Basically, a lot of people have been lied to and fooled and successively used here - first by Lerner, then by the right wing of the anti-war movement, then the right wing -tout court-, and ultimately the bourgeoisie itself.
They say that 'a lie runs around the world seven times while truth is putting on its boots'. I hope that truth can get its boots on quickly here.
[1] An agreement was made among the four groups in the leadership of the rally. I don't know the exact terms of the agreement or when it was arrived at. Let me just point out one thing to some of the people like Featherstone who are wary of the restriction of 'criticism'. Lots of people are writing as if there were an agreement which would be used to bar anyone who had ever disagreed in public with NION, UFPJ, ANSWER, or BACAW. But that's NOT what the 'joint statement' says. The 'joint statement' says that people would not speak "who had publicly attacked or worked to discredit one of the coalition groups." To me there is quite a difference between "criticism" on the one hand and "public attacks" and "working to discredit" on the other hand. It seems clear to me that this is NOT directed against people who disagree with you about politics in an ordinary way. It is much more likely to be directed against people who try to split up the movement, pit one coalition against the other, in the pages of the bourgeois media, smear other coalitions as 'anti-semitic', and so on.
[2] I infer that it was decided that the 4 coalitions would develop lists of nominees, and then discuss these nominees at a joint meeting of all four groups.
[3] There was a meeting OF UFPJ, not of the whole coalition, to discuss who they would nominate. Here I refer to this article in the San Francisco Observer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/02/12/MN196344.DTL
This meeting decided not to ask Lerner! Nowhere do I see any evidence that UFPJ felt bullied or buffaloed or terrorized by ANSWER during this meeting. They might have tried to negotiate the point if they really wanted him, but they didn't. Why not? I can think of several reasons:
(a) Maybe they know him better at close range than some other people at a distance. At least two people who write on lbo-talk who have actually dealt with him say that he's 'insufferable' or words to that effect.
(b) Maybe they were pissed off at Lerner for the divisive stuff he had done in the past, for example in the New York Times article where he essentially was being used as a wedge to try to pit UFPJ against ANSWER. If in fact UFPJ in the Bay Area is non-sectarian and wants to have a decent relationship with other forces, it makes sense that they would not want to put someone in front of the public who was publicly identified with division and negativity. (If this was their thinking, then it seems clear in retrospect that they were using good judgment!)
(c) Maybe some of the other Jewish forces in the room did not think that Lerner was the guy they wanted to have represent them. Corn says that Lerner is "THE progressive Jew". Well, maybe some other people don't think he IS "THE" progressive Jew. Here is what Dick Reilly, an independent Palestine solidarity activist in Chicago wrote:
"As for Lerner, it's truly sad that Mike, desperate for his three minutes of fame on the big stage, would pull a stunt like this. Arrogance doesn't begin to cover this. He's lost any credibility with me..and I've know the guy for years. It also may have just a bit to do with Lerner and Tikkun taking considerable flak from younger, progressive anti-Zionist Jewish activists, many who have just returned from a stint inside the Occupied territories with the International Solidarity Movement, who are just a little miffed by his inability to recognize apartheid when he sees it."
This is Liat Weingart of A Jewish Voice for Peace, which is a constituent organization of United for Peace and Justice:
"Marisa Handler, a representative from Tikkun, was present at the meeting of United for Peace where it was decided that Michael would not speak. She was asked three times if she was comfortable having someone else speak, and she said that she was, again and again."
In any case, UFPJ did NOT nominate Lerner.
[4] There was a joint coalition meeting in which ANSWER participated. Lerner's name did not come up. From the SF Observer article above: "International Answer spokesman Bill Hackwell said his organization has been unfairly accused of blackballing Lerner, saying that the rabbi's name was never brought up for a vote before the whole coalition. If it were, Hackwell said, his organization would probably vote against it, but would allow Lerner to speak if the other groups voted for him."
So ANSWER had not one thing to do with the whole business.
As far as the question of people with Lerner's views speaking at the demonstration is concerned, JVP writes:
"At the upcoming demonstration, Mitchell Plitnick, Director of Administration and Communication for A Jewish Voice for Peace, will speak, along with Israeli refusenik Ofer Shorr, Kate Raphael from San Francisco Women in Black. In addition, three rabbis with views similar to Rabbi Lerner's will speak at the February 16th demonstration, Rabbi Steven Pierce, Rabbi Pam Frydman-Baugh, and Rabbi David Cooper."
[5] A week went by, and then Lerner launched a campaign declaring that he was 'blackballed by ANSWER'. He published this in the Tikkun mailings which are distributed all over the country. Here is the tale uncritically repeated on a website in Traverse City, Michigan!
http://www.wearetraversecity.com/resources/jewish/index.htm
Weingart writes,
"A week passed after this meeting, without incident, and then Michael decided to send a press release, stating that he was banned because of his views. This is patently false and has been tremendously destructive. We have been overloaded with trying to right this wrong, and it has distracted us from our work of organizing for this Sunday's demonstration. I urge you to please set the record straight."
[6] On February 10, David Corn of The Nation, who also works for Fox News, posted an article on their website entitled "The Banning of Rabbi Lerner: How revolutionary socialists were able to censor the antiwar message of a prominent progressive."
In this story, which is based entirely on Lerner's own account, plus Corn's own previous writing on ANSWER, Corn stated: "So it was natural that [Lerner's] name was floated as a speaker for the protest. [...]But International ANSWER, another of the organizers, said no. Lerner's crime: he had dared to criticize ANSWER, an outfit run by members of the Workers World Party, for using antiwar demonstrations to put forward what he considers to be anti-Israel propaganda. That ANSWER objected to Lerner is not surprising. The WWPers in control of ANSWER are socialists who call for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism" and so on in this vein, concluding "But Lerner was not the source of the problem; ANSWER was. This distracting episode shows what can happen when sincere do-gooders enter into deals with the ANSWER gang."
In his preparation for the story, Corn did not talk with any UFPJ source. He says Andrea Buffa didn't return his call. He apparently did not bother to learn anything about the actual process. He simply repeated, with elaborations, the false charge that ANSWER had "banned" Lerner.
[7] Around that time a petition began to circulate on the internet, apparently initiated, so far as I can tell, by Marc Cooper and Michael Berubé, who have written anti-ANSWER articles in the past. On February 11 this petition was posted on the www.commondreams.org site. Cooper and Berubé have written attacks on ANSWER in the past. This petition reads in part:
We, the undersigned, protest ANSWER's refusal to let Rabbi Lerner speak at this Sunday's rally. At a time when the antiwar movement needs as broad a platform and as broad an appeal as possible, ANSWER has chosen instead to put the interests of sectarianism ahead of the interests of all those who oppose this foolish and unnecessary war. We believe this is a serious mistake, and that it exemplifies ANSWER's unfitness to lead mass mobilizations against war in Iraq.
Marc Cooper is a contributing editor of The Nation. David Corn is the Washington editor of the Nation. Furthermore, after David Corn published an article in the LA Weekly in November, attacking ANSWER, Cooper published another article in the LA Weekly taking the same position. He writes of "Our [his and Corn's] invitation to think of ways to broaden the peace-movement leadership".
I believe it is not coincidental that Corn's article and Cooper's petition appeared simultaneously. This was a concerted campaign by these two Nation writer/editors to use their positions of influence to spread lies about ANSWER and portray it as "unfit to lead mass mobilizations."
Cooper's first collaborator was Michael Berubé, an academic who wrote a slanderous article attacking ANSWER and NION in the Chronicle of Higher Education back in November. Thus, both of the circulators had a pre-
[8] Almost instantaneously - also on February 11 - the Cooper/Berubé petition and the Tikkun article were publicized on the frontpagemag.org site of raving anticommunist David Horowitz, here, under the heading "Peace Demonstration Bares its Anti-Semitic Teeth, by The Nation and Tikkun Magazines."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=6109
How did this information get to Horowitz so immediately? Because Berubé probably publicized the petition to Horowitz directly. Berubé is not only on cordial terms with Horowitz, he is a contributor to Horowitz's site, where Horowitz uses him as a left foil. Here for example Berubé participates in a 'Frontpage Symposium' with Horowitz.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6007
A Yahoo search for "Michael Berube" within the frontpagemag.org site will find a list of Berubé's other contributions.
[9] This groundwork having been laid, on February 12 the 'scandal' was broken in the mainstream media, in the SF Observer article cited above.
So we can see how in the age of the Internet the lie really does run around the world seven times in the space of a couple days, getting used by worse and worse people. First, by Lerner furthering his own agenda; then by Cooper and Corn, using the lie as a weapon to beat up ANSWER; then by the right-winger Horowitz, to smear the whole "Peace Demonstration" as "anti-semitic", and putting this smear in the mouth of "Tikkun" and "The Nation"; and finally, by the SF Observer to (falsely) claim that there is a "Rift" in the Peace Coalition.
I hope this little attempt at the truth circles equally fast.
Lou Paulsen Chicago