Home » Massive D.C. Protest Against U.S. War / Occupation in Iraq

Wrong on facts, wrong on analysis.

Submitted by Liu (not verified) on Mon, 01/29/2007 - 9:37am.

Mark Rudd says:

"There's been a 35-year break where there hasn't been a mass movement, so students haven't had a natural model for how to do it," Rudd said, laying some of the blame on the Weathermen for breaking apart the larger student movement in the push to be more radical. "I hope they'll learn from our shameful history and learn how not to screw things up like we did."

The bourgeois press loves to quote Rudd because he says things like the above. Student activism has its ups and its downs, but to say "there hasn't been a mass movement" is wrong. Just factually wrong. Rudd should study the student movement of the 1980's and 1990's. Anti-Apartheid (more than 10,000 arrests on campuses), the struggle for Black and other oppressed nationalities cultural centers, CIA Off Campus campaigns, Central America solidarity, Women's reproductive rights, the massive student movement against the 1991 Gulf War....

On analysis and meaning: it is wrong to say that the Weather Underground's history is shameful. That only arms the enemy--the imperialists. It is a Catholic summation. I would argue Weatherunderground was ultra-Left and risky, but not entirely wrong. Bill Ayers describes the rights and wrongs pretty well. This history is well worth debating, but Rudd's "screw things up" comment is just self-centered sadness.

in struggle, Liu


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