Redbaiting garbage on www.counterpunch.org

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(I want to call comrades' attention to a long, meandering article on the
Counterpunch website written by somebody named Benjamin Shephard, who
has a kind of boneheaded myopia when it comes to ultraleftism. In a MR
review of Weathermen Bill Ayer's memoir
(http://www.monthlyreview.org/0202shepard.htm), Shephard displayed an
astonishing inability to see how damaging these middle-class screwballs
were to the radical movement, stating "History will recall whether we
come any closer to success or put as much on the line as the Weather
Underground and their movements did." I guess if taking lots of LSD and
setting off bombs was meant to achieve success, I was wasting my time
passing out leaflets to get working people to march against the Vietnam
war. The passage below mixes Shephard's knee-jerk ultraleftism with a
stupid red-baiting attack on ANSWER, whose main sin seems to be that
they want to avoid giving NYC cops the pretext to beat demonstrators
senseless.)

On the less creative side of the antiwar spectrum, International ANSWER
was sponsoring yet another march in Washington for April 12. Their
stickers promoting the action proclaimed, "STOP THE WAR, SURROUND THE
WHITE HOUSE," in light blue, black, and white fonts with the ANSWER
website listed below, not unlike those designed by L.A. Kauffman for
Mobilize New York and UFPJ. Sigh. Instead of involving itself in any of
the exciting or fresh direct action stuff which involves not getting a
police permit or lining up speakers to preach to the converted, ANSWER
was doing their best ground hog day routine pushing for its third march
in DC in six months. There is riveting activism, and then there are the
blogs which take everything creative in their path, ingest it, and
rehash it in its own design. Back in January, Mobilize New York received
a great deal of heat for promoting the ANSWER antiwar march in DC by
referring subscriber's to its anti war bulletin to ANSWER's own position
statements. "For details on how you can attend the event, and background
on the group sponsoring it, visit this humorous and helpful new site."
The site included articles by ANSWER members about their support for
dictators from Serbia to North Korea and other reports. Mobilize New
York got countless calls thanking us for informing them about the group;
others suggested we were redbaiting for publicizing ANSWER's own
position statements.

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