“Not in our Name” is a front group.
It is reported that the highest profile group to have organized protest against the Iraq war, known as “Not in our Name,” is a front group for the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a United States–based communist group that supports Maoism and violent revolution against capitalism. (*) (†) (‡) The RCP has supported the Peruvian terrorist group Sendero Luminoso. (§) (**) (††)
Go to the home page for “Not in our Name” and you will see that they have no indication of who or what committee is running the show—a sure sign of a front group. (‡‡) When “Not in our Name” asks for financial help, they mention that their fiscal sponsor is the “Interreligous Foundation for Community Organization,” a group that gets a grand total of three Google hits. (§§) “Not in our Name” appears to be a front group.
Many progressives have argued that “Not in our Name” is doing the right thing, and thus we shouldn’t be concerned that they are a front for a group that apologizes for the murders of tens of millions. I argue that if you want to raise a protest that has a chance of making a difference, you best state that protest from a position that is not wholly disreputable, as is that of communism.
There is a long-standing problem amongst us on the American Left with accepting into our ranks and into our leadership people who have loyalties to cultists and murderers. They use terms like “democratic centralism” to make it appear as if their cults are not centrally controlled, when they are indeed. They deny they are sectarian, when they are. They recruit the young and naïve. They send their members into non-sectarian groups on the Left, from political parties to unions. Their members deny that they are members of the sects, or deny that their conflicting loyalties matter. They seek to take control of the group. Once they take control, they use the good reputation of that group to promote their Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist, or Maoist propaganda. Once they have fully spent the resources of the formerly progressive group, it is nothing but a hollow shell, destroyed from the inside. Another tactic is to start a front group, like “Not in our Name” that starts out with a fairly moderate message, and then make use of its earned reputation to spread their communist propaganda and gain even more recruits. The goal of all these groups is political. They want “revolutionary change” around the world, with however many murders that would entail.
Let’s say the Republican Party was holding a campaign rally. Suddenly, the Neo-Nazis, the KKK, the White Aryan Resistance, and some Christian identity folks showed up and wanted to participate. They wanted to speak. They wanted to get their message out in front of the cameras. Would the Republicans even hold a discussion on what to do? Would they wring their hands and say, “Gee, I don’t like those guys, but, after all, they are on the right-wing. We gotta show solidarity and allow them to participate”?
No, they wouldn’t. They would kick them to the street. But we on the Left allow such extremists to join us. It is not bold or brave to suggest, as some do, that the crackpot sectarians should merely be denied leadership positions in our progressive movements. It is not bold or brave to suggest that the Left just go along with “Not in our Name” as if the true leadership of the group did not matter.
Some say that the crackpots must be allowed to participate as a matter of free speech. I am not a lawyer. Anyone can read the First Amendment, which guarantees not only free speech but also free association. Part of free association is the right to exclude people from your group. Excluding the crackpot sectarians from the progressive movement is indeed justified. If they want free speech, let them speak—alone.
Sectarians have a way of recruiting (tricking) people into their groups. The Left is small and needs new participants. Some say sectarians should be allowed to participate in our groups because they bring people. The Left is small, however, for the very reason that we do cede the moral high ground when we allow such walking moral compromises into our groups. A sectarian group is like a strange man on the corner who offers the neighborhood kids free candy. Every time they take some and eat it, they get sick, and then sicker. Some even die. Notwithstanding the evidence, the neighborhood watch denies that the candy is poisonous and tells the kids to keep eating it.
The RCP and other crackpot sectarian groups are to be unequivocally condemned and absolutely barred from any participation in the progressive, left-wing movement. The crackpot sectarians are our ideological opponents just as much as is the hard right-wing.
Originally posted in different parts to Belief Net and to Max Sawicky’s web log.
Update: 10 March 2003.Earlier, I wrote that the RCP supported the Tiananmen Square massacre. That was incorrect. I was thinking of another group. The RCP has condemned that massacre. (***)
Update: 1 January 2004. Linked by the Angry Clam. (†††)