[lbo-talk] M19 in New York City

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Sun Mar 20 05:21:28 PST 2005


Who cares about coordinating with ANSWER? Why wasn't UFPJ coordinating with antiwar Democratic grassroots groups like the Deaniacs or the Kossacks or the other networks of antiwar folks? The mobilization for M19 was nearly invisible as far as I could see and I saw little evidence of outreach.

All along the antiwar mobilizing, there's been a de facto choice to emphasize unity with the fringe like ANSWER and the result has been that, while over 50% of the public disapprove of Bush's Iraq policy, yet the antiwar movement can only muster a handful of people in the streets.

It's a pathetic failure by the leftwing antiwar movement.

Nathan Newman

----- Original Message ----- From: "Lance Murdoch" <lancemurdoch at gmail.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 9:46 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] M19 in New York City

I went to the anti-war thing in New York City today. UFPJ and ANSWER didn't even coordinate and had overlapping times, damn both of them, they're both thick-headed (yes, UFPJ too). Plus the UFPJ one had hundreds and the ANSWER one had thousands. Anyway, the War Resisters League organized the first one, and UFPJ gave it a benediction, other groups were involved as well. Catholic Worker, the Socialist Party, Veterans for Peace and the IWW all endorsed and were there. We marched to Times Square and over a dozen of people lay down on Broadway, including David McReynolds (and three Wobblies), and were arrested. Later I went up to the ANSWER march and talked to people tabling for groups such as the League for the Revolutionary Party, Communist Organization for the Fourth International (which was a split from the Revolutionary Socialist League, which split from the International Socialists, which was founded out of the Independent Socialist Club, a lot of whose members were from the International Socialist League which...well, I'll be merciful to myself and all and stop there).

Pictures are here:

http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/145509

Lance

P.S. Did I forget to mention this - UFPJ and ANSWER not coordinating is D-U-M-B. If you're not going to hold a rally together, at least frigging coordinate. Damn. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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