Madams and Sirs:
My cohost and producer came upon a free copy of your newspaper "MIM Notes" while covering the anti war rally in Boston last Saturday, March 29, for the radio station at which we do a talk show. As it has been alleged from various corners of the mainstream media, none too convincingly, that a large proportion of the anti war movement is actually run by socialist or commust elements/organizations so as to discredit the diversity of the anti war support, I found it interesting, but not surprising that some such publications might be found amidst the rally. However, as I am also too well aware, that many such publications have historicly been propaganda creations of intelligence/government, I examined your paper with curiousity and suspician. In doing so, I became highly sceptical of its content and veracity regarding what it purports to be, especially for, among other reasons, that there is no telephone number listed for either your Cambridge, Mass, location or L.A. Calf. I would be interested in interviewing members of your staff to find out the rational behind your views and to try to discern if your organization is real. If you are amenable to this, please e-mail me back, Thanks.
Kiles
Dear WSAR:
We were going to agree to your request for contact when we went to your web page, as presumably you went to ours, since you found our email address to write to. Unfortunately, we found that though you purport to be a professional radio station, your "contact" us link on your home page only points to an email address, no phone number.
In fact the same goes for "job opportunities." Your other links on your home page--"WSAR Coverage Area," "WSAR Station profile," "WSAR Media Kit" and "Program Schedule"--also do not list a phone number. Then we looked at the eight faces on your home page and noticed there is no "Kiles." Finally, we noticed that although you claim to have a professional operation with business sponsors, and we at MIM have no professional staff, the amount of material on your web page is less than 1% of ours, something that the government could have quickly thrown together for the purpose of intelligence-gathering. As most media with 5000 watt stations regurgitate U.S. Government views so loyally it hardly matters that they are "independent," we realized we would have a hard task if we really wanted to separate the government from the media.
Recognizing that some media outlets are strictly the creation of professional sports teams seeking a humor outlet, we decided to accept your words of wisdom. One can never be too cautious about propaganda outlets with dubious purposes.
As this response will go on our web page, I will also try to explain who the anti-war movement is. Yes, you are right it is quite diverse, and as a large and budding movement it has the difficulties of any movement just arising in politics. Of course you are right that the vast majority of the peace movement is not communists. On the other hand, I think if you asked yourself a few questions, you'd realize who does the disproportionate share of organizing in the peace movement. The Republicans are for it. Even Howard Dean of the Democrats says the war must be finished now that it is started. The fascists are a little confused because this war undoubtedly benefits I$rael, but of course, Mussolini was famous for saying war is the highest essence of the species. Who does that leave you with? Did you really think the Quakers were going to organize these sorts of marches? If we are talking about organizations already to go, and with a background in the issues, it has to be communists.
What the mass media got wrong --intentionally in some cases, after decades of neglect of serious politics in other cases --is that the main organizers are not "Stalin" supporters. The Workers World Party is the single largest source of demonstration organizing experience in the current movement. They've always put their energies into organizing marches of all types. They denounced Stalin long ago only to have the Washington Post and Atlantic magazine denounce them as "Stalinist." "Not In Our Name" also contains participants claiming to be Maoist.
We at MIM really are supporters of Stalin and Mao. However, I need to address some of your concerns. How does the fact that a movement is largely led by self-labelled "communists" discredit the movement? Is it right to be against the war or not? Are you going to say 2+2=4 is wrong if a communist says it? From experience, we can say that the war-mongers ran this tactic in the Vietnam War too. Eventually, some Buddhist monks and others finally said, "well if it's true, the communists deserve credit."
The capitalist parties are not in opposition to this war. The fascists support war as an end, not just a means. The best hope for an end to this sort of war is the growth of the communist movement that threatens the whole capitalist system.
MIM has been organizing in Boston more than 20 years. Thousands of posters have gone up with our phone number on it. We've had thousands attend our events. Our paper also circulates in Providence and occasionally U. Mass-Dartmouth.
Sincerely,
Boston MIM
bosmim@mim.org