ANSWER asks nudes to wear clothes at Civic Center rally

I suppose you want us to pledge allegence to the flag so that it looks good to the media too.

nudes for peace,
autonomous actions will be happening throughout the day. you're part of the fuck war and you shouldn't be discouraged from taking a stand.
because dasw is doing decentralized actions, the media will have a difficult time just focusing on nudity. can you create your own action?
respecting the tone of actions that others are organizing is important, but i think it's less applicable to something like a mass rally and march, such as answer is organizing. when you're calling for numbers w/ the unity just being around being anti-war, it seems a little bizarre to then exclude a group for being "offensive". many of us are offensive in various ways.
whatever, nudes rock.

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Now, as to those who are so concerned with their birthday suits. I DON'T CARE IF YOU WANT TO SHOW OFF YOUR BIRTHDAY SUIT at 5 p.m. in San Francisco in March when the temperature drops to 50 degrees or less. I am sure most people connected with ANSWER really do not care. Your preoccupation with your birthday suit seems odd to most of us, but go ahead and catch a cold tomorrow night if you wish. I do hope that everyone has bare faces as I find it more offensive to see covers on peoples' faces, male and female. So, enjoy yourselves in your birthday suit contingent. And do not forget, there are actions all day long. You could show up at Noon when it is warmer at Post and Montgomery, picketing Feinstein and listening to poetry.

A poster wrote in favor of nudists for peace and suggested they join in the ''direct action ''. Well if so i hope they at least wearing running shoes to escape the inevitable Police sweeps !
Also if they busted they will regret being nude . One doesn't want to walk into a cell block bare assed !
(What a silly discussion to be having on the fifth anniversity of the invasion of Iraq )

please come and add to the carnival of resistance at market and sansome tomorrow morning. 730am

How many times did ANSWER drive us crazy with the loud chanting/screeching into the microphones, and ignore our requests to PLEASE tone it down so we activists wouldn't be forced to vacate the demo for fear of losing our hearing? How about toning down some of the excruciatingly long speakers and staying on-topic (anti-war)...maybe some of the more mainstream folks would be more inclined to actually listen then?
Business suits, everyone, and cover up those tattoos too! ANSWER has spoken!

Got it! We will immediately abandon flowery hats as they might offend mainstream folks who would otherwise be interested in finally deciding war is wrong. So we will wear only our circa 1950's prim and proper hats, put on garter belts, girdles, hose and pumps, and...wait a minute. Let's go nude....much more comfortable.

ANSWER has been trying to forge alliances with many diverse groups. The Muslim solidarity groups will not participate if there is nudity. Its thats simple.

There's a war going on. To trivialize it by going nude as part of some sillyass ''carnival of resistance '' is beneath contempt .i couldn't give a damm who wears what, who sleeps with whom, etc. etc. But to put your aging (or retro new ) hippie lifestyle front and center when we are trying to stop this imperialist slaughter ---words fail me !
Let's just say it's manna from Heaven to Fox and other corporate media enemies of our anti war movement .

Is it any more silly than to "trivalize" it by wearing pink feathered boas? Or by wearing aprons and funny hats?
Let people express themselves in whatever way they see fit. Don't let the powers that be "divide and conquer". And don't let special interest groups with feudal sensabilities dictate what we can and can't do.

going nude is no worse than wearing silly pink crowns as the Cult Pink does. They seem to be more concerned with drawing attention to themselves than the real issues and solutions.

The media won't show nudes but they will show people in clown suits, gorilla costumes, granny hats, and pink crowns to trivialize the movement and alienate mainstream people from the peace movement. If folks want to continue being marginalized as the war rages on, then keep wearing the idiotic costumes. no one in a pink crown can make a sane argument about stopping the war.

the best spokespeople to put before the cameras are veterans.

'' Reality Check '' is mostly right . Mostly. Pink Bonnets do appear silly but they aren't quite as off putting than sagging bare asses .
Part of the problem is that we really don't have a vehicle in which to discuss, debate, share ideas etc. about what to do with our movement .
We really need some sort of a Antiwar Congress . structured in a way that no one group can dominate. AN.S.W.E.R. certainly isn't THE answer but neither are any other organizations out there. (At least ANSWER is 100% opposed to the war . Unlike Democratic party front groups like Moveon.org, Vote Vets and others.) While i agree that Iraqi and Afghan Vets who oppose the war should be highlighted , no one sector should be annointed the '' vanguard''.
Time to go. I'm developing a raging '' Stomach Flu'' so i told my boss that i have to leave work to return home , via first spending several hours in SF in the streets !

Its worth watching the you-tube

http://www.thedaily show.com/ video/index. jhtml?videoId= 163653&title= marines-in- berkeley& byDate=true

"The Muslim solidarity groups will not participate if there is nudity. Its thats simple."

-Tough. This is happening in SF. There will be thousands of gay people, transgendered, wiccan, pagans, nudists marching, all to end a war that is killing innocent Muslims. Most muslims are fully incorporated into Western social norms as part of our melting pot and will have no problem with this stuff. The ones who get upset about this stuff are as bad as Xtian fundies and don't belong at the protests anyway. Don't lump all Muslims in with the reactionary prudes, that is what the Bush admin is trying to do.

"Don't lump all Muslims in with the reactionary prudes, that is what the Bush admin is trying to do."


Kate Raphael often tells the story of showing up at an Al Awda rally with a "Lesbians against Occupation" banner, and being asked to leave. Sad but true. And she left. There are issues with tolerance, even here.

Lacie sums it up simply; if solidarity with the Muslim community is a desired outcome, than nudity needs to be put on the back burner in a list of protest priorities. If there are nudist contingents in the protest, this act would likely cause any Muslims present to leave. There's plenty of other chances for nudist protests, such as critical mass, forest defense, petroleum corporations, factory farms, etc.. where the presence of the Muslim community isn't as likely..

Under the circumstances of forced nudity being a large part of the U.S. military's torture campaigns against Iraqi Muslims for extracting info under extreme physical conditions, the only form of nudity politically acceptable to Muslims in this protest would be a reenactment of the torture pyramids of nude Iraqi prisoners piled atop one another. If this is done without being directly nude and exposing private parts, the nudity would be used to show the extent of cruelty used by U.S. military attempting to extract info..

If someone is really creative, they could use this nude torture pyramid to also show how the torture of Ibn Al-Shaykh Al-Libi in Egypt under U.S. supervision was used to obtain false info of Saddam's alleged ties with Al-Qaeda, the initial premise (along with non-existant WMDs) for the U.S. military invasion of Iraq..

this from Left Coaster;

"Both Laura Rozen and Kevin Drum discuss Douglas Jehl's NY Times article about how Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi gave a false story that Iraq provided training to al Qaeda after being tortured interrogated in Egypt.

The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Al-Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

al-Libi's "evidence" was used by the Bush administration to make the case for war against Iraq and was the primary story underpinning Bush's charge that Saddam was in cahoots with the terrorists. This charge has been discredited because when he finally could, al-Libi retracted it, and as it was obtained under torture, his story was deemed without merit."

article cont's @;
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006230.php

In other words, this man Al-Libi was tortured in Egypt by order of U.S. until he ended up telling falsehoods about Al-Qaeda and Saddam, which was precisely what the GW Bush regime had "ordered" as the desired outcome of the interrogation. The GW Bush regime was so eager to invade oil rich Iraq and depose Saddam, he ordered the military and CIA to come up with false info to blame Saddam for 9/11, even though there never was any link between the secular socialist Saddam and the Sunni Wahhabist fundamentalists of al-Qaeda. That mattered little to the U.S. public blinded by rage of 9/11 and looking for revenge, and any Muslim stereotype would do well for invasion, even if the only "proof" was an individual who eventually was tortured by the military into telling the story that the GW Bush regime wanted to hear..

"Lacie sums it up simply; if solidarity with the Muslim community is a desired outcome,"

-Obviously, solidarity with the Muslim community is a desired outcome! However, why we should pander to the tiny minority of religious extremists within the Muslim community and ignore the vast majority who have no problem with nudity is beyond me. It is only a tiny fringe who are intolerant of gay people, transgender, or nude activists, why cater to them?

Why do we surrender our freedom to a religion? Like we don't cow tow when Fundies tell us "nude is evil" why should we listen to some other kind of Fundies? Let them get over it, the human body is beautiful and shouldbe celebrated!

The nudist contingent of the anti-war rally feels they have the right to expose their nudity to anyone and everyone in public, and those who don't like it are either religious fundamentalists or homophobes. Or worse yet, uptight prudes who are upset by the sight of a naked human body. Flab and wrinkles aside, not everyone wishes to be exposed to openly displayed genitals and buttcracks, though display of these special body parts in private with one's lover(s) is another matter entirely!!

An anti-war rally isn't about pleasing everyone, asking people to refrain from nudity until after the protest is over results in the status quo of wearing clothing would then leave a few nudists displeased. However, if the nudists feel the desire to expose themselves to the public, there are many nudist camps and other options for nudity besides a place where people who may become offended by this would be..

Again, we need to remind ourselves how forced nudity was used by the U.S. military as an implement of torture against Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere, and to display nudity in a free spirited dance format at an anti-war protest in the U.S. could be seen as mocking to the victims of U.S. torture. There is such a concept as cultural sensitivity that liberals usually find relevant when addressing people with different value systems, and this is not the time nor the place for public displays of nudity unless the theme of forced nudity as a torture tactic by U.S. military is made obvious..

Background on U.S. torture tactics;

"Beyond the most sensational and lurid violations, there is also a growing body of evidence that such practices as forced nudity and intimidating suspects through the presence of unmuzzled dogs were used at Abu Ghraib as a matter of routine. Most people would agree that these actions are also forbidden under the Geneva Conventions.

A third category of practices were not only routinely used, but – at various times and with varying degrees of authorization required – officially sanctioned. These measures include sensory deprivation, exposing prisoners to cold, keeping them awake by subjecting them to loud noise and bright lights, forcing them to stand in stressful positions and manipulating their diet."

also;

"Beyond the most abusive actions at Abu Ghraib, there is plentiful evidence that senior officers were aware of practices like forced nudity and the use of unmuzzled dogs to intimidate prisoners. Col. Thomas Pappas, the military intelligence officer in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib, is reported as having openly acknowledged the use of forced nudity as part of the intelligence process."

war crimes found @;
http://www.crimesofwar.org/special/prisoner/qa.html

Nor am i a spokesperson for ANSWER, WCW, etc.., even though i agree with them on this and some other issues. Nor do i dislike nudity and nakedness, i am a secular pagan who avoids all three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), so my position of "no nudity unless to show U.S. torture tactics" is not religiously based. Simply a matter of respect and common sense, dignity for the living and deceased victims of U.S. military torture policies of forced nudity of prisoners..

Placating religious freaks by keeping our clothes on isn't my idea of anarchism!

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/03/19/18486796.php

I knew it- the right wing neo-cons are using this as yet another reason to bvash the anti-war movement

From: http://www.bluetruth.net

Wrong, ANSWER--again

The folks over at International ANSWER appear to have gone off their medication again. You remember them-- the "anti-war" group that cheers Hamas and Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israel; the self-proclaimed commissars of rallies against the US war in Iraq that have managed to shrivel the public turnout at their events down to a few thousand at a time. Basically now irrelevant except to the hard core cadres who show up because of ANSWER's other agendas--Israel-bashing, China-excusing, Darfur-denying and so on. They have now gone as far as to admit that they have accepted dhimmi status with regard to their radical Moslem constituency. Having been instructed by their Moslem groups that they would be offended by public nudity, ANSWER begged the "nudes for peace" contingent not to show up at their recent rally. Of course, ANSWER doesn't view as offensive the "Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs" chants or the sonorous voice of Hatem Bazian chanting "intifada, intifada" like some kind of crazed jihadist mantra (wait, that actually IS a crazed jihadist mantra!), or the signs at its rallies displaying naked anti-Semitism. They ignore the fact that the Islamists whose boots they lick are homophobes who excuse "honor killings" and the genocide in Darfur.

We also were able to find out that at least one group allied with ANSWER places its racial/ethnic agenda even ahead of its core political position--opposition to the war in Iraq. Witness these e-mails received by Direct Action to Stop The War about last week's anti-war actions in San Francisco which were aimed not only at US Government offices but also those businesses who were deemed complicit in the war effort:
"Hey all,I just got a call from S---- S---, the owner of the Sprint store at --------, which is on our direct action menu. He told me that that store is an authorized Sprint dealership that's owned by him - it is*not* owned by Sprint. He said that he strongly opposes the war and strongly supports what we're doing, and hopes that we won't target his business.Please make whatever decision you see fit based on this information.(Personally, I think we should let the poor guy off the hook.)Thanks,Adrian"
"I just got an e-mail forwarded to me from someone re: the sprint storeowned by S---- S---- he is a Palestinian who's grandfather passed away 3 days ago, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE drop this off your target list. I understand the need to target war profiteers, but i wish more research had been done on the targets. some people are just trying to feed their families, and have almost no choice but to partner with companies such as Sprint. thank you, M----- S---- (S----- is my cousin)"

How did we get these e-mails? Maybe somebody on the inside took offense at not holding Palestinians to the same moral standards? Maybe this person felt that just because you're Palestinian or other "oppressed" Moslem that you can be held accountable for the choices you make, same as everyone else? Naaahhhhhh..... Palestinians are excused for celebrating the cold-blooded murder of yeshiva students so why should a little war profiteering be an issue between friends?

What's next-- is ANSWER going to insist that all women wear burkas to its next rally?