| From Infoshop People are going to call this a downer. It isn't designed to be. It shouldn't be. It's a reflection of the state of the movements and the actions of October 19-22. My guess is that we should move forward. I think that when we do we should move forward with reflection. Every step we take is a step towards a different world, or is it? On October 19th, hundreds of black clad anarchists took to the streets of Georgetown to protest the World Bank/IMF. While people in Honduras are being beaten and killed for union membership, while debt is crippling economies, we live in the US comfortable. We are profiting directly or indirectly from the oppression of people across the world in the US. |  |
An empire will have empire citizens and evoke an empire's citizens response. That response is nothing or little. Like the German citizens of Nazi Germany, like the citizens of the Roman Empire, the only way to deal with oppression is through so-called nonviolent means.
For a long time, I have tried to grapple with this issue of nonviolence vs. violence. What people often call nonviolence is more violent than violent protest. The reason for this is because of what people allow to exist rather than fight back.
Germans in Nazi Germany, while horrified, had to sit back. There was too much at stake for them to oppose their government and their governments policies. Trapped in a cycle of work, play, sleep, they took in their privileges while much of Europe was being invaded and undesirables were sent to camps.
In the US, we have camps. We have ghettos. Migrant camps and inner city America. In many migrant camps, being an illegal means, there are laws governing the owner. Treatment of workers is at the whim of the capitalist. The same goes for the sweat shop run inside the US. As it is all over the world. In most countries people do respond to injustice. In Burma, they responded with riots. In Cochabama, the same. In Georgetown, a couple windows were smashed. Hardly a riot.
The most depressing thing about Georgetown wasn't hoodlums who didn't participate, but the hoodlums who didn't.
Imagine if you will a plan set up to allow most people to participate? 9:00am Friday night. What were most people doing?
Couples were going out on date. Parents were spending time with their kids at the end of a long week. Children were hanging with their friends. Punks were going to shows. Hipsters were out and about drinking. They were having fun. Some were talking about how horrible the system is and the only way to change it, is to vote the bad guys out, or to impeach them.
What if it wasn't about who was elected at all? Would capitalist exploitation end if the right candidate was elected? And if that candidate was elected would they be killed?
These are ridiculous questions. We don't know. What we do know is that we are relatively safe inside the US. The decline of the labor movement, the suppression of civil liberties simply doesn't warrant enough action. This isn't Africa. It's certainly not South America. Our lifestyles may be propelled by these regions, but response to the call on last Friday was less than a solidarity.
It's that way because we choose to participate in the privileges retrieved from those oppressed. We work, go to college, concerts, plays, watch TV, surf the internet at their disposal. We could argue that, nonviolence itself is a sign of privilege. That it's enough if you aren't being oppressed. There's historical evidence to deduce that. Even the Woman's suffrage was spurred on by acts of sabotage. But, Sabotage wasn't considered violent until Gandhi. Truthfully, even Gandhi, refused to work with anyone who wasn't willing to use violence. He wanted people who would use nonviolence as a tactic.
So, come October 20th, we found ourselves using these tactics. Some would say, they were violent because of the response it initiated from the police. The reason this rally was held was so people who otherwise be deported or locked up for a long time could participate in their anger against the World Bank/IMF.
Happily, if you are a capitalist, fewer people showed up. It was Saturday. People were in the park, visiting friends, etc.
It's true, you can't ask everyone to get involved. Some people have commitments. Others, are less concerned with the activities of the World Bank.
* * *
“You shouldn't judge the event by the number of months it took organize,” I was told this morning by a farmer on October 23.
The farm is beautiful this Tuesday. The rain has receded and the air is full of wet plants and cow dung. I shovel a bit more cow dung on to the crops.
We shouldn't judge should we? People did come out. What's my problem? Why am I so upset? Should I be happy that people came at all.
“I'm simply happy that people are upset about the situation,” I was told by a friend 2 years ago.
It was an excuse to not organize or whatever.
“You have to wait, new things are usually small,” says the farmer.
As I look around the farm and listen to her talk, I realize that we can't wait. New?
The meadows the cow played in, the crops, the streams, the underground spring that feeds the pond will be gone. In the distance you can see the mountains.
* * *
October 22 begins early. An Earth First call is made. No one really expects a large turnout, but just in case we should be ready to do something. The entire purpose of the call is to distract police from the Capitol. Despite the lack of turnout, that happens. When they disperse they create the biggest distraction and inevitably hold up traffic. I lend my bike to a friend who goes off on the bike ride. I leave Dupont, park my car in a better spot and hop the metro to the Capitol. My alternate meet up has been arrested. So I hang out talking to a friend while I wait for others.
“I was drinking last night and ended up talking to a cop at the bar,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, it was weird. The cop is actually on our side.”
“That makes sense. I think..”
“He said he agrees with nearly everything the protesters stood for this weekend..”
“But?”
“Things will never change and so it's useless.”
A police officer finds himself understanding that the World Bank/IMF is one the most horrible institutions in the world. He can't join the movement because there aren't enough people interested. Too many people are comfortable. Things will never change.
* * *
The mountains are shedding their leaves this time of year. We don't have trash pick up and the dump is wee bit a ways and so I burn some burnables.
My partner laughs at me ands says, “ Yep, an environmentalist you are, burning trash.”
She's joking a little bit and mostly critical. I point out that no one will have to be paid to recycle and reprocess these items. I also have a great deal of liberty here, on the mountain. I may not have trash pickup, but I can make compost. Usually I take ashes and either put them in the compost or fill in potholes on the ridiculous lane I live on. There's and underground stream that causes tiny sinkholes in our lanes. Sometimes you have to plug them back up.
To be honest, I'm burning a number of items. A former room mate left behind some seedy objects. Love dolls. Porn. A penis enlarger. The lady (not my partner) cleaning out the room says, “He is the nastiest man ever.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Oh, come on!” she exclaims.
“Lonely men wouldn't need it if many women didn't make a point of it.”
I'm not talking about the love dolls. I also should have said corporations. Unfortunately, if I had, I would have found myself completely ignored. She is a size queen and so the quip fits.
My partner and I discuss love dolls and how such a markets exists. It's larger than most people think. All three of those items have a higher demand than the mainstream wants to admit. All three are designed to serve lonely people who feel horrible about themselves.
That's capitalism. The capitalism that so many people try to defend. Of course, the pornographic items make it so much more apparent. And since we hate ugly, lonely people, we hate porn and sex workers. We call them whores, hookers, prostitutes bimbos. We even use these words to label women who are stupid.
The continued use of these words sustain patriarchy and capitalism. The more people feel bad about themselves the more they want to buy things to make them feel better. Many of these products are manufactured under the horrible conditions with the guidance of the World Bank/IMF.
While I flip through the porn that I am throwing in the fire, I see the advertisements in the back, the items that fund the magazine. The reason the magazine exists and where he bought his pump from.
The lesson today is the day after the weekend of actions is: everything is connected. What are am I going to do about it?
Part 2
The next part of this story is about organization failure. The biggest failure I can point out is in myself. 2 members of our organization went to October Rebellion and NWNW meetings.
The day they came back to me asking to attend. I declined. To be honest it was activist shit slinging. Why in the hell did I want to work with that crew? Aren't they gentrifying communities? Isn't so and so doing such and such? Etc. Etc.
Later, I'd find myself talking to people I didn't know in a random place mentioning me by name.
They were from that crew and nothing negative was being said about me. Even so, I found myself mesmerized by more negativity. The slur of sexism was laid on a male bodied folk for suggesting a lock down.
Honestly, it was incredibly difficult to have someone play the manarchy game. What people would never know is the intense split this seemed to be creating. That particular man learned about lock downs etc, from a female bodied folk. She had asked in passing if anyone was interested in secure lock downs and even tripods to block intersections.
For most of us, when the non-violent bloc was called the anarchafemnist bloc, we learned that this idea was from a mostly confused, young group of people who may have seen their extreme sexism in their stereotypes of women.
Even so, I allowed inter-personal politics get in the way. I'm very sorry about that. After the fact, I can notice and pay attention. Honestly, if we had played the game right, we may have added a minimum of a 100 more to the bloc. For me it's a failure in organizing. It's very easy to blame other organizations for whatever past wrongs but as my partner says, “How can you critique something you refused to participate in the organizing of?”
There was an entirely new group of youthful spirits organizing these events. They weren't aware of how a bloc operates best. They didn't have the regional contacts or the experience to mobilize at maximum results. I can apologize, but I can make a plea, too!
Let the events of the weekend allow unity in our region. Let us all work together despite interpersonal bickering. Let the older hats and newer hats learn from each other and organize with perfection. Let the softies work with the more radical, Greens with Reds, and lets create a large network all across the east coast like the old days. Let's not shit talk each others groups. We're a movement overrun with gossip. Let's work together rather than against. If all of DC worked together imagine the powerhouse that would emerge. Networked locally and regionally, we're unstoppable. The hundred people I refer to are west of Baltimore and Washington. Inside DC the community is 10 times bigger. In Baltimore it's not much different. And let move towards a larger region. Bring back the days where NYC, Boston, Philly and DC were on great speaking terms. Let's move forward.
Despite all the criticisms, this weekend was amazing and great. The folks did a great job. Let's just hope the future is better, bigger and more fun. And let's not let ourselves defeat ourselves or become self-fulfilling prophecies. The mountains, the meadows, the workers of the world, everything we are and love matter the most
