Call to action

[HIS HERO IS GONE]

so the IMF and World Bank meet every spring in Washington D.C. in april (last year the summit was the 24th-26th - pretty sure almost positive they're the same dates this year) and I have not seen anyone trying to organize resistance to it for this year. I think it's VERY important that we show our resistance to these institutions - just as important as resisting the G20. So I encourage everyone who opposes it to come and help out. Compared to pittsburgh, the IMF (last year) didn't have nearly as many law enforcement officers as the G20. There were 1200 at IMF/WB and 6000 at G20. In my opinion, if we have as many people as we did in pittsburgh in d.c. the streets would be ours without question. Only problem is that people need to organize a convergence space and food. I do not have any resources to do so or I would be already on it. So, who's up for reclaiming the streets this April?

 

[cricketonthemove]

Won't make it to DC, but will make it to G8 in Hunstville, Ont June 25-26 and G20 in Toronto, Ont june 26-27.

 

[HIS HERO IS GONE]

hell yeah! I will totally see you in Canada then. I've been planning on that for about a month now. Supposedly it's going to be the biggest police operation canada has ever seen which means more than 16,500 law enforcement officers (which was in Vancouver).

 

[wizehop]

If you want to stop them why not kill them..breaking a few windows and protesting wont even put a dent in there day.

 

[veggieguy12]

Yeah, HIS HERO IS GONE, I support your attitude, but I agree with wizehop: the strategy and tactics that have thus far been employed can't honestly/objectively be regarded as anything but futile and utterly ineffective.
If you don't want to be an assassin, that's one thing, but if you want to stop these people, marching in the streets doesn't seem to do the trick. And would anyone really think that it could, especially given the last few years of Protest:Repression we've seen?
Time for any 'Movement' to grow up, mature into genuine Resistance.

 

[wizehop]

The thing is the "bad guys" Kill to get what they want (among other things). These movemnts need real objectives. Protesting is straight up masterbaition. In my eyes if people who show up to protests had to put there life on the line most of them would stay home....

 

[HIS HERO IS GONE]

I agree with both of you 100% about just marching and breaking windows not being entirely effective but sadly I don't think we're nearly well enough organized let alone have enough people to actually form a genuine resistance, veggieguy. I also think that not going because of defeatist attitudes is worse than atleast costing the city more than it already had to put out for security. People need to atleast display their outrage. In order to form a genuine resistance, it's also my belief that protests help in that they inspire others who are new to it and it is a good way to meet people who want a world atleast similar to what you're fighting for. And from there, we can get together with those same people that we've met through protesting (or elsewhere) and start meeting in between summits/protests to work on our tactics against the state. Because you're a 100% right that we need more and new tactics than just breaking windows, and educating people is one of the most important that many anarchists have no interest in doing. BUT, i'd have to disagree wizehop, that these movements need real objectives. We have VERY real objectives, we just need more tactics and resources to reach those objectives and we NEED to start getting more serious.

 

[HIS HERO IS GONE]

And also wizehop, just like your signature says, Freedom lies in pastimes that are a bit odd and slightly illegal! When we do get our one chance every so often to mobilize with 100s of us to strike back at the state, they are moments of liberation. I know when I'm running in the streets with 400 people all in black and people are striking blows back at the corporations who are controlling our lives, it feels quite liberating and moving. It's our chance to do it in broad daylight while the cops are watching and do nothing about it. I feel much freer doing that, than typing on this computer that helps perpetuate globalization and domestication and all that jazz.... Constructive criticisms are appreciated though! We need to start calling ourselves out on our own flaws, and find ways to fix them!

 

[Nobody's Driving]

i don't really think anyone is really under the impression that anti-summit convergences, protests, etc. are going to topple international financial institutions anymore. but riots are great!

 

[veggieguy12]

...I don't think we're nearly well enough organized let alone have enough people to actually form a genuine resistance, veggieguy. I also think that not going because of defeatist attitudes is worse than atleast costing the city more than it already had to put out for security.

Well, I respectfully suggest that you consider the infiltration of police into 'movement'/anarchist groups, the presence of agents provocateurs, and the financial and energetic sacrifices that all involved 'rebels' will commit, and determine if it's worthwhile. I don't see it coming out ahead on a Costs In:Benefits Resulting analysis.
Predictably, there will be at least one "URGENT: donate to save Joe Riutt!" appeal for financing someone's legal defense against ludicrous charges, and mass-arrests that will consume the time and energy and money of dozens or hundreds, even if they are vindicated years down the line. And it just doesn't effectively, practically, tactically do anything to advance your goals, if I correctly understand your goals.

In order to form a genuine resistance, it's also my belief that protests help in that they inspire others who are new to it and it is a good way to meet people who want a world atleast similar to what you're fighting for. And from there, we can get together with those same people that we've met through protesting (or elsewhere) and start meeting in between summits/protests to work on our tactics against the state. ...educating people is one of the most important that many anarchists have no interest in doing.

Ah, again, I don't think there's so much value in 'educating' people who'll never do anything more than 'educate' or break windows in a mob action. We're all educating one another and strangers aplenty, but nobody's doing anything effective, so what's the point?
Look, the USMC and the SAS don't need people who are educated on policy or the history of the Middle East; they need people who will fire when ordered, and are educated on operating tanks and helicopter gunships. Do you see my point? If people are being educated on the reasons to fight, and then they're educated on how to fight, that's totally worthwhile, but it's also something new to me.

When we do get our one chance every so often to mobilize with 100s of us to strike back at the state, they are moments of liberation. I know when I'm running in the streets with 400 people all in black and people are striking blows back at the corporations who are controlling our lives, it feels quite liberating and moving.

The personal liberation and emotional catharsis or growth are fine things, but they are completely distinct from whether or not these methods accomplish effective change. And they just don't accomplish any serious change for the better, they are not steps toward an increasing militancy, they are merely feel-good romps that give us a false sense of efficacy.

Also, some of your talk about organizing through meeting people at such Major Protests suggests to me that we really don't take seriously the situation and view ourselves as under occupation. If we really understood that we are under an occupying power, that our lives are literally on the line and our habitat being pushed over a cliff, we wouldn't make puppets and seek permits and wrangle through courts over the validity of a free speech zone or the impropriety of mass arrests - rather, we would be underground, discreet, secretive, and more serious. Am I wrong?

Does the US & NATO prefer IEDs from unknown cells to protests from known agitators? Do the Israelis send infiltrators to discover where the next demonstration against the Wall will be, or do they want to know who the current bombmakers are, and when will be the next 'martyrdom operation'? In South American dictatorships the housewives and bourgeousie marched in the streets; the radicals dressed conservatively and armed and drilled for Revolution. And to the Nazis again, if we weren't 'allowed' the distracting luxury of "free speech" and lawyers for our silly arrests, we wouldn't act like it's Political Mardi Gras / Stanley Cup debauchery, and we'd act more like Jean Moulin and the French Resistance.
Am I wrong?

 

[HIS HERO IS GONE]

I wouldn't say you're wrong about anything except that would should just completely rule out demonstrations. That, I don't agree with.

 

[moon owl]

I wouldn't say you're wrong about anything except that would should just completely rule out demonstrations. That, I don't agree with.

but what do demonstrations really accomplish? they do let the people you are trying to protest against know who you are. it may get you in the newspaper or on tv or on some indie news website. but do they stop the electricity from working? do they interrupt the transportation of goods? i don't think so. and why demonstrate where they are expecting it and there are already thousands of police totally ready for it. that seems like a bad move to me.

i'm curious to know what your goals are and how you think demonstrations would help you achieve them.

and veggieguy said:
"Ah, again, I don't think there's so much value in 'educating' people who'll never do anything more than 'educate' or break windows in a mob action. We're all educating one another and strangers aplenty, but nobody's doing anything effective, so what's the point?"

i think enough people know what needs to be done. it's just up the them(us?) to force the bullshit you want to stop, to stop.

 

[derailed]

yet another shining example of why the anarchist movement in north america is a crock of shit. whoever compared these protests to masturbation is entirely correct, these demonstrations have become as tame and predictable as the changing of the seasons. In essence, they've morphed into giant "let's pat ourselves on the back for accomplishing nothing" parties, all under the pretense of social liberation. The only reason modern protest in this country exists is to make the participants feel better about themselves and their involvement in the world around them. To me it's a self-serving action and incredible waste of energy that could be used on something that would actually benefit the community (ie, mutual aid, micro banks, free day care, communal food production, etc). I don't take any of these people seriously, and I know the government doesn't or they'd be abusing their rapidly expanding power and arresting more of them.

I don't necessarily support their respective causes, but what the anarchist movement needs is a couple of Timothy McVeighs or John Walker Lindhs, people willing to put more on the line than a couple nights in jail. Shit, even right-wing extremists bombing abortion clinics are putting forth more effort than 99.99% of the marchers at these demonstrations are. It's a sad day when an already heavily conservative government finds the biggest threat in it's own ranks, doesn't say much about us, does it?

 

[HIS HERO IS GONE]

Anything that stops business as usual is a step in the right direction. what do you think our government would do if people didn't show up to show the mainstream public that people are angry about things. I think they would do a lot worse. It's just that we need to move from protest to resistance. And seizing the opportunity to attend mass mobilizations is not going to hurt what we're striving for. Only one city (I think Qatar?) was the only one who would host a WTO meeting after what happened in 1999. You can't even tell me that wasn't affective because we all know it was. And you can all say that only happened once or that'll never happen again, but it's because people take that attitude that it will never happen again. By just automatically ruling something out, deeming it impossible, is crippling our cause much more than helping it. All of you are telling me that there's no way we can stop the IMF from meeting by taking the streets. Don't you think if all of you who said that showed up we'd have that much more of a chance? Change isn't going to happen overnight. We need to keep furthering everything that we're doing. We can't just give up because most of the time it doesn't work. Now while I agree that we can't ONLY use the same tactics as the ones used during 99, you shouldn't be telling others that what they're trying to do is obsolete. And to derailed who said "To me it's a self-serving action and incredible waste of energy that could be used on something that would actually benefit the community (ie, mutual aid, micro banks, free day care, communal food production, etc)" I agree these are important things, but do they have any real change? Does capitalism end because a few people are doing food not bombs, shop lifting, or dumpster diving? Of course they are great things that we should be doing but I don't see it changing the system.

You were all quick to assume that when I said let's reclaim the streets that means let's go smash some windows. I agree that it's a useful tactic to show these corporations that people are gonna be fucking their shit up because of the terrible things they do. IN NO WAY am I suggesting that all we should do is demonstrate in the streets. I just think to take that tactic out is only going to hurt us more than do us any good. America's anarchist "movement", or whatever you want to call it, needs to step up. We need better organization, better strategies, better plans, more options, more people, more time and energy spent on a DIVERSITY of tactics. Also to derailed who said "Shit, even right-wing extremists bombing abortion clinics are putting forth more effort than 99.99% of the marchers at these demonstrations are" what effective change have they brought by doing this?

In all reality, you can say none of the things we do has any real change. But you're all looking at it as immediate change. People did change things through protesting, not only in seattle but the women's movement and the civil rights movement changed a lot. We didn't tear the system down overnight, but we chipped away at the structure of it, making it less tyrannical. We have to chip away at this structure one piece at a time. Not everything is going to collapse overnight. You can argue that assassination is more effective, but does that stop the system? They just put a new pawn up front, a new person in the police force, and the elite continue to carry out their destructive plans. So in all reality, from your points of view NOTHING WORKS. You have to take a step back and look at everything that's happened as a whole. We need to learn from our mistakes and we need to develop (not eliminate) more tactics.

And to all who shut me down for trying to march in the streets, what alternatives do you have? What steps do you take in your life to change things? What are some better suggestions? Are you an assassin, wizehop? Do you do anything to try to change what is happening? Or are you too busy telling people like me that nothing works so we should just give up?

 

[HIS HERO IS GONE]

the only one who offered serious suggestions is derailed. Sorry I didn't note that in my last paragraph, I meant to. And also, to whoever said the I don't take people who protest in the streets seriously and neither does the government - that is not true in the slightest bit. When they find a smashed window that has to do with political ideology the FBI gets involved. Sounds to me like they're not fucking around. Why do you think you need a permit to march in the streets? They only want you to do what they allow you to do. Sounds like they're taking people who smash windows more seriously than people who do food not bombs.

 

[spoorprint]

Anyone who believes in immediate armed struggle should lead by example, not pontification.
Anything else is coat -holding.

As for the rest of us, I'd agree that tactically, we're in a huge rut. In Pittsburgh,people through every new idea aside and simply charged the police lines-ignoring a who city of potential targets in there rear.(military robotics labs, urban development corporations, biotech firms, corporate outlets).A proposal for dispersed actions went out for Friday,
the day of the permitted march, instead of thursday, when it could have done some good.
I think that part of the problem was that so many people came from out of town and affinity groups didn't know what to do except run with the black bloc on thursday.

I also think someone had a point when they said you should never engage the cops except
as a diversion.People seem to be hung up on charging police lines. As I understand it (wasn't there) one reason WtO Seattle was effective was that people acted away from the police perimeter.I also think that we should encourage everyone to participate in their own There is a whole range of tactics-mostly non-violent-that haven't been used lately.Let alone creating something new.

Which brings us to the big strategic misunderstanding.A demonstration isn't there to speak
truth to power, because power doesn't care.It isn't there to intimidate power because it confronts power on (prepared) ground of powers choosing -esp. at a summit.

The point of a demonstration has to be to reach other people.Thats only a starting point
in showing them how to self organize.Here's a gedenken experiment-if the net collapsed tomorrow would people self organize their communities or wait for the government to bail them out? (This is a likely scenario in a Sino-American confrontation).

The anarcho-syndicalists tried to organize people around their work places.The Bookchinites in the seventies tried to organize people around there community/enviroment
(thats where I came on board).How are we organizing people now?
There was a glimmer of this in Pittsburgh.G-20 Resistance Project went door to door in
Lawrenceville and Polish Hill for months in advance of G-20,explaining their position.Only a few local people turned out, angry that there neighborhoods had been turned into a police state, but I was amazed by the number of people-mostly African American-who offered us water or the use of the bathrooms.Somebody reached their neighbors, which is what we've got to do for now.

Later-I realized I missed Veggieguys post,which raise objections to some of the arguments I use-so
No, I don't honestly believe we're under occupation. If we lived under conditions comparable to Chile in the seventies
or El Salvador in the eighties, I wouldn't just get tear gassed or have local cops point me out or talk about me as if I wasn't there.I'd be dead by now.I think it makes no sense to surrender our ability to reach people openly before we have to.
I understand that people choose to work in small groups under security culture so they can have immediate impact.i don't oppose them because my understanding of most movemnents is that they have multiple levels of struggle at anyone time-
but if we really want to change the world we can't give up reaching everyone we can.

As for what we organize people for, that largely depends on them-but it goes beyond armed struggle-how do they grow and distribute food? Medicine ? Tools?The Guatemalans, the Palestinians, people who ARE der occupation spend a
lot of time on building community.

 

[finn]

Actually in DC, you don't need a permit to march in the streets. But I have to say that the protest movement is not really going anywhere. The activists going to these things are just going to have fun in the streets and have something to boast about. Meanwhile, the infrastructure to these things- like legal and medics are understaffed because the people going to these things don't want to work and get stuck with the stuff that isn't fun. I've done both street medicking and legal so I dare you to say I'm wrong. There are very few street medic collectives that actually exist, and very few new street medics- or actually active street medics at all. Meanwhile the cops are throwing resources at this because they see it as a training ground for when/if they'll be riots in the streets, where they can test new weapons and tactics.

The world bank/imf since 2001 have not really gone that far, and I really don't think continued protests will make that big a deal. The first big protest made a big impact, but to expect additional protest to make a similar impact is unrealistic, given that the track history of repeated protests is pretty bad. Community projects would be a far better use of time than those mass mobilizations.

 

[uppercunt]

at events like this its interesting to see how anarchy creates job security for many people. the workers who have to repair slashed tires, broken windows, hipster's cig butts etc. Really, what we should do is invest in a glass company so when we go break all the windows they buy replacements from us. something else that always irks me is: why do we always go to the "demonstrations" in our black bandanna anarchist uniforms. why don't dress in suits like fancy business men or dress like s.w.a.t and carry riot shields. then the pigs wouldn't know who to chase down. well, really they never have to chase us cuz we always just herd ourselves together with whoever dresses like us...thats right, designer fashion has teamed up direct action....I really just go cuz the chicks all look so cute when their impassioned with their naive indignation

 

[stove]

@Uppercunt

Y'know, that's not a bad idea. Veggieguy mentioned that aswell re:South America. Gasmasks and bandannas are practical and all, but why not dress up in a suit, have someone videotaping from afar, and be willing to get the shit kicked out of you by the cops to show it as bad PR. Actually, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea...

 

[jiujitsu13]

@stove, I'm thinking a viral vid of some cops kicking the shit out of a load of "businessmen" would be more damaging than any kind protest, hahaha