Feb. 16th protests ban Michael Lerner

The Nation ^ | 2/10/2003 | David Corn

[Arkat Kingtroll]

Antiwar actions have been organized for the weekend of February 15 and 16, to coincide with protests around the world. In the United States, the main events will be demonstrations held in New York and San Francisco. This could be the last chance the antiwar warriors have before the cruise missiles fly. Yet the peaceniks pulling together the San Francisco march and rally may have tainted their efforts by allowing the banning of Rabbi Michael Lerner as a speaker. ... "This is about the suppressing of dissent among the dissenters," Lerner asserts. "My progressive Jewish allies said, 'Don't raise this issue, it's more important to stick to the struggle against the war.' But in my view, we should be able to critique the war and this section of the antiwar movement, just as did the women who fought against sexism in the antiwar movement in the 1960s. I don't accept an either/or."

[Arkat Kingtroll]

There are anti-war protests scheduled this weekend in cities across America.

The San Francisco protest has banned long-time überpeacenik & anti-globalist Michael Lerner from speaking. Why? Well, he is a Zionist, however peaceniky he is. And he's criticized Maoist freakshow International ANSWER. ANSWER blackballed him; the other organizers, Not In Our Name and United for Peace & Justice, went along with it. (They aren't Maoist, mind you, just anti-anti-Maoist. And they aren't anti-Israel, you understand, just anti-anti-anti-Israel.)

The Nation's David Corn has the goods.

(I don't link to The Nation much since Hitch quit. So enjoy it now.)

[Numbers Guy]

The Left eats itself.

[CyberAnt]

You know what just hit me - what will the anti-war crowd do if the terrorists target THEM ...??

There they are, standing on a street corner, a large and visible group of people in full public view - what better target to cause panic, terror ... hmmm??

[giotto]

How will Lerner reconcile this rebuff with his identity as an anti-capitalist, socialist liberal? Will this, like Hitchens' ostacism by his Clintonista friends when he dared to tell the truth about Blumenthal, be the beginning of Lerner's epiphany? Probably not, but you never know.

[only1percent]

If the terrorists attack them ... they will blame themselves! For what, I don't know, probably the crime of being American.

[American Preservative]

A bump and a post. : )

[SeenTheLight]

Thanks for posting this. It's been making the rounds and I'm going to feature it Wednesday on www.chronwatch.com in the "Not-in-the-Chron" section. Amazing that it's from The Nation, but perhaps this does herald the implosion of the left? One can only hope...

[Arkat Kingtroll]

In case you're interested, there's been a lot of followup on the story. Michael Lerner wrote an op-ed about it in today's WSJ: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003061

The Chron has a story about it, too:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/12/MN196344.DTL (I haven't read the story on account of the Chron makes me doze off.)

Oh, and International ANSWER explains that it's all a Jew-Nazi conspiracy (I paraphrase somewhat): http://www.internationalanswer.org/news/update/021103lerner.html

Apparently, the issue really is "no enemies on the Left". It's a formal policy among the rally organizers that no speaker can ever have criticized any of the groups running the rally. (Isn't that, um... suppression of dissent?)

[amused]

You know what just hit me - what will the anti-war crowd do if the terrorists target THEM ...??

It doesn't matter. The far left and I would suspect a large percentage of the protesters think Bush either let 9-11 happen on purpose or actively planned with it. They would simply claim Bush wanted them out of the way.

[CyberAnt]

"Bush wanted them out of the way"

Geeeee ... they'd finally be right about something.

[MIgramma]

Who will they blame???

Duh! It's OUR fault for antagonizing the naughty boys.

You ain't learnt anythin' yet!

[amused]

Geeeee ... they'd finally be right about something.

I would guess yes and no. Alot of Americans are leery of the war but have faith in the President. These whacko protests calling Bush "Hitler" and the like are so over the top that mainstream folks (especially in Red country) tend to put even more faith in the administration.

[SeenTheLight]

Thanks for forwarding all these links. The story really did break today, we had 2 pieces at Chronwatch about it. The left continues to make itself look bad, thereby leaving less work for us!