[Marxism] The Militant criticizes March 20 protests

["Jose G. Perez" <jg_perez@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The new issue of the Militant dishonestly criticizes the antiwar
movement in the form of pretending to "cover" the March 20 protests
against occupations.

"The main organizers of the demonstrations were two coalitions,
International ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice, made up of
various radical and liberal organizations," says the article. "They
focused the demonstration on President George Bush, blaming him and the
Republican Party for the imperialist assault on Iraq and other actions
at home and abroad, while supporting, explicitly or tacitly,
presidential candidate John Kerry or other Democrats in the 2004
elections." 

"A large banner at the stage read, 'Bush Lies! Who Dies?' Throughout the
demonstration people carried banners, and placards and wore buttons with
a similar emphasis. 'Drop Bush, not bombs!' was a popular chant."

(The full article is here:
http://www.themilitant.com/2004/6813/681305.html)

To say that either UfPJ or ANSWER "explicitly or tacitly" support Kerry
or the Democrats is false.

First, on ANSWER. Anyone who knows them or the leading force in that
coalition, the Workers World Party, knows that the claim they are
pro-Democrat is so absurd as to need no rebuttal. 

UfPJ is a much broader coalition --hardly a demerit, on the contrary,
this is one of its virtues-- and it does include forces, such as the CP,
that seem decided to support even Jack the Ripper for president,
provided only he head the Democrat ticket. 

And there are many other groups which, by their nature, don't endorse
candidates (NGO's  and non-profits) but whose people are mostly on the
same ABB line. But UfPJ also includes groups that support independent
political action in the electoral arena by working people, including
ISO, Solidarity and Greens. And the coalition as a whole has not made a
single statement that can be interpreted as even a veiled endorsement of
Kerry or anyone else.

The Militant's implicit claim is that by making the government and
president that is actually carrying out the war the target of demands,
slogans and ridicule, the antiwar movement is, in effect, giving support
to Kerry. And it just ain't so.

Back in the day before the SWP succumbed to brain-dead workerist
sectarianism, it was extremely active in what was to all intents and
purposes the precursor of this antiwar movement, the movement against
the war in Vietnam.

One of the most popular chants of this first period of that antiwar
movement was "Hey Hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today," referring
to Lyndon B. Johnson, president during the late 1960s. So much so that a
young singer-songwriter, Fred Stanton, an SWP member, wrote a song
around that theme, that became the title song of an antiwar album put
out by the Student Mobilization Committee to end the war, "Hey, Hey
LBJ."

(Fred, BTW, is still singing and is still politically active, my
impression is in sympathy with the SWP. You can buy a CD dub from vinyl
of that album and more recent work here:
http://www.fortissimo.org/artists/stanton/)

Yes, of course, there were those like the Spartacist League, Workers
League and Progressive Labor Party, who insisted it was wrong to make
common cause against the war with Democrats, or who viewed the singling
out of first LBJ, and then Nixon as some sort of support for some other
bourgeois politician.

But the fact is those demonstrations and all the organizing that went on
around them was the first step in many thousands of people radicalizing
and coming to some understanding of the two-party system as one of the
main tools of the ruling class.

Even a slogan like "dump Bush" can be a two-way street. For some it is a
bridge between being under the political domination of the ruling class
to understanding that to really "dump Bush" --get rid not just of him
but of his policies-- you have to fight against capitalism and the
two-party system. In the hands of reformist forces like the CP, and of
Democrat politicians, even the most "extreme" progressive ones, it is an
attempt to bring people who have begun to move towards political
independence back to the fold.

José






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