The Lerner Affair

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 7:15 AM -0500 2/14/03, Nathan Newman wrote:
>  >Lerner shouldn't get his _three_ minutes _unless_ he takes back his
>>charge of anti-Semitism _publicly_.
>
>Which illustrates Lerners point.  Other groups can routinely charge mass
>movement leaders with being racists, sexists, homophobes and so on, and they
>are not forced to publicly recant their charges in order to participate or
>speak at events.

There is no precedent of a public figure accusing an anti-war 
coalition of coalitions of racism, sexism, homophobia, or whatever 
publicly _in the manner that Lerner did_ -- including organizing a 
protest and publishing a WSJ op-ed against it -- _on the eve_ of an 
important anti-war protest who then gets invited by the coalition of 
coalitions to speak for 15 minutes, longer than any other speaker.

At 7:15 AM -0500 2/14/03, Nathan Newman wrote:
>But if the charge is antisemitism, then its considered a crank charge that
>reflects badly only on the speaker.  They can't maintain their view of the
>situation, even if possibily erroneous, and must apologize.

Not all charges of anti-Semitism are crank charges, but Lerner's is.
-- 
Yoshie

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