April 29, 2003
May Day On the Way
Before getting into today's Portland Tribune coverage of the plans for May Day this year, let me first remind everyone that plans for the day can, as always, be found at Portland Indymedia. In general: Gathering and speakers begin at 2:30 PM in the North Park Blocks, and then the May Day parade gets underway at 4:30 PM.
Now, there's this article in the Tribune today about the reported change in approach of organizers, in that this year they have taken out a permit (although a recent post to Portland Indymedia suggested that it was not the organizers as a whole, but one of them, or one participant, who took it upon themselves to do so; I have no idea which story is correct) for the parade.
But the article manages to give way too much time to David Horowitz and his particular breed of criticisms of the antiwar movement:
Portland State University history professor David Horowitz thinks that activists will have to do a lot more to restore their credibility with most Americans, however. As Horowitz sees it, the recent protests were so strident and wrongheaded that few people take the antiwar movement seriously anymore.
Speaking at an April 21 PSU forum on the war, Horowitz, who protested against the Vietnam War as a young PSU professor in the 1970s, described the movement as pervaded by a "depressive mentality" that blames the United States for everything wrong with the world today.
"I regret that the moral smugness, ideological rigidity and marginalized nature of the peace lobby have left the American public without a credible opposition that can reasonably examine the strategic choices that most certainly await us down the road," Horowitz said.
Now, I don't dispute that criticizing the antiwar movement is fair game. But the problem here is that the ways in which Horowitz levies his particular criticisms is often about as inflammatory as the antiwar tactics he disdains. It's certainly a gross over-generalization of the sort one would like to believe otherwise presumably intelligent professors might choose to avoid.
I fail to see how the sort of reactionary criticism Horowitz espouses possibly advances anyone's understanding about, well, anything.
On the upside, the article also includes the following:
Despite criticism, the antiwar movement still has many supporters, including Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. He said recently that the activists are "visionaries" grappling with such major policy questions as the appropriate use of military force, the United States' leadership role around the world, and the war's impact on the U.S. economy.
"The people in this country who are raising these questions are playing a very important role in framing an issue that's not going to go away," he said. "It's not just the major foreign policy issue of our time, it's the major domestic policy issue, too."
Once again proving why Blumenauer needs to make the decision to enter the city's mayoral contest.
See you on the streets Thursday afternoon.