To the editor: Peter Dreier and Maurice Isserman are entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. Their attempt to convince protesters to avoid the Democratic National Convention in Chicago is misleading.
They identify the Party for Socialism and Liberation and ANSWER as “key organizers” of the March on the DNC 2024 coalition. Yes, these groups are members of the coalition. But they joined only this April, long after the coalition was founded by the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, whose members remain its key organizers.
Dreier and Isserman contend that marching on the DNC risks chaos and may benefit former President Trump. They ignore that the coalition is organizing a broad, representative and “family-friendly” protest and march.
The fact is, the coalition is marching for none of the reasons Dreier and Isserman say, but rather to remind Democrats that Palestinians need and deserve long-denied justice.
Frank Fitzgerald, Chicago
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To the editor: Dreier and Isserman, who I would characterize as pragmatic progressives, are spot on.
Potential demonstrators at the Democratic convention in Chicago need to wake up and realize that the perfect is, indeed, the enemy of the good — and the last thing this country needs is to turn off potential Democratic voters.
Many progressives made a similar mistake in 2016 when they made the determination that then-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump were equally unsavory, so they would not vote for either. The result was a Trump victory and three new conservative justices.
Talk about cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face — or in this case to spite their country. Please, let’s not make this mistake again.
Bink Goncharoff, Ventura
