| November 5, 2007: This website is an archive of the former website, traprockpeace.org, which was created 10 years ago by Charles Jenks. It became one of the most populace sites in the US, and an important resource on the antiwar movement, student activism, 'depleted' uranium and other topics. Jenks authored virtually all of its web pages and multimedia content (photographs, audio, video, and pdf files. As the author and registered owner of that site, his purpose here is to preserve an important slice of the history of the grassroots peace movement in the US over the past decade. He is maintaining this historical archive as a service to the greater peace movement, and to the many friends of Traprock Peace Center. Blogs have been consolidated and the calendar has been archived for security reasons; all other links remain the same, and virtually all blog content remains intact. THIS SITE NO LONGER REFLECTS THE CURRENT AND ONGOING WORK OF TRAPROCK PEACE CENTER, which has reorganized its board and moved to Greenfield, Mass. To contact Traprock Peace Center, call 413-773-7427 or visit its site. Charles Jenks is posting new material to PeaceJournal.org, a multimedia blog and resource center.
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Grassroots Wants a United March
[The writer sent this appeal for unity to the ufpj-disc list on August 4, 2005. The list is moderated and did not post this appeal.]
August 4, 2005
I think it's clear that people at the grassroots want a single march. Many
calls have come forward, and I am sure that more are on the way.
The practical reality of having two marches is that groups and coalitions
would have to decide where to march and who to march with. This would be ridiculous
- and the divisiveness that we are seeing is weakening the movement. Let the
arguments subside - let each of the two major callers of these national marches
in DC - ANSWER and UFPJ - go in with their stated themes and engineer a march
where everyone walks the same route at the same time. Is that so difficult?
There is no need for them to agree on a theme. Just agree to walk together.
If they can't agree on how to head the march, they can find a national group
they both like and put them at the front of the march with their banner, and
go. It's interesting, I think, that there is a single march in San Francisco.
I'm concerned that there may be more at play here and hope this hasn't come
down to power politics within the movement. I won't argue about what already
has happened between ANSWER and UFPJ. Surely, there are different stories
to tell about that. But let me ask you - which group - ANSWER or UFPJ - would
stand to 'gain' more by having separate marches. Which group would have the
larger march in DC and would have greater national media attention?
The onus is on that group to let any of those considerations pass and to get
down to the people's business of working out a single march. Both groups have
a responsibility to do so, in my opinion.
The cheerleaders for two marches are encouraging a weakening of the movement.
Is it a coincidence that the UFPJ website has had a 49% three month decline
in its "reach", while the ANSWER site has had a 30% decline (per
alexa.com). This can't be blamed on the summer doldrums, because other antiwar
websites are surging. I think activists are tired of the divisiveness.
Charlie Jenks
President of Advisory Board
Traprock Peace Center