Stephanie
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2004
- 70,230
- 10,865
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I got this from the DU site. See how the warped mind's see thing's...
ANSWER and the people in ANSWER basically do one thing, and they do it well, depending on your point of view - they organize demonstrations. To say another nice thing about ANSWER, they're militant in, for me, the good sense of the word. They have backbone. They stick by their friends through thick and thin. No one can accuse them of being "flip-floppers", that's for sure.
Then there are the negatives. Since most people just use them for their demonstrations, I don't think they're beliefs or organization structure is as important as some make it out to be - it is a little important - but not as much as people say. I mean, I pay taxes to the US government that do all sorts of horrible things, and I buy products from corporations, whose management and stockholders use the money to do horrible things. So if someone in ANSWER visited Kim Jong Il or something, I'm not going to have a heart attack. I'm more interested in the readily apparent negative results of what they do are.
One problem with ANSWER rallies is some speakers are good, but then some come up and yell in a shrill voice "WE MUST SMASH CAPITALISM!!! WE MUST SMASH IMPERIALISM!!!" on and on for 5, 10, 15 minutes. Now for myself, I wouldn't mind smashing capitalism or imperialism, but I don't need to listen to someone SCREAMING into a microphone about it for 10 minutes. I don't see any point in this.
Then there's the question of ANSWER bringing issues other than Iraq into the rallies, like Israel. I've been reading recently about the anti-war coalitions from the 1960s and 1970s, and they had the same problem over single-issue versus multi-issue back then. They had that problem at the end of the Vietnam protests, as well as at the beginning (when anti-nuclear protestors began protesting Vietnam at anti-nuclear rallies). I don't know what the answer is to this. I myself think the US is too favorable to Israel over the Palestinians, but as someone said in another post, they think that too, but they think it is a tactical mistake to bring the Israel question into the demonstration. I myself don't know what to think, personally, my thoughts are a little bit of cross-over is OK, like saying we should be building levees instead of going to Iraq, or whatever, but too much crossover with too many different issues makes things muddled. My gut reaction is that it's OK for ANSWER to talk about Israel, but they push the issue too much, they're trying to push it onto people who don't want to see it that much there, even if they agree. On the other hand, I am not one of the people who thinks any posters or signs unhappy with how things in Israel should be cleared out of the demonstration. I think there's a balance. And I don't really have the "answer" to this.
I'll leave saying something positive about ANSWER - they planned the damned thing. It was their idea. Yes, other groups pitched in, but they got the ball rolling. So kudos to that. Everyone complaining about it should say hey, I am going to get involved with organizing something like this, and do it in a way that I think is better than ANSWER. I don't think factionalism is smart, I mean that old thing, "who is in charge? whoever shows up." If the ANSWER people have the initiative to do this, the backbone to have the rally even it doesn't necessarily mean it will help the Democrats in the next election, and do the work, then I think they deserve to have such a placement. Yes, other helped as well, but they got the ball rolling. If you don't like it, the solution is to go to your local peace group, and help out. And to stand firm against the DLC DINOs who are in a peace group but are against demonstrations or anything that might upset anyone - because if the normal grassroots groups listen to those people, then ANSWER will run EVERY anti-war demonstration. ANSWER plays the hippy-dippy UFPJ grassroot groups like a violin, because they are too much under the sway of DLC DNC DINO types, and ANSWER knows this and plays the game using this to their advantage. I appreciate ANSWERs work, and I don't want to tear them down, I would like to see a democratic, grassroots movement not take ANSWER down, but overtake them.
This is to all those proud democrat's, who stand with them, shoulder to shoulder. Let's all say anit-american.... but it seem's the dem's don't care who they stand with, pity....Then they wonder why, the average american don't take them seriously. :scratch:
ANSWER and the people in ANSWER basically do one thing, and they do it well, depending on your point of view - they organize demonstrations. To say another nice thing about ANSWER, they're militant in, for me, the good sense of the word. They have backbone. They stick by their friends through thick and thin. No one can accuse them of being "flip-floppers", that's for sure.
Then there are the negatives. Since most people just use them for their demonstrations, I don't think they're beliefs or organization structure is as important as some make it out to be - it is a little important - but not as much as people say. I mean, I pay taxes to the US government that do all sorts of horrible things, and I buy products from corporations, whose management and stockholders use the money to do horrible things. So if someone in ANSWER visited Kim Jong Il or something, I'm not going to have a heart attack. I'm more interested in the readily apparent negative results of what they do are.
One problem with ANSWER rallies is some speakers are good, but then some come up and yell in a shrill voice "WE MUST SMASH CAPITALISM!!! WE MUST SMASH IMPERIALISM!!!" on and on for 5, 10, 15 minutes. Now for myself, I wouldn't mind smashing capitalism or imperialism, but I don't need to listen to someone SCREAMING into a microphone about it for 10 minutes. I don't see any point in this.
Then there's the question of ANSWER bringing issues other than Iraq into the rallies, like Israel. I've been reading recently about the anti-war coalitions from the 1960s and 1970s, and they had the same problem over single-issue versus multi-issue back then. They had that problem at the end of the Vietnam protests, as well as at the beginning (when anti-nuclear protestors began protesting Vietnam at anti-nuclear rallies). I don't know what the answer is to this. I myself think the US is too favorable to Israel over the Palestinians, but as someone said in another post, they think that too, but they think it is a tactical mistake to bring the Israel question into the demonstration. I myself don't know what to think, personally, my thoughts are a little bit of cross-over is OK, like saying we should be building levees instead of going to Iraq, or whatever, but too much crossover with too many different issues makes things muddled. My gut reaction is that it's OK for ANSWER to talk about Israel, but they push the issue too much, they're trying to push it onto people who don't want to see it that much there, even if they agree. On the other hand, I am not one of the people who thinks any posters or signs unhappy with how things in Israel should be cleared out of the demonstration. I think there's a balance. And I don't really have the "answer" to this.
I'll leave saying something positive about ANSWER - they planned the damned thing. It was their idea. Yes, other groups pitched in, but they got the ball rolling. So kudos to that. Everyone complaining about it should say hey, I am going to get involved with organizing something like this, and do it in a way that I think is better than ANSWER. I don't think factionalism is smart, I mean that old thing, "who is in charge? whoever shows up." If the ANSWER people have the initiative to do this, the backbone to have the rally even it doesn't necessarily mean it will help the Democrats in the next election, and do the work, then I think they deserve to have such a placement. Yes, other helped as well, but they got the ball rolling. If you don't like it, the solution is to go to your local peace group, and help out. And to stand firm against the DLC DINOs who are in a peace group but are against demonstrations or anything that might upset anyone - because if the normal grassroots groups listen to those people, then ANSWER will run EVERY anti-war demonstration. ANSWER plays the hippy-dippy UFPJ grassroot groups like a violin, because they are too much under the sway of DLC DNC DINO types, and ANSWER knows this and plays the game using this to their advantage. I appreciate ANSWERs work, and I don't want to tear them down, I would like to see a democratic, grassroots movement not take ANSWER down, but overtake them.
This is to all those proud democrat's, who stand with them, shoulder to shoulder. Let's all say anit-american.... but it seem's the dem's don't care who they stand with, pity....Then they wonder why, the average american don't take them seriously. :scratch:
Didn't mean anything other than to get the relationship with ANSWER. Man they are bad...
