From: "Nathan Newman" <nathanne at nathannewman.org>
- ----- Original Message -----
From: BrownBingb at aol.com
>CB: Your whole "WWP equals North Korea" is classic redbaiting and
>divisive of the organizing. The WWP's positions on North Korea are
>not pertinent to this anti-war effort.
Just the statement that North Korea has nothing to do with current discussion of Iraq is a political position, given that many who criticize the war on Iraq note the hypocrisy in ignoring the real nuclear threat from Stalinist North Korea.
CB: The nuclear threat is from Fascist America, not Stalinist North Korea. So, not only are you redbaiting North Korea, but in a classic liberal whacked out political approach of supporting or justifying imperialist aggression. Didn't you see the post which Doug sent that says that the U.S. has 10,000 nuclear warheads ? N. Korea has one nuclear warhead in embryo or something. Don't you know that it is the U.S. that carried out a war of aggression against Korea, not vica versa ? History suggests that the U.S. is nuclear threat to N. Korea, not the other way around.
Those who argue that it is irrelevent whether the WWP are defenders of Saddam Hussein's regime and defenders of North Korea's government are ignoring reality. The war on Iraq is not isolated from other issues. The WWP and ANSWER connects them to broader issues all the time. But when others connect it to North Korea and note the WWP's horrendous politics around that country, suddenly the only issue is Iraq.
CB: you are the one with horrendous politics. But WWP's position on N. Korea is not a reason not to support their efforts to stop the U.S. from attacking Iraq. And it is sabotage of the anti-war work through use of a non-sequitur to attack the WWP and ANSWER participation in the anti-war effort with nonsensical images like " I was stabbed in the back with a knife made in N. Korea"
As some people have noted, back during Vietnam, there were those who tried to build a broad-based but narrow movement around opposition to the Vietnam War, excluding almost every other issue possible to maximize unity.
But that's not the WWP's strategy. They connect Afghanistan, Iraq, anti-racism in the US, the Palestinian cause, Mumia and every cause they care about into one package. Having done so, they can't then say-- our critics are talking about something other than Iraq. Our critics are being divisive.
CB: You can talk about N. Korea - say U.S. hands off N. Korea, U.S. out of Korea ,where they have been for fifty years. But to imply that because WWP opposes U.S. aggression against N. Korea, that they are therefore stabbing you in the back in the way they help organize the effort to stop the attacks on Iraq, like a North Korean or whatever, is doing the work of wrecking the peace movement on behalf of the imperialists. And it is in the form of redbaiting in the classic sense of that as something that should be criticized intra-movement.
It's all ridiculous rhetoric. It evades the reality of the WWP's horrendous support for Chinese fascism and North Korean, well I'm not sure what to call it since Stalinism would be a compliment to that regime.
CB: You are the one with ridiculous and exaggerated rhetoric. And you are using it to undermine the anti-war movement, in the service of a capitalist country that _is_ making moves toward fascism.
What is telling about your statement below is that you put "reds" in quotation marks. The "reds" that are acceptable to you are not quite really reds to you. They're just a basis for you to coverup your redbaiting of reds.
It's not "redbaiting", since both Chuck and I support coalitions like United for Peace and Justice that are loaded with "reds" in their leadership. It's like the defenders of Estrada saying that those attacking him are "racist." It demeans the term.
- -- Nathan newman
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