At 12:24 AM -0500 1/14/03, Nathan Newman wrote:
>But the undemocratic coalition style of organization means that speakers
are
>parcelled out as prizes for short boring stints; the interests of the
>organizers for the spoils of media attention win out over the interests of
>the audience (or making the rallies attractive).
-Still beats the Democratic Party Convention, IMHO.
Yeah, I know, elections are so undemocratic and bureaucratic. Far better to dispense with them in favor of self-appointed representatives of the revolution.
It is precisely this disdain for actually representing anyone that allows many commentators to refer self-appointed spokepeople at rallies. The whole "coalition" tradition is all about paper groups with no membership pretending they should be listened to as seriously as mass organizations with millions of members. In a media age, a lot of television and newspaper spokesmen fall for it or encourage it, precisely because they can then pretend that the idiotic statements by such spokepeople without constituency is representative of lots of folks. They can then marginalize the voices of people who actually might have been elected by a large number of people, whether union leaders, civil rights leaders or a range of other civic groups.
Frankly, the Democratic Convention has far more authentic progressive leaders gathered than any rally organized by the WWP.
At 12:24 AM -0500 1/14/03, Nathan Newman wrote:
>Some feel the style as much as the statements are alien-- just so obviously
>disconnected from how their friends talk about politics
-Now that there are four other anti-war coalitions or more (NION, -United for Peace, Win Without War, Racial Justice 9-11, etc.), your -friends must fit into at least one of the coalitions. If they don't -fit in anywhere, they might start their own.
Sure- the UFP and WWW coalitions are a positive change but it's over a year after the sectarians destroyed the first major coalition in New York City (and no doubt other places), leaving a lot of folks pretty embittered and alienated. We'll see what comes of it now.
And the average person can't really distinguish between the groups-- they just have their experience of being told in the past that some rally was happening, only to be harangued by sectarians from a stage. They pretty much boycott most of them after that.
-- Nathan Newman