FWD: ANTI-WTO: Don't throw the radicals overboard

[Kurt Cockrum]

The "scapegoats" defend themselves...
This viewpoint gets squeezed out of the media so people never get to
discuss it.  Its appearance here is an small attempt to counter that.
Frankly I thought they did a magnificent job, far better than I thought
them capable of.  We may yet change the course of the juggernaut.
--kurt

<FWD>
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999 01:27:33 -0500
Message-Id: <199912040627.BAA28846 at lists.tao.ca>
Subject: (en) Don't throw the radicals overboard
From: "Andrea del Moral" <libreplanet at hotmail.com>
To: danvswto at listbot.com, ise at sover.net, ban at tao.ca, no2wto at listbot.com
Sender: worker-a-infos-en at lists.tao.ca
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      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
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No-WTO
WTO Protest Organizers:
Don’t Throw the Radicals Overboard
							Dec. 2, 1999
	“The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated,” was one of the most commonly 
heard chants in the days of marches protesting the WTO summit in Seattle. 
However, one of the most striking elements of the WTO protests was the level 
of conflict between adherents of a “nonviolent” protest method, and those 
who preferred to express more concretely their feelings towards global 
capitalism. A tide of reaction has been swelling against the latter, with 
great arrogance on the part of the former. As a group of activist 
intellectuals, we feel the need to state our support for the group the media 
has been calling, only somewhat inaccurately, “the Anarchists from Eugene.”
	We–the broad Left, anti-corporate, pro-livable world community–controlled 
the streets of downtown Seattle from 7 am on Tuesday to roughly 7 pm. After 
that period–with Mayor Schell and Governor Locke’s declarations of martial 
law and the violent offensive by local, county, state police and the 
National Guard–the streets were a war zone, but during that period, they 
were a liberated area.
	Inside that liberated area a spectrum of protest and resistance activities 
took place, many of which warmed our hearts. Violence against property, as 
we’ll call the attacks against corporate chain stores by activists, was one 
of the conscious strategies that was employed. These activities began on the 
afternoon of Monday, Nov. 29th, with the smashing of a window at McDonald’s. 
The next day, Tuesday, Nov. 30th, they started again shortly after 10 am, at 
the corner of 6th Ave. and Pike St., when police began shooting tear gas 
cannisters and rubber bullets into the crowd. Throughout the day activists, 
protecting their identities with hoods and kerchiefs, formed “black blocks” 
to move en masse to attack unoccupied chain stores such as the Gap,  Nike,  
Levi, Disney, and Bank of America. This is a key point that the media and 
President Clinton, among others, are trying to obscure: the crowd did not 
attack  “mom and pop stores,” but the physical manifestations of 
“McDomination”.
	Adherents to “non-violent” protest methods preach against targeting 
corporate property. We feel that this is an uncritical acceptance of the 
dominant value system of American consumer society: private property has a 
higher value than life. At this time, we feel that we, as activists, need to 
debate these issues further among ourselves. The problem we are addressing 
immediately is that these “non-violent” activists used their numerical 
advantage to isolate and dominate practitioners of alternate protest 
philosophies: most visibly, the black block anarchists.
	As a spectrum of protest activities manifested themselves, scenes we 
witnessed included “non-violent” activists linking arms to protect the 
corporate theme store Nike Town from the aggressive acts of a black block. 
Riot police soon replaced the “peace advocates” as if to say, “We’ll take 
over now. You’re only volunteering to protect property, we do it for a 
living.” Elsewhere throughout the day “non-violent” activists de-masked, and 
on at least one occasion beat, an individual who was acting against 
property.
	Many elements of the broad Left, anti-corporate, pro-livable world 
community have been alarmingly willing to distance themselves from the 
direct, militant forms of protest. The World Trade Observer, a daily tabloid 
published by a network of mainstream environmental and fair trade 
organizations, which features the writing of prominent figures such as Ralph 
Nader and Norman Solomon, offers one example. In describing the previous 
day’s festivities in their Wednesday, December 1st issue, they identified as 
a “troubling theme” the practice of “the police singling out peaceful 
demonstrators for gassing and beating... while ignoring black-clad hooligans 
breaking windows and spraying paint.” We witnessed other “non-violent” 
protesters criticize the police, not for waging chemical warfare to cleanse 
the streets of protesters, but for failing to enter into the crowd and 
extract the practitioners of militant protest. The implication of these 
statements is that the crowd would have handed over some of its members to 
the police, if the police had only asked. We strongly urge progressive 
activists to reconsider this stance.
	There will undoubtedly be repercussions from the fact that we took control 
of a major city for twelve  hours, as the leading administrative body of 
global capitalism met to brainstorm for the next millennium. It is unfair, 
and irresponsible, to offer “the Anarchists from Eugene” to the state as 
scapegoats. Without the support of the rest of the WTO protesters, the 
direct action practitioners are at great risk. Grand juries have become 
common in the militant animal rights and environmental movements: we would 
not think it a surprising development for there to be an inquisition 
exploring “conspiracy to riot” charges for the day of well-directed rage in 
Seattle. Gas-masks have been declared illegal in Seattle under Mayor 
Schell’s martial law, and the donning of hoods is being explored by 
prosecutors in Eugene as a possible excuse for sentence enhancement.  The 
price of protecting oneself and one’s identity from police violence is 
rising. As people who are interested in counteracting the ill effects of 
globalization and ensuring a livable new millenium, we need to consciously 
confront the criminalization of radical political philosophies.
	We feel that those who belittle and distance themselves from the actions of 
“the Anarchists from Eugene” have either ignored or simply did not realize 
the level of contributions anarchists–black-clad and otherwise–made towards 
bringing the N30 Festival of Resistance into reality. These include the 
innovative and joyful protest methods of the Direct Action Network, a 
sustained consciousness-raising effort from Left Bank Books, alternative 
social structures offered by Food Not Bombs and Homes Not Jails, the 
Anarchist hotline, housing networks, and so on. It also should not go unsaid 
that developing a community able to produced several hundred predominantly 
white youths with middle-class backgrounds to take militant action against 
their real enemy is no small feat of organization. It has taken years of 
sowing and tending to seeds of awareness and resistance, and we,  at least, 
appreciate that effort.
	If the Left activist community is to be united and strong, more 
communication and internal discussion around strategical issues is 
necessary. Our contact information is listed below. All of us have 
experience with social movements,  and many of us have mapped the repressive 
tactics used against them. We encourage media to get in touch with us as 
well.


Daniel Burton-Rose, (206) 324-8165, ex. 1. Co-editor, The Celling of 
America: An Inside Look  at the U.S. Prison Industry (Common Courage Press, 
1998), editor, win: a newsletter on activism at the extremes.
Ward Churchill, (303) 492-5066 (voice mail). Author, Pacifism as Pathology: 
Reflections 	on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America (Arbeiter Ring: 
1998).
Robin Hahnel, (202) 885-2712, rhahnel at american.edu. Author, Panic Rules: 
Everything You Need to Know About the Global Economy (South End Press, 
1999); Professor, American University.
Kent Jewell, (206) 324-8165, ex. 3. Former co-owner, Left Bank Books 
Collective.
George Katsiaficas, (617) 989-4384. Author: The Subversion of Politics: 
European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life 
  (Humanities Press,  1997) and The Global Imagination of the New Left 
(South End 	Press, 1987); editor, with Kathleen Cleaver, Liberation, 
Imagination, and the Black 	Panther Party (Routledge, forthcoming); editor, 
New Political Science.
Christian Parenti, (415) 626-4034, seapea at juno.com.  Lockdown America: 
Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis (Verso, 1999); instructor, New 
College.
Robert Perkinson, (203) 772-1600, robert.perkinson at yale.edu. Instructor, 
Yale University.


	Signatures are on file with win, a “movement consultancy” group currently 
based in Seattle.

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</FWD>
--kurt
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