[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Chris Hedges: ONWT March to Nowhere

[Brussel Morton K.]

There has been much passionate discussion about all this on the UFPJ email list.  Here's some of it:
--mkb

…
There would not have been anything like 10-2-10 had it been organized by the traditional antiwar movement (even assuming all the contending organizations would agree to cooperate).  What made the event possible was the combination of labor and mainstream African American organizations like the NAACP calling it, organizing it, mobilizing their base for it and funding it, with all the inherent political and ideological limitations they bring to the table.  Bemoaning the fact that a donkey is not a lion will not change the nature of the donkey.  

One thing that we on the left ought to take note of, however, is that despite these limitations, the organizers made room (albeit with no small amount of discomfort) for us to participate and even created a formation (the peace table) through which we could express ourselves.  They also resisted a virulent redbaiting attack that in years past would have sent most of them running for cover.

The fact that the audience was politically more ready to decry the war than the primary sponsors is important.  There were no lack of antiwar signs and slogans throughout the crowd and many were brought by those who carried them, not by antiwar groups distributing signs at the event.  

Given the political space, it is instructive also to look at what the organized antiwar forces (96-97 organizations) were able to produce.  The assembly at 14th & Constitution was modest at best.  The peace feeder march had at most a few thousand people (and that may be a generous estimate).  The complaint that there would have been a larger antiwar turnout if the politics of the demonstration were more radical reveals, not the inadequacy of the event but the lack of ideological influence and organizational capacity of the antiwar movement.  

The real opportunity afforded by 10-2-10 has drawn little attention among its critics - that is the opportunity for the traditional antiwar forces to establish a working relationship with other economic, racial and social justice forces that could transcend the day's event and provide a basis for ongoing collaboration.  Those who are fixated on the limitations of ONWT are unlikely, however, to have recognized, not to mention seized that opportunity.  

This opportunity is created by two fundamental truths.  One is that the antiwar movement on its own is incapable of ending either war, fundamentally altering the country's imperialist foreign policy, or dismantling the military-industrial-security complex.  The other is that economic, racial and social justice forces on their own are incapable of extracting from the system concessions that will begin to meet even the most modest needs of their constituencies.  

Recognizing these truths is a precondition to freeing ourselves from tired incantations, fulminations, assumptions and habits of work that keep us from creating the kind of movements that have the power to truly change the direction of politics in the U.S.

Whatever the intentions of the primary sponsors, 10-2-10 had the potential to raise expectations and whet the appetite of many who attended for more -  more fundamental demands and more action for change.  The challenge to us is to encourage that process and help to give expression to those aspirations.

In solidarity,
Michael



The United National Antiwar Committee held an adjacent rally at the site of the Peace Table and dozens of speakers denounced this administrations barbaric and unending wars and support to the criminal state of Israel.  UNAC activists engaged with thousands of unionists as they stopped to choose UNAC signs to carry down to the rally area.  We debated the politics of immediate withdrawal, cutting US aid to Israel, ending the attacks on Muslim Americans and immigrants and the Black community, all political sentiments expressed in our signs.  Some unionists said that their officials would freak if they took the "cut aid to Israel" signs but often their friends said, but, "hey its the right thing, man."  We also saw many handmade antiwar signs.  The antiwar sentiment on the ground was strong.  The contradiction between what the unionists and community people wanted and what the organizers of 10.2.10 wanted could not have been starker.   We had to be there to see it and feel this contradiction for ourselves.  Someone also needs to tell the stories from the bus rides home.  My friends explained how their  AFT bus organizer kept pleading with disinterested riders who did not want to signup to get out the vote.  The unions paid for these buses, she said. We have to show them it was worth it by turning in these cards.  Not surprisingly, this kind of appeal did not really turn the tide.  Now what are we going to propose that these riders do instead? Marching AGAINST Obama's wars this fall and spring is a good start.
 
Chris



Kevin wrote:
"There should have been no peace groups endorsing this march.  If peace groups wanted to participate they should have protested, not endorsed."

So "Peace movement protests jobs rally" is what we need to build the movement?

As for this:
" it looks to me like the peace movement was used and did not get much in return."

If we can't move beyond "What's in it for ME?" then we are all truly screwed.

Steve Burns
Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

I want to make such actions better, not oppose them, but it does make you stop a bit to hear about the progress: in a mere 40 years they've arrived at the same place the fascists and the tv comedians are at.  Pushing for a bit more hardly seems uncalled for :-)
--David Swanson


On 10/6/10 12:58 PM, Thomas Bias wrote:
> 
> In response to Chris Gauvreau:
> 
> Forty years ago I was attending a National Peace Action Coalition meeting on a Sunday. The Student Mobilization Committee had had a national meeting the day before. At the NPAC meeting, an antiwar union official, Mort Furay of the Hotel and Restaurant workers, asked us to call off planned demonstrations for the Fall. He was concerned that any problems with violence or a "too radical" image of antiwar demonstrators might hurt the chances for Democrats in the 1970 midterm elections. Chris, I suspect that you were at that meeting, too. In any case, this has always been the problem with those who propose that we put our energy into the Democratic party "friends" of labor: they traditionally call on us to abandon mass action in favor of an electoral strategy. That did NOT happen this year. Instead the pro-Democrat labor leadership called for mass action. Yes, it was a baby step. Yes, we asked nice and said "please." But it was a STEP in the right direction, and I for one am not about to say, "yes, but..." to such a development. The important question for you and me is how we get a hearing from the tens of thousands of workers—and so many of them workers of color—who are involved. A big part of that has to be what we DO, not what we SAY. And also HOW we say what we say. And in that regard, I will repeat, Chris Hedges's article is not helpful.
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
> On Oct 6, 2010, at 12:36 PM, chris_gauvreau at comcast.net wrote:
> 
>> No, Tom, both the attendees and the program of the event are important.  Yes, the people who attended could be mobilized to make fundamental social change. As others have said, when passing out literature and placards, the unionists universally seized antiwar signs and signs that expressed militancy instead of appreciation for Obama.  But Hedges is completely right in saying that if the labor leadership persists in mounting  pro-Democratic party "actions" like 10.2.10 and continues to fail to mobilize independently of the Democratic Party, we will be CRUSHED by the Obama regime (whose prosecutors are hauling us before McCarthyite Grand Juries!) and the right wing mobs funded by the corps Obama is serving.  Intervene to provide an alternative to the strategy pushed by the 10.2.10 organizers? Of course.  Help them rebuild the Democratic Party by uncritically calling for people to mobilize under their aegis?  You must be kidding!
>>  
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Thomas Bias" <biastg at embarqmail.com>
>> To: ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 2010 11:04:20 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ufpj-activist] Chris Hedges: ONWT March to Nowhere
>> 
>> The important thing about 10-2-10 was not what the speakers said or even what the demands were, but who attended. The people who were there were overwhelmingly working-class and disproportionately from the ORGANIZED working class and disproportionately people of color. These are the people who have the real power to make fundamental change: their hands are on the means of production, and if and when such a rally is held on a working day rather than a Saturday, the capitalist economy will be seriously disrupted. The working class's consciousness—even those who attended Saturday's rally, those who are the most advanced in their consciousness—is not at a point where people are ready to break with the Obama administration and the Democratic party, let alone carry out a one-day general strike. Not YET. That will come as the struggle progresses. It's our responsibility to see to it that the struggle DOES progress, and that Saturday's rally is only the beginning. For that reason, I agree with Carl that Chris's article was not helpful. Actions like 10-2-10 need to be encouraged, not only with words on the Internet but with hard organizing work to make them successful.
>> 
>> Tom


On Oct 6, 2010, at 4:24 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> Ron, Linda, & I discussed read & discussed this on AOTA this week.  (I'll post the program to the FB page next week.)
> 
> Hedges' hysterical (not funny) edge is visible, but it's employed in a good cause - exposing the administration's co-option of this rally.  
> 
> The anti-war movement will reconstitute only when it realizes that the Obama administration is the enemy, not a misguided friend. 
> 

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