I think the vandals of May 1st gave the general public too much credit. Perhaps they assumed that the connection between these two monuments to capitalist gluttony, thievery, exploitations, wealth hoarding etc. and the plight of workers & immigrants would be obvious, and that the action would speak for itself without needing to be spelled out for people. They were wrong. Instead of making a connection between banks and oppression, it seems that many people (so habituated to identifying with their oppressors and letting T.V. and newspapers do their thinking for them) have simply made a connection between activists and what they erroneously call "violence". As such, i think that it would have been better if the banks were attacked on April 30th or May 2nd, so as not to have tied that level of militancy to something like Mayday, which is supposed to be a venue for above-ground-no-risk organizing & community building between immigrants/workers, and activists/advocates. These relationships are important because people from the activist/advocate community tend to be more privileged as far as race and class are concerned and therefore have greater access to rights and resources than do immigrants and poor people, thus making them very useful allies. In the wake of the May Day vandalism, as I understand it, some folks in the immigrant community are too sketched out to want to have anything to do with the mostly white activist community.

Direct Action can be a powerful act. It can provoke though, shift dynamics, empower and incite. It can also erode alliances, damage communities and bring harsh consequences. Direct Action is a powerful tool and it's use will always have a powerful response, be it positive or negative.

It is my opinion that there are two useful "yard sticks" with which to measure the effectiveness of any direct action, that is to say, there are two primary questions to ask yourself as you plan and engage in any action. Those would be "Is this action confronting an issue at its source, thereby making it 'direct'?" and "Does this action empower others to themselves take action?"

Using these questions as guides we can compare two recent actions from here in Olympia. First, the port actions of last November. For specificities sake, I'm talking about the road blockades, both human and physical. Held up to the first question, "Is this action confronting an issue at its source, thereby making it 'direct'?" I think the answer would be a pretty clear Yes. Blockading the path of military equipment is about as direct as you can get when it comes to confronting the war effort.

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