As a leader in the National Lawyers Guild, I've gotten emails from midWest activists saying how they are getting hit by other folks for the Guild's association with the WWP and ANSWER. Corn is just the tip of the iceberg of other peoples' disaffection from the movement. Some of them know about the WWP and others just are alienated because of the rhetoric and style that is the product of their involvement.
But it's far easier to trash Corn and Gitlin then deal with the problem. I've been trashed in the same language at times within the Guild for making my private criticism of our involvement, so I actually don't take the idea that the only problem people have with Corn is that he is making his criticism public. A lot of the folks on the Left have their heads in the sand and think they can ally with supporters of Serbian butchers and Chinese fascists (and that sure as hell is what the Chinese government is after the most recent Party Congress) and not have it effect the moral weight of their movement.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck0" <chuck at mutualaid.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 12:51 PM Subject: Re: Corn transcript
Doug: I have alot of problems with Dvaid Corn's views and I have some big problems with him going on O'Reilly--which serves the interests of the right--but I have to say that this was bound to happen to a movement that silences critics and operates on the idea of "let's all go alonng in the interest of unity." If the anti-war movement refuses to look critically at who our would-be leaders are, then we are going to get painted by a broad brush wielded by our critics.
In a small sense, I feel somewhat vindicated by this mess. I have been an outspoken critic of ANSWER since Day 1 of their existence, mainly because we had negative experiences with IAC organizers in the lead up to last year's [cancelled] World Bank protests. I also have criticized ANSWER based on their practice as activists and on their politics. I remember too well their "anti-war" protest of June 1999. And some of us remember the WWP's shenanigans during Gulf War 1.
Had the American anti-war movement listened more closely to the critics of ANSWER, instead of berating them about "red-baiting" and the need to "have unity," we wouldn't be in this pickle today where right wing talk show hosts are painting the movement in red colors of communism. I'm sure that O'Reilly would have engaged in anti-communist rhetoric if ANSWER wasn't involved, but when we sit back and allow a questionable organization like the WWP to lead the movement, we are kind of leaving ourselves wide open for these sucker punches.
It's easy to berate Corn, Cooper, and Hitchens for the way in which they have framed their criticism of ANSWER. But I have to ask where the other leftist writers have been with a more constructive public criticism of ANSWER? The only person here who I know has engaged in this is Liza. There is widespread dissatisfaction in activist circles with ANSWER's vanguardism, so why aren't the writers for the Progressive, Z, In These Times, and other mags writing criticism about ANSWER? Why aren't our intellectuals and writers engaging in critical thinking about the anti-war movement? If we shrink from this needed public discussion then we will cede it to hacks like Hitchens who will frame it in a way that is harmful to all of us.
> CORN: Well, I may -- this may be hard for people to understand, but you
> don't need a lot of power, you don't need a lot of bodies to put on a
> march or a demonstration in Washington. You need several dozen people, a
> couple score maybe, who do the -- get the permits, get the buses, and
> devote their time and energy 20 hours a day to making this happen.
>
> It doesn't take a lot of people to do this, which is why they're able to
> sort of jump ahead of the more mainstream peace and religious
> organizations and get out in front and do this and get a response.
Corn is totally correct about this. It only takes a tight, small group of organized people to pull off one of these mass mobilizations. When your group eschews movement democracy in favor of centralized authoritarianism, it's even easier to put a mobiliation together. When Brian Becker is calling the shots, there is no need for the messy democracy of spokescouncil meetings.
And ANSWER was able to leap-frog ahead because they are opportunists of the most efficient kind. In September 2001, they capitalized on the buzz created by local anti-globalization organizations and stepped in to use their competing protest as a promotion vehicle to kick off their new front group, ANSWER. To hear ANSWER tell it, they were the only ones who organized peace protests that weekend in Washington. They like to ignore the fact that the Anti-Capitalist Convergence conducted a non-permitted march the same morning and that a true coalition of peace groups conducted an anti-war march the next day.
ANSWER is not the peace movement. ANSWER is not the answer.
Chuck0
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