it could to smother the ìinspections, not warî cry.
>Inspections-before-invasion is an effective argument against the dash to
>war. But it conflicts with WWP support for opponents of U.S.
>imperialism. At the Washington event, the WWP succeeded in blocking out
>that line ó while promoting anti-war messages more simpatico with its
>dogma.
>
>WWP shaped the demonstrationís content by loading the speakersí list
>with its own people. None, though, were identified as belonging to the
>WWP. Larry Holmes, who emceed much of the rally from a stage dominated
>by ANSWER posters, was introduced as a representative of the ANSWER
>Steering Committee and the International Action Center. The audience was
>not told that he is also a member of the secretariat of the Workers
>World Party. When Leslie Feinberg spoke and accused Bush of concocting a
>war to cover up ìthe capitalist economic crisis,î she informed the crowd
>that she is ìa Jewish revolutionaryî dedicated to the ìfight against
>Zionism.î When I asked her what groups she worked with, she replied that
>she was a ìlesbian-gay-bi-transgender movement activist.î Yet a May
>issue of Workers World describes Feinberg as a ìlesbian and
>transgendered communist and a managing editor of Workers World.î The
>WWPís Sara Flounders, who urged the crowd to resist ìcolonial
>subjugation,î was presented as an IAC rep. Shortly after she spoke,
>Holmes introduced one of the eventís big-name speakers: Ramsey Clark. He
>declared that the Bush administration aims to ìend the idea of
>individual freedom.î
>
>Most of the protesters, I assume, were oblivious to the WWPís role in
>the event. They merely wanted to gather with other foes of the war and
>express their collective opposition. They waved signs (ìWe need an Axis
>of Sanity,î ìDraft Perle,î ìCollateral Damage = Civilian Deaths,î ìFuck
>Bushî). They cheered on rappers who sang, ìNo blood for oil.î They
>laughed when Medea Benjamin, the head of Global Exchange, said, ìWe need
>to stop the testosterone-poisoning of our globe.î They filled red ANSWER
>donation buckets with coins and bills. But how might they have reacted
>if Holmes and his comrades had asked them to stand with Saddam,
>Milosevic and Kim? Or to oppose further inspections in Iraq?
>
>One man in the crowd was wise to the behind-the-scenes politics. When
>Brian Becker, a WWP member introduced (of course) as an ANSWER activist,
>hit the stage, Paul Donahue, a middle-aged fellow who works with the
>Thomas Merton Peace and Social Justice Center in Pittsburgh, shouted,
>ìStalinist!î Donahue and his colleagues at the Merton Center, upset that
>WWP activists were in charge of this demonstration, had debated whether
>to attend. ìSome of us tried to convince others to come,î Donahue
>recalled. ìWe figured we could dilute the [WWP] part of the message. But
>in the end most didnít come. People were saying, ëTheyíre Maoists.í But
>theyíre the only game in town, and Iíve got to admit theyíre good
>organizers. They remembered everything but the Porta-Johns.î Rock singer
>Patti Smith, though, was not troubled by the organizers. ìMy main
>concern now is the anti-war movement,î she said before playing for the
>crowd. ìIím for a nonpartisan, globalist movement. I donít care who it
>is as long as they feel the same.î
>
>The WWP does have the shock troops and talent needed to construct a
>quasi mass demonstration. But the bodies have to come from elsewhere. So
>WWPers create fronts and trim their message, and anti-war Americans, who
>presumably donít share WWP sentiments, have an opportunity to assemble
>and register their stand against the war. At the same time, WWP
>activists, hiding their true colors, gain a forum where thousands of
>people listen to their exhortations. Is this a good deal ó or a
>dangerous one? Whoís using whom?
>
>ìOrganizing against the silence is important,î Bob Borosage, executive
>director of Campaign for Americaís Future, a leading progressive policy
>shop in Washington, said backstage at the rally: ìThis [rally] is easy
>to dismiss as the radical fringe, but it holds the potential for a
>larger movement down the road.î Borosage did add that the WWP ìputs a
>slant on the speakers and that limits the appeal to others. But history
>shows that protests are organized first by militant, radical fringe
>parties and then get taken over by more centrist voices as the movement
>grows. They provide a vessel for people who want to protest.î
>
>Thatís the vessel-half-filled view. The other argument is that WWPís
>involvement will prevent the anti-war movement from growing. Sure, the
>commies can rent buses and obtain parade permits, but if they have a say
>in the message, as they have had, the anti-war movement is going to have
>a tough time signing up non-lefties. When the organizers tried and
>failed to play a recorded message from Al-Amin, Lorena Stackpole, a
>20-year-old New York University student, said, ìThis is not what I came
>for.î And an organizer for a non-revolutionary peace group that
>participated in the event remarked, ìThe rhetoric here is not useful if
>we want to expand.î After all, how does urging the release of Cubans
>accused of committing espionage in the United States ó a pet project of
>the WWP ó help draw more people into the anti-war movement? (In a
>similar reds-take-control situation, the ìNot in My Nameî campaign ó
>which pushes an anti-war statement signed by scores of prominent and
>celebrity lefties, including Jane Fonda, Martin Luther King III, Marisa
>Tomei, Kurt Vonnegut and Oliver Stone ó has been directed, in part, by
>C. Clark Kissinger, a longtime Maoist activist and member of the
>Revolutionary Communist Party.)
>
>Letís be real: A Washington demonstration involving tens of thousands of
>people will not yield much political impact ó especially when held while
>Congress is out of town and the relevant legislation has already been
>rubber-stamped. (The organizers claimed 200,000 showed, but that seemed
>a pumped-up guesstimate, perhaps three or four times the real number.)
>The anti-war movement wonít have a chance of applying pressure on the
>political system unless it becomes much larger and able to squeeze
>elected officials at home and in Washington.
>
>To reach that stage, the new peace movement will need the involvement of
>labor unions and churches. Thatís where the troops are ó in the pews, in
>the union halls. How probable is it, though, that mainstream churches
>and unions will join a coalition led by the we-love-North-Korea set?
>Moreover, is it appropriate for groups and churches that care about
>human rights and worker rights abroad and at home to make common cause
>with those who champion socialist tyrants?
>
>At the rally, speaker after speaker declared, ìWe are the real
>Americans.î But most ìreal Americansî do not see a direct connection
>between Mumia, the Cuban Five and the war against Iraq. Jackson, for
>one, exclaimed, ìThis time the silent majority is on our side.î If the
>goal is to bring the silent majority into the anti-war movement, itís
>not going to be achieved by people carrying pictures of Kim Jong-Il ó
>even if they keep them hidden in their wallets.
>
>As yet another WWP-in-disguise speaker addressed the crowd, Steve
>Cobble, a progressive political consultant, gazed out at the swarm of
>protesters and observed, ìPeople are looking for something to do.î Good
>for them. But they ought to also look at the leaders they are following
>and wonder if those individuals will guide them toward a broader, more
>effective movement or toward the fringe irrelevance the WWPers know so
>well.
>
>Jonathan H. Miller contributed to this report.
>
>http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/50/news-corn.php
-- Marta Russell Los Angeles, CA http://www.disweb.org