RE:Response to Derek; and, Two Trends in the Antiwar

[John Paramo <albatrosrojo2000@xxxxxxxxx>]

I hope that Lou Paulsen will drop the nonsense
accussation that identifying the WWP with IAC/ANSWER
and just ennunciating that the latter are a front
group of the first is some kind of state's sponsored
campaign.  Is that kind of unproductive discussion
that send organizations to the dustbin of history. 
You can fool everyone all the time.  Now to some of
your comments: 


Lou Paulsen wrote:

>> To repeat this again, and I expect to have to do it

> about twice or three times a day, ANSWER is not the 
> same as WWP, the organizations that are represented
> on the board are not controlled by WWP, and
therefore
> this leap from "it's not a broad, open coalition" to
"WWP packs the speakers' list with WWP members" has no
basis.

Answer: This is disingenous from your part.  WWP
members control the purse, headquarters, telephone,
stage setup, mikes, almost all the full timers and
spokerpersons are WWP members ... there are no open
meetings of the coalition, there are not outreach to
integrate new organizations on an open fashion, only
invited and handpicked organziations are included in
some sort of consultative role.  But they are
essentially guests to the party, not equal partners.

Lou Paulsen wrote:

Take Bayan, for example, which is on the
> ANSWER steering committee.  It's a leading
organization in the Philippine struggle and has a big
mass base.  I wouldn't be surprised if it has more
activists than all the US organizations of all the
people who post to this list, all put together.

Answer: Another disingenous answer. Bayan signs lots
of coalition calls and they have their mass base ...
in Phillipines.  And the demonstrations are taking
place in ... the US. The fact that Bayan, or any other
organization endorses or support events initiated by
WWP/IAC/ANSWER does not clarify one bit the discussion
we are having.

Lou Paulsen wrote:
 
I didn't hear every speaker, but I
> remember Brian Becker and Larry Holmes being on the
mike. Maybe there were other WWP members but if so I
don't remember them.  Ramsey Clark also spoke from the
IAC.  On the other hand, I remember Susan Sarandon,
Ben Cohen the ice cream guy, Rev. Herbert Daughtry of
NBUF, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, the woman from
Global Exchange, the person from Not in Our Name,
Cynthia McKinney, an Iraqi speaker, a Palestinian
speaker, a speaker (snip)>

Answer: the question for me is not as much who spoke,
but who decides who could or who could not speak.  And
the truth is, very few people take that decision and
the list of speakers reflect the liberal to soft
leftist choices of the ... WWP.

There is also the selection of the place and time of
when people speak and for how long, etc. I'm for one,
against having longer and longer list of speakers at
each event.  I think a politicla discussion should be
held, democratically as to how to have fewer number of
speakers, more effective speakers and more
representatives of what a real coalition may like to
see expressed on stage.

Lou Paulsen wrote:

Not only was the speakers' list NOT packed with WWP 
> members, it also included, on purpose,
> representatives 
> of people like Rev. Jackson whose politics differ
> quite 
> significantly from ANSWER's.

Answer: No, he doesn't.  He is closer to many views of
the WWP or, rather, the WWP has adapted to so many of
Jackson's positions that your statement is not very
accurate.  But again, how the decision was taken is
what matters in terms of speakers.

Lou Paulsen wrote:
  Furthermore, this idea
> 
> that WWP would "naturally" pack the speakers' list
> if 
> it had the chance is a little alien to me, since to
> me 
> what would be natural is that -IF- WWP had total 
> control over the speakers' list, which we didn't, we
> 
> would use that control to have the best and most 
> unified possible rally, representing the broadest 
> possible spectrum of opposition to the war.

Comment: are you saying that, in fact, the WWP does
not have control over the speakers list and that is
the reason why they did not represent "the broadest
possible specttrum of opposition to the war."?
>
Lou Paulsen wrote:

> To respond to another misunderstanding, I don't ever
> recall saying that ANSWER on a national level is 
> a "public coalition" with open meetings.  It is a 
> coalition with a steering committee.

Question: so is a private agreement, mostly done
bilaterally between WWP and others and the members of
the Steering Committee are not elected but selected by
WWP/IAC?  Would you name the members of the steering
committee, their group affiliation and the different
repsonsabilities they have (like finances, stage,
speakers, outreach, etc? Would you give us the
criteria and the method to appoint members to the
steering committee? How organizations are "invited" to
participate in this steering committee? Do they meet
weekly, monthly?  How they meet and take decisions? 

Lou Paulsen wrote:

>> It depends on the real-world circumstances at the
> time, on who actually constitutes this 
> hypothetical "democratic coalition", who comes to
> the meetings, what their priorities are, what the
voting system is, what the principles of unity are
(how, by the way, are you planning to exclude the
anti-war forces to the RIGHT of the Greens? and, by
the way, why?), exactly how these decisions are
"collectively  made", and ultimately on what class
forces end up dominating this coalition.

Answer: the criteria for organizations to belong to a
broader coalition should be agreement on Stop the
War/No sanctions, US OUT of Iraq.  Members of the
Steering Committee should be elected at public
meetings and the members should represent the support
and work they do for the coalition. Checks should we
written and signed by 3/4 members, finances should be
publicly reported, speakers decided democratically
both in the way they are selected as to the politicla
positions they represent.  You are asking what the
voting system would be? What is the voting system in
WWP/IAC/ANSWER to start with? "What class forces end
up dominating this coalition?" you asked.  Well, that
will depend of how those class forces are attracted to
it and how the debates are pursued.  As it stands,
represents the class forces from bourgeois democratic
to middle class radicalism.  I would like to see a
working class leadership and I would like to see
Marxists leading.  But that cannot be imposed or
guarantee - if we admit that the present leadership of
IAC/ANSWER has that characteristics, which it doesn't
- by exclusionary devices.

Lou Paulsen wrote:
 
> On the one hand, there has been the consistent 
> anti-imperialist trend, represented at present by 
> ANSWER, which opposes US imperialist war and 
> intervention everywhere, in all its forms; which
> links Iraq and Palestine and Vieques and Colombia
and the Philippines and the Balkans;

Answer: holding the above position does not make you
an anti-imperialist, but a consistent pacifist or a
radical pacifist would agree.

Lou Paulsen wrote:

which respects the
> right of self-determination of the rest of the
world; and which, therefore, does not issue
"condemnations" of the 
> leaders or governments of the countries which the 
> United States is attempting to destroy.  

Answer: Another missconception and exclusionary
clause.  You can speak against the violations of civil
liberties and the attacks on the right of
self-determination of the Kurds by Saddam Huseein -
and the massacre of communists as well - and still be
absolutely in the camp of anti-imperialism.  As a
matter of fact, more consistently so.  So, a question,
would the Iraqi CP or the Iraqi WCP or the left wing
of the Kurds who oppose the war but also want to
overthrow Saddam be invited as speakers and considered
part of the movement against the war?

Lou Paulsen wrote:

>> These trends are in conflict everywhere.  They have
> a class basis.  The first trend is ultimately the
> working-class internationalist approach.  The second
trend reflects the influence of the liberal
bourgeoisie within the left.

Answer: defending politically the leaderships of
Saddam Hussein or Arafat, for example, does not put
you in the camp of working class internationalism but
of antiwar pro-nationalist bourgeois camp, for
example.  A position that is wrong politically but in
my view perfectly fine to have integrated in the
antiwar movement.  Provided that, as is the case
today, do not control the agenda, the politics and the
purse fo the movement to the exclusion of those who,
being against the war, and even anti-imperialists, do
not hold those positions.

Lou Paulsen wrote:
> 
> Possibly you may think this is more of my dogmatic 
> ultraleftism, as Lou Proyect would have it.

Answer: I personally would not characterize the 
positions of WWP/IAC/ANSWER as ultra-leftist, but as a
coctel of left reformism -liberal thinking -
organizational bureacratism. 

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