To the editor: Peter Dreier and Maurice Isserman are entitled to their own opinions, 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 only joined in April, long after the coalition was founded by the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and the Palestinian Community Network of the United States, whose members remain its key organizers.
Dreier and Isserman argue that marching at the Democratic National Convention could create chaos and benefit former President Trump. They ignore that the coalition is organizing a broad, representative, “family-friendly” protest and march.
The fact is that the coalition is marching for none of the reasons Dreier and Isserman mention, but rather to remind Democrats that Palestinians need and deserve justice that has been long denied them.
Frank Fitzgerald, Chicago
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To the editor: Dreier and Isserman, whom I would characterize as pragmatic progressives, are absolutely right.
Potential protesters at the Democratic convention in Chicago need to wake up and realize that perfection is, in fact, the enemy of 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 decided that then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump were equally undesirable and would not vote for either of them. The result was a Trump victory and three new conservative justices.
Speaking of cutting off your nose to spite yourself, or in this case to spite your country, please let's not make this mistake again.
Bink Goncharoff, Ventura
