RE: [Marxism] Antiwar demonstration in Washington

["David McDonald" <dbmcdonald@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Without gainsaying the fundamental truth of MacDonald Stainsby's comment,

"Neither in spite of or because of this or that faction of the
movement(s) were the numbers of the demonstrators so high."

I will nevertheless aver that unity matters, even among North Americans.
Nothing of any importance is ever accomplished without it. We can expect the
left Democrats to rejoice when they are left alone on the political field.
This is rational behavior on their part. It was an error on my part to call
UfPJ idiotic. Actually they are very canny. They do not need our numbers,
our organizing talents, or our ideas. When a split occurs between wings of
the antiwar movement roughly along the lines of Democratic Party types vs.
everybody else, the Democrats are rid of a problem and we are rid of an
audience. So how is it in our interest to either split, or allow a split to
happen that solves the Democrat's political problem for them, viz., allows
them to mouth antiwar words and catchphrases, that allows them to appear to
be against the war while dragging it out forever?

That is my fundamental charge against ANSWER: they sacrifice the necessary
unity of the movement to pursue narrow organizational goals. It's a serious
charge and I stand behind it.

I don't care about he said she said. I don't care about apportioning blame
for the record. I want a movement that can have people of different
persuasions sit in the same room and hammer out how to help stop the war. I
don't expect the Democrats to want that, but I do expect the left to want
it, to fight for it intelligently, and to be intolerant of pointless
disunity that just puts off the day the troops come home. I will rest my
case on a final observation that I made while watching the DC rally on
CSPAN. I happened to tune in just before Leslie Cagan spoke, and she was
followed shortly by Jesse Jackson, then Cindy Sheehan, then George Galloway.
(Hope I haven't garbled the order.) There was no big deal when the rally
shifted from the UfPJ half to the ANSWER half. You had to be a pro to know
that George Galloway was an ANSWER speaker and Jesse Jackson a UfPJ speaker.
So what happened to the big principled differences that meant the movement
had to be split for the all-important first three months of building the
demonstration?




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