>http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/50/news-corn.php
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>
>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