[Marxism] National Assembly conference

[Arthur Rymer]

Paul LeBlanc’s report on the National Assembly meeting in Cleveland (posted by Fred Feldman) hints vaguely that “some amendments that passed add complications to what the National Assembly is trying to accomplish.” He also takes a swipe at unnamed socialist organizations for “being mired in destructive and sectarian dynamics.”

Normally one would ignore charges that don’t name names, but in this case Paul uses them to dodge reporting the debates and narrowly decided votes that actually took place. I wasn’t there, but I’ve spoken to a couple of comrades who were, and here is the gist of what they said.

1. The first debate was over the leadership’s proposal to set a date in December for a national mass anti-war protest. There was a counterproposal to have the demo in October. The debate was really between protesting before or after the election; the opposition argued that the leadership wanted to avoid a pre-election demonstration in order to avoid embarrassing the supposedly anti-war Democratic Party.  (That’s always been the reason for the absence of anti-war demonstrations during election years.) The leadership motion passed, but not by much: the vote was 112-94. 

2. The second big debate was over Palestine, long a contentious issue in the anti-war milieu. It became clear that the debate was between the Coordinating Committee's effort to restrict the Assembly to the narrow single issue of Iraq, and the other side's insistence on embracing solidarity with the Palestinian struggle as an essential part of the anti-war movement. This vote the leadership lost, 114-87.

3. Then there was a debate over “Afghanistan”. The official name of the Assembly was   "National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation" – with the war and occupation of Afghanistan notably omitted. Again, the obvious reason for the omission was to keep the pressure off Democrats who favor the “justified” imperialist war in Afghanistan but not the U.S.’s quagmire in Iraq. Motions were introduced to change the name of the organization to include Afghanistan, and to add “and Afghanistan” to “Iraq” in the action proposals wherever appropriate. These motions were combined into one, and it passed decisively, without need for a count. 

These last two are presumably what Paul LeBlanc means by amendments that “add complications to what the Assembly is trying to accomplish.” The complication appears to be that a major fraction of the conference  wasn’t willing to accommodate to Democratic politicians who perpetually fund and support imperialist wars.

Arthur Rymer
League for the Revolutionary Party