I have noted how convenient it is for the Shrubbyists and
their
extreme
rightist, neo fascist co conspirators that the most public face of the
anti war movement is extremist and collectivist. This face
is not the face of the broad mass of people who oppose the
Shrubbyist
strategy of perpetual war. This element of anti war movement
leadership
is as contra enlightenment at its heart as is the Shrubbyist religious
right itself.
Subject:
Re: Who's anti war movement is it, anyway?
Date:
Thu, 06 Feb 2003 12:59:16 -0800
From:
William Mandel <wmmmandel@earthlink.net>
To:
pivonka571@earthlink.net
CC:
(redacted)
My
experience
is quite the opposite. When I was an activist kid and then teen-ager
and
then in my early twenties between the onset of mass unemployment at the
very beginning of the Great Depression and the start of World War Two,
the Communist Party led the movement for welfare when there was no
social
safety net whatever (1929-1933). Although it entered that period with
less
than 10,000 members, primarily foreign-born and speaking poor English,
it brought over a million people into the streets to demand welfare and
unemployment insurance. Those people were obviously not Communists, any
more than the huge outpourings in Washington and San Francisco last
month,
organized by ANSWER's leftists. Welfare was won quickly, and
unemployment
insurance was won under Roosevelt, who came into office in 1933. The
original
bill was drafted by the Communists and introduced into the Senate by a
Farmer-Labor senator from the midwest.
When Communist leadership resulted in a noticeable upsurge in union
membership
in the early 30s, President Roosevelt, knowing what the consequence
would
be in workers' minds, said: "If I were a working man, I would join a
labor
union." The reaction was: "The President said so! I'll join!" Millions
joined. Obviously the vast majority of them were not and never became
Communists.
But when the Cold War began under Truman, immediately after World War
II,
and Philip Murray, head of the CIO (Congress of Industrial
Organizations,
later merged with the AFofL) and of the Association of Catholic Trade
Unionists,
had the Communist organizers fired and the unions that refused to
accept
the Cold War kicked out of the CIO. That was helped along by the
Taft-Hartley
Act, one of the "Patriot-ACt" type laws passed in the Truman-McCarthy
era.
Today's labor leadership freely admits that the precipitous decline in
union membership and the resulting drop in workers' living standards of
subsequent years was greatly assisted by the expulsion of the members
and
unions that had been the spark-plugs of earlier growth.
During the Vietnam War, the prime organizers of opposition, the "Mobe"
or Mobilization against the war, were members of a tiny Trotskyist
party.
When the people turned against the war, they followed the leadership of
the Mobe, as with the Communists forty years earlier, that was the
group
that offered leadership, and the war was brought to an end. That done,
the Trotskyists remained, and remain, tiny grouplets.
The same thing is occurring today. ANSWER quite literally provided the
answer to dissatisfaction with the drive toward war on Iraq. It is
still
doing so. If the war is prevented, the examples cited in the past
indicate
that ANSWER will disappear from the scene unless the times bring an
upsurge
in popular opposition to racism, which is what the "R" in that acronym
represents.
At all events, trying to expel the leftists will only damage the
movement,
as that expulsion from organized labor in the late 40s continues to be
reflected in the sluggishness and lack of initiative of most union
"organizers"
today.
Although the foregoing was written from memory, I was able to do so
only
because of the research recently required to fill out the recollections
of my personal participation, and constitutes a summary of several
chapters
in my autobiography.
William Mandel
========================================================
My
autobiography,
SAYING NO TO POWER (Introduction by Howard Zinn), includes 200 pages on
the Truman-McCarthy era, 1946-1960. I was called before all three witch
hunt committees. Those pages describe how we nullified the laws of that
day corresponding to the PATRIOT ACT and HOMELAND SECURITY operations
today.
You may hear/see my testimony before the witch hunters (used in six
films
and a play) on my website, http://www.billmandel.net
The
book is available through all normal sources. For an autographed copy,
send me $24 at 4466 View Pl.,#106, Oakland, CA. 94611
========================================================
Subject:
Re: Who's anti war movement is it, anyway?
Date:
Thu, 06 Feb 2003 15:56:38 -0800
From:
Jim Pivonka <pivonka571@earthlink.net>
To:
wmmmandel@earthlink.net
Bill,
thank
you very much for your response to my email.
The
tension
between what I see as mainstream progressive activity and more
marginal
groups exists not only with respect to 'collectivist' leftist groups,
but
also frequently with respect to 'populist' groups like those supporting
William Jennings Bryan, Father Coughlin, Sockless Jerry Simpson, and
Huey
Long - though I have not much confidence in placing Huey in with the
other
two. Both tendencies have contributed to political and
social
reforms in this country.
It
is a
useful
tension, I think, and the passions of the more extreme groups clearly
do
provide energies and impetus that is important to the growth of a mass
movement. And not only progressive movements. We are,
in fact, in the grip of a mass movement, the 'Bush base' that has been
and is still driven by rightist extremists like Fallwell, Robertson,
Perle,
and many more extremist religious right and social/economic fascist
agitators.
The
question
of when and how a movement shifts from a narrowly based to a broad and
popularily supported one is difficult to answer. The 'civil war'
between the rightist and leftist popular movements of Columbia, which
tore
at that nation for most of a century, are a caution to me though, about
the need to temper, eventually, the character of political action.
It
is
clearly
not appropriate to "purge" the members and adherents of the radical
leftist
organizations from the movement fighting against Bush's perpetual war
strategy.
It may be appropriate to de-emphasize some of the issues not directly
related
to that fight, so as to focus more squarely on anti war
organizing.
It
does
NOT
seem appropriate to me to have the fight against the 'perpetual war'
strategy
converted into, or to seem to be strongly associated with other
objectives
- especially collectivist economic objectives - of the most radical of
these leftist organizations. I can imagine that the
members
and leadership of these organizations see an opportunity to
educate,
and even radicalize many of those who are facing up to the Bush
regime's
character and plans. I think they must be modest in their goals
and
in the actions they take to achieve them, however.
Your
point
about racism, its place in the structure of the problem that has led us
to the point we are in, and the need to raise it strongly as an issue
for
future activist focus is unanswerable. Yet, if I had my
druthers,
as I do not, dealing with racism and with the need for action to
reverse
the effects of centuries of racist policies and oppression would not be
presented as requiring or justifying collectivist economic organization.
(A
point of
clarification: I use the term 'collectivist' to make space for a
discrimination between Marxist analytical tools and collectivist
solutions
to economic problems. I don't think useful analysis of economic
issues
is possible if not informed by Marx's insights, and those of people
after
him who built on his work. But I am personally persuaded that the
collectivist solutions which seem to flow so inexorably from Marxist
analysis
in many minds do not in fact do so, and are a instead a snare and a
delusion.
I know not now I came to be such a hardshell pluralist, but there you
have
it.)
With
all respect
and gratitude for your lifetime of work and dedication to justice,
freedom,
and liberty for all people, my best wishes to you.
Jim
Pivonka