> Is that what leaders do? But I'm not subscribing to
> Chucko's myth of spontaneous, leaderless cooperation
> by spoyless people of perfect virtue. The
> organizational effirts deserve accolades, even if the
> ideology of the people doing it is foolish or worse.
> Look at the RCP's excellent work around Mumia. Or
> indeed the CPUSA's long effort in the unions and the
> civil rights movemenr even before Montgomery. The CP
> didn't create the union movement in the 30s, no,
> capitalsim did that. But there would have been no CIO,
> UAW, UMW, etc. without the CP's organizing
> efforts--the efforts of apologists for the Stalin
> terror and the Soviet-Nazi Pact.
I don't advocate a spontanwous movement, but if that becomes the most effective way to oppose the war, then more power to it. What I favor as a strategy can't be reduced to crude cartoons of spontaneity.
The RCP has done excellent work around Mumia? Wait a minute, doesn't the WWP own Mumia activism? I'm getting confused, I thought the ISO owned Mumia activism.
Don't get me started on the Free Mumia movement, cause I can go on for thousands of words. I'll give props to the RCP for doing the good Mumia support work they do, but I will be the first one to scream at anybody who suggests that the RCP or WWP should get the buttload of credit for doing Mumia support work. I've was pretty involved in the Mumia movement from around 1995-1998 and left as IFFMAJ were desperately trying to make alliances with the sectarian groups as the grassroots Mumia movement collapsed. It was this grassroots movement, of course, which has saved Mumia's life in 1995. It was surprisingly non-sectarian and was organized by many autonomous groups and coalitions who sought to prevent the execution of Mumia.
As you all know, the legal process can drag out over many years, so after Mumia was saved from execution, the grassroots movement dwindled somwhat in size. There was an effort at that time to get the movement to go after broader issues of prisons and the death penalty, but somehow the decision was made by somebody to keep the movement narrowly focused on Mumia. I think this lack of broader vision is why the movement continued to lose activists until it got to the point where the sectarians could take over. The RCP and WWP fought over the IFFMAJ and the support work in the Northeast. After our group here in Washington was disowned by IFFMAJ, a new groups started, which was then destroyed by the ISO. After that, the Mumia movement basically died out in this city.
By the time the ill-named "Millions for Mumia March" happened in 1999, the big protests in Philadephia has become widely-derided as a sectarian flea market and newspaper sale.
And that's is a concise overview of my thoughts on the Mumia movement!
Chuck0
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"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)