[Marxism] The NY Observer weighs in on antiwar strategy

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

The NY Observer is a salmon-colored weekly devoted mostly to reports on 
million dollar real estate transactions and gossip about powerful media and 
political personalities. It was launched by tycoon Arthur Carter in the 
1980s after he got bored publishing the Nation Magazine. Politically, it 
can be described as falling within the dreary parameters of 'smart' but 
banal liberalism of the kind found in salon.com, the Village Voice, the 
American Prospect, etc. Without Carter's millions, it certainly would have 
gone under long ago. He seems driven by the same mixture of vanity and 
influence-peddling found in Murdoch's NY Post, but on a much smaller--if 
not infinitesimal--scale.

In the current issue, there's an article on the antiwar movement ("Where 
Have All the Marchers Gone? They Feel Very Futile"-- 
<http://www.nyobserver.com/20060612/20060612_Sheelah_Kolhatkar_pageone_coverstory2.asp>http://www.nyobserver.com/20060612/20060612_Sheelah_Kolhatkar_pageone_coverstory2.asp) 
by one Sheelah Kolhatkar, who will write about anything assigned to her 
apparently:

"As one of the few women on Wall Street selling oil and gambling stocks at 
a mid-sized shop in the late 1970's, Lee Hennessee, a belle from North 
Carolina, noticed that her best customers were hedge-fund pioneers-ruthless 
men like Julian Robertson and Michael Steinhardt, who moved fast and bought 
stock in bulk. Ms. Hennessee jumped ship and went on to start one of the 
first hedge-fund consulting companies, the Hennessee Group, and has been 
tracking the ballooning industry ever since..."

(NY Observer, "Hedge-Fund Frolic: Where There's Cash", April 5, 2004)

Just the sort of thing that would prepare you for sorting out various 
strategies for ending the occupation of Iraq.

Kolhatkar begins her piece by calling on the Village Voice's authority on 
the futility of mass demonstrations:

>>On April 29, over 300,000 people gathered (depending on who you ask) at 
22nd Street and Broadway to begin New York?s latest large-scale march in 
protest of the war in Iraq?

The next day, they can hardly have been surprised that the protest didn?t 
rate an A1 treatment from The New York Times.

But more galling was the reaction of New York?s oldest lefty newspaper, The 
Village Voice.

In an article headlined ?How to Kill a War in 10 Not-So-Easy Steps,? the 
newspaper founded by Norman Mailer in 1955 wagged a patronizing finger at 
the organizers, then archly offered suggestions from lobbyists and 
consultants on how to actually end a war.

Not, it seems, by protesting.<<

It seems rather quaint to dub the Village Voice as "lefty" but I suppose 
from the perspective of Carter's high-Episcopalian, Park Avenue liberalism, 
the term might make sense. Then again, to the John Birch Society, 
Eisenhower was a Communist.

According to Kolhatkar, there's a "certain sluggish, defeatist feeling" in 
the antiwar movement, UFPJ in particular. Bill Dobbs, who served for three 
years as the media coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, confesses 
to her that "The peace movement?s floundering." He adds, "People really 
have to sharply focus on why Congress is allowing Bush to continue this war."

If it seems a stretch to view the Village Voice as "lefty", then Kolhatkar 
throws all journalistic caution to the wind by describing the ponderous, 
red-baiter Todd Gitlin as another "lefty":

>>?Movements tend to thrive when some critical mass of people have reason 
to believe that their activities are actually going to have an impact on 
policy,? the old-school lefty, 60?s protest leader and Columbia professor 
Todd Gitlin said. ?And they don?t think there?s one chance in a billion 
that demonstrations will change the mind­if that?s the right word­of George 
Bush, so there?s a sense of futility as well as uncertainty.?<<

This, of course, is not a new position for Gitlin who never forgave SDS'ers 
for not voting for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. If this is supposed to be "old 
school lefty", then poor Abby Hoffman must be spinning in his grave.

Kolhatkar has ideas about what antiwar activists should be doing and it is 
definitely not marching in the streets by the hundreds of thousands:

"Last week, for example, demonstrators gathered at 14 Congressional offices 
around the state of New Hampshire, reading the names of soldiers who?ve 
perished in Iraq. The whole operation involved around 50 people, according 
to the Associated Press, and six of them were arrested for refusing to 
leave Representative Jeb Bradley?s office. But so far, nothing like that 
has unfolded in New York."

I hate to sound like a dogmatic Marxist, but this does not strike me as the 
kind of manifestation of social power that can change society. One might be 
better off writing letters to people like Jeb Bradley, pleading with them 
to be nice, and sealing it with a kiss.

Mostly, Kolhatkar's article is a barely clever push for the sort of 
dead-end reformism of moveon.org and other outlets of tepid liberalism. 
Moveon.org's director Tom Matzzie is quoted as saying, ?the theory our 
members share when they join with us is that they?re going to create change 
in an election.? Evidently, this is Kolhatkar's agenda as well:

>>They are mostly focused on the election in 2006, he [Matzzie] said, and 
nudging the House of Representatives into Democratic Party hands is the 
critical end goal. Which is offering a delicious hint of hope. ?Six months 
from now, you could be heading into a Congress where some of the most 
powerful chairmen are staunch opponents of the war,? Mr. Matzzie said, 
citing the anti-war Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha and the primary in 
Connecticut, where Ned Lamont is challenging the hawkish Joe Lieberman for 
his Senate seat. ?That would be as big, or bigger, than we?d be able to win 
on any weekend protest right now.?<<

In a way, this makes perfect sense. Ned Lamont is a liberal Connecticut 
millionaire, just like Arthur Carter. If he is elected, then all that is 
necessary is to continue electing people to Congress just like him so that 
in 2 or 3 years the majority will vote for a timetable to get out of Iraq 
and redeploy the troops to just beyond the borders of Iraq, as John Murtha 
proposes.

I think Sheelah Kolhatkar should stick to writing about hedge funds. 
There's far less damage that can be done that way--as opposed to leading 
people down the blind alley of Democratic Party politics. But with the NY 
Observer's readership's obvious preference for looking for bargains in East 
Side townhouses or playing polo in the Hamptons, I doubt if much damage 
will be done in any case.


--

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