The joy of sects

[Nigel Irritable <nigel_irritable@xxxxxxxxx>]

Up and down the road to a big anti-war movement

By Fred Sanderson

Numerous coalitions and organizations have sprung up
to do anti-war work in the Bay Area. Most of them have
had similar politics, calling for an end to US
military action, the defense of the Arab, Muslim, and
immigrant communities from hate crimes and racist
scapegoating, and defending civil liberties from
government attack in the wake of the horrific acts of
terrorism on September 11, 2001.

These coalitions have done okay. They have put on more
teach-ins than one could count, let alone attend, all
over the Bay Area. A couple of decent sized rallies
were held in San Francisco. Over 5,000 antiwar
activists met at Dolores Park on September 29.  3,000
marched on the streets of SF when the bombing started
on October 7. 3,500 marched in downtown San Francisco
on October 20. So far, San Francisco has produced the
only demonstration anywhere in the country defending
immigrants, particularly Arabs and Muslims from
scapegoating and racism. This demonstration was held
on October 13.

However, some left organizations, most notably the
International Socialist Organization (ISO) and the
Workers' World Party (WWP), have a tendency to create
front groups for their own organizations and call them
"coalitions." At the same time, each have a number of
satellites who operate in agreement with one, the
other, or both. One must ask why they aren't all in
the same group.

Among the satellites are the so-called Committees of
Correspondence (a group of a few people exchanging
business cards at each event), Socialist Action (and
its recent split, the Socialist Workers Organization),
and a number of what is known as "rubber stamps."
Competition between these two blocks repeatedly
program different actions on the same day (if not the
same action on different days), even though both
blocks very often use the same rhetoric and bring the
same speakers to "preach to the choir." This method of
movement building is very divisive, and has led to a
lot of wasted time and competing events over the
course of the war drive and the war itself.

Further, Bush's war on terrorism has netted some early
military successes, avoiding inflicting as heavy
damage as originally expected to the population of
Afghanistan. Polls released just after the November 6
elections also showed that more than 54% of Bay Area
residents view George Bush as their
"Commander-in-Chief," shattering the illusion that
this typically progressive and liberal region of the
country was a hotbed of anti-war sentiment, as in the
1960s. Better than Kansas City, to be sure, but far
from an anti-imperialist headquarters. This political
reality, coupled with the common politics and
methodology of the different "coalitions," has led to
common results over the last couple of weeks: they are
all shrinking.

But there is another reality going on.  President Bush
is now trying to use the "momentum" built up over
Afghanistan to continue waging war.  Maybe Somalia,
Sudan or even Iraq, who knows?  Meanwhile, there has
been a high casualty rate among civil liberties right
here in the US. This includes the passage of the USA
PATRIOT Act, the Executive Order allowing Bush to try
non-citizens who he thinks might be terrorists in
secret military tribunals with the power to use the
death penalty against defendants and in which hearsay
is admitted as evidence, and the new draconian
quarantine laws.

All of these laws are likely to remain on the books,
even after the present crisis passes. And there are
still over 1,000 detainees who, for the most part,
have not been charged with any crime related to
terrorism.  This certainly has the potential to change
the minds of many Americans who today support the War
on Terrorism. The movement could emerge anew around
any of these issues.

So now is the time to fix the glitches of the antiwar
movement and get prepared to the new wave ahead. This
hiatus in movement should be used to prepare better
tools for tomorrow.

Fighting for survival

The Town Hall Committee to Stop War and Hate (THC,
mostly a front group for the ISO and some other minor
league leftists) understood some of these realities
pragmatically and tried to bring together all of the,
"diverse organizations and coalitions doing critical
anti-war organizing work in various communities
throughout the Bay Area with the objective of
collaborating on a United Day of Action." This is an
entirely appropriate response to the situation
described: movement shrinking, band existing forces
together to try to keep it going, for the war is
likely to continue in the new year, possibly with some
renewed opposition to it.

Between fifty and sixty people, representing some 28
different organizations, responded to the THC's
invitation by turning up at the auditorium at New
College on Thursday, November 29, at 7PM. Most in
attendance were organizations or activists commonly
associated with THC. Most of them had known each other
on a first name basis for a long time.

A few students and faculty from City College of San
Francisco were there, ditto for SF State, members of
the Committees of Correspondence going by the name of
Latinos Against War for the occasion, as well as those
already mentioned. Two representatives from the
International ANSWER Coalition, which is also known as
the International Action Center, which is a front
group for the WWP showed up. Maybe fifteen aging
red-diaper babies from the Marin County Coalition for
Peace and Justice were present.  After about twenty
minutes of settling down, signing in, and making
nametags, the meeting began.

A representative from THC (who is also a member of
ISO, who was also co-chairing the meeting) then
delivered a welcoming speech, recognizing the
"excellent and critical work that the different
organizations in the room were doing in their
respective constituencies," and emphasizing the
importance of uniting. She then made a 180-degree
turn, carefully explaining that the meeting was not
called for the purpose of forming a coalition, but
merely to see if any of these organizations could do
anything together. The welcomer then called on those
present at the meeting to endorse a five-point agenda,
including introductions, creating a decision-making
process, action proposals (with time set aside for
discussion and voting), and making a plan for the next
meeting. 

At this point, a member of Socialist Alternative, an
organization to the left of the ISO and WWP that is
also promoting a broader form of anti-war movement,
pointed out that elaborating a decision-making process
and planning actions was a step perhaps best taken
after constituting a coalition, and asked what the
hold up to forming such an organization might be. This
was clearly a diplomatic call to recognize reality and
unite every group, putting aside petty turf interests.

The representative of the UC Berkeley Stop the War
Coalition considered the fact that he was representing
another coalition that had not granted him the
authority to join another coalition in the name of all
of the organizations within his coalition of origin as
a hold up. A representative from the Labor Committee
for Peace and Justice mentioned that he, also, did not
possess the authority to join another coalition, that
he was only there to report back to his coalition on
what happened at the meeting, and they would take a
decision then. Finally, someone from a Marin County
organization whose name is too long to remember drove
it home: she may not WANT to "coalesce" with some of
the other organizations in the room.

Back and forth

The meeting moved into introductions. The chair
encouraged everyone to include a bit of rhetoric
explaining why he or she came to the meeting with his
or her introduction, and most indulged themselves. The
meeting here made its second 180-degree turn of the
evening. It turned out that most everyone there wants
to build a big united anti-war movement, even if the
format of a coalition may not suit their needs.
Translation: "We should keep our own shrinking little
turfs to ourselves, but we should agree to call a
common action, some time in the future.  This will
help us maintain the illusion that we are all united
when we are not."

And so the discussion moved into what decision-making
processes this gathering, which is not yet a
coalition, should use. It was determined that any
participating organization should be entitled to one
vote. However, organizations that had done a
substantial amount of their organizing as part of a
coalition were encouraged to defer their vote to the
representative of their coalition, thus fostering an
atmosphere of "trust." Following this principle, most
of the left organizations at the meeting gave up their
votes to representatives of one of their front
"coalitions," except for the WWP, who only brought
WWPers to represent their "coalition," although they
voted in the name of ANSWER.

Translation: Left groups like the WWP and the ISO pass
as activists without affiliation and try to form
"coalitions," not with already-established
organizations to which independent activists could
join, but by dissolving their members into a general
body of people through which they can maneuver towards
organizational control and keep the periphery unaware
of their own group. Cadres of their organizations are
surreptitiously sent to chair committees. Bitter, low
intensity and low profile battles are conducted from
the go over control of phone and mailing lists
collected at meetings.  They call this a "coalition."
In reality, they are no more than amorphous
collections of left activists, or organized factions
of protesters.

It was also proposed that the discussion on action
proposals be conducted with timed rounds, with the
chairs taking speakers lists and checking at
twenty-minute intervals to see if the discussion need
continue.  Now, the strange thing is that many of
those who opposed forming coalitions because they
lacked "authority" from their front groups (sorry,
coalitions) cast votes on program, forms of voting and
even dates and type of action as if they HAD the
authority they claimed to lack.

The chair from the ISO opened the first round by
proposing a coordinated mass march and rally. Some
proposed a United Day of Action only with each group
organizing on their home turf. By the end of the first
discussion round, it was clear that everyone wanted to
do a united action of some kind, perhaps a mass rally
with smaller, more local actions building up to it.
The chair proposed for the second round of discussion
that speakers try to focus in on securing a date for
said action.  The WWP proposed that this new
non-coalition call its action for a date they were
already organizing another event, their typical way of
controlling the mike at a given rally.  People
declined to bite, and voted the proposal down.

Disruptive chairs

But wait! Not everyone had said his or her piece about
what kind of action was needed. That meant the
discussion from the first timed round had no choice
but to carry over, much to the chagrin of the chairs.

The representative from Socialist Alternative began
his contribution by stating the date he supported and
why, and then explained that he had had his hand up
during the previous timed round, and began to say his
piece. He pointed out that the anti-war movement in
the US had thus far failed to break out of the left
organizations and their immediate peripheries and
continued to "preach to the converted." 

Therefore, anti-war organizers needed to seriously
consider changing the outreach methods that they use.
First, it may be proper to emphasize the point in our
platform relating to the defense of civil liberties in
our outreach and at the United Day of Action, due to
the fact that there are many people in the US who are
against losing them, even if they support other
aspects of the war on terrorism. He also pointed out
that rather than giving every left group two minutes
to speak, why not find speakers important enough,
courageous enough, articulate enough, diverse enough
and famous enough to be quoted by the media and give
them more time to make their points in a way that
people outside of the left will respond to. 

Just as he was finishing, the chair interrupted to
inform him that he was no longer speaking on the topic
of the date. The representative from Socialist
Alternative informed the chair that if he would avoid
interrupting him, he could finish his point, and the
meeting could proceed. The chair relented and the
meeting continued.  The chairs were not prepared to
listen to anyone suggesting ways in which they could
be more effective.  That could divide the turf they
had carved for themselves!

The chairs' insistence on keeping people from
diverting from a rather dry discussion about what date
to have a big demonstration on almost caused the
meeting to break down just a few minutes later. The
representative from the Immigrant Rights Movement
(MDI), one of the few women of color at the event,
expressed what date she supported and then began to
speak to the character of the action, and how those
present in the room's reticence to call a coalition in
order to go back to their coalitions or organizations
of origin was a poor use of time that could be spent
outreaching to other organizations to make an even
broader coalition.

This time, two of the chairs began to demand that she
be quiet. A member of the obscure SWO grouping heckled
his support for the chairs from the back of the room.
The meeting agreed to call a day of action for
February 23, and to reconvene the organizations
present on December 14, location TBA. Topics of
discussion are sure to include whether or not to form
a coalition, making it clear that the discussion that
evening was just a maneuver to win some time.

For one, big, democratic anti-war movement

It is apparent that despite the necessity of combining
forces in order to continue building an anti-war
movement and their expressed desire to team up and
kick ass, these organizations are extremely reluctant
to do so, even for an objective as limited as a United
Day of Action a couple of months away. It seems as
though there is a good deal of fright at the notion of
losing control of a small and shrinking periphery of
anti-war activists, particularly on the part of the
ISO and the WWP.  They subscribe to the conventional
"wisdom" of the left: that normal, working class folks
outside their circles cannot be won over to
understanding and confronting the Bush's war drive
neither at home nor abroad. 

Of course, when a real anti-war sentiment develops,
this petty maneuvering by tiny organizations will be
overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who feel
the urge to confront the government's manipulations. 
So, people opposed to the war should not be
discouraged if they stumble into this surreal,
parallel universe of organizational stinginess and
pettiness.  Just participate and raise hell.  We'll
get what we need.

What we need is one, united, democratically-run
antiwar movement to confront Bush both at home and
abroad.  A movement that will reach out to a broad
spectrum of organizations and communities,
particularly communities of color and immigrants.  A
coalition that will raise the issue at workplaces and
union halls.  A coalition in which every organization
can put forward their proposals at meetings free of
undemocratic rules. A coalition that will speak on the
issues to workers, youth and people of color NOT yet
involved, rather than those already convinced.

Is there any doubt that the defeat of Bush's war drive
? gingerly supported by the Democrats ? requires as
much?


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail!
http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/

~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.