[Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] "The Progressive Movement is astroturf beholden to the rich elite…"

[C. G. Estabrook]

The leaflet criticized an NPR newscaster visiting campus in 2005. Since he was known as a liberal, some members of AWARE didn't want to demonstrate against him, so I wrote on the leaflet that it was circulated by "members of AWARE," as it was.

The split had occurred earlier, over a visit by then-Senator Obama to the campus. The Democrats' co-optation of the anti-war movement was well underway. I wrote about it at the time for the News-Gazette and Counterpunch: <http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/09/29/illinois-anti-warriors-and-the-attractive-senator/>. The latter article concluded,

"…In spite of this record, there seemed to be a notable hesitation on the part of some members of AWARE to call Obama on his support for the war. Prompted by the complaints of one black Democrat after the town meeting, several members decided that leafleting Obama’s rally had been 'rude' and that the leaflet 'demonized' him. They took the uncomfortable position that AWARE needed to treat black politicians differently from white politicians.

"With respect for my colleagues in AWARE, that’s nonsense — it’s patronizing or hypocritical, if not racist. A senator in favor of continuing the war, as Obama is, has blood on his hands, whether he’s black or white, from voting for continued appropriations and confirmation of the executives who make war. Anti-warriors who fail to say so because of the senator’s race find themselves covertly supporting the war."

My campaign for Congress (as a Green) was three years earlier - before the invasion of Iraq - and suffered no split over the war or identity politics.

--CGE
 
On Mar 18, 2013, at 7:34 AM, Ricky Baldwin <rbaldwin at seiu73.org> wrote:

> You might convince someone who wasn't there that this is what happened to AWARE, but the reality was much more banal.
> 
> You put AWARE's name on a leaflet that was explicitly rejected by the group, then at subsequent meetings you finally pushed over the edge people who were already on the brink of not being able to tolerate your belligerent behavior during meetings.
> 
> At the time you claimed some farcical "tyranny" of politeness or some such, but now it's cooptation by some abstract "Progressive Movement" and then-Sen. Obama, who hardly ever even spoke with any of us-- never, to my recollection, except in one argument while we demonstrated outside his speech.  It's hard to see how he coopted members of AWARE who despise him, some who have written quite a but about his evil -- less hard to see that the group "split" in a very similar fashion to your own political campaign.  Looks like a pattern from here.
> 
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID
> 
> 
> "C. G. Estabrook" <carl at newsfromneptune.com> wrote:
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668
> 
> What these tapes tell us is how influential the active anti-war movement of 45 years ago was, and how right Obama was to be afraid of its revival, as he reveals in The Audacity of Hope.
> 
> The principal strategy of Obama's presidential campaign(s) was the co-optation of the anti-war movement, and in that they were successful.
> 
> (In Champaign-Urbana, it was co-optation by this 'Progressive Movement' - in the person of the state's junior senator - that split 'AWARE' in 2005: <http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/09/29/illinois-anti-warriors-and-the-attractive-senator/>.)
> 
> --CGE
> 
> On Mar 16, 2013, at 4:06 PM, C. G. Estabrook <carl at newsfromneptune.com<mailto:carl at newsfromneptune.com>> wrote:
> 
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/15/the-progressive-movement-is-a-pr-front-for-rich-democrats/
> 
> "...in early 2007 ... the truly dark and cynical agenda of the professional Progressive Movement and the Democratic Party revealed itself. Under Pelosi the Democrats could have cut off funding for Bush’s unpopular wars and foreign policy. Instead, with PR cover provided by MoveOn and their lobbyist Tom Matzzie, the Democratic Congress gave George Bush all the money he wanted to continue his wars. For the previous five years MoveOn had branded itself as the leader of the anti-war movement, building lists of millions of liberals, raising millions of dollars, and establishing itself in the eyes of the corporate media as leaders of the US peace movement. Now they helped the Democrats fund the war, both betting that the same public opposition to the wars that helped them win control of the House in 2006 could win the Presidency..."
> 
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