HIS HERO IS GONE said:
...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.
HIS HERO IS GONE said:
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.
HIS HERO IS GONE said:
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?