ONETRAC statement on the ISO's National Conference

ONETRAC statement on National Conference: draft version

***Scroll down for list of endorsers***


Organizing for Needless & Exasperating Trotskyist Rhetoric Action Coalition (ONETRAC): P.O. Box 16085, Chicago, IL 60616.



Over ____________ (number over 100) activists from ____________ (number under 50) states will come together February 22-24 in New York City for the first national ONETRAC-sponsored mass mini-conference round the following slogan, "Stop Bush's Imperialist War in Afghanistan!" The conference follows regional conferences last November in Berkeley, Boston, and the Midwest. The regional conferences sparked much controversy on the Internet, and resulted in the sale of more than ____________ (number over 5) subscriptions to The Socialist Smirker, the largest number ever sold at regional conferences on that date. But in spite of this overwhelming response, our success has been questioned by hypercritical student activists in the peace movement.

Our opposition -- the Hopelessly Utopian Students & Youth (HUSY) -- have argued that the national and regional conferences failed to win mass support for the following reasons:


1. These "students" claim that ISO-ONETRAC has "ignored" the following national anti-war organizations:
* HUSY;
* Student Peace Action Movement (SPAM);
* Students Organizing for Unending Peace (SOUP);
* War Is Not an Effective Response (WINERs).



They claim that by ignoring these groups, our organizing has become "vanguardist" and "exclusive." What's worse, they attempt to argue that ISO-ONETRAC's tactics are "alienating" to student activists. This is nonsense. While a handful of divisive, sectarian activists may withhold support from the regional and national conferences, we cannot let our important work be sidetracked. Our movement needs unity. All other organizations are either with us or against us.

2. The hypercritics also charge that many in the peace movement find our conferences "undemocratic." This is the reason, they charge, that hundreds of people walked out of the regional conferences and that many are staying away from the Feb 22-24 national conference.

However, ISO-ONETRAC has consistently argued for a democratic, delegated voting system. Under our system, each school sends five voting delegates to represent their coalitions. Not all delegates were ISO members and those who weren't were still allowed to speak -- some were even permitted to VOTE on proposals that the ISO had worked out in advance.

Besides, the non-ISO students contributed much more than their votes. For the regional conferences, the bus fare alone was $40 per person.


3. The utopians argue that ISO-ONETRAC has "dominated" the regional conferences and the planning for the national conference. They attmept to support this statement by pointing out that conferences built by CSAW, NYSAW, MSAWN, SEESAW, GUFAW, LOCKJAW, RICKSHAW, COLESLAW and other independent anti-war coalitions look alike, sound alike, operate alike, and may have interlocking directorates.

If ISO members made up a large percentage of delegates, moderators, and speakers at each of the regional conferences, that is no reason to suspect "domination." The more logical explanation is that ISO members are simply better organizers than most other activists.


3. Our opponents contend that there were no clear purpose for our regional conferences or the upcoming Feb. 22-24 national conference, since they produced no clear plan of action. The absurdity of this argument is immediately apparent. No explanation is necessary. Our explanation is, of course, that all three conferences called for another conference. If that's not success, we don't know what is.

These "students" clearly do not understand our strategy for stopping the war. In order to stop the war, we need to build a mass movement. And in order to build a mass movement, conferences must happen. Each conference must build on only one overwhelming slogan at a time, seeking increasingly vague targets and hopeless demands, and then calling for another conference. Additional goals such as campaigns, or (God help us!) actions could set back our efforts to build mass frustration.


4. The HUSY activists are indignantly crying "manipulation" at our attempts to recruit them into the ISO. Clearly, this is blatant red-baiting, just as the attacks on the ISO by the Socialist Workers Party, the Workers World Party-IAC, the Young Communist League, and other groups are blatant red-baiting.


Of course, we take all these charges seriously. In the spirit of honest self-criticism, we concede that attendance at these conferences does fall short of our requirements. We therefore call for the formation of a Mass Independent Organization for Promoting Interest in Conferences (MIOPIC) coalition around the following demand: Come To More Conferences!


It is not necessary to explain that these arguments are all fallacious, and disrupt the forward momentum of the anti-war movement. The correct reason that the regional conferences failed to bring masses of students to our conferences is that the broad-based National Youth and Student Peace Coalition counter-productively scheduled a conference call for the previous night, causing over 8 activists from 14 states to oversleep.


In response to the overwhelming need for unity in the mass anti-war auxiliary to the revolutionary socialist movement, preparations are well underway for a new independent rhetoric action coalition. This historic union of anti-war activist forces, “Organizing for Needlessly Exasperating Trotskyist Rhetoric Action Coalition” (ONETRAC), is calling for the upcoming three-day national conference to call for a four-day international conference in June, which will call for an six-day interplanetary conference in February, 2003, which will call for a demonstration against the war on Feb. 30, 2004 in Death Valley, Ca. Funds are urgently needed.


PRINT OUT AND MAIL TO ONETRAC,
c/o International Socialist Organization National Office
P.O. Box 16085, Chicago, IL 60616.


Name _____________________________
Address __________________________________
Phone _____________________________
E-mail: _________________________________
Organization ________________________________



_____ I want to help build your staff salaries.
_____ I want to be hustled for Feb. 30.
_____ Enclosed is $175.30 for covered wagon transportation to Death Valley for the Feb. 30 mass action.


Please sign my name to your letters without my permission.


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ENDORSERS


Noam Chomsky, Linguists Against War (LAW);
Howard Zinn, Prolific Socialist Historians Against War (PSHAW);
Geogre Soros, Billionaire Anti-Capitalist-Tentatively Revolutionary Action Committee (BAC-TRAC);
Todd Gitlin, Historians Against War Kinda (HAWK);
Matt Damon, Celebrities Against Militarism, Imperialism, and Oppression (CAMIO);
John Ashcroft, Oppressors Against Oppression;
Laura Bush, Republican American Women’s Association;
Jenna Bush (AAAW);
CAW (Crows Against War);
Ralph Nader, Grumpy Old Men of America;
South East Evanston Student Against War, Evanston, Il. (SEESAW);
Greater Umberton Freaks Against War (GUFAW);
Berkeley Anti-Anarchist Action;
Young Socialites Anonymous;
UC Berkeley Front Groups Coalition;
Columbia University Front Groups Coalition;
Harold Washington University Front Groups Coalition;
Socialist Smirker Vendors Union, Local 1;
Young Anti-Capitalist Youth Against Capitalism (YACYAC);
Trotskyist Communist Bakuninist Youth (TCBY);
Young Male Chauvinist Activists (YMCA);
Various Individual Professors (VIP);
Death Valley I.S.O.;
Vatican City I.S.O.;
Central Chicago I.S.O.;