Mitchel Cohen's Wash March report Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - "mitchelcohen@mindspring.com" Hi folks -- I have somewhat different take than Dave McReynolds about Saturday in Washington. I attended the large rally on the ellipse -- around 35,000 people, I'd estimate. It was POWERFUL, and indeed correctly focused on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In fact, if it had not been for A.N.S.W.E.R., the issue of Israeli occupation of Palestine would have been lost in the mist, so I am especially grateful that Workers World Party had the foresight and the political chutzpah to make this a central issue of our anti-war work when most of the other groups were reluctant to raise this issue and mobilize the communities around it. It was this focus that made the demo in Washington so fantastic and extremely important. The speeches against the Occupation of Palestine were powerful and informative, and the march was, well, "invigorating" to say the least. Two complaints, which I address to ANSWER: 1) There should have been more speeches that put the crisis in the Middle East in perspective with anti-war, anti-globalization movements, and which also focused in more detail on global capitalism and ecological destruction, as well as the immediate human casualties. and 2) Among those, room should have been made for at least one speaker from the Green Party USA. I understand that the speakers' podium was already overloaded with people speaking far past their alotted times. However, the Greens brought many people to the White House rally (actually, it was on the Ellipse, with the White House visible a ways back behind the speakers platform) and the Greens' unique view should have been not only "allowed" but ENCOURAGED to be heard .... from the podium. In distributing 1,700 Green Party USA pamphlets through the crowd I found people extremely courteous, respectful and EVERYONE was offering me food (What, have I shrunk that much? I don't THINK so!)! I did hear one or two anti-Jewish statements in the crowd, but these were isolated instances and addressed by people standing near them. Hopefully, the politically important work we've been doing in raising the issue of an END TO THE OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE as fundamental to any antiwar movement made its point. Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation has totally screwed up Bush's plans to bomb Iraq -- at least for the time being. Yet, there are far too many in the antiwar movement who can't seem to understand that it's not a matter of CONVINCING those in power of the immorality of their ways, but of convincing our own movement of the need to mobilize against fascism wherever it is gaining ground, including -- and especially, in these times -- in the U.S. and Israel. We need to "overgrow" the Empire -- the system of death, profits and endless war. In my view, and despite all my disagreements with the Workers World party, the fact that it was the ANSWER coalition that made the occupation of Palestine, and consequently the demonstration in Washington last weekend, MEANINGFUL politically, giving much needed political focus to the efforts of all the different groups, even those Dave mentions that are hostile to it. Peace. In Solidarity, Mitchel Cohen Brooklyn Greens/Green Party USA ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrad-04.22.02-19:46:32-10802