ANSWER thugs bar Libyans from Cynthia McKinney event: report

Bill Weinberg

A report on Feb 17th, website of the Libyan Youth Movement, states:

On June 16th, The ANSWER Coalition in LA held an event titled “Eyewitness Libya” with Cynthia McKinney, part of Cynthia’s nation-wide tour to continue to propagate Gaddafi’s lies. Members of the Libyan community in LA were prevented from entering the room in which the event was being held, on the basis of “seeming like they may cause trouble”. They stood outside as others were allowed in, although many of them were invited to the public event. It was ironic that an event discussing the situation in Libya did not host any Libyans to speak in the panel or even allow Libyans to enter the room to participate in the discussion.

We weren’t there, so we can’t vouch for this version of events. But we noted back in the early days of the Arab Spring that ANSWER and its affiliated entities, who were cynically protesting US support for Mubarak, would be placed in a sticky spot if the Arab Spring spread to Libya and Syria—dictatorships they avidly support. Now it has come to pass, exposing their moral bankruptcy. We have more recently noted Cynthia McKinney’s shameless shilling for Qaddafi. So we ask again: When will ANSWER (and its related entities IAC, WWP, PSL, Troops Out Now) be purged from the anti-war movement, and when will Cynthia McKinney be purged from the leadership of the Green Party?

Also, we’d like to know if the new United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC)—whose founders include Sara Flounders of the International Action Center (IAC), a flack for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and for Saddam Hussein as well as Qaddafi—is yet controlled by this odious entity. Because, as we pointed out before, principled alliance with these thugs is a simple impossibility.

See our last posts on the idiot left, the politics of the anti-war movement, and Libya and the Arab Spring in North Africa.

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  1. Damn
    that’s cold. And I saw code pink was on that April 9th endorsement list too, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If McCain and Feingold can collaborate on something, so can those two. I mean look at this list:
    http://october2011.org/organizations

    All kindsa political people!
    A note on World Can’t Wait too; it was also started by Green and anarchists, not just the communist party.

  2. McKinney in a different light
    In this interview there is no shilling for Gaddafi. That is not what McKinney is about.

    http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_63253.shtml

    As I wrote to Bill privately, the Green Party is a registration based party, not a membership based party. Registered party members can’t be “purged”. McKinney has no official positions within the party and is only a “leader” by virtue of her role as 2008 presidential candidate.

    BTW, I have a tenuous connection to Sara flounders, going back over 40 years. Around 1970 she was married to Gerald Colby Zilg, nephew of former CIA head, William Colby. Jerry wrote a book entitled the DuPont Dynasty, which was based in to some extent on research I had done on the DuPont family. Jerry thanked me in the acknowledgments for doing the research. I guess that’s OK since I hadn’t intended on writing a book although I didn’t know at the time that he had taken my research.

    1. Yes, shilling for Qaddafii
      Follow the links back for the full litany of her shameful performance. If you don’t see it, it is because you don’t want to.

      The Green Party homepage has a photo of McKinney with a link to her latest absurd screed in which she blames all the suffering in Libya on “NATO’s ‘humanitarian intervention.'” Spare me the disingenuous jive about how she is just another party member.

      1. Thanks for creating the Green Party link
        Sure, let people read for themselves. “Screed” as in “lengthy discourse”, not as in “rant” or harangue”. The article addresses the function of NATO. There is not one mention of Qaddafi. So how it is “shilling” for him?

        1. None are so blind…
          Precisely by not mentioning Qaddafi! Precisely by blaming all the suffering in Libya on “NATO’s ‘humanitarian intervention,'” while Qaddafi is under investigation by The Hague for crimes against humanity! If you would follow the damn links back, you would find that McKinney made similar comments over Libyan state TV, which is a propaganda organ of the Qaddafi regime! Again, if you don’t get it, it is because you don’t want to.

  3. Greens must drop Jello, McKinney
    Two leading lights of the US Green Party, Jello Biafra and Cynthia McKinney, have betrayed the party’s platform and values by loaning support to Israel and Qaddafi, respectively. Thus I argue on New Jewish Resistance.

  4. Majority of Left Defend Self Determination, not Dictatorship
    Hi Folks,

    The reason most of the progressive left support the end of the bombing in Libya is for these reason: 1) There is too much evidence showing that we invaded Libya simply for oil. Quaddafi refused US dollars for oil (as Saddam did before we invaded Iraq). Plans to exploit and profit from N. Africa’s resources, esp. minerals and oil, have been in place for some time, with US’s AfriCom miliatry command center just in place before the Libya invasion., and many more instances. 2) Obama is continuing and increasing Bush’s expansion of executive power, in opposition to our nation’s Constition and int’l law.

    It should be expected most leftists would support a pullout of Libya and every other country where we invade militarily for odious reasons. Children continue to Die each day.

    What about the Bahrainians who are being locked up for for decades for dissent ! Does the US intervene to stop not only the repression of the murdering of dissenters in tat country or other countries which favor our empire’s economic and military interventions and demands. (This para should be placed in under reason # 1.

    I appreciate to some extent the frustration those who want democracy in Libya may have when the overthrow of a dictator isn’t supported in the way they expect. There must be a way to have democracy without the heavy handedness of the US military slaying thousands of people.

    1. Walking the walk versus talking the talk on “self-determination”
      1. a.) Who is this “we” of whom you speak? I’m not in the government. Are you? b.) The US has not “invaded” Libya.Where did that come from? c.) As we have pointed out before, while Qaddafi clings to power in Tripoli, the rebels don’t seem particularly concerned with what Western motivations are.

      2. Obama is indeed setting a dangerous precedent for an imperial presidency, but this is not particularly relevant from the perspective of the Libyan rebels. See above.

      Far more children are dying under Qaddafi’s guns and artillery than NATO’s bombs and rockets. Don’t leave that out of your equation.

      We have covered the struggle in Bahrain closely. How does pointing out US hypocrisy on Bahrain (and Yemen and Saudi Arabia and Jordan and…) help Libyans suffering under Qaddafi?

      I would like to see your documentation for the assertion that the US or NATO have killed “thousands of people” in Libya. I’ll be waiting. Meanwhile, I will point out that it is pretty condescending to tell the Libyans “Tough luck, shift for yourselves.”