recent Lerner Broohaha

[Chuck0]

Stephen E Philion wrote:
> I must be missing something with all this rhetoric about 'right to
> speak'. What if IAC found a rabbi who spoke to the Israeli-palestinian
> issue from a perspective that did not agree with Lerner's. Would not
> having Lerner on stage to speak then also be considered 'taking away
> his right to speak'?
> I've organized rallies before, the people I worked with on the rally
> never entertained having people speak who might take the opportunity to
> criticise those of us who had done the bulk of the organising, I'm not
> really clear what the big deal is with Lerner's not being given a
> podium to speak. Who next? Todd Gitlin? Leo Casey? What if Norman
> Finkelstein or Lenni Brenner or Adam Shapiro were invited to speak, 
> would Lerner still be denied his 'right to speak'?
> 
> The rhetoric of 'right to speak' is really odd given that Lerner will
> be interviewed by the mainstream media, which will give him numerous
> platforms to criticise the anti-war march organisers, he will get to be
> on shows like the Oreilly Factor if he so wishes, write editorials in
> the NYT trashing the anti-war mov't organisers a la Todd Gitlin, etc.
> If I were one of the organisers anticipating the sure to come trashing
> of the organisers before and after the protest, I'd wanna be sure that
> the people on the podium weren't about to trash us. I try to imagine a
> rally sponsored by Lerner that would invite persons like Finkelstein or
> Chomsky...somehow I can't quite fathom it. I'm utterly bemused by the
> uproar being made in this instance.
> Steve

Perhaps the uproar is a subsitute for something that isn't being said or done.

If radical leftists don't want Corn and Gitlin speaking for them, then why 
aren't you all speaking up about your problems with ANSWER?

Chuck0
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