David Corn Denounced Today’s Rally Organizers

Sweetness & Light ^ | September 24, 2005 | N/A

[Sam Hill]

This is an article by the avowed socialist editor for The Nation, David Corn. In it Corn points out the background of the organizers of today's ANSWER rally on the Mall in Washington, DC.

Those speaking at the demonstration today are much the same speakers who are always appear at these ANSWER rallies.

Apart from newly arrived star, Cindy Sheehan and her pals, felony ex-con racist Moslem, Malik Rahim, the rapidly anti-Semitic Hadi Jawad, and the convicted terrorist abettor Lynne Stewart -- this is the same roster as has appeared at every other prior ANSWER rally. Such as at Bush's 2005 inaugural.

But as Corn and others point out, ANSWER is a front for the Communist Workers World Party.

As described by Corn, the WWP is "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.'"

NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2002

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

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.”

[Excerpted. For the full article, go to Sweetness & Light or to the link above.]

It's a blind squirrel acorn moment for sure, but give David Corn some credit for doing what our "watchdog" media refuses to do: admit that these people are professional Communist agitators.

One of today's listed speakers, Dolores Huerta, left, received the CPUSA's “Red Flame Award” for outstanding progressive leadership. The award’s name is based on the nickname of Anne Burlak Timpson, an outstanding labor organizer and leader of the CPUSA. (From the Peoples Weekly World.)

ANSWER is no grassroots organization. These people are the lickspittle dupes and hirelings of some of the most cut-throat political thugs in the history of mankind.

[AmishDude]

Somehow, I've found that I'm just not able to digest Corn.

[Bahbah]

They have a speaker up now at this collection in DC who states he is a communist. If anyone tires momentarily of the hurricane coverage, this gathering on C-Span is pretty funny.

[eleni121]

About Dolores Huerta and the I don't know what gender thing next to her...Soviet women have generally improved their body (and mental) image a thousand percent since the end of Marxist-Leninism.

Why haven't these US Commies? And that goes for the Commie men too. They all seem to be soooo ugly. I have often thought that physical ugliness coincides with leftist ideology, also ugly. As a student in college I noticed the ugly profs all seemed to be Leftists. As a college prof now, I notice the same thing.

[Bahbah]

One seldom sees such a collection of truly bad looking people. LOL. They have so many different agendas.

[Matchett-PI]

"While I agree with Corn this time ... He is as wacky a moonbat as they come."

Corn is just P O'd that Sheehan and her down-with-America crowd are exposing his side (the Marxist RAT party) for who they really are, what they really believe, and what they will do if and when they succeed in obtaining power. He and Hillary liked it better when the RAT'S agenda was well hidden.

I'm no fan of O'Reilly, but I had to laugh last night as I videotaped his show when he castigated Wesley Clark by saying (paraphrased): "I'm surprised that a man of your stature would actually meet with Sheehan today. Surely you aren't unaware of her radical connections." Hahahahaha

[Sam Hill]

"The date of the article is from 2002, or am I missing something?"

As noted in the preface to the article and in my comments above this was written about the people who organized TODAY's rally.

Today's rally even has the same roster of speakers--except for Sheehan and her pals.

Do you think if what Corn wrote was true three years ago, it is not true today?

[fizziwig]

"I'm surprised that a man of your stature would actually meet with Sheehan today. Surely you aren't unaware of her radical connections." Hahahahaha"

Wesley Clark, Brigadier Moonbat, U.S. Moonbat Strike Force (retired).

What a joke he is, its hard to believe that a person can graduate west point, become a general, and be such a dorkus.

[Lizavetta]

Jessica Lange is not aging well.

Do you have a pic?

[stocksthatgoup]

estimate of number of people?

[Lizavetta]

huh?

[Christian4Bush]

bttt

[JulieRNR21]

I held my nose & watched some of the radical left screed being screamed at this rally.....some in the crowd looked a bit perplexed and may have thought they were attending a Quaker Meeting House gathering when they climbed aboard those buses in rural New England.

It was good that C-SPAN broadcast it all because it showed Americans exactly what the HATE BUSH; HATE AMERICA; ANTI-WAR coalition really consists of.....socialists, communists, anachists; anti-semitics; ultra left Dems like Ramsay Clark and same-sex marriage supporters.

There were more Palestinian flags than American and that sent a strong message as to who these people really are!

[Sam Hill]

"There were more Palestinian flags than American and that sent a strong message as to who these people really are!"

Funny, I haven't seen any Pali flags in the photos from their in our one party media.

I wonder why that is?

[HawaiianGecko]

For a grieving mother this woman seems to smile alot.

[NavySEAL F-16]

No, no, I am sure his sentiments, and obviously his research would stay the same. I am just wondering if he would reprint the article and risk the wrath of his buddies.

It seems that since his cohorts in the MSM, The Washington Post/NY Times specifically have made such a heroine of Sheehan and her nti-war efforts, would he rewrite it, or at least reprint it?

I just feel that it's important enough to shout from the rooftops just exactly who Sheehan's supporters are. That's all. It's a shame that the MSM WILL NOT do it. Their silence is deafening.

[MinuteGal]

I watched all their big "stars" (Gallowsway, Ramsey Weasley Clark, etal) plus a number of screechers in their female wolf pack plus several of their speakers with items from broom closets attached to their scalps......

I finally had to turn the rally off because my blood pressure was going to climb to the outer limits.

I punched the clicker to view the depressing and ugly scenes of hurricane wreckage to feel better.

Leni

[Sam Hill]

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe not, since Cindy is such a media darling, he wouldn't want to do anything that might hurt her.

It amazes me he wrote the piece in the first place. It must have been one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments of clarity.

It will probably never come again.

[JulieRNR21]

They saved the most radical for last....Jessica Lang, some communists from Haiti, Moslem & Palestinian groups.....but by then the wackos had started to march away!

The MSM will not quote those speakers or show the Palestinian flags.

BTW what was that blue & white checkered scarf that was put on most speakers? It looked a lot like the dish towel Arafat always wore. Bet we won't see any photos of that either.

[McGavin999]

OK David, you've connected the first dots, now let's take it one step further. Who do you think is hijacking the democrat party?

[Mo1]

later read