[Marxism] Fwd: Achievements and Limits of the First United States Social Forum

[Sayan Bhattacharyya]

On 7/16/07, Carl Webb <carlwebb at gmail.com> wrote:

>  And Medea
> Benjamin of Code Pink and Global Exchange was "pied" for alleged
> shortcomings of Global Exchange, an incident that was denounced by the
> National Planning Committee as being at odds with the values of the
> forum.


To Those Who Threw a Pie in My Face, Let's Swap Recipes

by Medea Benjamin

August 04, 2007


[...]

the pie-flingers were not interested in fruitful dialogue, but
tasteless condemnations. Their leaflet went on to say:

1. I sided with police and municipal authorities against direct
actions performed at the World Trade Organization protests of 1999
(Truth: I disagreed with the tactic of smashing windows and helped
gather an activist clean-up crew to show our goodwill to the people of
Seattle. And after eight years, this grudge is mighty stale!)

2. My organization Global Exchange hordes funds raised for community
organizations in Guatemala (Huh? I have no idea what this one means.
We promote fair trade and have helped channel millions of dollars to
producers all over the world, including Guatemala. See
www.globalexchange.org)

3. Global Exchange solicited the economic dependency of residents in
Cuba and then abandoned the project, pushing the Cuban participants
deeper into poverty. (Truth: We have organized hundreds of
people-to-people delegations to Cuba, and even with the Bush
administration coming down on us, we still take groups to Cuba to
build ties of friendship.)

4. I publicly refused to endorse a call for Israel to unconditionally
withdraw from Southern Lebanon in the 2006 war. (Truth: I always
called for unconditional withdrawal, and even went to Lebanon in the
midst of the bombing to show my commitment to an immediate ceasefire.)
[...]

Full: <http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=13452>