Well, Chuck, I detect a big-city snobbishness toward a flyover state -- the hometown booster in me takes umbrage at your suggestion that folks in Ohio don't know what we are talking about. :-> Ohio is a political bellwether state, the key test-marketing arena of the nation, be it test-marketing Fat Free Pringles, War (remember Bush's Cincy address on October 7, 2002 to sell the invasion of Iraq, <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html>), or Peace (you recall the blow that we dealt the Clinton Administration live on CNN in 1998, <http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/18/town.meeting/>). The dominant activist sentiment in Ohio is best represented by the following posting by Andy Reed, Central Ohioans for Peace, a group based in Worthington, a Columbus suburb:
At 9:33 PM -0400 7/11/03, Andy Reed wrote:
>Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:33:10 -0400
>From: Andy Reed
>Subject: Re: A Call for Unity of the U.S. Anti-War Movement
>To: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>, Columbusnion at yahoogroups.com
>
>8c21e48116e6ac2175bb13ebab51db0d4d2b10475b571120bed89ab81f66285d298ca80b8141387319c9e15d1c7c699c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c
>
>With ALL due respect,
>
>the criticism and "fear" of A.N.S.W.E.R. is all ridiculous
>McCarthyism started by rumors from very right wing Republican
>congressional members about A.N.S.W.E.R.'s communist group inception
>which was nothing significant other than the Marxist party sponsored
>some of the effort to start A.N.S.W.E.R.
>
>WHY ARE WE STILL ARGUING ABOUT FACTIONALISM IN THE PEACE AND JUSTICE
>MOVEMENT? We are already small and easy to kick around, ignore,
>sweep under the rug. I am sorry to sound condescending but IT
>SHOULD BE OBVIOUS by now that WE HAVE to network even with groups
>who we might not TOTALLY agree with to stop removing skull contents
>from innocent children who become victims of our lifestyle of
>ignorance and mass consumption/war/taxes/military-industrial
>orgasms. Remember the victims that are THE REASON why there are so
>many reactionary ideologies? IT IS NOT ABOUT US. WE MUST REMEMBER.
>JOIN IN ALL POSSIBLE PEACE AND JUSTICE COALITIONS OF SANITY THAT ARE
>POSSIBLE. ANYTHING LESS IS TRIPPING OVER YOUR OWN IMAGINARY FOOT.
>Peace,
>Andy
He's no left-wing radical, much less a socialist -- he's a wonderful person and energetic organizer. In our anti-occupation contingent at the Gay Pride Parade ("Peace Pride," "No Pride in the Occupation," "Free Sex, Free Iraq," etc.), I had him -- a straight guy -- wear a heart-symbol-of-love sticker on his booty. A bit sheepish at the beginning, he thoroughly enjoyed marching with anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist queer boys and girls in the Parade, for which he made the biggest banner. Here's our Pride photo: <http://www.service.ohio-state.edu/students/sif/peacepride2003.jpg>. Andy is the big guy holding the banner on the right side of the picture.
At 11:06 PM -0400 7/19/03, Chuck0 wrote:
>I know that I've supported UFPJ earlier this year, precisely because
>I wanted to see an alternative to ANSWER in anti-war organizing. I'm
>not fond of UFPJ's politics and it sucks what they did to the
>movement on F15, but they are more of a coalition of peace and
>anti-war activists than the so-called ANSWER "coalition."
As you may see in my notes on the UFPJ conference in Chicago, I think that both UFPJ and ANSWER have their respective weaknesses, but they also have their respective strengths as well, which are complementary. Brought together, I hope, UFPJ and ANSWER will be able to grow together while maintaining productive political differences between them. -- Yoshie
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>
