Tactical Suggestions for the Future by Chris Crews 08.08.2000 After writing my initial analysis I received a lot of feedback, most of which was very well thought out. There were a few, however, I feel failed to really understand the reasoning behind many of our actions. This follow up essay is meant to address those points, clarify why some of us were there, and add other suggestions I failed to include in my earlier essay: R2K- Why We Failed as a Movement: A Tactical Critique of Philadelphia and A Vision for What Could Be. As this Movement continues to grow, we must be able to clearly and coherently respond to all sides and all ideologies, as well as presenting a clearly articulated message of our concerns. Here is my own attempt to do that. It appears that the first thing needed is clarification as to whom the "Movement" I was referring to encompasses. I define the "Movement" as everyone working on social change towards a more open and democratic society, whether that be through directly challenging the fundamental capitalist system we live in or by teaching historical reality to school children through the eyes of the oppressed. There is no clear cut line as to who is and is not the "Movement", just as there was no clear cut line amongst the "New Left" activists of the sixties. Most people who responded seemed to agree with my earlier critique that we needed to present a clearer message, or at the least that we did not make the most of our opportunities when given them. I would make two suggestions towards improving this. First, we as a movement need to spend more time not only thinking about our message, but also teaching people how to clearly and easily articulate it when opportunities arise. Every poor sound bite or unprepared spokesperson weakens our message. Second, we need to promote independent media more, especially in our own communities. How many people had their local radio or public access stations covering Philly or running the live satellite feed that the IMC had set up? To go a step further, how many of us contacted our local media to do stories about people going to Philly, the issues we were hoping to address, and then doing follow up when we returned (for those not still in jail)? One point that several people disagreed with me on was that we "failed" in Philadelphia. Here are a few of their reasons (paraphrased by author): 'simply being there in Philly was enough', or 'the system was exposed from top to bottom by the violent response we received'. One person felt that 'using the word "failed" makes it sound like this newly emerging "Movement" has already faltered I chose, and still support my use of the word "failed" for a very specific and intentional reason. Here's why. We did "fail" to disrupt the RNC, to slow down delegates or shut down the Convention altogether, or even to effectively penetrate the corporate media with our message. This was not, obviously, entirely our fault, but we still should have, I believe, been more effective than we were. By saying we were effective simply 'because we were there on the streets' or because the police violence 'exposed the system' does little to change the underlying issues we are dealing with. We exposed the system and the police much more effectively on the street of Seattle than in Philly, but it still hasn't reached enough of the general public. If we continue to take over the streets and get beat by police, how long will this Movement survive? We need a more grounded vision than one mass action after another. I cannot stress enough, as I wrote in my first essay, the importance of local community building and regional organizing. That is where the true strength of the grassroots lie, and will always lie, not in mass actions every few months. Seattle was effective due precisely to the large amount of grassroots work that went into it, and the depth and breadth of those effected. What has emerged since is a network of committed activists all over the country, and outside, many of whom more than every want radical social change. This is visible in the formation of the Direct Action Network, among others recently formed, to facilitate a national activist organizing network grounded in non-violent, direct action as a tool for social change. Before we start planning the next big mass action let's start thinking about the next big local action. Finally, we need to strongly and clearly refute claims that we are either a bunch of college kids trying to recreate the 60's and have a little destructive fun in the process or else that we are violent "anarchists" or dangerous "terrorists" bent on destroying everything that is decent and good about America. Statements like the following, which I received from one writer, fail to address the issues we are concerned about, and worse, completely distort our message and our Movement. "Now I hear that the true goal of your organization is for a revolutionary movement to rid the world of corporations, make everyone live communally, and purchase rice milk and hand woven peasant sweaters at the local cooperative...You use terms such as "people's democracy" which hearken back to those heady days of Mao's cultural revolution and 'mass movement' when five thousand undernourished teens show up at a political convention." I am sure that there are plenty of people in the world who drink rice milk, enjoy handmade clothing and co-ops, and even contemplate the abolition of transnational corporations. Big deal. Likely some of us have even read Chairman Mao, but this reductionist attack relegates us to another fringe element of society and stinks of a reemerging McCarthesque, Communist witch-hunts mentality. We are already seeing the demonization of the anarchist movement in the United States on a large scale, unfortunately supported in part by our own actions. When the major images that people see through the media are ones of masked people dressed in black attacking cops, breaking windows, or flipping dumpsters it feeds into this false image of the Movement as promoting mindless destruction. Too often our puppets and peaceful messages get lost in the violence and chaos that the media reports on and shows to viewers. Inevitably the media will pronounce that 'young anarchist' are behind these violent activities. Even writers like Murray Bookchin, himself an anarchist, points out this problem. "Today anarchism is more of an ambience than an organized movement. There are many people who call themselves anarchists and simply rush into the streets with bricks, smash windows, or try to beat up cops- and usually get beaten up mercilessly by cops. They set garbage cans on fire, wave black flags, and proclaim that they are doing something important - and then disappear, having had absolutely no impact on the community in which they live." While I think Bookchin's characterization is perhaps off on the impact of anarchists in local communities, I think he summarizes succinctly our problem. This description, to me, sounds a lot like recent mass actions. I know the media has certainly done its best to portray us as such. This is doubly damaging as it not only discredits and undermines dedicated anarchist organizers, it also demonizes protestors in the public perception. When I read the Philadelphia News last Wednesday I thought I was reading about a completely different protest than the one I had been involved in. Protesters were attacking cops, exploding balloons of paint and smashing cars, some were even throwing "acid" on police. The headline read "HOT HEAVY" and showed two cops and three protestors encased in some bizarre Picasso contortion act. I couldn't help thinking what the hell are we doing? Has the Movement completely given up on tactics and strategy and simply resigned to street clashes with police? You'd think so from most media reports. How do we counter this? As I see it we have two options. The first is to continue on the destructive rut I fear we are slipping towards, allowing the image of violent protesters to hang like a veil over us. The alternative is to stop feeding the media images of angry kids smashing everything in destructive temper tantrums and instead start acting like the political revolutionaries we claim to be. We need tight messages, better networks, and more attention to tactics. We need to outreach more, talk more and think more. We need to start building our own alternatives (like free schools) to counter the corporate system. In short, we have to become smarter than the system be are trying to beat. We won't ever accomplish this if we can't gain popular support in the process. We will never gain public support as long as we continue to give the media the violent images they need to continue its attack on the Movement. I truly believe this Movement needs to make an important tactical choice very shortly, one that will likely decide its future. Are we going to continue to create these images for the media, or are we going to make a firm commitment to prevent them. The choice is ours to make. I should be clear that this is NOT a critique of property destruction or its validity as a tactic, but rather an acknowledgement of its effects upon the larger Movement when engaged in mass actions of this sort. I will leave the reader with this last thought. The Movement is very young in its present form. Despite that we are growing with every passing hour. The amount of time we put into educating people about our issues and our actions will directly determine how effective we are today and beyond. I believe we will succeed if we can effectively educate others. The real test is just beginning. This article can be found at the Student Alliance to Reform Corporations website: www.corpreform.org/STARCives/research_and_reports_by_starc_members.html anti(c) 2000 Revolutionary Visions Media Productions Revolutionary Visions Media Productions Acme Co-op 23 Elliott St. Athens, OH 45701 (740) 592-2581 specializing in web design and alternative media productions _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
