Git says a more middle-class message would be more effective than ANSWER's stew of half-baked radical bromides. Well of course it would. If only Git and his friends could summon up a mighty demo of that type. Even so, he didn't say people should not go to ANSWER demos. He didn't piss on the anti-war movement, broadly speaking.
One issue is whether you use the war to build the left, or you build the left by stopping the war. I would guess most people here would opt for the latter.
I mentioned that there are few real groups of any heft in the ANSWER configuration. There would seem to be no obstacle to beefing up the alternative formations (United for Peace, etc.). The only question is how that can get done.
mbs
Todd Gitlin, still riding the laurels of being SDS prez in, what, 1963? has now officially become an enemy of the movement. Listened to him on NPR's Fresh Aire tonight. Absolutely disgusting. Instead of lauding the growing and powerful anti-war movement, astonishingly enough he spent all of his time bashing IAC and Answer. One of their big crimes, apparently, is that they are too critical of Israel.
What an ass. Let him join Hitchens in the ranks of the right-wing has-beens. They have no place anywhere near our movement. If The Nation, Mother Jones, The Progressive, or any other kindred publication gives him one more inch of column space, they will have lost ALL credibility among the growing anti-war movement.