Re: Liberal redbaiting escalates

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Peace kooks
> The new antiwar movement is in danger of being hijacked by bizarre
> extremist groups -- and most protesters don't even know it.
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> By Michelle Goldberg

Some replies to Goldberg from:
http://www.salon.com/politics/letters/2002/10/17/peace/index.html

Michelle Goldberg's article is a classic example of Red-baiting. Guess
what? Many great movements for social change in this country have been led
by radical socialists and communists because they happen to be among the
most dedicated and organized of people in the movement.

When she talked about going back to the sixties antiwar movement, did she
realize that those humongous demonstrations in the late sixties and early
seventies were organized by the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party?
This Trotskyist party was the central force in the National Peace Action
coalition that led these actions. They wanted to build the largest antiwar
movement possible because they believed in stopping U.S. imperialism. They
fought for the central slogan of "Bring the Troops Home Now" and having
massive peaceful demonstrations.

Goldberg I guess believes that these radical groups are somehow fooling the
people marching against the war, but as long as everyone agrees with the
central slogan of these marches of stopping the war, who cares who leads it?

-- Joanne Gullion


While I too disagree with the more radical positions ascribed to Not In Our
Name and the International Action Center, I have questions for Gitlin.
Where is your more moderate protest organization? What are you doing to
lead the hordes of people who want to work through the U.N. to stop both
the more dangerous weapons development of Saddam Hussein and the war with
Iraq under Bush's plan? To complain about the efforts of people who are
doing something to stop the real dangers of the Bush administration,
without suggesting a viable alternative, gets the liberal wing nowhere.

I will be marching on Oct. 26, and if the folks onstage are too radical for
my tastes, well, so be it. I'll be making my stand for some semblance of
foreign-policy sanity in a forum where hopefully many other like-minded
people will be making similar statements. Going to the protest led by IAC
may tar me with too radical a brush against the efforts to rein in Saddam
Hussein. Not going to the protest will most certainly tar me with the
apathetic and complacent brush of those willing to let our young people die
in a ridiculous and unnecessary war to enrich the president's cronies and
detract from crucial domestic concerns. I'm willing to take the chances on
the former instead of being scared into the latter.

While I appreciate Salon's efforts to add color to the picture of the
protest movement, I find it somewhat disappointing that its first article
about the people's efforts to protest Bush's horrible warmongering
concentrates on the least credible aspects. There are thousands of people
across the country making the sensible argument that war should not be made
-- why focus on the tiny percentage of radicals?

-- Ellen Fulton


The far left has always been central to the antiwar movement in this
country. Students for a Democratic Society, mentioned in the article, was
heavily influenced by Maoism. Communists and Trotskyists were central to
the antiwar movement in WWII. The Socialist Party and the Wobblies
organized against WWI. Trotskyists and the Socialist Party helped organize
against the Vietnam War. Trotskyists were central to the Gulf War antiwar
movement. Communists will be central to this movement as well.

Why? Because they have the organizational skills and resources to create
large organizations quickly. They have prior experience organizing and
leading movements. The problem is not that communists are leading the
charge but Ms. Goldberg's Red-baiting. If the far left weren't at the
center of the antiwar movement, there would be no antiwar movement.

-- Marc Luzietti


The end of the article "Peace Kooks" appears to undercut its premise. At
first the article, in terms of its title and blurb, suggests that the left
"fringe"-- the IAC and Refuse and Resist -- has hijacked the antiwar
movement, the implication being that the peace movement associates with
these kooky leftists to its own detriment. By the end of the article,
however, we find out that since ordinary people who were less radical
participated in the antiwar rally in Central Park anyway, these voices were
heard through individual interviews of crowd participants -- a common way
for the press to cover demonstrations.

I and many others have no problem working with the Answer Coalition and Not
In My Name -- even if these groups were started by "radicals" who have some
problematic politics -- as long as the message of the demonstration is
right. During the last Iraqi war, the IAC had to have a rally in Washington
separate from most other peace groups, because their message was that they
supported Saddam Hussein as well as being against the war. This time they
modified the message so that there could be a real coalition. Those on the
left, which includes the most uptight liberal and the fringiest radical,
have to start learning to work together to fight the common enemy and not
each other if we are ever going to effect real change. This is something
the right has learned much too well.

-- Cheryl Guttman


I got to the third paragraph of this article and had to scroll back to the
top of the page to see if I was reading an Andrew Sullivan rant. Ms.
Goldberg uses none other than Todd "Why, when I was a kid..." Gitlin as a
sepia-toned barometer of peace movement bona fides. Todd Gitlin is to the
left what William F. Buckley is to the right -- nostalgia ain't what it
used to be. I bet Ms. Goldberg still thinks the Democratic Party is a real
alternative to the Republicans.

-- Daniel Jasper




Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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