[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Street / Campaign and Debate Reflections / Oct 17

[C. G. Estabrook]

[A generally good commentary, I think, Mort -- it starts strong, and it's
certainly correct that the differences between the Bonesmen, such as they
are, lie in domestic, not foreign policy.  But the paragraph I've
excerpted below could come from those Alexander Cockburn describes as "The
older crowd [who] hate Bush ... but they hate Nader more." Attributing a
"racial problem" to Nader (quoting a "leftist" who says "gonna" and
"ain't" -- undoubtedly a sign that s/he's down with the people), which the
liberal Kerry is supposedly free of, is simply McCarthyism.  --CGE]

Alex Cockburn, writing of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, 40 years
ago:

...Flowers of the sixties, now gone sadly to seed, have been coursing
round the nation's courthouses, challenging Nader's efforts to get on
state ballots. The older crowd hate Bush, that's for sure. But they hate
Nader more. So here was the great irony. Most of those mistily honoring
the FSM don't much care for free speech when it looks as though it might
be risky, might inconvenience their favored candidate, even though the
favored candidate, John Kerry, wants to fight a better war than Bush in
Iraq and then march on to Teheran.

In fact the original FSM movement was a much bigger tent than people now
recall. My old friend Conn Hallinan, who was an FSM militant and arrested
in Sproul Hall in the largest mass university arrests (800) in the history
of the US, has just reminded me of this. Hallinan says, "We had right
wingers, libertarians, conservatives and of course weirdos. There was an
FSM activist, who went on to successfully challenge the law forbidding
women to hang off the side of cable cars in San Francisco. She was a
right-wing libertarian."

These days the left and PC crowd would find that the woman was opposed to
affirmative action, or some such, and would have driven her out with oaths
and curses. They have no idea of tactical coalitions. So much for the
heritage of Sixties radicalism. Not everyone's gone to seed, to be sure.
There's Lenni, who finally got me off the chair and actually there are
many, many more who understand the importance of the third word that comes
after Free Speech, namely "Movement". Without a movement you have nothing,
and you've built nothing. That's what the ABB "leftists" don't understand
now. November 3 will be a bit late in the day to start looking for one.

It's the long-term movements that count, the ones that don't sell out
every four years, to support someone like Kerry who wants to widen the war
in Iraq and then go and burn down Teheran. These days many communities
campuses have pro Palestinian groups on them. There were almost none
thirty years ago. That's a real Free Speech Movement, and one that has
made a difference and will make a difference long after this campaign is
over.


On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Morton K.Brussel wrote:

> We're all by now weary of long commentaries repeating common themes, 
> but I particularly admired this one by the clear headed, passionate and 
> compassionate Paul Street. It appears on ZNET, which can use your 
> support (http://www.zmag.org) as a subscriber.
> MKB
> > ...
> > And the notion of some people on the left not caring if he returns is 
> > beneath contempt. I recently read one my fellow radicals saying that 
> > "things will be bad under Kerry and things will be bad under Bush." 
> > Ho-hum.  Oh well. Whatever.  I know what the radical means, of course: 
> > capitalism sucks but take that message to the black community and see 
> > what kind of response you get, comrade.   An African-American leftist 
> > recently wrote me to mention the "calllous indifference" of some of 
> > "the Nader crowd"  to "a significant constituency that they hope to 
> > appeal to:" Blacks.  This cold disregard, this leftist feels, 
> > "denote[s] a racial problem that these people are gonna have to deal 
> > with at some point. Non-leftist black, brown, asian, etc. folk ain't 
> > impressed with such disregard."  Good point...
> >