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Democrats and Movie Stars Welcome, but not Libertarians... or Nader

Counterpunch - Feb 12, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh02122007.html

A Splintered Antiwar Movement

Nader and Libertarians Not Welcome

By JOHN WALSH

The roster of speakers for the UFPJ demonstration in Washington D.C. on
January 27 speaks volumes. The key was not so much who was included but who
was not. The list of speakers certainly had a lot of wonderful activists in
the peace movement, but to a considerable degree it was a line-up of
Democrats and movie stars.

Ralph Nader, who was in Washington that weekend, was pointedly not invited
to speak. On Saturday night Nader was reportedly inquiring of other
independents just who had been invited to speak among their growing number.
Imagine that; the only antiwar candidate in the 2004 elections was not an
invited speaker, even though he and Cindy Sheehan drew tremendous applause
at the last mass rally in 2005 (Notice how these rallies occur now only in
only non-election years, nicely tailored to get activists to work for Dems,
but not to pressure the Dems to take a strong anti-war stand.) The
non-invitation removed Nader from the movement every bit as effectively as
the censors armed with air brushes removed dissidents in the "socialist"
Czech republic chronicled by Milan Kundera. Nor was there anyone who spoke
as a representative of the Green Party, even though at least one speaker
was in fact a Green and even though an informal survey showed an enormous
number of people in the crowd were Greens or Green sympathizers. Yes, the
Greens were "permitted" a feeder march but their only organized presence on
the Mall that this writer could find was a small card table with three
women staffing it.

There was not a single Libertarian speaker even though the Libertarians and
Old Right have been far more outspoken in opposing the war than the liberal
"Left." Compare the pages of The American Conservative or Antiwar.com with
the editorials of The Nation, which endorsed the pro-war Kerry candidacy in
2004. This writer tried for months to get Ron Paul, the
Libertarian/Republican Congressman from Texas, now a Republican
presidential candidate, invited to speak at the rally and did so also in
2005. Several of us made an appeal to get Justin Raimondo, the Libertarian
editor of Antiwar.com invited to speak. We got no response from UFPJ, and
still have received none. In contrast, Raimondo advertised the UFPJ
demonstration in a prominent place on his web site, and he even offered to
pay his own air fare to D.C. to speak. But no response was forthcoming from
whatever committee decides on the speakers, a committee which is none too
visible. UFPJ was just plain rude to Raimondo. In general it appears that
the liberal "Left" has scant knowledge about the Libertarians and less
desire to acquire it. Libertarians are just "a bunch of selfish people,"
according to the PC liberals. But there are more things in heaven and earth
than the very PC have dreamed of.

There were far fewer kaffiyas in evidence than in the past, the inevitable
result of reading ANSWER out of the official antiwar movement. (To be fair,
Noura Erekat and Joshua Reubner, both from the same organization, US
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, spoke.) The only reason given for
UFPJ's severing relations with ANSWER is that their members were
"impossible to deal with in meetings." That is hardly a political reason.
Bad manners are not a reason for excommunication. If so, the antiwar forces
would not be talking to the crotchety Barney Frank. I do not know a lot
about ANSWER, but I do have a great deal of respect for Ramsey Clark, one
of its leaders. And I also have a lot of respect for ANSWER's ability to
turn out young people and its boldness in organizing events like the
demonstration against Bush on the occasion of his inauguration. At the
demonstration I heard no mention of AIPAC's obvious role in ginning up the
war on Iraq or Iran. At this point in the development of the movement after
the paper of Measheimer and Walt and after Jimmy Carter's book, this is
indeed a troubling omission.

What is the matter with Democratic politicians, you may say. Nothing, as
such. And the politicians speaking at the rally were among the best that
the timid Dems have to offer - Maxine Waters, John Conyers and Dennis
Kucinich, for example. But these Democrats do not represent the Democratic
Party; they are an idealistic few on its fringe. To have only Democrats and
no others is to create the false impression that the Democratic Party is a
vehicle for peace. And it creates false hopes about what the Dems will do
without mighty pressure.

So the peace movement is being increasingly tied to the Democratic Party.
This is certainly the strategy of MoveOn.org and of "P"DA ("Progressive"
Democrats of America) and now apparently also UFPJ. This may be why the
rally seemed far smaller and certainly far less spirited, stodgy I would
say, than in the past. Let's hope that the hard working and committed
people working in UFPJ turn from this path and do more to bring the
splintered movement together. Because if the antiwar movement is divided,
we are subject to being conquered just as surely as the Sunni and the
Shia. It is time for the Democratic Party to serve the Peace Movement and
not the other way around. We shall see what course UFPJ takes to turn this
around. Right now, it does not look good.

[John V. Walsh can be reached at .]

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