RE: RE: Lerner and a split in San Francisco demo

[Brown, Martin - ARP (NIH/NCI)]

I can recall many similar instances of Lerner in the 1960s and 1970s.   However, the best story has to do with the time be took LSD, but I won't go into that.  Nevertheless, and for whatever his faults, he certainly has dedicated a life-time to political activism.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Devine, James [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 6:21 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: [PEN-L:34948] RE: Lerner and a split in San Francisco demo

Max asked me why I didn't know about this stuff... it's because I'm not an lbo-talker. Who has the time?

 

Speaking of Lerner, I once had a personal experience that makes me very leery of him, independent of his reputation as a personal empire-builder among many progressive Jews.* Back in the mid-1970s, I saw Lerner speak on Sproul Plaza at the University of California at Berkeley. He wore a suit and learnedly spoke at length about "surplus powerlessness," a concept that seemed related to surplus-value and Marcuse's surplus repression. The problem: there was no audience and he didn't even seem to have any supporters, even to set up the speakers, so it made him look totally bathetic.

 

*In one of the articles I saw on-line, David Corn refers to him as "_the_ progressive Jew" (his emphasis). C'mon! Isn't Noam Chomsky Jewish? aren't there lots of progressive Jews out there?

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

-----Original Message-----
From: joanna bujes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 2:26 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:34947] Re: RE: Lerner and a split in San Francisco demo

He wasn't banned, he was initially not invited. The people who were representing him at the meeting  were asked if they had any objections; they didn't. A week later Lerner charged that he was "banned" because ANSWER is anti-semitic.

I believe that he was finally given fifteen minutes to speak: five times longer than any other speaker.

Lerner is a piece of slime. For a blow-by-blow, check LBO archives.

Joanna

At 05:35 AM 02/21/2003 -0800, you wrote:

 I missed something. Why was Michael Lerner banned from the demo? who did it?
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Doyle Saylor
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 2/20/2003 10:51 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:34933] Lerner and a split in San Francisco demo

Hello All,
I wanted to comment on two theories about large demonstrations.

Representative of the first theory is Max Sawicky who to paraphrase in
regard to Lerner's accusations of being banned at the San Francisco
march,
that Lerner ought to be allowed to speak as a way of advancing main
stream
unity with the Anti-war movement.  I think this theory is in error in
analyzing the structure of mass events.
...
Specifically to Max's point about allowing Lerner to speak, many people
have
said it is up to the people organizing demonstrations to decide who
speaks
and why.  Not enough time in the day for a lot of people to address the
crowd.  A practical limit to the time limits of presenting words to a
lot of
people at once.