• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • TP について/About
  • Topics/トピクス
    • Gender/ジェンダー
    • Globalisation/グローバリゼーション
    • Japan and Asia/日本とアジア
    • Japanese/日本語
    • Media/メディア
    • News/ニュース
    • Social Justice/社会正義
    • War and Empire/戦争&支配権力
    • Environment/環境
    • Other Stories/他の記事
  • Links/リンク
  • Contact

TokyoProgressive

Linking Progressives East and West Since 1997

東西のプログレッシブをつなぐ − 1997年設立  |  Linking Progressives East and West Since 1997

-ANSWER is NOT Whole U.S. Peace Movement

March 25, 2003 by tokyoprogressive Leave a Comment

Dear friends,

I’m sorry that the pressure of events has delayed my making any response to this post – now two weeks old. (referring to an ad by ANSWER for a Peace Action)

Please understand I do NOT want to start any “political faction fight” by email, but there are some points that I think do need to be made.

ANSWER is run by a small group of unusually orthodox Marxist/Leninsts called the Workers World Party. (Their origins are Trotskyist – they were formed in 1956 by a small group within the US Trotskyist movement which supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary). They have been very successful in pulling off major demonstrations here because while their membership is under 500, they are very hard working, and filled a vacuum caused by the failure of the other range of groups to get their act together sooner. They have also been able to use Ramsey Clark as their public figure (he doesn’t belong to WWP but is not critical of them – sometimes I think he may even be unaware of their politics).

Another tiny group (RCP – the Revolutionary Communist Party, whose politics are Maoist, and are enthusiastic supporters of the “Shining Path” in Peru) has also been successful in setting up NION (Not in Our Name), but somewhat to their credit, they have let “NION be captured” – RCP keeps their own politics very much in the background so that NION comes much closer to being a broad movement where the more sectarian elements are “submerged”.

In the rallies which ANSWER has pulled together, the speakers reflect the narrower, more militant elements of the left in the US. The broader outreach, including trade unions, church groups, etc., has occured under the new grouping United for Peace and Justice, (UPJ)

Please understand that I am not suggesting that because RCP or WWP are small that they don’t deserve a lot of credit for the work they have done. None of us are that large and I’m not trying to “trash” these groups. Only to make it clear that the American anti-war movement is much broader and I hope makes an early point of reaching out to the international peace movement. In short, ANSWER is not able to represent “the American movement” in any international coaliton – only to represent itself.

I am reporting this because I don’t know that UPF has had the money or even the awareness of the need to reach out to the international community – it would be very easy for any of your groups to mistake ANSWER for “the real American movement”. It is not – it is a PART of the US oppsition to Bush’s policy. They have done a good job but are not eager to embrace groups they feel are too moderate, while some of us (myself included) feel that the danger posed the world by those around Bush is so great that very broad coalitions must be formed. That “radicals and moderates” must work together – even conservatives should be deeply alarmed by the dangerously radical right wing direction in which the Bush group is taking us.

The good news is that yesterdays’ march in New York – Saturday the 22 – had over 200,000 people. This was organized by United for Peace and Justice and also supported by a range of other groups including ANSWER. The last event ANSWER called on their own – in Washington DC on March 15th – was not terribly large – perhaps 100,000 people, perhaps less.

Peace,
David McReynolds
(active in the pacifist and democratic socialist communities)

Note from Paul: There have also been charges by some people engaged in civil disobedience that ANSWER tries to manipulate the movement by informing police of these actrions in advance so as to make themselves appear more respectable. Everything must be
taken with a grain of salt, since the last time I heard these charges they were made by activists in Boston who also accused the police there of brutality when, in reality and in comparison to what I have heard about in New York or even Tokyo, was very low key and in response to an attempt by a very few to lead a very peaceful and tolerated breakaway march
onto a highway. I have also heard reports that 40 percent of the Boston police are anti-war which could account for the relatively mild behaviour on their part. So while clearly there are good arguments for carefully planned civil disobedience and ANSWER has often been accused of trying to get on the good side of the police by taking the moral high road and condemning such actions, it is not automatically true that “anti-ANSWER” propaganda is true. We saw a few weeks ago how NATION columnists, among others, tried to make the whole anti-war movement look bad and the “leadership” anti-semitic by distorting the treatment of Michael Lerner, presumably at the hands of ANSWER. Look for further media/government attempts to paint the anti-war movement as crazy, sectarian, inconsistent, etc. as the war machine goes into high gear and the movement responds accordingly. Be aware that while these distortions are just that, and part of a vicious propaganda campaign by the war mongers, that -as David McReynolds points out- the real anti-war movement is diverse and is not simply synonymous with the philosophy or actions of some of its smaller components, like ANSWER.

Filed Under: World News

Join the Discussion

Comment on this article or respond to others' comments.

You can post below or send to the mailing list at discuss@list.tokyoprogressive.org.

a) Please sign you name at the bottom of your comment, so that we know who wrote it.

b) To prevent spam, comments need to be manually approved.

c) Comments which are insulting, racist, homophobic or submitted in bad faith will not be published.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Search the site

Archives

Main Categories (old and most recent)

Alternative News Contributors/投稿者 creative Democracy Now Environment/環境 Featured Gender/ジェンダー Globalisation/グローバリゼーション Jacobin Japan/日本 Japan and Asia/日本とアジア Japanese/日本語 Japan Focus Japan News Korea/韓国 latest latest-j links Media/メディア Mp3 National Security Archive neoliberalism new News/ニュース Other Stories/他の記事 Social Justice/社会正義 Topics Uncategorized Video War and Empire/戦争&支配権力

Search deeper

Abe activities, protests, films, events Afghanistan alternative news Bush class issues and homelessness Environmental research fukushima gaza health care Henoko human rights Iraq Iraq, Afganistan and the War on Terror Iraq and Afghanistan, opposing the wars Israel Japan Korea labor issues Latin America Middle East military North Korea nuclear nuclear waste Obama Okinawa Okinawa Palestine peace protest protest and resistance racism/human rights radiation state crimes Syria Takae Tepco Trump U.S. War world news English ニュース/社会問題 人権 平和、憲法9条

Design and Hosting for Progressives

Donate/寄付

Please support our work. This includes costs involved in producing this news site as well as our free hosting service for activists, teachers and students. Donations/寄付 can be sent to us via PayPal or Donately. You can also click on the buttons below to make a one-time donation.




Work with us

TokyoProgressive
supports and participates in projects of like-minded people and groups directly (technical, editing, design) and not-so directly (financial or moral support). Likewise, we also welcome contributions by readers that are consistent with promoting social justice. If you have a project you would like help with, or if you would like to submit an article, link, or report on a protest activity, please contact us here.

Footer

All opinions are those of the original authors and may not reflect the views of TokyoProgressive. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for by copyright law in several countries. The material on this site is distributed without profit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyleft 1997-present: tokyoprogressive dot org

TokyoProgressive supports and participates in projects of like-minded people and groups directly (technical, editing, design) and not-so directly (financial or moral support). Likewise, we also welcome contributions by readers that are consistent with promoting social justice. If you have a project you would like help with, or if you would like to submit an article, link, or report on a protest activity, please contact us here.

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in