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October 29, 2002
When NOT to Hold a Rally
How about when you will look absolutely pathetic compared to the opposing side?
I was down in DC at the national antiwar rally there this past weekend and saw the rightwing FreeRepublic "counter-rally" in support of invading Iraq. It was so sad and pathetic. But don't take my word-- someone took pictures :)
On a different note, I have to say that the numbers gathered together by the antiwar forces was the only exciting thing about the DC antiwar rally. The speeches were mind-numbingly boring, reflecting the robotic sectarians who organized the event. While 99% of those attending have nothing in common with the evil politics of the core sect at the heart of the event, the so-called Workers World Party (and its front group, the International Action Center), it does make me vomit a bit that the democratic left allows that organization such a strong role. The result is inevitably either obnoxious speakers or, at best, the boring repetitive rhetoric we heard on Saturday that could have been said at any antwar rally for the last thirty years.
But when an organization like Workers World, that cheerleads Saddam Hussein's "resistance" to US imperialism, lauds Milosevic's "patriotic" defense of Serbia, and hails the dead North Korean leader Kim Il Sung as a giant of 20th century leadership, is at the heart of the rally, boring speeches is the best you can hope for. Any analysis of the concrete situation by those Stalinist butcher-lovers would have made me retch.
See this page of further analysis and criticism of the role of the WWP/IAC within the left, put together by a group of the anarchist-style activists, who chanted ""War is not the Answer, but neither is A.N.S.W.E.R" at the October 26 march.
Posted by Nathan at October 29, 2002 06:54 AM
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