Some carpings about WW/IAC/ANSWER deserve to get dismissed. It is not surprising that folks just ignore complaints from loose cannons -- those without any organization behind them -- who can't actually turn out a sizable number of activists to *any* action, not just to WW/IAC/ANSWER actions. Why? Because their opinions only affect their own actions, not even their friends' and families'.
There *are* serious criticisms of WW/IAC/ANSWER, but those tend to come from "hard core lefties" of one kind or another, be they from ZNet or Marxmail.
If you think that WW/IAC/ANSWER organizing mass rallies and marches in DC/San Francisco is not good for the anti-war movement, the only practical remedy is for you to organize bigger and better ones, instead of dismissing them. We have seen that it is not as easy to do so as you make it sound like; recent anti-war and other left-wing mass rallies and marches organized by other outfits -- NNEWAI, NION, etc. -- were all smaller than Oct. 26; Mobe on Sept. 25-6 was a disappointment.
In this and related threads, however, critics of WW/IAC/ANSWER tended to dismiss or severely discount the value of mass rallies and marches altogether, offering local rallies and marches, door-to-door campaigns, direct action and civil disobedience, etc. as superior alternatives. It appears that such critics have already ceded one tactic of the anti-war movement to WW/IAC/ANSWER, for they have neither capacity nor willingness to organize the sort of action that WW/IAC/ANSWER has.
At 10:20 AM -0500 11/5/02, Chuck0 wrote:
>If we don't want to shy away from putting racism and sexism on the
>movement table, then what is wrong with talking about the other
>elephants in the room?
I see more people of color and elderly women at mass rallies and marches with legal permits (the kind organized by WW/IAC/ANSWER) than anarchist direct actions in the USA, the latter of which tend to attract mainly white youths. Perhaps, elephants -- be they WW/IAC/ANSWER or the Democratic Party or AFL-CIO -- do know or have something that you don't. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>