We do recommend that comrades unable to hook up with proletarian camp organizations in their area that they check if they can hook up with NOW's peace activities. This is a matter of getting practical experience with political organizations. It's not enough just to read MIM's theories and agree. We must also learn how to do things for our movement even before armed revolution breaks out. MIM members generally learned their movement skills in organizations other than MIM.

Of note in the NOW's peace page demands, MIM is pretty luke warm about equality for gays and wimmin in the military. We are not about smoothing out recruiting problems for the u.$. military which is the principal prop of patriarchy globally and also the principal war threat globally. There is discrimination of all kinds in the military as in any institution in u.$. society.

The other demand that we do not agree with on NOW's page is its attempt to address conditions for wimmin in Iraq and similarly targeted countries. It says that war makes conditions for wimmin worse, but at the same time it advises the Bush administration on Iraq's constitution, as if NOW were a department of a colonial authority.

Not only is the logic of NOW's addressing of Iraqi wimmin's conditions colonialist, but also the discussion of those conditions presents a mixed message to the u.$. public. A much larger share of the public will take the poor conditions for wimmin as a reason to stay in the Iraq war, keep pursuing the Taliban and attack Iran than will sit down in a theory discussion with MIM and NOW about it. So this is an aspect of NOW that undoes its peace work. It's also the reason that MIM endorses only NOW's peace page. NOW's poor analysis of international conditions more than cross-cancels its peace work which is why MIM refers to NOW as "vacillating."

NOW should be talking about sex torturer Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib and her female superiors in Amerika's global prison system. The only mentions of Abu Ghraib on NOW's web page are about Bush or his selection for attorney general.

We say this not as a matter of pointing out hypocrisy--even though probably most of NOW's members are Christians and share that analysis of hypocrisy--but because it is important to understand that u.$. imperialism does not have the capability to spread feminist revolution, even where there is a case to be made for medieval barbarity, as in theocracies such as Iran. We have to understand it's a nice idea that someone from outside would go and help the wimmin of Iraq, Iran etc., but life does not really work that way right now. There is no white proletariat, no white revolutionary vehicle that we can send somewhere and have progressive things start happening.

Ultimately, NOW has the same problems as the international workers' movement. NOW finds itself easily ranging into colonialist territory, because it is a white nationalist movement organization, whether its members know it or not, and regardless of their color. The first hint is the very name "National Organization for Women." Wimmin are international. There is no way to advance the conditions of wimmin by pushing forward one section while dragging down another section. That is called nationalism, not feminism.

NOW icon Phyllis Chesler featured in NOW's history pages is one example of a nationalist, not a feminist. She recently received coverage from the "National Review" and several David Horowitz outlets.

By retaining Phyllis Chesler and Robin Morgan warmongers in its ranks, NOW gains the illusion of access to White House power and the imperialist media. Yet that entrance ticket is paid for at the expense of the majority of the world's wimmin. Bush is singling out wimmin in North Korea, Iran and Burma for attack as of his International Wimmin's Day speech of 2006. Chesler led the way. Instead, NOW should have the confidence to use its own resources and people to deliver a message independent of Euro-Amerikan nationalism and warmongering.

The way to eradicate NOW's continuous problems of racism and national chauvinism is to root out the national focus on wimmin's conditions and start from the actual position of wimmin, as an international group. It is then necessary to do country-by-country analysis. The ideology should be international and the analysis and tactics are necessarily taking into account the nation. Currently, NOW pretends that it advances wimmin's conditions by advancing those of Amerikkkan wimmin. In contrast, MIM says we must be on guard for not just open sell-outs to the patriarchy, but also those who actually do advance the conditions of Amerikkkan females at the expense of the world's wimmin. Open sell-outs to the patriarchy may be easy to spot. MIM refers to "gender aristocracy" action when a special middle group appears. It is nationalism (not feminism) usually creating a special gender aristocracy at the expense of the rest of the world's wimmin.

Within its current formation and self-conception, the only feminism NOW has a chance of carrying out is in connection to migrants. When NOW sits down to think about how the border restrictions and punishment of migration "offenders" give an opening to sexual slave traffickers, NOW is starting to do one of the few feminist activities possible within u.$. borders alone. Instead of pushing Iraqi wimmin down and helping Bush, NOW should focus on the border and pull all wimmin up.