> Why is everyone bloviating about "right to speak"?
> There is no such right. Nobody has claimed it.
Of course a 'right to speak' has been claimed on Lerner's behalf. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading all this stuff about 'censoring', 'banning', and so on. Lerner did not write in the Tikkun newsletter that he was "not invited", he wrote that he was "BANNED." About six billion other people were also banned in the same way.
> What's at issue is elementary political intelligence.
> This was the first big chance for a non-ANSWER rally.
> I thought it was mainly a UFP&J affair. If ANSWER
> wants to endorse fine. But the point of a separate
> coalition is separate politics. It is reasonable to
> ask speakers not to dwell on the shortcomings of
> coalition members. It is stupid for UFP to indulge
> ANSWER.
OK, then let's talk about this 'real issue' rather than about the fake issues that Corn and Berubé are raising. Corn's article is entitled "let the rabbi speak!" It really should be titled, "LET THE MOVEMENT DIVIDE." You are arguing that, instead of a united demonstration on February 15, involving all sectors of the movement, UFPJ should have gone ahead with its own parochial affair. You are apparently arguing that we should go back to the two-demonstration scenario of 1991. Really, this is what the issue is.
Berubé is NOT primarily a person who is in favor of a balanced approach at rallies. He is primarily a person who believes that ANSWER should have been strangled at birth, and now that it is too big to strangle a cordon sanitaire should be build between ANSWER and some safe, "ANSWERfrei" portion of the left. Writing in a "symposium" on David Horowitz's frankly inimical frontpagemag.org site, he agrees with Horowitz that Lerner is a fool to encourage people to attend rallies along with ANSWER.
I very clearly remember that when the two-coalition, two-rally scenario materialized in January of 1991, each side at least had the sense to realize that it was a bad situation and, when it came up in discussion, argued that it was the other side's fault. I don't want to go into the details of how it really happened, but my point is that nobody on the side we were in said "This is great, we have a separate rally" and nobody in the anti-Saddam, friendly-to-sanctions side said that EITHER. But today we see that some people look back on the 1991 scenario as halcyon days, and moves toward unity are denounced as bad things.
For example, ANSWER had called for a DC action on April 27, 2002. "United we March" then called for an action on April 20. This would have explicitly re-enacted the 1991 scenario: two demonstrations a week apart! But in fact ANSWER then rescheduled its own action in midstream to April 20 to avoid that situation, and discussions were begun which eventually resulted in a coordinated activity. Every ordinary person in the left reads this and says, "Well, maybe these people have learned something in 11 years!" But this is anathema to people like Munson and Berubé, who would PREFER division to unity. Munson argues that when ANSWER reschedules its event so as to avoid the two-demonstrations-on-two-dates scenario, this is an evil trick!! "Stay on your own Saturday!"
This current flap is a wedge to bust up any future alliances, tactical unity, etc., between ANSWER and UFPJ. On the one hand, ANSWER is pilloried by Lerner as anti-Semitic. On the other hand, UFPJ and Cagan are pilloried as unprincipled sell-outs. And yet the people who are doing this are so far as I know incapable and uninterested of organizing any anti-war coalition of their own. Cagan is a coalition leader. Doesn't Cagan have "elementary political intelligence"? What coalitions has Berubé led? I know that Berubé is willing to work with David Horowitz to put on a "symposium", but what else can he do?
> Lerner's voice, as much as it grates on radicals, is
> exactly the sort of moderate, booshwah message you want
> to include in this sort of rally.
> The point is to sway
> those on the fence, and lend confidence to those who are not
> dyed in the wool radicals or peaceniks.
Max, Lerner should go all over the country speaking at teach-ins and town meetings and on call-in shows and in his frequent newspaper interviews "swaying those on the fence". In case you have missed this point, the people who will COME TO THE RALLY are NOT the ones on the fence.
> In this context, some alternative jew would be just
> an Uncle Tom. The test here is whether a two-state
> solution person is permitted to speak.
Really? The 4-coalition statement says that two other rabbis with positions similar to Lerner's are speaking. So that isn't really the issue at all - IS IT? Lerner doesn't think it's the issue. He thinks the issue is whether his campaign against ANSWER as "anti-Semitic" is going to mean that he won't be able to speak at a rally organized by a bloc of four coalitions including ANSWER. Berubé doesn't think it's the issue. He thinks the issue is that "a good split is better than a bad bloc," and a split between ANSWER and UFPJ, on the eve of war, would be a good split.
> The point is to stop the war, not aggrandize ANSWER.
The point is to stop the war, not split the movement.
Lou