Noam Chomsky
- Thread starter Nightbreed
- Start date
Mcleanslut accuses anyone who is against bush as being a communist. Its a very cute tactic he probably picked up from O'Reilly or someone simular. THere is no way noam is a communist like mcleanbiaatch claims. Do research on the internet, tons of shit will come up that will prove mcleanfag is absolutely 100% false.
In contrast, look at the freak show that makes up the American left: Jim McDermott, Al Sharpton, Cynthia McKinney, Patty Murray, Maxine Waters, Ramsey Clark, Noam Chomsky--the list could go on and on. Obviously one could make many distinctions here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110002921
Clark and Chomsky are not active in Democratic politics; most Democrats don't actually endorse McKinney's anti-Semitism or McDermott's pro-Saddam stance; Patty Murray may be more naive than evil.
And of course the Democratic Party includes many serious and sober political leaders. But the point is that they don't make these distinctions, at least not publicly. They don't repudiate the McDermotts, Sharptons and Chomskys of the world,
http://www.opinionjournal.com/search/exec/htsearch.cgi?words=noam+chomsky&db=db&where=oj
Marx Without the Realism - Jan 15, 2003
... Lieven assures us, in a recent article in the London Review of Books, is nothing less than "a menace to itself and to mankind," and that Noam Chomsky has repeatedly characterized as the world's major terrorist state. But above all it is the America that is responsible for the evils of the ...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002911
01/15/03, 37232 bytes
United We Stand - Nov 26, 2002
... who had committed the equivalent of Sept. 11 countless times--which is to say, conservatives. Meanwhile, I was telling him through my teeth that Noam Chomsky, the source of my buddy's picturesque worldview, was a shameless liar and distorter. We kept at for almost an hour. Then, as he got off the phone ...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002678
11/26/02, 8108 bytes
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/30/ltm.01.html
ZAHN: All right, professor, I'm going to have to leave it there with you, Bill Bennett, and we have got to leave it to about 20 seconds.
BENNETT: It there any nation that acknowledges its errors and its sins and its crimes and the things it has done that are not consistent with its principles more than the United States? No, there is not.
This is also the man, just let it be said for the record, who said that the reports of atrocities by the Khmer Rouge were grossly exaggerated. This is the man who said when we engaged the Soviet Union that we...
CHOMSKY: No, it's not. But that is...
BENNETT: I didn't interrupt you -- that we were continuing the Nazi effort against Russia. Go through the Chomsky work, line by line, argument by argument, and you will see this is a man who has made a career out of hating America and out of trashing the record of this country. Of course, there is a mixed record in this country, why do you choose to live in this terrorist nation, Mr. Chomsky?
CHOMSKY: I don't. I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.
BENNETT: I think you should say greatest -- I think you should say greatest a little more often.
CHOMSKY: If you want to be a hypocrite...
(CROSSTALK)
BENNETT: I think you should acknowledge its virtues a little more often, Mr. Chomsky.
CHOMSKY: And you should acknowledge its crimes.
BENNETT: I do. Read my book. You will see it.
CHOMSKY: No, you never do. No, sorry. And if you want to...
BENNETT: I am reading other people's books.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/search/exec/htsearch.cgi?words=noam+chomsky&db=db&where=oj
Best of the Web Today - May 14, 2002
... Dog There's been an outbreak of good sense at two elite colleges in Massachusetts. No, this is not a joke. A far-left group led by the despicable Noam Chomsky is circulating a petition urging Harvard and MIT to divest themselves of all holdings in companies that do business in Israel. But here's the ...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110001707
05/14/02, 20490 bytes
http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz072202.asp
Suppose that, in the wake of 9/11, the government had decided to spend millions of dollars developing American expertise on the languages and cultures of the Middle East. Sounds sensible enough, doesn't it? Now suppose that in order to cultivate this sorely needed expertise on the Middle East, the American government had turned for help to an organization headed by Noam Chomsky, or some like-minded individual. Sounds utterly loony, doesn't it? Yet that is exactly what has happened.........
Joel Beinin, an unrelenting radical left-wing opponent of American foreign policy — a man whose position on the war is quite like that of Noam Chomsky himself.........Since Professor Beinin has responded to me by claiming that his scholarship, and that of his government subsidized academic allies, provides a "public good to American society at large," let us have a closer look at Professor Beinin and his work.........You can find Beinin's speech on the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center website, which features articles on the war by Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Ted Rall, Robert Fisk, Arundhati Roy, and Barbara Kingsolver — a veritable honor roll of blame-America-firsters. As an added bonus, you'll find a link to Fidel Castro's response to President Bush's famous post-9/11 address to the joint session of Congress. ("Socialism or death!") The website is graced by only two pictures, those of Noam Chomsky, and of Professor Beinin himself.........Beinin's radical credentials are impressive. He dedicated one of his books, Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East, to the spirit of the Thaelmann Battalion and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade — leftist volunteer regiments, many of them communist, who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Beinin's writing in Workers and Peasants draws on Marxist theorists like Antonio Gramsci and the Subaltern Studies school, as well as the post-colonial theory of Edward Said............Beinin simply took for granted the radical politics of the field and called on his colleagues to defend their opposition to Washington's policies by going onto far leftist news outlets like Pacific News Service and AlterNet
http://www.nationalreview.com/impromptus/impromptus050702.asp
The far-leftist and professional democracy-hater Noam Chomsky has penned a tract on 9/11, blaming it all on Bush, America, etc. It is a brisk seller, particularly on college campuses. Here’s a snippet from the Times piece on the subject: “‘People are coming in every day, asking, “What can I read that can give me some understanding of what’s happening?“’ said Virginia Harabin, the floor manager at the Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington. ‘This is the one I recommend.’”
Perfect. In fact, a perfect description of my hometown, education, etc., might be “Chomskyite.”
(Recall that Chomsky’s idea of a good government is the Khmer Rouge — seriously.)
(Remember the Times subhead, when the Khmer Rouge took power? “For Most a Better Life.” Between 2 and 3 million were murdered.)
Clark and Chomsky are not active in Democratic politics; most Democrats don't actually endorse McKinney's anti-Semitism or McDermott's pro-Saddam stance; Patty Murray may be more naive than evil.
And of course the Democratic Party includes many serious and sober political leaders. But the point is that they don't make these distinctions, at least not publicly. They don't repudiate the McDermotts, Sharptons and Chomskys of the world,
http://www.opinionjournal.com/search/exec/htsearch.cgi?words=noam+chomsky&db=db&where=oj
Marx Without the Realism - Jan 15, 2003
... Lieven assures us, in a recent article in the London Review of Books, is nothing less than "a menace to itself and to mankind," and that Noam Chomsky has repeatedly characterized as the world's major terrorist state. But above all it is the America that is responsible for the evils of the ...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002911
01/15/03, 37232 bytes
United We Stand - Nov 26, 2002
... who had committed the equivalent of Sept. 11 countless times--which is to say, conservatives. Meanwhile, I was telling him through my teeth that Noam Chomsky, the source of my buddy's picturesque worldview, was a shameless liar and distorter. We kept at for almost an hour. Then, as he got off the phone ...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002678
11/26/02, 8108 bytes
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/30/ltm.01.html
ZAHN: All right, professor, I'm going to have to leave it there with you, Bill Bennett, and we have got to leave it to about 20 seconds.
BENNETT: It there any nation that acknowledges its errors and its sins and its crimes and the things it has done that are not consistent with its principles more than the United States? No, there is not.
This is also the man, just let it be said for the record, who said that the reports of atrocities by the Khmer Rouge were grossly exaggerated. This is the man who said when we engaged the Soviet Union that we...
CHOMSKY: No, it's not. But that is...
BENNETT: I didn't interrupt you -- that we were continuing the Nazi effort against Russia. Go through the Chomsky work, line by line, argument by argument, and you will see this is a man who has made a career out of hating America and out of trashing the record of this country. Of course, there is a mixed record in this country, why do you choose to live in this terrorist nation, Mr. Chomsky?
CHOMSKY: I don't. I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.
BENNETT: I think you should say greatest -- I think you should say greatest a little more often.
CHOMSKY: If you want to be a hypocrite...
(CROSSTALK)
BENNETT: I think you should acknowledge its virtues a little more often, Mr. Chomsky.
CHOMSKY: And you should acknowledge its crimes.
BENNETT: I do. Read my book. You will see it.
CHOMSKY: No, you never do. No, sorry. And if you want to...
BENNETT: I am reading other people's books.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/search/exec/htsearch.cgi?words=noam+chomsky&db=db&where=oj
Best of the Web Today - May 14, 2002
... Dog There's been an outbreak of good sense at two elite colleges in Massachusetts. No, this is not a joke. A far-left group led by the despicable Noam Chomsky is circulating a petition urging Harvard and MIT to divest themselves of all holdings in companies that do business in Israel. But here's the ...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110001707
05/14/02, 20490 bytes
http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz072202.asp
Suppose that, in the wake of 9/11, the government had decided to spend millions of dollars developing American expertise on the languages and cultures of the Middle East. Sounds sensible enough, doesn't it? Now suppose that in order to cultivate this sorely needed expertise on the Middle East, the American government had turned for help to an organization headed by Noam Chomsky, or some like-minded individual. Sounds utterly loony, doesn't it? Yet that is exactly what has happened.........
Joel Beinin, an unrelenting radical left-wing opponent of American foreign policy — a man whose position on the war is quite like that of Noam Chomsky himself.........Since Professor Beinin has responded to me by claiming that his scholarship, and that of his government subsidized academic allies, provides a "public good to American society at large," let us have a closer look at Professor Beinin and his work.........You can find Beinin's speech on the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center website, which features articles on the war by Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Ted Rall, Robert Fisk, Arundhati Roy, and Barbara Kingsolver — a veritable honor roll of blame-America-firsters. As an added bonus, you'll find a link to Fidel Castro's response to President Bush's famous post-9/11 address to the joint session of Congress. ("Socialism or death!") The website is graced by only two pictures, those of Noam Chomsky, and of Professor Beinin himself.........Beinin's radical credentials are impressive. He dedicated one of his books, Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East, to the spirit of the Thaelmann Battalion and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade — leftist volunteer regiments, many of them communist, who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Beinin's writing in Workers and Peasants draws on Marxist theorists like Antonio Gramsci and the Subaltern Studies school, as well as the post-colonial theory of Edward Said............Beinin simply took for granted the radical politics of the field and called on his colleagues to defend their opposition to Washington's policies by going onto far leftist news outlets like Pacific News Service and AlterNet
http://www.nationalreview.com/impromptus/impromptus050702.asp
The far-leftist and professional democracy-hater Noam Chomsky has penned a tract on 9/11, blaming it all on Bush, America, etc. It is a brisk seller, particularly on college campuses. Here’s a snippet from the Times piece on the subject: “‘People are coming in every day, asking, “What can I read that can give me some understanding of what’s happening?“’ said Virginia Harabin, the floor manager at the Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington. ‘This is the one I recommend.’”
Perfect. In fact, a perfect description of my hometown, education, etc., might be “Chomskyite.”
(Recall that Chomsky’s idea of a good government is the Khmer Rouge — seriously.)
(Remember the Times subhead, when the Khmer Rouge took power? “For Most a Better Life.” Between 2 and 3 million were murdered.)
^^^^
It looks like Chomsky is closer to anti-American than he is to communist.
At least that's what it seems from the info you put up.
Not that I'm tagging him with being anti-American, it doesn't seem to me that he is so far.
It appears to me that he isn't afraid to pull the skelletons out of America's closet.
I mean everything I heard from him makes sense, he isn't lying.
But I can see where some right wing cats will take offense and tag him with being anti-American.
It looks like Chomsky is closer to anti-American than he is to communist.
At least that's what it seems from the info you put up.
Not that I'm tagging him with being anti-American, it doesn't seem to me that he is so far.
It appears to me that he isn't afraid to pull the skelletons out of America's closet.
I mean everything I heard from him makes sense, he isn't lying.
But I can see where some right wing cats will take offense and tag him with being anti-American.
lol, your laughable.....plus you're in school, which makes it sad.
he's no anti american, he's a critic.....we should have more
people like him. THats what america is all about. freedom
of speech.
none of that shit proved any of your comments. And about
that qoute about Benin, is about him(Benin) not chomksy,
and doesn't prove anything.
A.N.S.W.E.R. a communist organization?!?!? LMAO
prove that all members are communist.
do u know what a.n.s.w.e.r means? Act Now to Stop War & End Racism. http://www.internationalanswer.org/
he's no anti american, he's a critic.....we should have more
people like him. THats what america is all about. freedom
of speech.
none of that shit proved any of your comments. And about
that qoute about Benin, is about him(Benin) not chomksy,
and doesn't prove anything.
A.N.S.W.E.R. a communist organization?!?!? LMAO
prove that all members are communist.
do u know what a.n.s.w.e.r means? Act Now to Stop War & End Racism. http://www.internationalanswer.org/
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/50/news-corn.php
Behind the Placards
The odd and troubling origins of today’s anti-war movement
by David Corn
FREE MUMIA. FREE THE CUBAN 5. FREE JAMIL AL-AMIN (that’s H. Rap Brown, the former Black Panther convicted in March of killing a sheriff’s deputy in 2000). And free Leonard Peltier. Also, defeat Zionism. And, while we’re at it, let’s bring the capitalist system to a halt.
When tens of thousands of people gathered near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for an anti-war rally and march in Washington last Saturday, the demands hurled by the speakers extended far beyond the call for no war against Iraq. Opponents of the war can be heartened by the sight of people coming together in Washington and other cities for pre-emptive protests. But demonstrations such as these are not necessarily strategic advances, for the crowds are still relatively small and, more importantly, the message is designed by the far left for consumption by those already in their choir.
In a telling sign of the organizers’ priorities, the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the taxi driver/radical journalist sentenced to death two decades ago for killing a policeman, drew greater attention than the idea that revived and unfettered weapons inspections should occur in Iraq before George W. Bush launches a war. Few of the dozens of speakers, if any, bothered suggesting a policy option regarding Saddam Hussein other than a simplistic leave-Iraq-alone. Jesse Jackson may have been the only major figure to acknowledge Saddam’s brutality, noting that the Iraqi dictator “should be held accountable for his crimes.” What to do about Iraq? Most speakers had nothing to say about that. Instead, the Washington rally was a pander fest for the hard left.
If public-opinion polls are correct, 33 percent to 40 percent of the public opposes an Iraq war; even more are against a unilateral action. This means the burgeoning anti-war movement has a large recruiting pool, yet the demo was not intended to persuade doubters. Nor did it speak to Americans who oppose the war but who don’t consider the United States a force of unequaled imperialist evil and who don’t yearn to smash global capitalism.
This was no accident, for the demonstration was essentially organized by the Workers World Party, a small political sect that years ago split from the Socialist Workers Party to support the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The party advocates socialist revolution and abolishing private property. It is a fan of Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba, and it hails North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for preserving his country’s “socialist system,” which, according to the party’s newspaper, has kept North Korea “from falling under the sway of the transnational banks and corporations that dictate to most of the world.” The WWP has campaigned against the war-crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. A recent Workers World editorial declared, “Iraq has done absolutely nothing wrong.”
Officially, the organizer of the Washington demonstration was International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). But ANSWER is run by WWP activists, to such an extent that it seems fair to dub it a WWP front. Several key ANSWER officials — including spokesperson Brian Becker — are WWP members. Many local offices for ANSWER’s protest were housed in WWP offices. Earlier this year, when ANSWER conducted a press briefing, at least five of the 13 speakers were WWP activists. They were each identified, though, in other ways, including as members of the International Action Center.
The IAC, another WWP offshoot, was a key partner with ANSWER in promoting the protest. It was founded by Ramsey Clark, attorney general for President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. For years, Clark has been on a bizarre political odyssey, much of the time in sync with the Workers World Party. As an attorney, he has represented Lyndon LaRouche, the leader of a political cult. He has defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who was accused of participating in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Clark is also a member of the International Committee To Defend Slobodan Milosevic. The international war-crimes tribunal, he explains, “is war by other means” — that is, a tool of the West to crush those who stand in the way of U.S. imperialism, like Milosevic. A critic of the ongoing sanctions against Iraq, Clark has appeared on talking-head shows and refused to concede any wrongdoing on Saddam’s part. There is no reason to send weapons inspectors to Iraq, he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “After 12 years of brutalization with sanctions and bombing they’d like to be a country again. They’d like to have sovereignty again. They’d like to be left alone.”
It is not redbaiting to note the WWP’s not-too-hidden hand in the nascent anti-war movement. It explains the tone and message of Saturday’s rally. Take the question of inspections. According to Workers World, at a party conference in September, Sara Flounders, a WWP activist, reported war opponents were using the slogan “inspections, not war.” Flounders, the paper says, “pointed out that ‘inspections ARE war’ in another form,” and that she had “prepared party activists to struggle within the movement on this question.” Translation: The WWP would do whatever it could to smother the “inspections, not war” cry. Inspections-before-invasion is an effective argument against the dash to war. But it conflicts with WWP support for opponents of U.S. imperialism. At the Washington event, the WWP succeeded in blocking out that line — while promoting anti-war messages more simpatico with its dogma.
WWP shaped the demonstration’s content by loading the speakers’ list with its own people. None, though, were identified as belonging to the WWP. Larry Holmes, who emceed much of the rally from a stage dominated by ANSWER posters, was introduced as a representative of the ANSWER Steering Committee and the International Action Center. The audience was not told that he is also a member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party. When Leslie Feinberg spoke and accused Bush of concocting a war to cover up “the capitalist economic crisis,” she informed the crowd that she is “a Jewish revolutionary” dedicated to the “fight against Zionism.” When I asked her what groups she worked with, she replied that she was a “lesbian-gay-bi-transgender movement activist.” Yet a May issue of Workers World describes Feinberg as a “lesbian and transgendered communist and a managing editor of Workers World.” The WWP’s Sara Flounders, who urged the crowd to resist “colonial subjugation,” was presented as an IAC rep. Shortly after she spoke, Holmes introduced one of the event’s big-name speakers: Ramsey Clark. He declared that the Bush administration aims to “end the idea of individual freedom.”
Most of the protesters, I assume, were oblivious to the WWP’s role in the event. They merely wanted to gather with other foes of the war and express their collective opposition. They waved signs (“We need an Axis of Sanity,” “Draft Perle,” “Collateral Damage = Civilian Deaths,” “Fuck Bush”). They cheered on rappers who sang, “No blood for oil.” They laughed when Medea Benjamin, the head of Global Exchange, said, “We need to stop the testosterone-poisoning of our globe.” They filled red ANSWER donation buckets with coins and bills. But how might they have reacted if Holmes and his comrades had asked them to stand with Saddam, Milosevic and Kim? Or to oppose further inspections in Iraq?
One man in the crowd was wise to the behind-the-scenes politics. When Brian Becker, a WWP member introduced (of course) as an ANSWER activist, hit the stage, Paul Donahue, a middle-aged fellow who works with the Thomas Merton Peace and Social Justice Center in Pittsburgh, shouted, “Stalinist!” Donahue and his colleagues at the Merton Center, upset that WWP activists were in charge of this demonstration, had debated whether to attend. “Some of us tried to convince others to come,” Donahue recalled. “We figured we could dilute the [WWP] part of the message. But in the end most didn’t come. People were saying, ‘They’re Maoists.’ But they’re the only game in town, and I’ve got to admit they’re good organizers. They remembered everything but the Porta-Johns.” Rock singer Patti Smith, though, was not troubled by the organizers. “My main concern now is the anti-war movement,” she said before playing for the crowd. “I’m for a nonpartisan, globalist movement. I don’t care who it is as long as they feel the same.”
The WWP does have the shock troops and talent needed to construct a quasi mass demonstration. But the bodies have to come from elsewhere. So WWPers create fronts and trim their message, and anti-war Americans, who presumably don’t share WWP sentiments, have an opportunity to assemble and register their stand against the war. At the same time, WWP activists, hiding their true colors, gain a forum where thousands of people listen to their exhortations. Is this a good deal — or a dangerous one? Who’s using whom?
Behind the Placards
The odd and troubling origins of today’s anti-war movement
by David Corn
FREE MUMIA. FREE THE CUBAN 5. FREE JAMIL AL-AMIN (that’s H. Rap Brown, the former Black Panther convicted in March of killing a sheriff’s deputy in 2000). And free Leonard Peltier. Also, defeat Zionism. And, while we’re at it, let’s bring the capitalist system to a halt.
When tens of thousands of people gathered near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for an anti-war rally and march in Washington last Saturday, the demands hurled by the speakers extended far beyond the call for no war against Iraq. Opponents of the war can be heartened by the sight of people coming together in Washington and other cities for pre-emptive protests. But demonstrations such as these are not necessarily strategic advances, for the crowds are still relatively small and, more importantly, the message is designed by the far left for consumption by those already in their choir.
In a telling sign of the organizers’ priorities, the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the taxi driver/radical journalist sentenced to death two decades ago for killing a policeman, drew greater attention than the idea that revived and unfettered weapons inspections should occur in Iraq before George W. Bush launches a war. Few of the dozens of speakers, if any, bothered suggesting a policy option regarding Saddam Hussein other than a simplistic leave-Iraq-alone. Jesse Jackson may have been the only major figure to acknowledge Saddam’s brutality, noting that the Iraqi dictator “should be held accountable for his crimes.” What to do about Iraq? Most speakers had nothing to say about that. Instead, the Washington rally was a pander fest for the hard left.
If public-opinion polls are correct, 33 percent to 40 percent of the public opposes an Iraq war; even more are against a unilateral action. This means the burgeoning anti-war movement has a large recruiting pool, yet the demo was not intended to persuade doubters. Nor did it speak to Americans who oppose the war but who don’t consider the United States a force of unequaled imperialist evil and who don’t yearn to smash global capitalism.
This was no accident, for the demonstration was essentially organized by the Workers World Party, a small political sect that years ago split from the Socialist Workers Party to support the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The party advocates socialist revolution and abolishing private property. It is a fan of Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba, and it hails North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for preserving his country’s “socialist system,” which, according to the party’s newspaper, has kept North Korea “from falling under the sway of the transnational banks and corporations that dictate to most of the world.” The WWP has campaigned against the war-crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. A recent Workers World editorial declared, “Iraq has done absolutely nothing wrong.”
Officially, the organizer of the Washington demonstration was International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). But ANSWER is run by WWP activists, to such an extent that it seems fair to dub it a WWP front. Several key ANSWER officials — including spokesperson Brian Becker — are WWP members. Many local offices for ANSWER’s protest were housed in WWP offices. Earlier this year, when ANSWER conducted a press briefing, at least five of the 13 speakers were WWP activists. They were each identified, though, in other ways, including as members of the International Action Center.
The IAC, another WWP offshoot, was a key partner with ANSWER in promoting the protest. It was founded by Ramsey Clark, attorney general for President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. For years, Clark has been on a bizarre political odyssey, much of the time in sync with the Workers World Party. As an attorney, he has represented Lyndon LaRouche, the leader of a political cult. He has defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who was accused of participating in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Clark is also a member of the International Committee To Defend Slobodan Milosevic. The international war-crimes tribunal, he explains, “is war by other means” — that is, a tool of the West to crush those who stand in the way of U.S. imperialism, like Milosevic. A critic of the ongoing sanctions against Iraq, Clark has appeared on talking-head shows and refused to concede any wrongdoing on Saddam’s part. There is no reason to send weapons inspectors to Iraq, he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “After 12 years of brutalization with sanctions and bombing they’d like to be a country again. They’d like to have sovereignty again. They’d like to be left alone.”
It is not redbaiting to note the WWP’s not-too-hidden hand in the nascent anti-war movement. It explains the tone and message of Saturday’s rally. Take the question of inspections. According to Workers World, at a party conference in September, Sara Flounders, a WWP activist, reported war opponents were using the slogan “inspections, not war.” Flounders, the paper says, “pointed out that ‘inspections ARE war’ in another form,” and that she had “prepared party activists to struggle within the movement on this question.” Translation: The WWP would do whatever it could to smother the “inspections, not war” cry. Inspections-before-invasion is an effective argument against the dash to war. But it conflicts with WWP support for opponents of U.S. imperialism. At the Washington event, the WWP succeeded in blocking out that line — while promoting anti-war messages more simpatico with its dogma.
WWP shaped the demonstration’s content by loading the speakers’ list with its own people. None, though, were identified as belonging to the WWP. Larry Holmes, who emceed much of the rally from a stage dominated by ANSWER posters, was introduced as a representative of the ANSWER Steering Committee and the International Action Center. The audience was not told that he is also a member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party. When Leslie Feinberg spoke and accused Bush of concocting a war to cover up “the capitalist economic crisis,” she informed the crowd that she is “a Jewish revolutionary” dedicated to the “fight against Zionism.” When I asked her what groups she worked with, she replied that she was a “lesbian-gay-bi-transgender movement activist.” Yet a May issue of Workers World describes Feinberg as a “lesbian and transgendered communist and a managing editor of Workers World.” The WWP’s Sara Flounders, who urged the crowd to resist “colonial subjugation,” was presented as an IAC rep. Shortly after she spoke, Holmes introduced one of the event’s big-name speakers: Ramsey Clark. He declared that the Bush administration aims to “end the idea of individual freedom.”
Most of the protesters, I assume, were oblivious to the WWP’s role in the event. They merely wanted to gather with other foes of the war and express their collective opposition. They waved signs (“We need an Axis of Sanity,” “Draft Perle,” “Collateral Damage = Civilian Deaths,” “Fuck Bush”). They cheered on rappers who sang, “No blood for oil.” They laughed when Medea Benjamin, the head of Global Exchange, said, “We need to stop the testosterone-poisoning of our globe.” They filled red ANSWER donation buckets with coins and bills. But how might they have reacted if Holmes and his comrades had asked them to stand with Saddam, Milosevic and Kim? Or to oppose further inspections in Iraq?
One man in the crowd was wise to the behind-the-scenes politics. When Brian Becker, a WWP member introduced (of course) as an ANSWER activist, hit the stage, Paul Donahue, a middle-aged fellow who works with the Thomas Merton Peace and Social Justice Center in Pittsburgh, shouted, “Stalinist!” Donahue and his colleagues at the Merton Center, upset that WWP activists were in charge of this demonstration, had debated whether to attend. “Some of us tried to convince others to come,” Donahue recalled. “We figured we could dilute the [WWP] part of the message. But in the end most didn’t come. People were saying, ‘They’re Maoists.’ But they’re the only game in town, and I’ve got to admit they’re good organizers. They remembered everything but the Porta-Johns.” Rock singer Patti Smith, though, was not troubled by the organizers. “My main concern now is the anti-war movement,” she said before playing for the crowd. “I’m for a nonpartisan, globalist movement. I don’t care who it is as long as they feel the same.”
The WWP does have the shock troops and talent needed to construct a quasi mass demonstration. But the bodies have to come from elsewhere. So WWPers create fronts and trim their message, and anti-war Americans, who presumably don’t share WWP sentiments, have an opportunity to assemble and register their stand against the war. At the same time, WWP activists, hiding their true colors, gain a forum where thousands of people listen to their exhortations. Is this a good deal — or a dangerous one? Who’s using whom?
CONT............
“Organizing against the silence is important,” Bob Borosage, executive director of Campaign for America’s Future, a leading progressive policy shop in Washington, said backstage at the rally: “This [rally] is easy to dismiss as the radical fringe, but it holds the potential for a larger movement down the road.” Borosage did add that the WWP “puts a slant on the speakers and that limits the appeal to others. But history shows that protests are organized first by militant, radical fringe parties and then get taken over by more centrist voices as the movement grows. They provide a vessel for people who want to protest.”
That’s the vessel-half-filled view. The other argument is that WWP’s involvement will prevent the anti-war movement from growing. Sure, the commies can rent buses and obtain parade permits, but if they have a say in the message, as they have had, the anti-war movement is going to have a tough time signing up non-lefties. When the organizers tried and failed to play a recorded message from Al-Amin, Lorena Stackpole, a 20-year-old New York University student, said, “This is not what I came for.” And an organizer for a non-revolutionary peace group that participated in the event remarked, “The rhetoric here is not useful if we want to expand.” After all, how does urging the release of Cubans accused of committing espionage in the United States — a pet project of the WWP — help draw more people into the anti-war movement? (In a similar reds-take-control situation, the “Not in My Name” campaign — which pushes an anti-war statement signed by scores of prominent and celebrity lefties, including Jane Fonda, Martin Luther King III, Marisa Tomei, Kurt Vonnegut and Oliver Stone — has been directed, in part, by C. Clark Kissinger, a longtime Maoist activist and member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.)
Let’s be real: A Washington demonstration involving tens of thousands of people will not yield much political impact — especially when held while Congress is out of town and the relevant legislation has already been rubber-stamped. (The organizers claimed 200,000 showed, but that seemed a pumped-up guesstimate, perhaps three or four times the real number.) The anti-war movement won’t have a chance of applying pressure on the political system unless it becomes much larger and able to squeeze elected officials at home and in Washington.
To reach that stage, the new peace movement will need the involvement of labor unions and churches. That’s where the troops are — in the pews, in the union halls. How probable is it, though, that mainstream churches and unions will join a coalition led by the we-love-North-Korea set? Moreover, is it appropriate for groups and churches that care about human rights and worker rights abroad and at home to make common cause with those who champion socialist tyrants?
At the rally, speaker after speaker declared, “We are the real Americans.” But most “real Americans” do not see a direct connection between Mumia, the Cuban Five and the war against Iraq. Jackson, for one, exclaimed, “This time the silent majority is on our side.” If the goal is to bring the silent majority into the anti-war movement, it’s not going to be achieved by people carrying pictures of Kim Jong-Il — even if they keep them hidden in their wallets.
As yet another WWP-in-disguise speaker addressed the crowd, Steve Cobble, a progressive political consultant, gazed out at the swarm of protesters and observed, “People are looking for something to do.” Good for them. But they ought to also look at the leaders they are following and wonder if those individuals will guide them toward a broader, more effective movement or toward the fringe irrelevance the WWPers know so well.
Jonathan H. Miller contributed to this report.
“Organizing against the silence is important,” Bob Borosage, executive director of Campaign for America’s Future, a leading progressive policy shop in Washington, said backstage at the rally: “This [rally] is easy to dismiss as the radical fringe, but it holds the potential for a larger movement down the road.” Borosage did add that the WWP “puts a slant on the speakers and that limits the appeal to others. But history shows that protests are organized first by militant, radical fringe parties and then get taken over by more centrist voices as the movement grows. They provide a vessel for people who want to protest.”
That’s the vessel-half-filled view. The other argument is that WWP’s involvement will prevent the anti-war movement from growing. Sure, the commies can rent buses and obtain parade permits, but if they have a say in the message, as they have had, the anti-war movement is going to have a tough time signing up non-lefties. When the organizers tried and failed to play a recorded message from Al-Amin, Lorena Stackpole, a 20-year-old New York University student, said, “This is not what I came for.” And an organizer for a non-revolutionary peace group that participated in the event remarked, “The rhetoric here is not useful if we want to expand.” After all, how does urging the release of Cubans accused of committing espionage in the United States — a pet project of the WWP — help draw more people into the anti-war movement? (In a similar reds-take-control situation, the “Not in My Name” campaign — which pushes an anti-war statement signed by scores of prominent and celebrity lefties, including Jane Fonda, Martin Luther King III, Marisa Tomei, Kurt Vonnegut and Oliver Stone — has been directed, in part, by C. Clark Kissinger, a longtime Maoist activist and member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.)
Let’s be real: A Washington demonstration involving tens of thousands of people will not yield much political impact — especially when held while Congress is out of town and the relevant legislation has already been rubber-stamped. (The organizers claimed 200,000 showed, but that seemed a pumped-up guesstimate, perhaps three or four times the real number.) The anti-war movement won’t have a chance of applying pressure on the political system unless it becomes much larger and able to squeeze elected officials at home and in Washington.
To reach that stage, the new peace movement will need the involvement of labor unions and churches. That’s where the troops are — in the pews, in the union halls. How probable is it, though, that mainstream churches and unions will join a coalition led by the we-love-North-Korea set? Moreover, is it appropriate for groups and churches that care about human rights and worker rights abroad and at home to make common cause with those who champion socialist tyrants?
At the rally, speaker after speaker declared, “We are the real Americans.” But most “real Americans” do not see a direct connection between Mumia, the Cuban Five and the war against Iraq. Jackson, for one, exclaimed, “This time the silent majority is on our side.” If the goal is to bring the silent majority into the anti-war movement, it’s not going to be achieved by people carrying pictures of Kim Jong-Il — even if they keep them hidden in their wallets.
As yet another WWP-in-disguise speaker addressed the crowd, Steve Cobble, a progressive political consultant, gazed out at the swarm of protesters and observed, “People are looking for something to do.” Good for them. But they ought to also look at the leaders they are following and wonder if those individuals will guide them toward a broader, more effective movement or toward the fringe irrelevance the WWPers know so well.
Jonathan H. Miller contributed to this report.
http://www.workers.org/wwp.php
About Workers World
Workers World is more than a newspaper. It reflects the views of Workers World Party, which was formed in 1959.
What is our basic view? We're for socialism.
We put our ideas into practice. We are in the student movement, the labor movement, the women's movement, the lesbian/gay/bi/trans movement, the anti-war and anti-racist movements. We fight hard for a better life right now, but we know that nothing is secure--not our jobs, our homes, our health care, our pensions, our civil rights and liberties--as long as capitalism exists. So our goal is a society run by the workers, not just as pawns in a capitalist political game but as collective owners of the social wealth.
This is not a new idea. Karl Marx put socialist ideology on a scientific footing a century and a half ago. The last hundred years have seen many revolutions--and counter-revolutions--all over the world. We try to learn from the successes and the setbacks.
We're independent Marxists
THOSE ARE LINES FROM THE ABOUT US SECTION OF WWP
About Workers World
Workers World is more than a newspaper. It reflects the views of Workers World Party, which was formed in 1959.
What is our basic view? We're for socialism.
We put our ideas into practice. We are in the student movement, the labor movement, the women's movement, the lesbian/gay/bi/trans movement, the anti-war and anti-racist movements. We fight hard for a better life right now, but we know that nothing is secure--not our jobs, our homes, our health care, our pensions, our civil rights and liberties--as long as capitalism exists. So our goal is a society run by the workers, not just as pawns in a capitalist political game but as collective owners of the social wealth.
This is not a new idea. Karl Marx put socialist ideology on a scientific footing a century and a half ago. The last hundred years have seen many revolutions--and counter-revolutions--all over the world. We try to learn from the successes and the setbacks.
We're independent Marxists
THOSE ARE LINES FROM THE ABOUT US SECTION OF WWP
OK, LETS START WITH BRIAN BECKER BOARD MEMBER OF BOTH THE WWP AND INTERNATIONAL ANSWER
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3340
Among its icons, like Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro, the Workers World Party has an unrestrained admiration for North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung. In November 1986, Deirdre Griswold, an IAC executive, declared that North Korea was a socialist success story because there was no poverty, famine, or homelessness in North Korea. Griswold alleged that Kim Il Sung's birthday was celebrated both in North and South Korea.
The National Co-Director of the IAC is Brian Becker, who is a member of the secretariat of the WWP, and a member of the A.N.S.W.E.R coalition steering committee. A.N.S.W.E.R. is presently coordinating anti-American, pro-Iraq "peace" protests across the country. Becker is much admired by the Korean Communists for his loyalty to the terrorist state. In its March 16, 2002 edition, the Korean Central News of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea reported that , "Brian Becker, member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party of the United States, at a press interview held in Pyongyang before his departure from the DPRK, denounced the U.S. for having committed crimes against the Korean people.
As well as being a moving force in the WWP, IAC and A.N.S.W.E.R., Becker is chairman of the U.S. Troops Out of Korea Committee and vice chairman of the International Committee of the same. He helped coordinate the protests at the inaugural of President Bush and in general seems to be involved in every anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-democratic effort mounted by the political left.
Becker and the IAC are also staunch defenders of Slobodan Miloslevic, Kim II Sung and Kim Sung II and Mumia Abu-Jamal. On June 23, 2001 Becker directed a "people's tribunal" condemning US war crimes in Korea.
The Workers World Party is an anti-semitic, Stalinist organization, whose goal is a communist revolution which would overthrow the American "ruling class" and establish a "workers state."The founder of the WWP, Sam Marcy, was a Communist who believed that Soviet leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were counter-revolutionaries. Marcy allied the WWP with the Russian Communist Workers Party (RKRP) an anti-Semitic group that criticized Vladimir Putin for being too close to the Jews. The WWP decried perestroika — Gorbachev's attempt to reform Communism — and associated itself with Iraq after the USSR severed its contact with Hussein. They considered Saddam Hussein a victim of U.S. imperialism.
The FBI considers the WWP a terrorist organization. On May 10, 2001, FBI Director Louis Freeh stated that "Anarchists and extremist socialist groups — many of which, such as the Workers World Party, have an international presence and, at times, also represent a potential threat in the United States."
Stewart shares the Communist beliefs of the WWP and IAC and the Center for Constitutional Rights. She is anti-capitalist and believes the USA is an imperialistic nation, and that anti-capitalist violence is justified. In a 1995 New York Times interview she said, "I don't believe in anarchistic violence, but in directed violence. That would be violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism, and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support." Obviously, Stewart's worldview meshes seamlessly with that of Saddam Hussein, Yassir Arafat, the blind sheik and Osama Bin Laden. And with that of Deirdre Griswold Brian, Becker, Ramsey Clark and the Workers World Party.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5802
The "Peace" Movement's Korean Connection
By Michael Tremoglie
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 30, 2003
The Workers World Party staged anti-American rallies in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, January 18th. In fact, the Stalinist WWP has organized all the major rallies demanding "peace" on tyrants’ terms.
The organizers and speakers at this communist-sponsored, anti-American rally were the same cast of characters, saying the same hateful things that they did at last October’s anti-American rally in Washington, D.C.
That it was an anti-American rally was self-evident because one of the speakers said that in Korea anti-war rallies are known as "f-cking America rallies." The remark received the loudest cheers of any remarks made during the event.
The speaker who uttered this invective was Yoomi Choong of the Korea Truth Commission (KTC). Ms.Choong is the Deputy Secretary General of the KTC, which is affiliated with the International Action Center (IAC), which is affiliated with International ANSWER. All of these groups are affiliated with the Workers World Party (WWP). The WWP is a staunch advocate of Kim Jong Il.
Brian Becker was a principal organizer of the anti-American rally. Becker is a Director of ANSWER, and the IAC. He is a member of the Secretariat of the WWP of the United States as well. Both Becker and Choong availed themselves of the opportunity to spew their venom during the rally. Our boy in Pyongyang, Brian Becker, called the President a liar. Becker’s wife introduced a new group: Doctors and Nurses Against the War. If you listen to the speakers that Becker arranged, America is an imperialistic nation. Their main theme was that this was all about oil-a theory developed by the WWP some years ago.
Becker is very involved with North Korea. He denounced the U.S. last March during a press interview held in Pyongyang before his departure from North Korea. Becker accused the United States of systematically, maliciously, and intentionally murdering Korean civilians in a campaign of genocide. Of course, one would have to wonder why it is that a lot of South Koreans have immigrated to the United States if we were responsible for killing all those innocent Koreans. You would think they would be going to North Korea instead.
The IAC established a Korean War Crimes Tribunal at the Riverside Church in New York City. The Riverside Church is active in anti-American campaigns. Incidentally, this tribunal was endorsed by Al-Awda, "the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition."
Among Becker’s board memberships, association memberships, and executive activities is his chairmanship of the U.S. Troops out of Korea Committee. Last March, after a meeting in Paris, Becker was elected vice-chairman of the Committee of the International Liaison for Reunification and Peace in Korea (CILRECO). This is quite an impressive resume.........International ANSWER/IAC/WWP is a significant participant to promote the cause of Kim Jung Il and North Korea. Becker’s executive status with CILRECO and the U.S. Troops out of Korea Committee, and their sponsorship of the Korea Truth Commission ensure that they will be attempting to make US policies favor North Korea..........
International ANSWER is merely a proxy group for the Workers World Party. Even the New York Times-certainly no red-baiter- reported that both marches were sponsored by International Answer- albeit their comment was more of a panegyric......
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3340
Among its icons, like Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro, the Workers World Party has an unrestrained admiration for North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung. In November 1986, Deirdre Griswold, an IAC executive, declared that North Korea was a socialist success story because there was no poverty, famine, or homelessness in North Korea. Griswold alleged that Kim Il Sung's birthday was celebrated both in North and South Korea.
The National Co-Director of the IAC is Brian Becker, who is a member of the secretariat of the WWP, and a member of the A.N.S.W.E.R coalition steering committee. A.N.S.W.E.R. is presently coordinating anti-American, pro-Iraq "peace" protests across the country. Becker is much admired by the Korean Communists for his loyalty to the terrorist state. In its March 16, 2002 edition, the Korean Central News of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea reported that , "Brian Becker, member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party of the United States, at a press interview held in Pyongyang before his departure from the DPRK, denounced the U.S. for having committed crimes against the Korean people.
As well as being a moving force in the WWP, IAC and A.N.S.W.E.R., Becker is chairman of the U.S. Troops Out of Korea Committee and vice chairman of the International Committee of the same. He helped coordinate the protests at the inaugural of President Bush and in general seems to be involved in every anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-democratic effort mounted by the political left.
Becker and the IAC are also staunch defenders of Slobodan Miloslevic, Kim II Sung and Kim Sung II and Mumia Abu-Jamal. On June 23, 2001 Becker directed a "people's tribunal" condemning US war crimes in Korea.
The Workers World Party is an anti-semitic, Stalinist organization, whose goal is a communist revolution which would overthrow the American "ruling class" and establish a "workers state."The founder of the WWP, Sam Marcy, was a Communist who believed that Soviet leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were counter-revolutionaries. Marcy allied the WWP with the Russian Communist Workers Party (RKRP) an anti-Semitic group that criticized Vladimir Putin for being too close to the Jews. The WWP decried perestroika — Gorbachev's attempt to reform Communism — and associated itself with Iraq after the USSR severed its contact with Hussein. They considered Saddam Hussein a victim of U.S. imperialism.
The FBI considers the WWP a terrorist organization. On May 10, 2001, FBI Director Louis Freeh stated that "Anarchists and extremist socialist groups — many of which, such as the Workers World Party, have an international presence and, at times, also represent a potential threat in the United States."
Stewart shares the Communist beliefs of the WWP and IAC and the Center for Constitutional Rights. She is anti-capitalist and believes the USA is an imperialistic nation, and that anti-capitalist violence is justified. In a 1995 New York Times interview she said, "I don't believe in anarchistic violence, but in directed violence. That would be violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism, and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support." Obviously, Stewart's worldview meshes seamlessly with that of Saddam Hussein, Yassir Arafat, the blind sheik and Osama Bin Laden. And with that of Deirdre Griswold Brian, Becker, Ramsey Clark and the Workers World Party.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5802
The "Peace" Movement's Korean Connection
By Michael Tremoglie
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 30, 2003
The Workers World Party staged anti-American rallies in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, January 18th. In fact, the Stalinist WWP has organized all the major rallies demanding "peace" on tyrants’ terms.
The organizers and speakers at this communist-sponsored, anti-American rally were the same cast of characters, saying the same hateful things that they did at last October’s anti-American rally in Washington, D.C.
That it was an anti-American rally was self-evident because one of the speakers said that in Korea anti-war rallies are known as "f-cking America rallies." The remark received the loudest cheers of any remarks made during the event.
The speaker who uttered this invective was Yoomi Choong of the Korea Truth Commission (KTC). Ms.Choong is the Deputy Secretary General of the KTC, which is affiliated with the International Action Center (IAC), which is affiliated with International ANSWER. All of these groups are affiliated with the Workers World Party (WWP). The WWP is a staunch advocate of Kim Jong Il.
Brian Becker was a principal organizer of the anti-American rally. Becker is a Director of ANSWER, and the IAC. He is a member of the Secretariat of the WWP of the United States as well. Both Becker and Choong availed themselves of the opportunity to spew their venom during the rally. Our boy in Pyongyang, Brian Becker, called the President a liar. Becker’s wife introduced a new group: Doctors and Nurses Against the War. If you listen to the speakers that Becker arranged, America is an imperialistic nation. Their main theme was that this was all about oil-a theory developed by the WWP some years ago.
Becker is very involved with North Korea. He denounced the U.S. last March during a press interview held in Pyongyang before his departure from North Korea. Becker accused the United States of systematically, maliciously, and intentionally murdering Korean civilians in a campaign of genocide. Of course, one would have to wonder why it is that a lot of South Koreans have immigrated to the United States if we were responsible for killing all those innocent Koreans. You would think they would be going to North Korea instead.
The IAC established a Korean War Crimes Tribunal at the Riverside Church in New York City. The Riverside Church is active in anti-American campaigns. Incidentally, this tribunal was endorsed by Al-Awda, "the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition."
Among Becker’s board memberships, association memberships, and executive activities is his chairmanship of the U.S. Troops out of Korea Committee. Last March, after a meeting in Paris, Becker was elected vice-chairman of the Committee of the International Liaison for Reunification and Peace in Korea (CILRECO). This is quite an impressive resume.........International ANSWER/IAC/WWP is a significant participant to promote the cause of Kim Jung Il and North Korea. Becker’s executive status with CILRECO and the U.S. Troops out of Korea Committee, and their sponsorship of the Korea Truth Commission ensure that they will be attempting to make US policies favor North Korea..........
International ANSWER is merely a proxy group for the Workers World Party. Even the New York Times-certainly no red-baiter- reported that both marches were sponsored by International Answer- albeit their comment was more of a panegyric......
http://www.nationalreview.com/10feb03/york021003.asp
January 23, 2003, 9:00 a.m.
Reds Still
The story no one wants to hear about the antiwar movement.
By Byron York, from the February 10, 2003, issue of National Review
............The protest was put together by a group called International ANSWER, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. ANSWER is an outgrowth of another group called the International Action Center, a San Francisco-based organization that showcases the work of Ramsey Clark, the Johnson administration attorney general who has specialized in anti-American causes. Both ANSWER and the International Action Center are closely allied with a small but energetic Marxist-Leninist organization known as the Workers World Party, which in its turbulent history has supported the Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Chinese government's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Today, the WWP devotes much of its energy to supporting the regimes in Iraq and North Korea.
At the demonstration, which many media reports portrayed as a gathering of mainstream Americans, speaker after speaker condemned the United States with ancient Communist rhetoric: "revolution," "struggle," "oppressed peoples," "imperialism," and "liberation." One speaker even addressed her fellow protesters as "comrades." Given the impressive strength of the public-address system, it felt like a literal blast from the past. And if the subject had not been so serious, it might have seemed almost quaint. But the demonstration's organizers, perhaps unwittingly, made a very serious point: More than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, and long after most Americans stopped worrying about the Red Menace, a significant part of the movement that has risen up in opposition to war in Iraq is, in essence, a Communist front.
COMRADE BRIAN
Perhaps the most visible face of the demonstration was its co-director and chief spokesman, Brian Becker. Becker got a lot of exposure in the days leading up to the rally; he was quoted in newspaper articles, appeared on TV, and did radio interviews to promote the event. A member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party — and called by some the party's house intellectual — Becker is a contributor to the party's newspaper, Workers World, as well as a top official of International ANSWER and the International Action Center.
There is an almost central-casting quality to Becker's Communism. For example, in a December 2000 address to the Workers World Party conference in New York, Becker began by discussing issues raised by "comrades" who had recently been to Cuba and then launched into a detailed and impassioned analysis of Marxism and revolution. Becker stressed that the Workers World Party had "supported the Soviet Union against imperialism and domestic counter-revolution." He praised the Soviets for having "sent invaluable aid to Vietnam, Cuba, the African National Congress in South Africa, and other national-liberation movements." He railed against "U.S. imperialism." And he concluded: "We know that the biggest single contribution that we can we make to the final transition to socialism everywhere is to build a truly revolutionary party that can lead the struggle to overthrow imperialism at its center."
These days, with the Soviet Union long dead, Becker spends much of his time supporting rogue regimes. Last August, he traveled to Iraq as part of a delegation led by Ramsey Clark. In an article in Workers World, he bitterly condemned the "lawless aggression" of the "imperialist" and "racist" U.S. air patrols enforcing the no-fly zone. In early 2000, Becker traveled to North Korea to help build what he had earlier called "a movement of genuine solidarity" with Pyongyang. Accompanying Becker was a WWP writer, who described the deep impression North Korea made on them. "Wherever we went and whomever we spoke with," she wrote, "what impressed us the most was the unbreakable determination of the North Korean people to defend their socialist society against U.S. imperialism."
Such statements do not add up to the ideal profile for a leader in an antiwar movement that seeks broad mainstream support. But don't suggest that to Becker. At a news conference the day before the protest, he grew angry when asked about his association with the WWP. "I want to talk about you," he said. "National Review is a racist pro-war magazine. It's got a long — many, many generations of racism and militarism. So your so-called interest in the Left is complete bulls**t. You're just looking to try to divide the antiwar movement. This is a right-wing, racist, militarist magazine. You should be embarrassed to be working for it." End of conversation.
OBNOXIOUS
Becker is not the only WWP activist who played a key role in the January 18 demonstration. Another co-organizer — and M.C. — of the event was a man named Larry Holmes. A member of the Workers World Party secretariat, Holmes has run for president twice on the WWP ticket. At the rally, he used his time to lecture the crowd on the plight of political prisoners in the U.S. He cited two examples, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jamil Al-Amin (better known as H. Rap Brown), who have both been convicted of murdering police officers and have become causes célèbres in radical circles. "There are so many political prisoners," Holmes told the crowd. "They want peace more than any of us, and they're in prison for fighting for it."................
January 23, 2003, 9:00 a.m.
Reds Still
The story no one wants to hear about the antiwar movement.
By Byron York, from the February 10, 2003, issue of National Review
............The protest was put together by a group called International ANSWER, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. ANSWER is an outgrowth of another group called the International Action Center, a San Francisco-based organization that showcases the work of Ramsey Clark, the Johnson administration attorney general who has specialized in anti-American causes. Both ANSWER and the International Action Center are closely allied with a small but energetic Marxist-Leninist organization known as the Workers World Party, which in its turbulent history has supported the Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Chinese government's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Today, the WWP devotes much of its energy to supporting the regimes in Iraq and North Korea.
At the demonstration, which many media reports portrayed as a gathering of mainstream Americans, speaker after speaker condemned the United States with ancient Communist rhetoric: "revolution," "struggle," "oppressed peoples," "imperialism," and "liberation." One speaker even addressed her fellow protesters as "comrades." Given the impressive strength of the public-address system, it felt like a literal blast from the past. And if the subject had not been so serious, it might have seemed almost quaint. But the demonstration's organizers, perhaps unwittingly, made a very serious point: More than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, and long after most Americans stopped worrying about the Red Menace, a significant part of the movement that has risen up in opposition to war in Iraq is, in essence, a Communist front.
COMRADE BRIAN
Perhaps the most visible face of the demonstration was its co-director and chief spokesman, Brian Becker. Becker got a lot of exposure in the days leading up to the rally; he was quoted in newspaper articles, appeared on TV, and did radio interviews to promote the event. A member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party — and called by some the party's house intellectual — Becker is a contributor to the party's newspaper, Workers World, as well as a top official of International ANSWER and the International Action Center.
There is an almost central-casting quality to Becker's Communism. For example, in a December 2000 address to the Workers World Party conference in New York, Becker began by discussing issues raised by "comrades" who had recently been to Cuba and then launched into a detailed and impassioned analysis of Marxism and revolution. Becker stressed that the Workers World Party had "supported the Soviet Union against imperialism and domestic counter-revolution." He praised the Soviets for having "sent invaluable aid to Vietnam, Cuba, the African National Congress in South Africa, and other national-liberation movements." He railed against "U.S. imperialism." And he concluded: "We know that the biggest single contribution that we can we make to the final transition to socialism everywhere is to build a truly revolutionary party that can lead the struggle to overthrow imperialism at its center."
These days, with the Soviet Union long dead, Becker spends much of his time supporting rogue regimes. Last August, he traveled to Iraq as part of a delegation led by Ramsey Clark. In an article in Workers World, he bitterly condemned the "lawless aggression" of the "imperialist" and "racist" U.S. air patrols enforcing the no-fly zone. In early 2000, Becker traveled to North Korea to help build what he had earlier called "a movement of genuine solidarity" with Pyongyang. Accompanying Becker was a WWP writer, who described the deep impression North Korea made on them. "Wherever we went and whomever we spoke with," she wrote, "what impressed us the most was the unbreakable determination of the North Korean people to defend their socialist society against U.S. imperialism."
Such statements do not add up to the ideal profile for a leader in an antiwar movement that seeks broad mainstream support. But don't suggest that to Becker. At a news conference the day before the protest, he grew angry when asked about his association with the WWP. "I want to talk about you," he said. "National Review is a racist pro-war magazine. It's got a long — many, many generations of racism and militarism. So your so-called interest in the Left is complete bulls**t. You're just looking to try to divide the antiwar movement. This is a right-wing, racist, militarist magazine. You should be embarrassed to be working for it." End of conversation.
OBNOXIOUS
Becker is not the only WWP activist who played a key role in the January 18 demonstration. Another co-organizer — and M.C. — of the event was a man named Larry Holmes. A member of the Workers World Party secretariat, Holmes has run for president twice on the WWP ticket. At the rally, he used his time to lecture the crowd on the plight of political prisoners in the U.S. He cited two examples, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jamil Al-Amin (better known as H. Rap Brown), who have both been convicted of murdering police officers and have become causes célèbres in radical circles. "There are so many political prisoners," Holmes told the crowd. "They want peace more than any of us, and they're in prison for fighting for it."................
NOW FOR SARA FLOUNDERS ALSO A INTERNATIONAL ANSWER AND WWP BOARD MEMBER/SECRETARIAT. THIS SHOULD BE EXTREMELY NICE EVEN FOR YOU SINCE IT IS FROM ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE LIBERAL WEBSITES NEFAR559.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1031-08.htm
Behind the Placards
The Odd and Troubling Origins of Today’s Anti-War Movement
by David Corn
It is not redbaiting to note the WWP’s not-too-hidden hand in the nascent anti-war movement. It explains the tone and message of Saturday’s rally. Take the question of inspections. According to Workers World, at a party conference in September, Sara Flounders, a WWP activist.......
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/datelinedc/s_114597.html
Communism lives
Marxist groups from Spain, England, Greece and Cuba were there. America was disgraced by the presence of Clark, accompanied by Sara Flounders, no look-alike for Ms. Taylor. Sara, a rabble- rouser from way back, long has been an organizer with the IAC.
http://www.nationalreview.com/10feb03/york021003.asp
January 23, 2003, 9:00 a.m.
Reds Still
The story no one wants to hear about the antiwar movement.
By Byron York, from the February 10, 2003, issue of National Review
.......Yet another member of the WWP secretariat, a woman named Sara Flounders, also spoke at the rally............
http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue33/walls33.htm
The third article cited in story #6 is by Sara Flounders, "Kosovo: It's About the Mines," originally from a July 1998 issue of Workers World, the publication of the Workers World Party (WWP), a Leninist sect formed by the late Sam Marcy in 1959. Marcy had left the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party to give public support to the USSR for crushing the Hungarian revolt of 1956. The WWP went on to support the Kim Il Sung regime in North Korea, the Warsaw Pact suppression of "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the Chinese crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989. Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center, a WWP front group for which one-time U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark serves as figurehead.3
http://rd.yahoo.com/M=250426.309996...x10.com/?Z3lhaG9vcHU2Mi5kYXQ=1053294682708751|M=250426.3099960.4504388.1523154/D=geocities/S=76001076
UC/A=1419826/R=1
Top organizers of NYC anti-capitalist protests also back terrorist groups and 'Axis of Evil'
From: The Center for Security Policy
www.security-policy.org/
Key organizers of this week's New York City protests against the World Economic Forum are veteran professional radicals with a three-decade history of support for terrorist groups and regimes.
The International Action Center (IAC), a major organizer of the protests, was active in militant - and often violent - demonstrations in Seattle, Genoa, and elsewhere. Its website flagrantly supports a convicted cop-killer.
The IAC leaders, including Ramsey Clark and Sara Flounders, openly have backed the regimes of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Fidel Castro in Cuba, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Flounders and others at the IAC are veteran operatives of the Workers World Party (WWP), a pro-North Korea fringe group based in New York.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1031-08.htm
Behind the Placards
The Odd and Troubling Origins of Today’s Anti-War Movement
by David Corn
It is not redbaiting to note the WWP’s not-too-hidden hand in the nascent anti-war movement. It explains the tone and message of Saturday’s rally. Take the question of inspections. According to Workers World, at a party conference in September, Sara Flounders, a WWP activist.......
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/datelinedc/s_114597.html
Communism lives
Marxist groups from Spain, England, Greece and Cuba were there. America was disgraced by the presence of Clark, accompanied by Sara Flounders, no look-alike for Ms. Taylor. Sara, a rabble- rouser from way back, long has been an organizer with the IAC.
http://www.nationalreview.com/10feb03/york021003.asp
January 23, 2003, 9:00 a.m.
Reds Still
The story no one wants to hear about the antiwar movement.
By Byron York, from the February 10, 2003, issue of National Review
.......Yet another member of the WWP secretariat, a woman named Sara Flounders, also spoke at the rally............
http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue33/walls33.htm
The third article cited in story #6 is by Sara Flounders, "Kosovo: It's About the Mines," originally from a July 1998 issue of Workers World, the publication of the Workers World Party (WWP), a Leninist sect formed by the late Sam Marcy in 1959. Marcy had left the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party to give public support to the USSR for crushing the Hungarian revolt of 1956. The WWP went on to support the Kim Il Sung regime in North Korea, the Warsaw Pact suppression of "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the Chinese crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989. Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center, a WWP front group for which one-time U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark serves as figurehead.3
http://rd.yahoo.com/M=250426.309996...x10.com/?Z3lhaG9vcHU2Mi5kYXQ=1053294682708751|M=250426.3099960.4504388.1523154/D=geocities/S=76001076
UC/A=1419826/R=1Top organizers of NYC anti-capitalist protests also back terrorist groups and 'Axis of Evil'
From: The Center for Security Policy
www.security-policy.org/
Key organizers of this week's New York City protests against the World Economic Forum are veteran professional radicals with a three-decade history of support for terrorist groups and regimes.
The International Action Center (IAC), a major organizer of the protests, was active in militant - and often violent - demonstrations in Seattle, Genoa, and elsewhere. Its website flagrantly supports a convicted cop-killer.
The IAC leaders, including Ramsey Clark and Sara Flounders, openly have backed the regimes of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Fidel Castro in Cuba, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Flounders and others at the IAC are veteran operatives of the Workers World Party (WWP), a pro-North Korea fringe group based in New York.