![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Los Angeles, 14 April, 2005 -- MIM collected 75 signatures on the Ward Churchill petition at Los Angeles City College yesterday and today. Although we got a late start locally campaigning, passers-by are starting to recognize our petition from the posters near campus. In an encouraging sign for the future of the Amerikan people's political conscience, several petition signers had stopped to read the whole article we posted. One earlier signer also came back to ask some questions about why MIM spells Amerika with a "k" in our lit.(1) Our experience at both LACC and Occidental College (a small private school in LA) has been highly positive in that most supporters have readily agreed with the anti-imperialist substance of Ward Churchill's 9/11 essay as well as his right to write it.
Several international students from parts of Asia and Africa were drawn to our petition as well. They were all concerned at first that they should not sign because they are not u.$. citizens and so thought we would not want their signatures. This points up a worthy distinction between MIM's and many other u.$. activists' campaigns. We are especially interested in the views of Third World citizens, as these are the people most directly affected by u.$. imperialism. The best example here were the students from southern Korea, who were born into and grew up in a country still occupied by u.$. troops. If anyone deserves a say in Amerikan politics, those people living under its guns do.
The banner on our table also garnered some attention from a follower of Lyndon LaRouche, who wanted to talk about MIM line, claimed that MIM and the LaRouchites should work together and then tried to bait our comrade into an argument with persynal mudslinging. MIM makes it a general practice not to spend time privately debating politics sectarian-type organizations -- those discussions should be had in public where they can help the masses decide whose line they like better. Persynal attacks are the tools of two types of people: the pre-political, who can only think of politics in terms of individual characteristic, and kops, who goad activists into giving up persynal data. Politically, there are several reasons MIM and other progressives should not work with this left-posing fascist-acting organization that is often on the LACC campus, the first being this group's efforts to advocate for imperialist longevity.
Lyndon LaRouche campaigned hard for the "Star Wars" idea back in the 1980s, and continued to do so into the '90s at least. This reflects the dangerous belief that an arms race can be won, and is not dissimilar to Karl Kautsky's ultra-reactionary idea of superimperialism -- the notion that imperialism can achieve peace through consolidation of military power. The wacked out theory of peace via supreme oppressive control is anathema to history. As long as there are classes there will be class warfare, which means any advanced weapons system is available for the hijacking by some enemy or another.(2) And, as Ward Churchill so correctly pointed out, the oppressed and their friends will always find a way to push back against unjustified force.
LaRouche has also shown enmity for the proletariat by branding both the Communist Party of Peru and the Zapatistas as "narco-terrorists;" defining homosexuality as a "New Age perversion;" and holding the Anti-Defamation League (ADL: a Zionist organization that wields the charge of "anti-semitism" to knock down national liberation groups) responsible for "the scourge of drugs, dirty money, and [homosexuality]." In other words: LaRouche has worked to pull supporters away from proletarian movements, set the proletariat fighting among itself,(3) and divert proletarian energy away from the struggle against u.$. imperialism by painting Jews as the source of all evil in Amerika. (Mind you: MIM has plenty to say against the ADL and Zionism, but LaRouche's position represents a serious misunderstanding of the balance of powers.(4))
Notes:
1. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/faq/amerika.html
2. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/cong/nuclear2002.html
3. "PCP Defended in Belgium"
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/mn.php?issue=075
"Gay rights question heats up globally," MIM Notes 314 15 February
2005.
4. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/cong/cppparasitism.html
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/cong/mideastpeace2003.html