RE: [Marxism] Re: ISO's unfortunate reply to Stan Goff

["David McDonald" <dbmcdonald@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I hope we can do more than "maintain contact with both centers." i.e.
with ANSWER and UFPJ.

My starting point is that February 15, 2003 was the last united
demonstration of antiwar forces in the US. That is to say, since the war
began, there has been no national body capable of holding together the
antiwar movement, even long enough to make a demonstration happen.

On the March 20, 2004 series of locally coordinated demonstrations, ANSWER
put forward and organized around the ludicrous main slogan of "US out of
Iraq, Palestine, and Everywhere." Take that to a MFSO first-timers meeting
and see how the mobilizing goes. Unfortunately, in Seattle, they convinced
the ISO, Socialist Alternative, and a slew of organizations made up of
Palestinians or in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, to support
their slogan in the initial coalition meetings. A split ensued, due to the
quick action of some UFPJ types who immediately sewed up the broader
churchy-liberal forces in an action whose politics they controlled, which
action the ANSWER-organized forces  had no choice but to orient toward from
the outside with their anti-imperialist contingent.

This split has not been healed in practice, although the March 19, 2005
demonstration in Seatttle of 3-5000 was formally built by both wings, with
the more radical forces, led by NION, just ignoring the planning meetings
and organizing a contingent of their own for the demonstration. The UFPJ
forces met in secret for months to attempt to determine the politics of
March 19 before having open meetings, but were stymied by the actions of
independent Black activists incensed at being excluded from planning
meetings. A wrap-up de-briefing meeting of the Seattle coalition took note
of and criticized the exclusionary practices of the UFPJ forces.

BTW, NION is far stronger in Seattle than the ANSWER forces, who are limited
to the immediate periphery of a very small branch of the split from the WWP.
My opinion of the NION people is that they are trying hard to be part of
something bigger that would encompass the entirety of the antiwar movement,
and furthermore that they do good and consistent antiwar work among poorer
young people. They were responsible for about half of the crowd at March 19,
2005.

I think broader forces in the community and nation can tell when the antiwar
movement is united and when it is not, and act accordingly. Mostly they stay
away because, really, what's the point if the activists themselves cannot
even agree enough to sit in the same room with each other and hammer out a
plan for a single day? Is it going to go anywhere? No, it is not. So they
stay home. The same public ennui holds, in my opinion, for anniversary
demonstrations, which March 19, 2005 was. Anniversaries are for taking your
honey pie out to dinner. What's the urgency about an annivesary
commemoration or protest? How is it tied to resolution of the original
problem? It is merely dutiful.

It follows that the most important task for antiwar activists is the
creation of a broad national antiwar coalition, not the consolidation of a
left-wing or anti-imperialist fraction of the antiwar movement. The goal
should be to stop the war now. The only alternative, which I believe is the
UFPJ wing's actual politics, is to wait for 2008 to elect somebody good.
2006 is for practice so people won't forget how to vote Democratic. The good
things in Seattle have mostly to do with counter-recruitment activities.

David McDonald





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