At 10:20 AM -0500 11/5/02, Chuck0 wrote:
>Some carpings about WW/IAC/ANSWER deserve to get dismissed. It is
>not surprising that folks just ignore complaints from loose cannons
>-- those without any organization behind them -- who can't actually
>turn out a sizable number of activists to *any* action, not just to
>WW/IAC/ANSWER actions. Why? Because their opinions only affect
>their own actions, not even their friends' and families'.
>There *are* serious criticisms of WW/IAC/ANSWER, but those tend to
>come from "hard core lefties" of one kind or another, be they from
>ZNet or Marxmail.
Ridiculous-- the "hard core lefties" don't fit the bringing out large numbers category. Unions and the mass membership groups do, when they choose -- see the Solidarity Day, Millenium March, and Webster abortion marches for the scale they can do when they choose. Most of the time they don't, because they are skeptical of big rallies except at dramatic moments.
But even subsets of those groups, local affiliates and so on, are reluctant to even promote rallies by other groups when they think their members will be lectured to by Stalinists from the podium.
>NION,
>etc. -- were all smaller than Oct. 26; Mobe on Sept. 25-6 was a
>disappointment.
Not in New York- NION was 25,000 people, far larger than anything IAC/WWP has organized in the city. Oct 26th was large because it became a national date and because a lot of folks decided, because of the urgency of the war, to go with that date rather than set up competing actions. But if that goodwill is going to be used as an argument for general support for the IAC, that's all the reason not to ever support their rallies.