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<< More "Coalition of the Bribed" | Main | Budget Simulation- You Balance the Budget >> February 25, 2003Hijacking of the Affirmative Action Movement[This is my most recent Progressive Populist column, but I would emphasize what a threat I see this group is to the affirmative action and civil rights movement. I sent a version out on email and almost immediately was receiving new stories of groups destroyed by BAMN. The goal here is to strengthen the movement for affirmative action, my views on which you can check here, here, here and here-- NN] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ** See links at the end of the text ** Back in 1995, when the University of California Regents voted to end affirmative action in the university system, an incredibly vibrant, multiracial student-led group emerged called Diversity in Action. For the first time in a number of years, Berkeley would see mass political mobilization from across the campus, including eventually a 5000-person rally on Sproul plaza. However, within weeks of forming, that broad-based student affirmative action group was under assault, not by the cops or the administration, but by a thuggish and violent band called By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a grouplet created by a Detroit-based sect called the Revolutionary Workers League (RWL). The RWL had sent out a number of their leaders to create their BAMN front group, whose members proceeded not just to disrupt the student-led coalition meetings, but to physically assault the students, snatch the microphone from them at rallies, and bring their own megaphones to drown out their speakers. In twenty years of political organizing, I have never seen such violent and thuggish behavior, a step beyond the worst sectarian acts I had ever imagined. The student coalition leaders pushed on gamely for a few years, but it was obvious that the young students were traumatized by these attacks, and many left off organizing, a bit bitter and disillusioned by these physical assaults that had undermined their work. Across the country, in southern California, Michigan (and here), and other areas, this group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) would disrupt student-led organizing around affirmative action, claiming it was the true civil rights leader and that all alternatives had to be destroyed or subordinated to BAMN. Fast forward to 2003 and I was horrified to recently hear that By Any Means Necessary, having attacked and destroyed other affirmative action groups in the 1990s, had "mainstreamed" themselves in the last couple of years and gotten broad-based endorsements for an April 1st march in Washington DC tied to the upcoming Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. Suddenly you have groups ranging from the National Organization for Women to major unions endorsing a rally led by thugs who had committed violent assaults against teenagers. How had this happened? Unfortunately, after talking with leaders at a number of the endorsing organizations, most of them hadn't bothered to even research the group they were endorsing, even though the simplest Google search would have yielded up much of this violent history. A number were horrified but also seemed to feel in the short-term, with the Bush and Supreme Court assault on affirmative action, they just had to grab at the mobilization that was available. Which is what sectarian thugs like BAMN and the RWL count on in their violent strategies. If they can destroy alternative coalitions at the grassroots, they can count on lazy or ignorant national leaders to endorse them as the only available game in town. There is a bit of Hamlet in this sectarian story, as violence is used to kill off a rival leader, just so the killer can step into their place, and the watching population, either ignorant or swallowing their suspicions, allow it to happen for fear that the kingdom will be left leaderless with enemy troops at the border. But the mainstream groups are to blame for this situation, both for their own failures to support stronger independent grassroots student organizing on campuses, and for their failures to do even the most minimal research that is easily available in the electronic age. Even as recently as 2001, the national progressive newspaper In These Times reported that in Oakland, "[BAMN] organized a rally at Berkeley to protest university affirmative action policy.which ended in a melee of fistfights and looting." And a 2001 article in the East Bay Express, a progressive weekly based in Oakland, detailed the divisive intervention of BAMN into the local teachers union and how their violence on campus had alienated a whole range of students from activism. AsianWeek in a 2001 profile of BAMN, quoted the pro-affirmative action student Regent, Justin Fong on the group: "[BAMN] have.been a disruptive voice in terms of student activism. They have been a source of frustration for a whole generation of student activists." Other articles readily available detail violent assaults by BAMN leaders on police in southern California and an even longer history of violence by their parent sect, the RWL, during the 1995 Detroit newspaper strike and other venues around the country. What is most frustrating it that major progressive groups seem to continually fall into this pattern of endorsing thuggish sectarian groups, instead of building real democratic coalitions of their own. It was only recently, with the major February 15th mass marches against the Iraq War, that mainstream peace organizations formed a real national alternative to the Workers World Party front group, ANSWER, which had seized leadership of peace rallies for nearly a year. Hopefully, just as ANSWER is being marginalized by new democratic antiwar coalitions, BAMN will be marginalized in the affirmative action movement as mainstream civil rights groups realize what a thuggish organization they have gotten into bed with. See http://www.nathannewman.org/bamn/ for more info. Check out this general info on BAMN's and the RWL's history from google See groups taken in by BAMN here: From Berkeley and Oakland experience: Michigan Experience with BAMN History of violence by BAMN parent group, the RWL Posted by Nathan at February 25, 2003 11:28 PM Related posts:
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsUnfortunately, a lot of liberal groups take the wrong lesson from this -- that to have disicpline, "cadre" as values is to adopt too much of the enemy's tactics. Liberal students err on the side of individualism -- it's often seen as impolite to argue forcefully for your tactic. Posted by: Josh at February 26, 2003 02:37 PM Yeah, those crazy college kids, thinking being beaten up by supposed allies isn't a good thing. A little violence is good for those freshmen. Josh, what kind of "individualism" are you talking about? I am all for democratic agreement and abiding by such agreements when made, which is a laudatory kind of "discipline", but when "discipline" is about one small group disrupting democracy by physically attacking other people, the liberals are right on target on this one. Posted by: Nathan Newman at February 26, 2003 02:53 PM Good work. Keep on kicking ass (metaphorically!). Posted by: Tom Maguire at February 27, 2003 11:36 AM I've just passed my 79th birthday. I grew up in Posted by: John Van Laer at February 27, 2003 12:58 PM Give the "commie" language a break. The RWL/BAMN folks are not representative of either the history of the Communist Party in the US, which never had a reputation for physical violence (just check the legal trials back in the 1950s where the government couldn't come up with any decent examples) and generally worked well with other groups. Folks in the Party held onto illusions about Stalin far too long, but that is a very different matter from the kind of day-to-day thuggery the RWL/BAMN perpetuates. I refer you to the broad range of socialist groups that denounced BAMN in this letter back in 1995. Posted by: Nathan Newman at February 27, 2003 01:07 PM 1. I can't believe you are a political organizer and don't realize the absolute necessity for muscle. I read all the time where Conservative kids get beat up or liberal kids get beat up, and it's always the same: "Gosh oh geez I didn't know that would happen." You cannot have a political movement, rally, party or whatever without the means to defend the participants. Liberals are especially vulnerable because nearly 50 years of being anti-police means the police (pigs, fascists, etc.)won't be called. 2. Anybody over the age of sixty knows how violent the Communists were. Aside from the twenty million dead people, there were violent strikes, violent attacks on newspapers (no TV at the time), beatings of shop owners, and more than a few killings. Communism and violence go hand in hand, always, and they always excuse it. 3. How does anybody in their right mind think an organization called "By Any Means Necessary" isn't an extreme group who will kill if necessary? Lie down with dogs and get fleas, sleep with pigs and smell like pig shit, sleep with whores and get VD; there is no excuse for not checking people out, BUT understand: these kinds of people simply take over by force. I was once in a group where this happened and many of us could brawl, but even though we won the fights the other people in the group, especially the women, fled. It's a problem. Posted by: Howard Veit at February 27, 2003 02:34 PM thanks for having the courage to identify BAMN for what it is. I'd worked with a number of organizations in SF and on the east coast , never dealt w/ BAMN but did interact w/ a number of larger orgs (eg. NOW , GreenPeace , CARAL ). What finally caused me to drop out Nate was the realization that what passes for ideals for much of the left any longer is neither progressive or even democratic. These groups are pretty explicitly authoritarian in their ideaologies. Everyone will tell you that you have to be extreme to match the extreme threats of hate , patriarchy and capitalism , but its like they just want to get power so that they can do to their enemies what they think their enemies want to do to them. No one cares about the welfare of humanity , it's all about vendettas and power. I think that in some ways we're still paying for our support of stalinism , maoism , and other revolutionary movements that went bad. No one wants to take responsibilty for the mistakes that were made , or they just lie about it , and so alot of decent people get turned off and alot of the ones that stick around don't see anything wrong with what happened. keep up the good work Posted by: max privus at February 27, 2003 02:37 PM Except for two incidents I can think of off the top of my head, the CPUSA has eschewed violence. Posted by: Michael Pugliese at February 27, 2003 02:40 PM What is the RWL ancestry? Sounds much like the RCP Revolutionary Communist Party which I used to wee here (Portland) -- Maoist in identification. The RCP was too small here to do that kind of stuff but they talked that kind of talk. Posted by: zizka at February 27, 2003 03:12 PM When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Unless you are already a flea; which most pro-affirmative action folk are. Posted by: Paul A'Barge at February 27, 2003 03:20 PM Interesting about the need to organize in order to protest. I'm going to a Liberate Iraq protest this Saturday in my relatively small SW Missouri home town. If I knew that there is was organization behind it that was as reprehensible as A.N.S.W.E.R. or BAMN I wouldn't attend, but would instead find another way to voice my opinion. Those that feel they need to join a group to get their voice heard must do a little research first. Yes, I wrote that correctly. A Liberate Iraq protest. :) Posted by: Brent Smith at February 27, 2003 03:55 PM For those who wouldn't join a group with reprehensible people behind it, why do some of you keep voting Republican? Trent Lott is documented to have supported the successor to the White Citizens Council, appeared at their events, and endorsed their efforts, yet he is still chairmen of the Senate Rules Committee. I'm tough on ANSWER and BAMN because they are abberations on the left that need to be rooted out. But the racist organizations on the Right are sitting right in the councils of the highest offices of the land. Some lefties are uncomfortable with hanging out dirty laundry in public, but in the free for all of the blogosphere, I think that more public information on dirty allies, right and left, will only make the progressive movement look good in the comparison. Posted by: Nathan Newman at February 27, 2003 07:50 PM Hmmmm, Trent Lott. Robert Byrd. Which one was a member of the KKK? Which one recently used the N word (although to denigrate whites, because you know, he's all reformed now)? The Senate's champion of the progressive movement is Teddy Kennedy. Fine upstanding citizen that his is. Unfortuantely, unlike Rainman, he can't claim to be "An Excellent Driver." Progressive indeed. I laugh out loud. Fact is that the vast majority of politicos on both sides have dirty laundry in one form or another. To lump the Republican party in with the likes of ANSWER or BANM is ridiculous and I suspect even you know it. Posted by: Brent Smith at February 28, 2003 09:45 AM In answer to the posted question, The RWL has Trotskyist lineage. And strange but true, the great Vanessa Redgrave used to hang around with them. Another oddity, during the 1980s the RWL advocated a nuclear first strike by the USSR against the USA, although they tended to downplay this feature of their program when doorknocking. Posted by: DIG at February 28, 2003 11:49 AM Brent, Nathan wasn't "lumping" anyone together (with the exception of ANSWER and BAMN). His point, correct me if I'm wrong Nathan, is that ANSWER and BAMN are *not* progressive organizations, but they are in the business of disruption, and appropriating movements (be it anti-war, or pro-affirmative action). Whereas the CoCC's and organizations like them have been directly connected with current activities to current senators. And if you can't tell the difference between a Byrd and a Lott, I can't help you there, as I'm guessing that you would prefer that they be seen as the same kind of person/senator to suit your purposes. And what was your purpose in pointing out what kind of protest you are going to on Saturday? Any relevance wahtsoever to the discussion? Posted by: MJL at February 28, 2003 02:47 PM I'd even make distinctions between ANSWER and BAMN/RWL. ANSWER is authoritarian and has putrid politics and worship evil regimes (North Korea, Milosevic) but they don't have a history of physical assault on other activists, even if their organizing tactics are undemocratic. BAMN/RWL count on the organizational scale as clinical psychotics. So I wouldn't lump hardly anyone in with with them, right or left. But I would lump Trent Lott and many rightwing GOPers in with ANSWER, for their similar covert support for authoritarian regimes internationally (even if they may be different ones) and for the sort of behind-the-scenes secret policies and links that they hide from supporters. ANSWER is a front for the Workers World Party in the same way many racist GOP politicians like Trent Lott are fronts for the Conservative Citizens Councils (formerly the White Citizen Councils) and other racist and rightwing groups that are not trotted out publicly. Posted by: Nathan Newman at February 28, 2003 03:47 PM Thanks, Nathan. I like how you "re-aligned" things. Posted by: MJL at February 28, 2003 04:10 PM oops, lost the thread. Anyhow, Nathan, I'm not for beating freshmen up, except to take their lunch money. I've seen some students groups lurch along ineffectively because the members distrust the hard work of organizing. Physical violence is clearly coercion, but I've seen liberals turn away from grad student unions because they thought organizing was coercive. To be clear, I have no brief for the activities you describe in your post. Posted by: Josh at March 3, 2003 11:37 AM By Any Means Necessary - oh yeah, that's the name of an organization that will convince uneducated and undecided people to support us. I sometimes wonder if conservatives put together faux liberal groups to take apart other liberal groups. In college, I was a member of our chapter of Students Against Sweatshops. The International Socialist Organization (or some such group with the same acronym) kept trying to get us to do "joint" events with them (turn people out and they would then harangue). Talk about a way to: This just shows that when you run a liberal group, check a peron's background out. I'm glad to hear its still a major problem. Posted by: MDtoMN at March 4, 2003 03:46 PM Nathan, I am a student activist at the University of Michigan. Thanks to linking to my 2000 critique above. Students here are working hard to try to re-claim part of the affirmative action events from BAMN, see www.ssaa.us. Unfortunately, years of BAMN-style extremism has left out campus a bit numb to the issue. Keep up the great work, I look forward to exploring your website further. Rob Posted by: Rob at March 25, 2003 12:28 PM Well, here I am in AMERICA.. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I Posted by: Leslie Suttman at September 5, 2004 08:30 PM Post a comment
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