UFPJ & ANSWER politics, woo

Ahh, everyone's favorite subject, the good old sectarian politics.

It seems that in the organizing for the September 24th dealie in DC, relations between UFPJ and ANSWER fell apart even more. Here are some documents:

UFPJ's December 12th statement, UFPJ Rejects Future Work with ANSWER; Ending the War in Iraq, Building a Broad Movement for Peace and Justice, And Our Experience with A.N.S.W.E.R.

ANSWER's December 16th statement, A.N.S.W.E.R. Responds to UFPJ: Our Position on Unity in the AntiWar Movement

Lots of fun gossip and even some very interesting points.

There's also this long, scathing critique of UFPJ by Tom Good -- on how it has avoided civil disobedience, and is anti-democratic.

But anyhow, maybe I'm way out of the loop, but did other folks know that ANSWER had a factional split last year, and that the the faction that maintained the "ANSWER" name isn't even the Workers World Party folks?

It's all explained in a recent critique of ANSWER by Bill Weinberg.

He writes: "Recently, Workers World has undergone a factional split, with a breakaway group apparently taking most of ANSWER with it. This has led the IAC and the faction that still calls itself Workers World to help found a new coalition, Troops Out Now! The recent split doesn't seem to have been about anything substantive, but the tactical question of whether to support WWP's presidential ticket last year or to acquiesce to the left's 'anybody but Bush' (meaning pro-Kerry) position. Behind this question seems to be a turf war between WWP cadre in New York and San Francisco, the party's two principal power bases. The breakaway faction, based mostly in San Francisco, is calling itself the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Troops Out Now!, which endorsed the Sept. 24 march, remains based at the International Action Center's New York offices."