Well, I would prefer that the movement have no leaders and no central groups, whether that be ANSWER, NION, United For Peace. I also do not want Lerner to be the High Lama of the anti-war movement. I predict, and I might be completely off, that that will happen. He's going to get pushed to the front now, because of this incident.
In my opinion, you can give in and let him speak, which he, Lerner, does not want you to do because he is getting a lot of mileage out of his victimhood, and he will continue to accumulate more OR you can stop his momentum right now by allowing him to speak. -------------------------------------------------------------- Personally , if Lerner wants to be "high Lama" of the antiwar movement, let him go ahead. But the second paragraph above is why that won't likely happen. Lerner wants "his own" movement, that he "controls", just like ANSWER. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Let him have a pyrrhic victory. That's the best thing the San Fran folks could do. ...
Letting him speak would cost nothing. Not letting him speak is going to cost a lot. If he's as big an opportunist as I am hearing from folks, this little coup of his will be the first step.
Right now, Lerner is licking his paws. If the organizers were smart, they'd call him up, invite him and announce it to the entire world. Ha, I would love to be a fly on the wall if you did that...He'd shit on himself.
But it would appear that the organizers are more worried about "losing face", if Lou's position is representative (which it may or may not be). --------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, but I'm not holding bated breath for a show of political brilliance from the so-called 'leaders' - as opposed to activists and organizers, which is all this 'leadership' really amounts to. It would be so easy to do so, since Lerner will persist in his infantile behavior no matter what anybody does. It might be 'giving in', but only to a child.
We are bigger, mature, and more gracious than that, aren't we? Well, aren't we?
-Brad Mayer
- -Thomas