ANSWER LA tried to lead this Silverlake rally on Sat Nov 8. They were so unorganized and weird that they had the whole group asking what the hell was happening. They were yelling at us and telling one group to go one way and another to go the other way. They tried to force a bunch of people in front of us into a LAPD line when the LAPD were clearly trying to work WITH us and make our march a peaceful and successful protest. When the ANSWER people nearly completely blew it at Sunset and Vermont thankfully some guys from the Gay community stepped in and helped us all out. They talked with LAPD and because ANSWER had already messed the whole thing up they decided to have us regroup back at the Junction and then march west which is what a bunch of us were trying to do. If you want something done right get a Gay man to do it not these ANSWER fools. I'm looking forward to continuing this long fight and I think in the end if we can keep the marches peaceful that the people out there will be on our side. The LAPD really gets a bad rap. They were amazing. They had some rules we couldn't break but for the most part they went along with what our Gay leaders wanted and that made the crowd happy. Let's keep up the pressure and send a clear message that we will win this war without violence and finally be treated equally.

The best thing that could happen to activism in Los Angeles would be for ANSWER to cease to exist. This Stalinist front group and their other various spin offs have been marching people around in circles for years. They are no better than the police. They work with the police, some say for the police. Their game is to jump in front in any bandwagon they see coming down the road and take it over. And if they can’t take it over then run it into the ground.

They are everything we are fighting against: Authoritarian, Ridged ideology and Power hungry control freaks. They will work to derail any social movement they don’t think they can gain control of. They would rather kill a social movement and watch it fail than to see it escape their grasp. And they are liars. They always lie about the number of people that attend “their” events. They always double the actual number and sometimes inflate it by a factor of ten.

They have succeeded in mollifying large parts of the anti-war movement in their cooperation with the police and government agencies. Their adherence to the permit system for state sanctioned and police controlled demonstrations has corralled and often prevented the people’s outrage from reaching the level required for real change.

Some advice to authentic genuine grassroots activists what ever your cause:

1. Do not let these people interfere with your struggle. They have their own agenda in mind and it does not serve your interests.

2. The only reason to go to the events they initiate is to defend the momentum they seek to steal from your movement and to take back the energy of the protest. The most common street tactic for this is to organize and inspire break away marches. Warning: they are hip to this tactic and will side with the cops to crush your splinter march. (This is could be the cause for what happened at Sunset & Vermont last night)

3. If they show up at your meetings treat them no differently than you would a suspected police informant. (They may turn out to be one in the same)

4. There is no ANSWER collation. This is a front. And all the groups they list in their “collation” are of their own invention or marching to beat of the same party. They are a fringe Stalinist group with some really strange ideas about how great life is for people living in North Korea under totalitarian rule.

5. Think ahead of them don’t let them take out multiple parade permits from the police and play protest broker. Organize quickly in advance of their plans. This should not be too difficult for they always do the same thing: The same speeches at the same locations and always on a weekend.

The reader should not think that the author has given anything away here and that someone from Answer will read this and now these things won’t work. This struggle between genuine grassroots movements that are self-organized and self-directed by the people vs those who seek to co-opt their movement has been going on for years: 1,000s of years. All the tactics are pretty much known to all. We just need to keep at it.

These are standard disinformation pieces. I'm not sure who reads Indymedia, but it is counterproductive to red bait and then slam a group of people who are holding the biggest rallies in LA history. What's up with that? I guess the movement should be small, grungy and based on rhetoric and denunciations--no way!

These people defame ANSWER because they either are paid by the cops to do so or because they have no organizing abilities on their own. I'd like to see them organize 20,000 people to do anything together. Social change doesn't come from wearing a handkerchief over your face and claiming to be "militant" while looking cool. You've got to really struggle.

Go for it ANSWER--we are with you!

I was at this protest also. In regards to A.N.S.W.E.R and their managerial competence, I don't think it was the result of A.N.S.W.E.R directing anyone into conflict, as much as there was a militant spirit that night. There was a group of people trying to head west on Sunset and Vermont. A.N.S.W.E.R along with the leadership there were encouraging people to head the opposite direction, along the pre- palnned route.

ANSWER kind of died out anyway and became obsolete. I went to ANSWER motivated anti-chrostofascism protests in LA and Hollywood for a time but eventually the idiot concessions ANSWER made to march around in little circles mastubating along pre-approved streets became so idiotic that I stopped going.

The ANSWER presence at the anti-hate rallies at Baldwin Park were good, but that all ended and ANSWER was left being pointless.

On the Internet such stupidity is treated as damage to the network and people route around it. Since ANSWER is fucked up, other organizers are capable of getting things together. Glad to hear that our homo community is ready to step in. }:-}

ANSWER kind of died out anyway and became obsolete. I went to ANSWER motivated anti-chrostofascism protests in LA and Hollywood for a time but eventually the idiot concessions ANSWER made to march around in little circles mastubating along pre-approved streets became so idiotic that I stopped going.

The ANSWER presence at the anti-hate rallies at Baldwin Park were good, but that all ended and ANSWER was left being pointless.

On the Internet such stupidity is treated as damage to the network and people route around it. Since ANSWER is fucked up, other organizers are capable of getting things together. Glad to hear that our homo community is ready to step in. }:-}

> Go for it ANSWER--we are with you!

No. ANSWER is obsolete and was quickly illegitimate after a while. ANSWER dropped their pants, bent over, and gave the Christofascist State everything they demanded without a whimper during all of the anti-christofascist rallies I attended in LA and Hollywood, agreeing to parade around in tight little circles in pre-approved streets at pre-approved times, playing paddy cake with the very fascist State that they were pretending to oppose.

The whole fucking point of taking to the streets is to demonstrate, annoy the status quo, anger and awaken people. Instead ANSWER sucked off the fascist State at every opportunity, getting permits, authorization, permission, allowed schedules, asking "pretty please" like good little subjects of a fascist State.

No offense but ANSWER is little better than the Christofascist Bush regime and its corporate sponsors.

My opinions only and only my opinions.