[Peace-discuss] Whom do you endorse demonstrating with in order to help stop nuclear war?

[J.B. Nicholson]

* Kim Iversen interviewed Chris Hedges in 
https://rumble.com/v29uevs-anti-war-activist-infighting-reaches-boiling-point-evidence-us-assassinated.html 
and around 21m43s she said:

> Kim Iversen: That really needs to be where that line is -- people need to just
> say, "Look, I'm gonna look through the platform of what this particular rally is
> for [moving her hands as if reviewing a checklist of points] I agree, I agree, I
> agree, I agree, okay then why not show up? You know, just because you maybe don't
> like some of the people who are going to be there. If they include, because it's
> some different group that's organizing, if it includes something you don't agree
> with then you can say "I cannot support this rally because it has this particular
> platform piece on it that I don't agree with". That's fair enough, right? I think
> that's fair, just like you say in the piece
> [https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/12/chris-hedges-there-are-no-permanent-allies-only-permanent-power/]
> there are red lines. You don't have to [attend a rally] just because you don't
> agree with 90%, if there's 10% you don't agree with, if it's bad enough then you
> don't have to go.


* Jimmy Dore in 
https://rumble.com/v2ab03g-jimmy-dore-rages-against-war-machine-at-dc-peace-rally.html starting 
around 11m12s in, here's an excerpt:

> Jimmy Dore: I know there are some people who wouldn't show up to this peace
> rally, this anti-war rally, because of some of the speakers they didn't like on
> this stage [crowd audibly boos] and I get what they're saying. They're saying,
> "hey, I wanna help stop nuclear war but not with those people" [crowd laughs and 
> applauds]. I get it, I'm the same way -- my house caught on fire a couple of 
> months ago. When the firemen showed up I was like "woah, woah woah. What's your 
> views on Social Security and Medicare?". [crowd laughs] "I mean I get that this
> is a scary situation -- my house is on fire -- but first I need to get your stance
> on LGBTQ and gender-affirming surgery. I know my house is burning down, but are
> you vaxxed?! I need to see proof of at least one booster. I need to know what
> your position is on gender-affirming surgery: what age should it start, and what's
> your cutoff? And they're standing there lookin' at me like I'm fuckin' crazy! I
> guess you don't get to put out my fire then, and my house is gonna burn down. I
> hope you're happy. [...] You have to work with people you disagree with big time,
> even sometimes people you hate, because we need each other to survive. I'm
> reminded of the words of Frederick Douglass who said "I will join with anyone to
> do good but with no one to do bad.". If Black Panthers can march hand-in-hand with
> the KKK down Las Vegas Boulevard to get welfare payments reinstated, we can join
> hands with the right-wing, the Libertarians, the Left, the Socialists, the
> Communists, everybody to stop a nuclear war! And what's happening right here, at
> this rally, is what scares the hell out of the establishment: everybody from the
> Left, everybody from the Right, everybody from the middle coming together to
> realize that we have more in common than divides us and we share a common enemy.
> That enemy is the Military-Industrial Complex and the oligarchy. The same
> oligarchy that did a controlled demolition of our economy and they want me to hate
> my neighbor for the pain I'm feeling because of that because they wouldn't take a 
> vaccine that didn't work the way they said it did in the first fuckin' place! 
> Well, I'm not gonna hate my neighbor! I'm gonna love my neighbor! [...]



* What Max Blumenthal described in the Jimmy Dore Show segment titled "“Boutique” 
Left Worked OBSESSIVELY To Undermine Anti-War Rally" 
(https://rumble.com/v2ab5ju-boutique-left-worked-obsessively-to-undermine-anti-war-rally.html) 
where guest host Aaron Maté and Max Blumenthal discussed who was not supporting 
and/or undermining the recent anti-war rally.

Maté & Blumenthal named and shamed Amy Goodman of Democracy Now who gave a shamefully 
short coverage of the rally with no correspondent at the rally, Blumenthal talked 
about how Code PINK for Justice opposed the rally on specious grounds, and that the 
ANSWER Coalition is trying to stage a upcoming competing rally built around vague 
inactionable goals instead.

Max Blumenthal said that Medea Benjamin was "backstage with us at the rally, she was 
fully in support of it" but "one Code PINK staffer after another, these kind of 
millennial professional left types, NGO types, would say that they didn't feel safe 
at the rally as a Muslim or as a gay person so she [Medea Benjamin] couldn't 
participate." (19m40s). There was no reason for anyone to feel unsafe; no reports of 
any problems have come up and there were not even speakers saying things where they 
objected to Muslims or non-heterosexuals.



* Chris Hedges wrote in 
https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/12/chris-hedges-there-are-no-permanent-allies-only-permanent-power/

> “The left has become largely irrelevant in the U.S. because it is incapable of 
> working with the right,” said Nick Brana[1], chair of The People’s Party[2],
> which organized[3] the rally with libertarians. “It clings to identity politics
> over jobs, health care, wages and war, and condemns half the country as
> deplorables.”
> 
> We will not topple corporate power and the war machine alone. There has to be a 
> left-right coalition, which will include people whose opinions are not only 
> unpalatable but even repugnant, or we will remain marginalized and ineffectual. 
> This is a fact of political life. Alliances are built around particular issues,
> in this case permanent war, which often fall apart when confronting other
> concerns. If I had organized the rally, there are some speakers I would not have
> invited. But I didn’t. This does not mean that there are no red lines: I would not
> join a protest that included neo-Nazi groups such as Aryan Nations or militias
> such as The Proud Boys or Oath Keepers.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_3nR0NmUW8
[2] https://peoplesparty.org/
[3] https://rageagainstwar.com/#Coalition

Kim Iversen in 
https://rumble.com/v29uevs-anti-war-activist-infighting-reaches-boiling-point-evidence-us-assassinated.html 
covered this issue and interviewed Chris Hedges about this. Hedges rightly identified 
the objections to this recent rally as being "about woke culture" and how ineffective 
such people are at organizing people. Hedges went on quite consistently and agreeably 
for most of the interview.

At 19m17s in the clip, Iversen asked about the above quote ("This does not mean that 
there are no red lines: I would not join a protest that included neo-Nazi groups such 
as Aryan Nations or militias such as The Proud Boys or Oath Keepers.") and Hedges 
drew a line at organizing versus attending -- "showing up". Hedges said everyone was 
allowed to attend but he would not join a rally organized by the groups he listed 
because, "The central tenets of those organizations are one: they embrace violence, 
which I don't, but often that's racialized violence. And if they wanna show up to 
this rally they're more than welcome if they want to embrace those particular points 
you read out, all of which I support.".



* Max Blumenthal interviewed Medea Benjamin about 5 months prior to Sunday's rally 
(that interview is shown in https://youtube.com/watch?v=_n1M0ucV5II). About 2m into 
that interview:

> Max Blumenthal: Do you think it's possible to work with 'America First' 
> Republicans, I mean are they the opposition on this specific issue? Is it
> possible to have a coalition with them?
> 
> Medea Benjamin: [shook her head 'no' as Blumenthal spoke] Well, they're the 
> uh... When you look at the reasons they voted against this [funding war with 
> Russia via Ukraine] there's all kinds of weird reasons that I don't feel 
> comfortable being in the same coalition with people who say that the problem in 
> this country is immigrants, that they're not in favor of using this money instead 
> of war to address the climate and they don't agree that there's a climate crisis. 
> I think what we have to do is build up the opposition from the progressive 
> community -- from those who care about the climate crisis and see that war is 
> actually fueling that crisis. [...]