Indeed. I know Charlotte Kates from a now defunct listserv Marxism-International hosted by the Spoon Collective, where I first met Doug Henwood, Jim Farmelant, Carrol Cox, Michael Hoover, Michael Yates, Michael Perelman, Louis Proyect, Rakesh Bhandari, Zeynep Tufekcioglu (and Rahul Mahajan via Zeynep), Jon Flanders, Dennis Redmond, Chris Burford, Louis Godena, the late Jim Blaut, the late Mark Jones, etc. (Zeynep, Jon, & Lou G. were the moderators, I think). Justin Schwartz was on it, too. Some of us may not be here on LBO-talk (and/or Lou's Marxmail list), but for the Marxism-International days.
At the United for Peace and Justice conference in Chicago, I met
Rahul in person for the first time. When I introduced myself to him,
he said that he knew me, which initially puzzled me because I had
forgotten about Marxism-International. Then I remembered it all.
:-0 :->
I wish I had been able to attend the Al-Awda International Convention in Toronto, where Charlotte was one of the speakers: <http://www.al-awda.ca/loader.php?page=convention>.
Anyway, what's significant is that Charlotte and New Jersey Solidarity appear to be winning (the banner was not taken down despite the Israel Action Committee's sit-in, the conference was not called off, a sympathetic article by Chris Hedges gets published in the _New York Times_, etc), while advancing maximum democratic demands, without making any concession to liberals and Zionists at all:
***** New York Times July 18, 2003 Law Student With a History of Taking Left Turns By CHRIS HEDGES
...As a law student at Rutgers University, and one of the leaders of New Jersey Solidarity, a pro-Palestinian student group, Ms. Kates has reserved space at Rutgers this October for the Third North American Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement. The gathering will draw hundreds of student activists from the United States and Canada, and they will converge on the New Brunswick campus, she said, to "organize against the Israeli occupation of Palestine."
The forum has attracted the attention of state politicians, including Gov. James E. McGreevey and John O. Bennett, the Republican leader in the State Senate.
Mr. Bennett sent a letter to the governor asking him to "prevent our prestigious and world-renowned university from hosting this abominable conference."
The governor met with the Rutgers president, Richard L. McCormick, yesterday to discuss the conference, among other things. According to the governor's office, Mr. McGreevey left the meeting supporting Dr. McCormick's decision to let the conference take place.
Ms. Kates also stirred up the campus in March when her organization reserved banner space for two weeks at the Douglass College Center. The banner read: "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free."
"It was a call for all land between the Jordanian River and the Mediterranean to be returned to the Palestinians," she said.
Such a call also meant Israel would be wiped off the map. The Israel Action Committee of Rutgers organized a sit-in at the center demanding that the banner be removed. It was not.
New Jersey Solidarity takes a hard line in its support of the Palestinians. Ms. Kates will not, for instance, condemn suicide bombings, saying "it is not our place in the United States to dictate the tactics Palestinian groups use in the liberation struggle."...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/nyregion/18PROF.html> *****
Charlotte is only 23, but she, together with her fellow Rutgers/New Brunswick organizers, has accomplished a great deal (including getting 28% of the vote for the radical slate for City Council) _without_ closeting her Communist perspective. That's quite impressive. -- Yoshie
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>