Pittsburgh G-20: NYC Stalinist front group attempting to hijack opposition

[griffjam]

Mike Boda
Pittsburgh Grassroots Examiner
"They maintain that only a dictatorship -- their dictatorship, of course -- can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up."
-Mikhail Bakunin
Anyone seeking to participate in, or make a contribution of time or resources to Pittsburgh's efforts to oppose the machinations and the very presence of the upcoming G-20 summit (http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20090630164718820), should take care to ensure that they are in contact with the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project (http://resistg20.org/), and not some opportunistic Stalinist front group. Like the G-20 itself, the unaccountable, authoritarian, New York City-based, Bail Out The People Movement (which is a front group for the International Action Center (http://www.villagevoice.com/related/to/International+Action+Center), which is a front group for the Worker's World Party (http://infoshop.org/page/WWP-FAQ)) is making its own plans for late September, with little or no involvement or input from the people of Pittsburgh. Tellingly, the contacts (http://www.bailoutpeople.org/apr32009orgcents.shtml#pennsylvania) listed on their website, neglect to include anyone in southwestern Pennsylvania.
These dinosaurs from our nightmarish past and their hand-puppet, Cindy Sheehan (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/11/329480.shtml), have been further granted misplaced legitimacy by the self-described Reuters 'news' agency (http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE55P6A120090626), who apparently could not be bothered to investigate whether local groups and individuals intended to oppose the upcoming invasion by the handful of elite figureheads and their camp-following amen corner and secret police (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09179/980444-482.stm).
The grassroots Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project has strong, longstanding community ties and support and lacks the kind of centralized, top-down structure of both the G-20 and the Stalinist front group. Rather than reliance on a discredited, archaic party line, the local Project is based around a set of principles and points of unity (http://resistg20.org/about-us), that were agreed on by the participants in a directly democratic fashion:





Work to end all relationships of domination and subjugation, including but
not limited to those rooted in patriarchy, racism, classism, homophobia,
capitalism, imperialism and the state;
Resistance to the commodification of our shared and living Earth;
Organizing on the principles of decentralization, autonomy, sustainability,
mutual aid and respect;
Opposition the police and prison-industrial complex, and maintaining solidarity
with all targets of state repression;
The use a diversity of tactics to directly confront systems of oppression by
advocating forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights, and to construct local alternatives to global capitalism.



Aside from cynically masquerading as a grassroots effort, like the astroturf (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Astroturf), right-wing media and lobbyist owned and operated 'Tea Parties (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tax_Day_Tea_Party)', the New York City-based (http://bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml) Bailout the People organization is using the occasion of the G-20 summit to solicit donations (to supplement their trust funds established by socialites and the KGB) and engage in a form of a tactic that is common among, but not restricted to, the authoritarian left, (http://reds.linefeed.org/groups.html) known as "entryism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism)", where an existing struggle or organization is willfully, and often deceptively hijacked by members of an outside organization. Another Stalinist front-group, that is better known, is International ANSWER, which discredited and demoralized (http://www.forward.com/articles/1985/) the opponents of the escalation of the long-running US war in Iraq, through its ineffective, permitted, protest parades, its thinly veiled authoritarian politics, its insistence on taking credit for the mobilizations and protests of others, and its continued cooperation with law enforcement. This is no different than what the paper-selling (http://web.archive.org/web/20071227212333/http://www.infoshop.org/texts/ww_guide.html), authoritarian-left alphabet soup has done to discredit and derail popular resistance and grassroots organizations for the past 100 years, with special malice reserved for anarchists, who they tend to shoot in the back the back, both figuratively and literally, whenever possible. This is why people like Emma Goldman (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Exhibition/exile.html) and Alexander Berkman (http://libcom.org/library/the-russian-tragedy-alexander-berkman), among others, were publishing condemnations of Lenin and Trotsky's violent excesses, 40-50 years before US liberals would accept that that the 'Worker's Paradise (http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secH6.html)' of the USSR was merely another dictatorship. What began in Petrograd (http://www.infoshop.org/faq/append41.html), continued to Kronstadt (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/kronstadt/berkkron.html), the Ukraine (http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/gtoct.htm), the Barcelona May Days (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/souchy_may.html), Hungary (http://libcom.org/tags/hungary-56), and the collusion with the de Gaulle regime (http://libcom.org/library/mass-strike-france-ico), which preserved his (and their) power.
Given their long-standing policy of uncritical support for any dictator or war criminal (http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/1999/06/21/clark/) willing to stick a red star on a national flag and/or taunt the US government, including the dynastic North Korean regime (http://www.workers.org/ww/2000/korea0309.php), Slobodan Milosevic (http://www.workers.org/ww/2001/statement0712.php), and longtime US asset, Saddam Hussein (http://www.diehippiedie.com/maximum/leftyfeb98.html), how sincere can the Workers' World Party (WWP) (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Workers_World_Party) in its opposition to the G-20? The WWP split from the Trotskyist Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) due to the latter's condemnation of Stalin's 1956 invasion of Hungary and subsequently fell in behind any tyrant willing to use leftist rhetoric as a justification for their brand of repression and imperialism. No apologists for the 1989 actions of the Maoist state in Tienanmen Square (http://www.workers.org/ww/tienanmen.html) are worthy of the level of trust and solidarity required for sincere opposition the G-20, who counts the WWP's beloved state capitalist China, among its member nations. Support the local alternatives to the G-20 and the WWP.

[khad]

So the WWP gets bashed for supporting Slobodan Milosevic, ostensibly one of the least overtly nationalist leaders in Serbia, while Trots and Anarchists ended up backing the narco-gangster organ and slave-traffickers of the KLA.

Forgive me for failing to see the moral argument.

[mykittyhasaboner]

This crap should be trashed, they have already posted the same thing in Upcoming Events.

[khad]

This crap should be trashed, they have already posted the same thing in Upcoming Events.
This idiot also blames the WWP for "alienating" UFPJ, a pro-Zionist liberal organization that threw ANSWER under the bus because they were anti-Israel.

People like him are the snakes lying in the grass of the left.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Edit: never mind - for a second, I thought my posts had been deleted but then I realized this was a re-post from "Upcoming events".

[Revy]

"Bail out the People" doesn't make much sense, but it fits with Workers World's opposition to any kind of revolutionary rhetoric.

from the Bail out the People site (http://bailoutpeople.org/septg20call.shtml):


These summits are about fixing the economic and financial order that puts profits before people--and fixing that system by creating more poverty, misery and suffering.

I found it rather curious that they describe capitalism without actually naming it. :blink:

[The Ungovernable Farce]

So the WWP gets bashed for supporting Slobodan Milosevic, ostensibly one of the least overtly nationalist leaders in Serbia, while Trots and Anarchists ended up backing the narco-gangster organ and slave-traffickers of the KLA.

Forgive me for failing to see the moral argument.
For one thing, I'm sure a lot of anarchists didn't back the KLA, cos consistent anarchists don't support national liberation.
For another thing... Slobodan Milosevic. Damn right anyone who supports him deserves bashing.

"Bail out the People" doesn't make much sense, but it fits with Workers World's opposition to any kind of revolutionary rhetoric...
I found it rather curious that they describe capitalism without actually naming it. :blink:
To be fair, a lot of people are sympathetic to socialist principles but get turned off by Marxist jargon, so I don't blame them at all for describing capitalism without naming it. Still doesn't mean that they're not a terrible group who belong in the dustbin of history overall.

[ls]

For one thing, I'm sure a lot of anarchists didn't back the KLA, cos consistent anarchists don't support national liberation.
For another thing... Slobodan Milosevic. Damn right anyone who supports him deserves bashing.

This khad guy is just as bad as Jorge Miguel (who was banned very recently), don't feed the trolls.. :p


To be fair, a lot of people are sympathetic to socialist principles but get turned off by Marxist jargon, so I don't blame them at all for describing capitalism without naming it. Still doesn't mean that they're not a terrible group who belong in the dustbin of history overall.

A good point.

Anyways, the UFPJ by the looks of it are worse than WWP, but that doesn't make WWP any good either.

[Intelligitimate]

There are lots of anarcho-Trot trash that organize in a rule-or-ruin fashion. If they're not in charge, they seek to completely ruin any kind of mass mobilization, as it appears griffjam and whatever tiny anarchist groupuscule he is part of is trying to do.

[khad]

This khad guy is just as bad as Jorge Miguel (who was banned very recently), don't feed the trolls.. :p
I am touched. The moral condemnation of an anarcho-sectarian.

[mykittyhasaboner]

For another thing... Slobodan Milosevic. Damn right anyone who supports him deserves bashing.

Eh, the article's "proof" of the WWP "supporting" Milosevic is simply their condemnation of the NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia, as well as the extradition of Milosevic. Regardless of how much of an asshole he was, there is no justification for NATO's actions, and the WWP didn't explicitly support him; they merely identify that the western powers putting a war criminal on trial is hypocritical and their methods of doing so, were against international laws.

[Revy]

This khad guy is just as bad as Jorge Miguel (who was banned very recently), don't feed the trolls.. :p



A good point.

Anyways, the UFPJ by the looks of it are worse than WWP, but that doesn't make WWP any good either.

I don't know if any of you comrades have heard of this, but the SPUSA recently decided to disaffiliate from UFPJ, finally. If anyone doubts that SPUSA has been on shift toward more radical politics, this is a sign. Right now we are involved in the National Assembly [to the End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations].

[The Ungovernable Farce]

There are lots of anarcho-Trot trash that organize in a rule-or-ruin fashion. If they're not in charge, they seek to completely ruin any kind of mass mobilization, as it appears griffjam and whatever tiny anarchist groupuscule he is part of is trying to do.
So are there lots of us, or are we tiny? Make your mind up.

Eh, the article's "proof" of the WWP "supporting" Milosevic is simply their condemnation of the NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia, as well as the extradition of Milosevic.
Regardless of how much of an asshole he was, there is no justification for NATO's actions, and the WWP didn't explicitly support him; they merely identify that the western powers putting a war criminal on trial is hypocritical and their methods of doing so, were against international laws.
Fair enough, khad seemed to be talking about them supporting Milosevic as though it was justifiable. And since when did communists care about international laws?

[Agrippa]

This idiot also blames the WWP for "alienating" UFPJ, a pro-Zionist liberal organization that threw ANSWER under the bus because they were anti-Israel.

WWP and UFPJ are two peas in a pod. Admittedly a weak argument in a strong article. If we intelligent commies oppose irrelevant "broad coalition" and spectacle-protest politics, we should be thanking the WWP for their efforts in sabotaging the bankrupt "anti-war" movement.

Anyway, WWP's idea of being "anti-Israel" is supporting any Islamist-fascist gang operating in the Islamic world.


People like him are the snakes lying in the grass of the left.I guess WWP is the Saint Patrick of Stalinist ideological purity, waiting to drown us all in the sea. :laugh:


So the WWP gets bashed for supporting Slobodan Milosevic, ostensibly one of the least overtly nationalist leaders in Serbia, while Trots and Anarchists ended up backing the narco-gangster organ and slave-traffickers of the KLA.

I have no intention of defending the position of the Trots, since Trots and WWP Maoist-Stalinists are identical in my book, in all but superficiality. The former supports western imperialism as the lesser of two evils, the latter supports any imperialist with an axe to grind with the West. That's the only difference - and the differences only highlight the similarities.

However, anarchists do not support any "narco-gangster organ" or any "slave-traffickers", of the KLA, or otherwise. Anarchists in Yugoslavia would have (and probably were) organized against both Milosevic and the KLA. What you're really upset with is the anarchist refusal to support Milosevic as the "anti-imperialist" option or the "lesser of two evils". (Hey, the same argument liberals try to use to emotionally manipulate us into voting for Obama and Kerry!) That's because anarchists are opponents of all forms of capitalist genocide, not just capitalist genocide pereptrated by "the West", whatever that means anymore in the world of post-Cold War geopolitical confusion.


There are lots of anarcho-Trot trash

Keep pretending like all of your opponents are "anarcho-Trots"....I'm probably one of the biggest opponents of the "anarcho-Trot" faction there is, yet I still think ANSWER and the WWP are massive jokes.


they seek to completely ruin any kind of mass mobilizationWe only oppose a specific kind of mass-mobilization that weakens the material position of the worker's movement. (An eloquant explanation of why can be found here (http://gci-icg.org/english/communism14.htm#summits), although I know you bigots won't bother to read it.)

Nice try, trolls

[khad]

WWP and UFPJ are two peas in a pod. Admittedly a weak argument in a strong article. If we intelligent commies oppose irrelevant "broad coalition" and spectacle-protest politics, we should be thanking the WWP for their efforts in sabotaging the bankrupt "anti-war" movement.

Anyway, WWP's idea of being "anti-Israel" is supporting any Islamist-fascist gang operating in the Islamic world.

I guess WWP is the Saint Patrick of Stalinist ideological purity, waiting to drown us all in the sea. :laugh:
Since you are a racist liberal free Tibeter, one can only laugh at your ideological irrelevance. Folks like you use "ideological purity" to shield your chauvinist beliefs and justify your irrelevance and inaction.

[mykittyhasaboner]

And since when did communists care about international laws?

I think they've always cared, especially when imperialist powers break them in order to do something like kidnap a foreign statesman, or commit genocide or whatever the assholes want to do.

[Agrippa]

Wow, responding to my argument with a (quite lame) attempt to rebuke an argument I was having last week.

Fail.

It's really bold for an ANSWER goon to call anyone a "liberal", given the excessive extent to which y'all have collaborated with Soros-financed Social Democratic NGOs, liberal Christian megachurches, reformist "3rd parties", and proxies of the Democratic party....

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I think they've always cared, especially when imperialist powers break them in order to do something like kidnap a foreign statesman, or commit genocide or whatever the assholes want to do.
We should oppose genocide, but we should oppose it cos it's wrong, not because it's against international law. The concept of "international law" can be useful as a rhetorical tool for highlighting the hypocrisy of the imperialist powers, and the extent that they fail to live up to their own rhetoric, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking it has any value in itself. An imperialist act that's against international law is not any worse than an imperialist act that's approved of by the UN.

[mykittyhasaboner]

We should oppose genocide, but we should oppose it cos it's wrong, not because it's against international law. The concept of "international law" can be useful as a rhetorical tool for highlighting the hypocrisy of the imperialist powers, and the extent that they fail to live up to their own rhetoric, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking it has any value in itself. An imperialist act that's against international law is not any worse than an imperialist act that's approved of by the UN.
Well international law obviously has some value in itself, otherwise they wouldn't be laws; but otherwise I'm essentially in agreement. It is important that we oppose the actions of imperialism, especially when they break their own laws.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well since I posted my thoughts on this in the other thread that no one is reading, I'm reposting (slightly edited to focus more on the original post):

The tone and content of the original post is needlessly hostile and sectarian; it will only add to the sense that the left is intolerant and factional and help drive people away just as the original post claims ANSWER'S undemocratic methods do.

Besides, is it really that much different if ANSWER dictates a bunch of terms for the protest and announces it than if cliques of Anarchists who already agree politically draft their own points of unity and then dictate those points? It seems like these points are basically so that anarchists can have their protest their way without having to consult all the other people who may want to participate. These points of unity serve only to keep reformists, socialists, liberals who might agree with us on this issue and so on from having a voice in the protest.

I mean the points of unity include the mode of protest! Points of unity should be based on the shared concern of the protest - then you get people together and figure out together how to go about making said demands in the point of unity!

Like the large anti-war groups, these sectarians seems like they would rather take their ball and go home if they don't get to dictate the rules as they want rather than build a large and diverse movement that will help to build a real radical alternative (both anarchist and socialist) to establishment politics.

[bcbm]

These points of unity serve only to keep reformists, socialists, liberals who might agree with us on this issue and so on from having a voice in the protest.

What the fuck are you talking about?

[Jimmie Higgins]

What the fuck are you talking about?

If a group really wanted to have a open coalition, then their call and points of unity should be based on the common concerns: relief for workers, not bankers and so on.

Then the details should then be worked out by all those who want to be involved in organizing it... not decided beforehand. These "points of unity" are designed to only allow people who already agree with anarchist methods of organizing and protest to attend.







Work to end all relationships of domination and subjugation, including but
not limited to those rooted in patriarchy, racism, classism, homophobia,
capitalism, imperialism and the state;
Resistance to the commodification of our shared and living Earth;
Organizing on the principles of decentralization, autonomy, sustainability,
mutual aid and respect;
Opposition the police and prison-industrial complex, and maintaining solidarity
with all targets of state repression;
The use a diversity of tactics to directly confront systems of oppression by
advocating forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights, and to construct local alternatives to global capitalism.





So these points of unity are not designed to build an inclusive broad struggle, but to build a protest where participants have to accept anarchist tactics or fuck off - my guess it because these organizers fear that if it were up to a real open coalition, their methods would be voted down.

These points of unity would be like a Stalinist anti-war group calling for a coalition with the points of unity:
1. End US wars in the Middle East
2. Stop funding Israel
3. Admit that North Korea is a true worker's paradise and is a fucking wonderland of fun.

[bcbm]

I would imagine "autonomy" and "diversity" would mean people with all sorts of ideas about how to proceed can be involved, but maybe I'm just being silly. It isn't like that's how the anti-RNC protests were organized by anarchists, liberals, communists, etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I would imagine "autonomy" and "diversity" would mean people with all sorts of ideas about how to proceed can be involved, but maybe I'm just being silly. It isn't like that's how the anti-RNC protests were organized by anarchists, liberals, communists, etc.

Why include these in the points of unity? Why not leave the organizing open to all people who want to protest the G20? It seems really sectarian and authoritarian to me to decide the forms and tactics of a coalition protest before the coalition is formed and then to say that any other group that also comes to protest is "hijacking" the protest.

People are beginning to radicalize again and so our coalitions should seek to be as inclusive as possible and open to reformists and liberals and, yes, even whatever active Stalinists are still around who genuinely want to participate. If people want a diversity of tactics, it should be discussed openly beforehand with everyone otherwise it basically turns into a small clique of people deciding they want to use the big protest as cover so they can fight a cop and smash a window and there will be too many people around for them to get arrested.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Neither one of these groups is pointing the way forward for the working class.

Like something out of a tragic comedy, both groups are tripping over their own sectarian feet trying to be the 'inclusive coalition.' They're fighting over control of what will surely be another exercise in futility. A liberal march or two, a few acts of destruction, some loosing clashes with the forces of the state.

In the end, the class struggle won't be advanced one bit.

In other words, politics as usual for the "left" - and in Pittsburgh in particular.

Groups like the Pittsburgh Organizing Group (one of the worst examples of lifestyle anarchism in existence), which in true sectarian fashion attacks "authoritarian" communists for 'smothering the flames revolution' while simultaneously lining up with open reformists and sections of the bourgeois state, live for this sort of crap. It fits well into their "activism."

The Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project's website isn't even clear about what it is protesting. It assumes that its audience will "just know." It's aimed at "activists." A coal miner or part-time McDonald's line cook living in Pittsburgh that stumbles across it will likely come away from the experience confused and/or disinterested.

Revolutionaries need to focus on actually organizing our fellow workers to take real, meaningful action against capitalist rule.

To paraphrase someone else, I'd trade 20 run of the mill anti-G20 protests for one trucker's strike against capitalist rule.

[bcbm]

Why not leave the organizing open to all people who want to protest the G20?

What do you think autonomy and decentralization mean?


It seems really sectarian and authoritarian to me to decide the forms and tactics of a coalition protest before the coalition is formed and then to say that any other group that also comes to protest is "hijacking" the protest.

How can a group that doesn't exist in the state be an effective part of a coalition? As I understand it there already is a coalition formed with various groups.


People are beginning to radicalize again and so our coalitions should seek to be as inclusive as possible and open to reformists and liberals and, yes, even whatever active Stalinists are still around who genuinely want to participate.

This protest organizing is modeled after the organizing around the RNC which included liberals, communists, etc.


If people want a diversity of tactics, it should be discussed openly beforehand with everyone otherwise it basically turns into a small clique of people deciding they want to use the big protest as cover so they can fight a cop and smash a window and there will be too many people around for them to get arrested.

Again, this is a protest modeled on the RNC and I would imagine there will be some space or time difference between any direct action and peaceful crowds, as happened on September 1 last year.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This protest organizing is modeled after the organizing around the RNC which included liberals, communists, etc.

Again, this is a protest modeled on the RNC and I would imagine there will be some space or time difference between any direct action and peaceful crowds, as happened on September 1 last year.If people want to organize this way, then great - my problem with this is that people were not given the option. My criticism was that the points of unity are not points of unity but a dictation of the form and tactics of the protest. Points of unity should be just that - the political points that everyone is gathered around and then the coalition should decide how to organize. Otherwise it is just as top-down as an ANSWER or UFPJ protest.


What do you think autonomy and decentralization mean?In theory or in practice?

I think a diversity of tactics is good at a very large demo - if people agree to this beforehand and it is organized openly. But a divirsity of tactics with 500 or 1000 people is not a good thing in my opinion because then the protest is basically a buffet table for cops.

In proactice "autonomy and decentralization" are not good things if it becomes - do whatever you want whenever you want. This is what it was like for me and my firends when we went to the DNC in 2000. Everyone got arrested and caught-up in fights with the cops that they were not intending to be a part of - far from radicalizing thoes old friends of mine, they are actually quite hostile to radical politics now.

[bcbm]

If people want to organize this way, then great - my problem with this is that people were not given the option. My criticism was that the points of unity are not points of unity but a dictation of the form and tactics of the protest.

Nothing in there dictates form or tactics. It basically allows for all of the groups who want to organize against the g20 to decide how they'll do things as a group and, presumably, these will all be coordinated into a larger framework later. That's been the model for two years now.


In theory or in practice?

Read the Pittsburgh Principles.


In proactice "autonomy and decentralization" are not good things if it becomes - do whatever you want whenever you want.

That isn't what it means at all and if you take one look for the documents that have been put out that is quite clear.


This is what it was like for me and my firends when we went to the DNC in 2000. Everyone got arrested and caught-up in fights with the cops that they were not intending to be a part of - far from radicalizing thoes old friends of mine, they are actually quite hostile to radical politics now.

That's nice, but its 2009 now and the summit protest model has evolved a bit since then, as I have already alluded to.