North Korea’s provocative test-firing of missiles will probably not produce a peep of protest– let alone a howl of outrage– from the decidedly non-pacifistic leadership of the Stop the War Coalition, many of whom openly support the armed Iraqi “resistance.”
STWC chair Andrew Murray declared that his Communist Party of Britain “has already made its basic position of solidarity with Peoples Korea clear.” The coalition’s recent annual conference featured a workshop on North Korea led by Keith Bennett. Unless I’m informed otherwise, I’ll assume this is the same Keith Bennett who is chairman of the Korea Friendship and Solidarity Campaign and an enthusiastic supporter of the Kim Jong Il regime, probably the most brutal, repressive and openly racist on earth. Among the STWC’s affiliates is the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), also true believers in the progressive nature of North Korea.
“Well,” you might say. “The STWC is full of dodgy people who have all kinds of questionable ideas and support all kinds of disgusting and indefensible causes. Their ultimate purposes may be completely at odds with my beliefs. But at least they’re out there organizing against the war. I can go to their demonstrations without supporting everything their leadership says and does.”
And I suppose you can, just as you can attend the antiwar demonstrations organized by quasi-Stalinists in the US without supporting their whole agenda.
But if those antiwar demonstrations are good enough for you, why isn’t this one?
The National Park Service granted a request by the Ku Klux Klan to rally and protest near the spot where a failed offensive by the Confederacy turned the tide of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Gordon Young of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan obtained the permit Wednesday for about 100 people to participate in a Sept. 2 event on the lawn of the Cyclorama Center at Gettysburg National Military Park, near the site of Pickett’s Charge. The purpose, according to the permit, will be to oppose the Iraq war and speak on “white unity between the North and South.”
Where do you draw the line?