Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> At 8:21 PM -0500 11/19/02, Liza Featherstone wrote:
> >we're also
> >getting a lot of criticism from people who genuinely share our hatred of
> >capitalism. But their organizations are not structured to encourage that
> >kind of thinking.
One of the silly features of the Corn - Cooper etc red-baiting is their total failure to realize that the groups who are so central to these mass mobilizations (CPUSA / SWP in the '60s) _never_bring an anti-capitalist edge to them. If they did, they wouldn't be so successful in their mobilizations. Incidentally,
(1) _no one_ in the local anti-war group is particularly anti-capitalist (2) I have periodically warned them that the groups doing the mass mobilizations are communist sects (3) They really don't give a shit as long as the mobilizations occur.
Max Sawicki can see this clearly enough; I don't see why the "soft" red-baiters on this list (soft in contrast to Corn's hard & mean red-baiting)can't see it.
Let me give a bit of history: When SDS was "taken" over by PLP (WSA) in the '69 it was _not_ PLP votes that won it, it was the votes of _non_socialist_, _non-anti-capitalist SDS chapters that did the trick.
In other words, Lisa, if you keep up on this tack, it will be _liberals_, not _reds_, who will be turning against you. Through their eyes it won't be the WWP that is sectarian but the _critics_ of WWP. Perhaps that is terribly unjust -- but that, as the saying went back in the '40s, is the way the cookie crumbles.
(Note, I've only read a handful of the posts since Monday night since I had catatract surgery in my left eye Tuesday, & I can't really see what I'm typing now, so please 3excuse any typos. (I can't really see much with my right eye because sometime or other in the last two years there was a hemmorage in it. I'll find out in three or four weeks whether catarack removal will help that eye enough so I can read with it.
Carrol
> I dare say, however, that there is lack of self-examination among
> most critics of WW/IAC/ANSWER, not just Corns and Coopers, but also
> those who "genuinely share our hatred of capitalism." For instance,
> it is "they" and "their organizations," rather than "we" and "our
> organizations," that you are criticizing above, no? If we are really
> interested in overtaking and surpassing the mobilization capacity of
> WW/IAC/ANSWER, though, the question to be asked concerns not what
> "they" lack but _what "we" lack but "they" possess_:
>
> (1) Contact information about committed anti-imperialist organizers
> in possession of useful phone trees/mailing lists who are scattered
> nationwide, who don't necessarily belong to "our organizations," but
> who are nonetheless ready to work their assess off getting buses and
> caravans of activists to major demonstrations that "our
> organizations" call, putting down their own money, rather than us
> paying them.
>
> (2) Skills to collect further contact information of more organizers
> and activists at each new demonstration.
>
> (3) Capacity to plan ahead, so as to be able to announce the next
> action at each demonstration.
> --
> Yoshie
>
> * Calendar of Events in Columbus:
> <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>