[Marxism] report on UFPJ (NYC) mobilising mtg. 7/8

[Amaral1871@xxxxxxx]

I attended a ufpj mobilising mtg. in nyc last night. There were about 60
people in attendance (smaller than I anticipated). There was a brief report at 
the
beginning followed by a short time for questions and then a longer discussion
of logistics for building the event.

In the report, Leslie Cagan and Judith LeBlanc both made mention of the fact
that USLAW was trying to mediate between UFPJ and ANSWER/TONC on the issue of
9/24. They said that UFPJ is committed to "unity in the streets".

 However, when I asked them about the possibility of sharing a platform (let
alone issuing joint propoganda) and also for a concrete reportback on the most
recent 'unity' mtg  there was mostly evasion...They did state that their
expectation was for a very short rally at the beginning of the demo on saturday
with the event ending in an antiwarfare/fair. A joint march (if that what 'unity
in the streets' is) seems a good start but not at all sufficient.

Ironically, Leslie Cagan made the point that we needed to reach out to people
concerned about other issues (eg. housing) so that the political connection
might be made and the movement might be broadened. Cagan had in mind the
connection of: 'money for iraq not for houses'. However, and needless to say, my
mind immediately jumped to the Palestine issue and the connecting political 
issue
of... imperialism(!)..leaving me to wonder if this was purposeful irony on
her part - a sort of emphasizing of the different mobilising perspectives
between UFPJ and ANSWER/TONC  - or just an unfortunate coincidence (implying 
that
they would rather play down their different perspectives).

There was a discussion of the sunday and monday actions which will be focused
on connecting non-violent direct action with a congressional lobbying effort.
UFPJ is putting energy into organising leaders from all religious communities
and wants community based organisations, in general, to be leading the charge
when it comes to mobilising for this event...This will be a test on the state
of UFPJ.

At the end of the day, even if they are less able to pull the numbers of
liberally-inclined/ radicalizing masses ( and I am starting to lower my
expectation for 9/24) - due to their essential demobilisation to work for the 
Kerry
campaign - there are still clearly people within their orbit with whom the
revolutionary left needs to be engaging with. However, despite(/ or because of) 
the
movement's suffering for the strategic mistake, made during the elections by
this wing of the movement, the need for unity in action seems all that much
more critical. The pressure from below  - along with the objective reality -
seems to be having some impact on the 'leadeship'. We should keep the pressure 
up
while we work to fill-up the 'unifying' streets of DC.

-aaron a.
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