[Peace-discuss] Guest commentary

[Al Kagan]

I want to respond to Carl Estabrook’s guest commentary on page  B-3 of 
today’s News-Gazette. While I agree with much of the commentary, I 
think the ending is a gratuitous attack on me, AWARE and the anti-war 
movement.

Let me say upfront, that I have never been interested in personalizing 
our discussions of strategy and tactics. Intertwining the issues with 
personal attacks is a recipe for failure.  We must be able to 
critically evaluate our activities, and those who see and respond to 
criticism as personal attacks should re-evaluate the effects of their 
actions.

One must ask why a discussion about our strategy and tactics must be 
aired in public in the local newspaper?  Let me repeat a little of my 
original thoughts here. We have an African-American Senator who is very 
popular in the black community. If we want to do local anti-racist 
work, we can’t afford to alienate many in this community with a 
sledgehammer approach.  We ought to try to engage this politician and 
appeal to his own self-interest.  We should argue that according to the 
polls, his constituents and especially the black community are ahead of 
him and want an end to this war.

It was very clear at the AWARE meeting that nobody wants to give 
Senator Obama a pass on his war position.  Coming to the personal 
level, the great majority of those who know me even a little would 
laugh at the author’s assertion, “Liberals who fail to say so [Obama 
“has blood on his hands”] because of the senator’s race find themselves 
supporting the war.”   My opposition to the war and US imperialism is 
not in question, and I don’t consider myself a “liberal.”

Finally, to call the above argument, “…patronizing or hypocritical, if 
not racist” is beyond the bounds of principled debate.

It seems to me that we have a set up for another shouting match at 
today’s meeting, therefore I will not be there.  AWARE needs to work 
through it’s internal process for having principled discussions.  When 
our norms and guidelines are ignored, we must be able to confront the 
situation and put it right.  If we can’t do this, we will not be able 
to advance our work.



Al Kagan
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61820
USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax 217-333-2214
akagan at uiuc.edu
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