A few notes:
1) People's Congress - Whatever happened to this event that had been called by ANSWER after the October protests, apparently in conjunction with their votenowar.org campaign? They had called for this People's Congress for Sunday, the day after their big rally. If they cancelled this and created the "Youth ANSWER" protest to bum rush an action being organized by another group, this would be just like ANSWER. They don't cooperate with other activist groups, they compete if they don't get their way. 2) The schism in the DC NLG does exist, with the PCJ being one of the factions. However disappointed I may be with PCJ's work with ANSWER, I think that PCJ is more supportive of militant protesters than the other radical lawyers in DC. 3) I know Martin Thomas as a local activist and have a lot of respect for him as an organizer. My impression is that he would bend over backwards to work constructively with other groups.
Chuck0
--- pledgecoordinator <pledgecoordinator at starpower.net> wrote:
>
> Dear Colleagues for Peace -
>
> I hesitate to send a message like this
> over email, since I do not think that email
> listserves are a particularly effective vehicle for
> group discussion - especially for difficult issues
> such as this.
>
> Nonetheless, given the events of the MLK
> weekend, the discussion on the recent UFPJ
> conference call and postings to this listserve, I
> feel it is important to forward the following
> information for all who are interested. I would ask
> only that you do not forward this information to any
> other people or listserves. This is confidential
> information and not for sharing with anyone else. I
> especially fervently hope that no one chooses to use
> any of this information in talking to the press.
> Barring an informed decision by UFPJ to the
> contrary, I do not think it serves our cause in any
> way to talk to the press about these issues.
>
> That being said, I am sending this
> information, first and foremost, because I feel our
> discussions on how we do or don't work with ANSWER
> often happen on a theoretical level, absent direct
> experience. As succinctly as possible, I want to
> share with UFPJ exactly what happened when we,
> meaning the Iraq Pledge of Resistance (sponsored by
> UFPJ), tried to work with ANSWER over MLK weekend.
>
>
>
> 1) Roughly ten days after UFPJ's
> decision to endorse and support a rally and
> nonviolent CD action in DC on Sunday, January 19, I
> was informed that Youth and Student ANSWER had
> called for a rally on the same day, and in the same
> place. (This was a change from earlier publicized
> ANSWER plans, which called for a "People's Congress"
> on Sunday.) I reached out to Youth and Student
> ANSWER seeking cooperation; the response I received
> was rather combative, to say the least. I have
> attached my original request and their response at
> the bottom of this email. (My original request was
> sent only to their office; their reply was sent to
> me and 14 other individuals and/or listserves,
> including members of UFPJ. Given this, I'm sure they
> would have no problem with my sharing their response
> with you.)
>
> 2) In spite of this email exchange, I
> still requested a meeting with them to seek possible
> cooperation, which we secured with two of the Youth
> and Student organizers. I was joined by Martin
> Thomas, a longtime DC activist and part of the DC
> Pledge of Resistance planning. We first asked about
> the possibility of joining our two plans. We were
> told this was impossible, that they refused to
> accept nonviolence guidelines because they believed
> it "restricted [their] rights." Martin and I offered
> a number of other possible accommodations (including
> changes in time, initial venue, approach to the
> White House) to keep our actions from interfering
> with each other. They would not accept any of our
> offers, nor make any of their own. In general, they
> refused to share any details of their plans with us,
> as we shared with them. We ended the meeting without
> any agreements, save a vague promise to keep in
> touch.
>
> 3) Two days after this meeting I
> received an apparently unrelated call from the
> national office of the National Lawyers Guild. They
> were concerned about the presence on the Iraq Pledge
> of Resistance website of a legal memo, written by an
> NLG lawyer, which mentioned "nonviolence."
> Apparently the NLG has had an internal schism of
> sorts over the past two years on the issue of
> nonviolence, and I am told they now have a policy
> that they cannot publicly differentiate between
> "nonviolent" protest and other forms of protest
> which they will defend. Ironically, the memo had
> been on the Pledge website for over three months,
> and their national office was well aware of our work
> since that time. I later found out that the call
> from the NLG was prompted by a complaint from
> lawyers at the Partnership for Civil Justice, who
> took great exception to the mention of nonviolence
> in the memo. The Partnership for Civil Justice is
> closely aligned with ANSWER, and I believe might
> even sit on their board. I can only assume that the
> timing of the Partnership's attack on legal support
> for the Pledge of Resistance was not a coincidence,
> coming as it did immediately after our meeting with
> ANSWER.
>
> 4) On the day of the action, our group
> of about 4-500 (with 150-200 ready to risk arrest)
> had settled at the corner of H St. (which was
> temporarily closed) and 16th Sts, immediately in
> front of Lafayette Park (which borders the White
> House); we were working within the affinity group
> structure to determine our next move, since the
> police refused to let any of us into the park. After
> being there for maybe 20 or so minutes like this,
> the police let the Youth and Student ANSWER march on
> to H St; they approached us from the east, and
> stopped with their (very powerful) sound truck about
> 50 yards away. They did not send anyone to come talk
> to us, but simply began a rally and chanting.
>
> 5) After another 20 or so minutes of
> this, the ANSWER folks drove their sound truck
> directly into the center of our gathering. I don't
> think anyone was injured - they were moving slowly -
> but I am told that some people were pushed out of
> the way for the truck to move in. They again started
> chanting. At least one chant I heard ended with
> "Fuck Bush." They still did not send anyone to talk
> to our leadership about what they were doing. Two of
> our people (one was Lisa Fithian) approached them to
> see about getting one of our folks on their
> loudspeakers, and were rebuffed in what sounded like
> a relatively unpleasant manner.
>
> 6) After 10-15 minutes of this, we were
> able to communicate to our people through word of
> mouth to gather at the other end of H St to continue
> with our nonviolent action, and 200-300 left the
> ANSWER group and joined us for this process. It was
> at this time that the ANSWER rally sent someone to
> talk to us, a young man whom I had never met before.
> (Even though one of the ANSWER Youth organizers that
> we had tried to negotiate with was on the sound
> truck, leading the chants.) I'm not sure what this
> young man knew of past dealings; he earnestly
> requested that we rejoin the ANSWER contingent so
> that we could end the rally like "one big family."
> We were intent on following through with our action,
> however, and after another short period of time the
> ANSWER sound truck and the majority of their rally
> participants departed. Some of them migrated over to
> our area, and stayed throughout the action.
>
> 7) Soon thereafter we commenced with our
> CD action. A total of 16 people were arrested in
> Lafayette Park; another 50 or so sat in on H St.,
> since reopened, and met a considerable display of
> violent force by the police. It was not a "police
> riot" by any conventional standard - many of the
> police appeared to be under control - but there were
> nontheless numerous incidents of excessive and even
> dangerous force: people being bodily dragged off,
> sometimes by their hair, and thrown on to the
> sidewalk or on top of people standing there; of
> people being kicked or struck with batons; of people
> having their skulls pinched with the application of
> thumbs immediately behind the ears, a method of
> motivating demonstrators to stand up by inflicting
> pain; and two people sent to the hospital after
> being knocked unconscious by police. (A passing
> cyclist was also tackled off his bike by a police
> officer.) Of the two people who went to the
> hospital, one is an 82 year old woman, and it was
> only by the grace of God that she was not killed.
> (Several witnesses described the sickening thud as
> her skull hit the pavement, where she was knocked
> unconscious for 15 minutes.) The DC police are
> reportedly holding an investigation of her injury.
>
>
>
> One last observation. It is obviously
> incorrect to hold ANSWER directly accountable for
> the police violence, and the resulting activist
> injuries. It is quite correct, however, to hold
> ANSWER accountable for seriously ratcheting up the
> tension in the situation, and for helping to create
> the atmosphere that likely contributed to the police
> violence and the injuries. One does not need to be a
> nonviolence trainer to realize that angry chants and
> taunting of police, which some of the ANSWER folks
> also participated in, will inevitably increase the
> danger for those risking nonviolent civil
> disobedience. (Somehow I'm guessing the folks at
> ANSWER know this full well.) And, of course, they
> did what they did very intentionally.
>
> So that is a very direct experience of
> interaction with ANSWER, and while I think there are
> other good reasons to examine our work with them
> (such as the political issues that John Judge and
> others have raised), direct experiences like these
> are what influence my thinking and the thinking of
> many other organizers here in D.C. I hope that they
> can also figure in the thinking of UFPJ as well.
> This was, once again, not just an Iraq Pledge of
> Resistance event, but a United for Peace and Justice
> event as well.
>
>
>
> Ultimately I think this begs questions
> not of ANSWER, but of our own coalition, United for
> Peace and Justice. The two most important ones for
> me are -
>
> 1) When are we going to come up with a considered
> strategy and guidelines for interaction with ANSWER?
>
> Are we going to wait until someone is
> killed during one of these actions? That is not
> hyperbole, remember, it is damn near what actually
> happened here on the 19th. I do not have any set
> formula or model in mind myself, and clearly
> organizers in different cities have different
> experiences (folks in SF seem to be getting along
> well, thank goodness), but our non-process of making
> ad hoc decisions each time a new situation/proposed
> rally or joint call comes up is frustrating and
> ineffective, and it can also clearly be dangerous.
> This is not what I optimally want to spend my own
> time own, either, but ANSWER is, as we are wont to
> say, "a fact on the ground," and I'm sure they
> intend to be around just as long as we do. And the
> sooner we come up with a considered strategy, the
> less time and headache we will all be spending on
> it.
>
> 2) How much does United for Peace and Justice intend
> to support those actions which it endorses, and the
> people who organize them?
>
> After hearing what I experienced, you
> can perhaps understand why I found last week's
> debate over signing a joint statement/call with
> ANSWER slightly surreal. And why it also left me
> feeling relatively unsupported by the coalition,
> even though I had organized an action which was
> endorsed by UFPJ, and which a number of coalition
> leaders strongly urged me to do. This issue of
> support (before, during, and after an event) is
> particularly significant if UFPJ intends to be a
> home to nonviolent resistance, meaning Gandhian and
> Kingian nonviolence. Such nonviolent strategies
> usually involve greater risks, and they are clearly
> under attack by forces supposedly within our own
> movement.
>
> I hasten to add that I do not feel
> unsupported because of lack of caring on anyone's
> part, and I very much want to continue working with
> UFPJ. Frankly, I think our problem is that we simply
> do not have a structure which allows us to
> effectively support our own actions (which includes
> debriefing after them), to focus our efforts, or to
> even make decisions about how to proceed as a
> coalition, beyond planning the next big event and
> endorsing multiple other events as they come up.
>
> I still firmly believe that the solution
> to the issues above (and others) lies in our
> decision to have an empowered steering committee
> that can actually set priorities for the coalition,
> and whose representative leadership we would all try
> to follow. This may be difficult in days when one
> (or more) of us are organizing a major event every
> other day, but sooner or later, whether it is before
> a war starts or after, I firmly believe that we need
> to create greater structure and focus for our
> coalition, if it is to reach its potential.
>
> Thanks for your time and consideration.
>
> In peace and resistance,
>
>
>
> Gordon Clark
>
> National Coordinator,
>
> Iraq Pledge of Resistance
>
>
>
> (My original request to Youth and Student ANSWER,
> sent on Monday, December 30)
>
> Dear Colleagues -
>
> As luck would have it, there are a number of us,
> connected with both United for Peace and the Iraq
> Pledge of Resistance, that are planning a rally,
> march and nonviolent CD action for this same day
> (Sunday, January 19) in Washington DC. And showing
> that activist minds think alike, we were also
> planning stops at the Justice Building and White
> House.
>
> Do you have any interest in attempting to join
> forces? Are you all interested in or amenable to
> nonviolent guildelines for the actions?
>
> Looking forward to hearing from you -
>
>
>
> In peace and resistance,
>
>
>
> Gordon Clark
>
> National Coordinator
>
> Iraq Pledge of Resistance
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> (Their response, sent Friday, January 3)
>
>
>
> Dear Gordon,
>
> We are writing in response to the United for Peace -
> Iraq Pledge of Resistance email circulated by Martin
> Thomas on January 3.
>
> We are dismayed that you have decided to call a
> demonstration on top of the student and youth
> demonstration, the call for which preceded yours and
> already planned a march to the White House on the
> 19th. As you know, we plan a rally exposing the
> Department of IN-Justice, a march, and a Youth and
> Student Weapons Inspection at the "Presidential
> Palace" (White House).
>
> Last night, at a meeting in New York City, Leslie
> Cagan of United for Peace announced that, though the
> date January 19 had been considered by United for
> Peace and the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, alternative
> plans were being made to avoid conflict with the
> Youth
> and Student activity. We were glad to hear this news
> and are surprised to learn that you have circulated
> a
> call that directly conflicts with an existing call
> made by students and young people.
>
> We find your call for an action on Sunday to
> represent
> a level of insensitivity to the leadership of youth
> and students which is emerging around the country
> and
> which should be encouraged because of the vital role
> that young people have played and will play in the
> struggle against war and racism.
>
> Additionally, while it comes the day after the
> January
> 18 National March on Washington DC, for which
> thousands of people have been mobilizing for months,
> your call fails to mention the plan for this
> massive,
> permitted activity that anchors the weekend.
>
> While we support all anti-war mobilizations and are
> glad to hear that you are mobilizing for that
> weekend's events, in order to build genuine
> solidarity, we urge you to respect the leadership of
> the existing youth and student action on Sunday, as
> well as to support the January 18 National March on
> Washington. (As of now, while many member groups of
> United for Peace have endorsed the massive anti-war
> demonstration on January 18, United for Peace as a
> whole has withheld its endorsement of this critical
> and timely anti-war action.) We ask that you build
> unity in the anti-war movement, not only in word but
> in deed.
>
> Since the United for Peace has been unwilling to
> endorse the January 18 No War on Iraq National March
> on Washington, it will be considered divisive that
> United for Peace has called for another
> demonstration
> in Washington the day after the Jan. 18
> demonstration.
>
> Peta Lindsay,
> A.N.S.W.E.R. Youth & Student Coordinator,
> Howard University
>
> Sarah Sloan,
> Youth & Student A.N.S.W.E.R. organizer
>
>
===== "Statists - The Other White Meat"
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