Eek, a commie…
Psst. There are real live commies organizing in the Peace movement. What’s more, some of them are major organizers. However, not to worry. No need to run to the Dept. of Homeland Security.
Not In Our Name organized the nationwide protests last Sunday. They – choose your theory – emerged out of / is controlled by / got jacked by / was an idea from the (Maoist) Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Gasp, you say? Well, maybe not. I helped organize the L.A. protest. Did I see a Maoist agenda coming from NION? No, I didn’t, and I was looking for it. Is NION genuinely open to any group wanting to join? Yes. Did the RCP members in L.A. NION – and there were several I knew of – do a superb job organizing the event? Absolutely.
Another major group that is organizing against the coming war is International Action Center (IAC), which was started by Ramsey Clark, Attorney General under Carter. IAC is allied with and/or a front for the (Stalinist) Workers World and are orders of magnitude more militant than NION. Currently they are organizing the hopefully large Oct 26 protests in S.F.and D.C.
For most of the planet, if you announce you are Communist or Socialist, you will be met with a yawn. It’s only here in the States where being a commie is viewed as a Big Deal. It’s in our national culture to view them as skulking around in the dark, infiltrating organizations for their devious ends, and God knows what else.
Let’s look at it a different way. Was I, as a Green, “infiltrating” NION, in hopes of pushing a Green agenda? Yes, I admit, I was! What’s worse, while I did identify myself as Green, there were, in fact, other Greens there who did NOT identify themselves. Were they there undercover in order to do some serious skulking about? Sorry, I am not at liberty to divulge the answer.
Ok, I’m being absurd, but I’ve got a point. Leftie organizations form, split, and re-group like amoeba. Any umbrella group, like NION or IAC, will have a multitude of groups in it – all with their own agendas. Such groups may well be (and probably are) controlled by whoever started them. This is not news. Nor is it news if the group was started by Greens or Sierra Club members. It’s only (semi) news when started by “commies”.
Well, these particular commies are tireless organizers, who been hugely helpful in getting the peace movement going. Many other groups are now active in NION and IAC. There’s room for everyone, and for whatever inevitable internal battles will occur along the way. After all, this is the Left, where the circular firing squad is a way of life…
As always, politics makes strange bedfellows. And, being on the Left, we can, of course, celebrate the diversity of it all!