That's a pretty good essay by Raimondo. I agree with him that leftists are too narrowly focused on the oil thing. This is also about U.S. hegemony, imperialism, domestic politics, and George W.'s interest in settling his father's old political scores.
I also read Gitlin's essay, which was all over the place as usual. I think he
is being maive about the WWP's influence on ANSWER and the extent to which they will play dirty politics. He also mentions ANSWER's actions following 9/11. A big misnomer is that ANSWER was able to put together anti-war protests after 9/11, when everybody else was sitting on their hands. In reality, the IAC had been playing a sectarian game prior to 9/11 with the Mobilization for Global Justice and the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, which had been organizing protests for late September which the police were estimating would be in the tens of thousands. The size of ANSWER's first protest here, and the stage they got in the media, was due in large part to the organizing work that the MGJ and ACC did for the anti-globalization protests, which were then disrupted by 9/11.
I hope Gitlin gets this straight if he writes any history about this period in the future.
Chuck0
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