Carol Seligman (Bay
Area United Against the War) Defends Exclusion of Lerner
Dear Leo Casey,
ANSWER is not the cause of Michael Lerner not being invited to speak on Feb.
16th in S.F. Four coalitions are co-sponsoring the demonstration here (Bay
Area United Against War, International A.N.S.W.E.R., Not in Our Name Project,
and United for Peace and Justice) and all four agreed at an early meeting of
our Liaison Committee that no speaker who has publically attacked any of the
four coalitions would be given a platform on Feb. 16th. We were all united on
that. We are unified in opposing the war on Iraq and that is the message we
want to present on Feb. 16th. Inviting someone to speak who has publically
attacked any of the sponsoring groups would not be helpful in building the
kind of unity in action necessary to stop this war.
Yours truly,
Carole Seligman
Bay Area United Against War
(one of the four co-sponsoring coalitions)
Leo Casey: It Is Wrong to
Exclude Lerner, "ANSWER is best possible tool for discrediting the entire
anti-war movement"
Dear Carole:
First, let me clear up what may be a minor misunderstanding. This petition was
not mine, although I did pass it on to a few people. I say so not to distance
myself from it; to the contrary, I gladly added my name to it. But I do think
that the author of this petition, Michael Berube, should receive proper credit
for putting together what is a very necessary statement on this matter.
International ANSWER/Workers World Party is not simply a deep, profound
embarassment to this anti-war movement; it is the best conceivable tool for
discrediting the entire anti-war movement. If I were a conservative hawk
sitting in my editorial room, I could not conceive of a better way of
besmirching the anti-war movement than to have at its very center, leading and
organizing demonstrations, an utterly bizarre authoritarian sect-cult,
Trotskyists morphed into Stalinists, which gleefully endorsed the shooting
down of pro-democracy Chinese students and workers at Tiananmen Square, which
sings the praises of the nepto-Stalinist regime of North Korea and which
supports the Iraqi regime. Now I would have the added benefit of other
anti-war organizations silencing those who criticized such reprehensible
politics.
In the name of unity, you say that not only must we accept this state of
affairs, but that we must silence those who criticize it. That is appalling.
No one has demanded for the Workers World Party to be excluded from
demonstrations; the call has been simply to place them in a position
proportionate to their numbers, which barely break into three digits.
If this anti-war movement fails, a not inconsiderable portion of the
responsibility for that failure will rest with those who were willing
accomplices in its hijacking by the Workers World Party.
Leo Casey
Ted Glick on ANSWER
and Washington demo and Leftist Parties
By Ted Glick
There’s been a fair amount of back-and-forth recently on several email lists
I’m on regarding Workers World Party. WWP is the group without which there
would be no International ANSWER, the coalition which organized the hugely
successful January 18th peace demonstrations in Washington, D.C. and San
Francisco, Ca.
Some people whom I respect have no use for WWP. On a conference call I was on
a couple of days ago, one such person described them, to paraphrase, as an
"ultra-left, sectarian, marginal group." Others are critical of them
for their unwillingness, going back many years, to be publicly critical of the
Soviet Union, China, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, North Korea, Hamas or just
about any country or Third World leader or movement in opposition to the
United States government.
Up until last year, I’ve had very few direct dealings with WWP since a
verynegative experience working with them in a coalition that organized a
major national demonstration in D.C. in the spring of 1981. I was not unhappy
that for over 20 years our paths rarely crossed, except for an occasional
"hi, how ya’ doing" contact at a meeting or a demonstration.
The interactions last year were in connection with the April 20thdemonstration
in Washington, D.C. There was a lot of "déja vu-ness" to the
experience, harkening back to the spring of 1981. Among the problems coming
from ANSWER:
- -publicly announcing to the world via email a "unity agrement"
between ANSWER and the coalition I was part of, the April 20th United We March
Mobilization (A20UWMM), when there wasn’t one, in no way at all, totally
short-circuiting and undercutting a process of discussion that was just
beginning;
- -disregarding a decision that was agreed to, once an overall unity agreement
was finally reached, that the youth/student groups from within both the
A20UWMM and ANSWER would head up a unified march down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Instead of ANSWER youth and students at the front of their side of the march,
Palestinians and Arabs were at the front. Most likely, since
there had been agreement to prioritize the Palestinian issue given what was
happening at the time on the West Bank, if ANSWER had proposed this it would
have been agreed to in the negotiations in the last week leading up to the
march, but they didn’t do so.
- -disregarding decisions that had been painstakingly arrived at regarding the
speakers at the joint rally held on the Mall in front of the Capitol.The
Palestinian woman proposed by ANSWER who had been agreed to as a co-chair
brought to the microphone speakers who had not been agreed to, one of whom
said something to the effect of, "we will drive the Jews into the
sea."
- -following April 20th, Brian Becker, key WWP/ANSWER leader, wrote an
analysis of what happened in which he essentially labeled A20MUWM as a front
group for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, a completely distorted and
inaccurate charge. As I said in a response to Becker at the time, "There
are any number of participating organizations, mine among
them, which are forthright and clear in our rejection of both the Republican
and Democratic parties, which are consciously building an independent
political movement outside the control or influence of either one. I am aware
of no organized discussions ever taking place. . . along
the lines of Becker’s description."
I went on to say that, "Narrow approaches are a dead-end for our
movement.
. . What is needed is an approach that can appeal to millions of people, that
connects with and draws strength from the deep-seated traditions of struggle
for justice among the peoples who make up this country. This is what we need
to fight against the sham ‘war on terrorism,’ U.S. support of Israeli
occupation, attacks on our civil liberties and civil rights, racism in all its
forms, and the economic terrorism experienced by people from Watts to the
Mississippi Delta to Harlem to Colombia, Africa, Argentina, Afghanistan and
elsewhere in the world."
Now, as we face the urgent threat of a bloody, destructive and dangerous war
of aggression against Iraq by the U.S. government, there are still two,
primary, national peace coalitions, International ANSWER and United for Peace
and Justice. UFPJ is in many ways an outgrowth of the A20UWMM. And the
question still is, can and should these two efforts find ways to
interact with a minimum of friction or, as at least a few people are arguing,
should we, in the words of one of them, refuse to "capitulate to, endorse
and work with ANSWER" and, instead, "break from them,"
"refuse their endorsement," and "refuse (a) false unity with
ANSWER and their unprincipled tactics and message?"
My view is similar to what is was back during the difficult days of
interaction leading up to April 20th.
First, I do not believe that International ANSWER is THE answer. But any
objective observer can see that they are PART OF the answer. Any group which
can pull together the types of actions held on January 18th cannot be
discounted as "marginal" or "fringe."
Second, over the long run I believe that the constellation of groups and the
political/tactical/process approach of UFPJ holds much more promise of
building and holding together the kind of peace and justice movement needed in
this critical period in our history. UFPJ, despite weaknesses, has greater
breadth and the potential to broaden out more. From what I have seen it is
more democratic and inclusive. As distinct from ANSWER, UFPJ is
multi-tactical. ANSWER and the WWP-connected coalitions preceeding it are very
good at organizing demonstrations, but I am not aware of WWP ever being
actively involved to any significant degree, for example, in lobbying or
grassroots pressure on Congress, or work to get city or town councils to issue
statements against the war, or nonviolent civil disobedience, or
running peace candidates for office. All of these and other creative tactics
must be "in the ballpark" as we build our movement.
Third, it is just plain inaccurate to believe that ANSWER is only WWP. ANSWER
is a coalition that includes groups like the Kensington Welfare Rights Union,
IFCO/Pastors for Peace, the Muslim Student Association of the U.S./Canada and
the Mexico Solidarity Network. To disregard this is to refuse to deal in
facts.
I have had several concrete experiences which
have proven to me that these groups are not just names on paper or on a
website. The clearest example is what happened right after 9-11-01 when, a few
days after that terrible day, ANSWER put out a statement which said a number
of things but did not specifically condemn the hijacking of the planes and the
terrorist attacks.
I spoke with someone on the ANSWER board about this and was told that he had
already contacted WWP leadership to address this issue. Within a day or two,
following this input, they revised their statement to include a specific
condemnation.
Here’s a thought: perhaps WWP’s experiences in building ANSWER and in
working together with the broader peace/justice movement may be having some
positive impacts. Perhaps some individuals, at least, are seeing the need to
work in a somewhat different way. Granted, those changes might be just
"tactical," driven by a desire to be seen as THE leaders of the
overall
movement, but, over time, is it out of the question that deeper, more
substantive change could happen?
A famous man once said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first
stone." I think it applies here. Have the predominantly white and
middle-class peace groups gotten it all together? No. How about the labor
movement? No. All of us have our weaknesses and strengths. All of us are, or
should be, in a continual process of growth and change.
A friend of mine, Jim Mohn, made an analogy recently on a Green Party
listserve I’m part of. He referred to what happened within the labor
movement in the late 1940’s and early ‘50s when there was an
anti-communist purge within the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the CIO,
which at that time was the leading and most militant group within the labor
movement, a strong and vibrant labor movement. Eight of 10
"left-led" unions were destroyed as a result of this process. The
labor movement was internally divided, stripped of the hard work, willingness
to sacrifice and fighting spirit of the members of the Communist Party, USA,
the predominant
group on the left at that point in time. The result: a labor movement that
began a long, slow decline from which it has still not recovered.
Jim’s point was that we should not denigrate and attempt to isolate WWP in a
way similar to what the dominant leadership of the labor movement back then
did to the CPUSA. He is right, and what he is saying doesn’t just apply to
WWP.
There are other leftist (socialist, communist, Marxist) parties that are very
active, playing important roles in the overall peace movement. Most of them
are either affiliated with UFPJ or are not part of either ANSWER or UFPJ. Some
of them can be legitimately criticized for some of the same things that ANSWER
can be criticized for. The difference is that none of them is right now in the
position that WWP is in as far as their success in building ANSWER. But I can
see that if they were there might be similar problems.
We are confronting a short-term war crisis while having to also deal with the
longer-term problem of rebuilding a strong and broadly-based, peace and
justice movement that is internally democratic and healthy, seriously
committed to dealing with racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism and other
negative isms, and, I would submit, humbled by the awareness that how we do
our work here in the United States has tremendous ramifications for the entire
world. Let’s be upfront and direct with our criticisms of ANSWER or any
other group doing serious peace/justice organizing while resisting the impulse
to paint them unfairly with a broad brush.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Ted Glick is the National Coordinator of the
Independent Progressive
Politics Network (www.ippn.org) and a recent Green Party candidate for U.S.
Senate (www.glickforsenate.org) He can be reached at futurehopeTG@aol.com
or P.O. Box 1132, Bloomfield, N.J. 07003.
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