ANSWER: Anti-Christ or Spawn of all evil?
I was watching Donahue yesterday interview Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and United for Peace. At one point some right wing dimbulb was howling at her that the antiwar movement is controlled by Worker’s World.
Some explanation for the confused. ANSWER, one of the main antiwar coalitions, does indeed have Worker’s World people in it (and so what if they do?). This is what Mr. Right Wing Wacko was ranting about. This is also why Medea looked baffled, as she has no connection with ANSWER, and anyone with an even vague understanding of peace movement internals would know this.
However Mr. Dimbulb wasn’t about to let facts confuse him, so he howled on. ANSWER is indeed getting attacked by all sorts of folks. This not only shows that the antiwar movement is making an serious impact, it also helps build the movement! The more the Right howls at ANSWER, the more people are attracted to the movement. For example, the Worker’s World website has been getting humongous increases in hits the past few weeks. They are literally getting millions of hits per week now, many of which are no doubt due to the ranting nutcases on Fox News.
The ANSWER coalition here in LA, where I volunteer, has lots of everybody. Labor leaders, Greens, Black, Latino, Filipino, Korean, a wide range of ages, activists with decades of experience and people who went to their first demo last month.
A common criticism is “ANSWER is anti-democratic”, which is silly. I guess they weren’t at the meeting tonight when lots of new ideas were tossed out, discussed, and now people are working on them. Seems quite democratic to me.