Re: Fwd: NYTimes article on antiwar movement

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jacob wrote:
> The renewed attack on ANSWER is really a coded attack on the entire left 
> wing of the movement, as the Times piece shows. Years from now UFPJ types 
> will try to say ANSWER left the movement in a fit of radical pique, 
> whereas it's clear that ANSWER is now being deliberately purged.

Another thing to keep an eye on is attacks on anti-war professors. Nicholas 
De Genova has become targeted by the entire rightwing. I am particularly 
annoyed with Eric Foner, who told the scumbag NY Post that, ""If I had 
known what he was going to say, I would have been reluctant to have him 
speak."

NY Times, Mar. 29, 2003
At Columbia, Call for Death of U.S. Forces Is Denounced
By TAMAR LEWIN

The president of Columbia University said yesterday that he was horrified 
by the remarks of an anthropology professor who said at a campus antiwar 
teach-in Wednesday night that he hoped to see "a million Mogadishus" ? 
referring to the city in Somalia where American soldiers were ambushed in a 
lethal firefight in 1993.

The professor, Nicholas De Genova, also called for the defeat of United 
States forces in Iraq, and said the only true heroes are those who help 
defeat the American military. He said Americans who call themselves 
patriots are imperialist white supremacists.

"Under well-established principles of the First Amendment, this is within a 
person's right to free speech," Lee C. Bollinger, the president of 
Columbia, said in an interview. "Not for a second, however, does that 
insulate it from criticism. I am shocked that someone would make such 
statements. I am especially saddened for the families of those whose lives 
are now at risk."

Those who attended the teach-in said most of the audience stayed silent at 
Professor De Genova's reference to the Mogadishu ambush, an event portrayed 
in the movie "Black Hawk Down." The raid, on Oct. 3, 1993, in which 18 
Americans were killed and 75 injured ? and the subsequent broadcast of 
images of a dead American being dragged through Mogadishu ? prompted 
President Bill Clinton to order a withdrawal of troops from Somalia, where 
they had been sent to help relieve a famine.

"Professor De Genova's speech did not represent the views of the 
organizers," said Eric Foner, a history professor who was one of the 
teach-in's organizers. "I personally found it quite reprehensible. The 
antiwar movement does not desire the death of American soldiers. We do not 
accept his view of what it means to be a patriot. I began my talk, which 
came later, by repudiating his definition of patriotism, saying the 
teach-in was a patriotic act, that I believe patriots are those who seek to 
improve their country."

Professor De Genova's voice mail was not accepting messages yesterday. The 
anthropology department referred all calls concerning him to the public 
affairs office, where a spokesman said he had no further information on 
Professor De Genova, who is untenured and teaches anthropology and Latino 
studies.

The teach-in at Columbia, which went from 6 p.m. to midnight Wednesday and 
drew an audience of about 3,000, was organized by seven faculty members, 
who were joined by about two dozen other faculty members speaking on 
subjects like Middle East relations, civil liberties, pre-emptive war, the 
Geneva Conventions and Iraqi archaeological sites endangered by the war.



Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org


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