[more from the student revolutionaries. I
especially like the line from a Dylan song: "Mr. Jones knows something's
happening, but he doesn't know what_it_is." You can say that again. Mark
Jones]
R2K - Did We Fail as a
Movement?
Tactical Suggestions for the Future
by Chris Crews 08.08.2000
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.
Perhaps this is an Intermovement, rather than one movement. I don't subscribe to certain things, such as violence, interfering with someone else's rights (like stopping their conventions), geographic succession, etc. Some people do and I can't do anything about that. I need a way to participate at some level without being accountable for what someone does that I don't agree with. Organizations should stick to their own principles so that people can safely continue to belong to them. Different organizations will have different principles, though.
So far, I am only a member of one group, STARC, although I get email from many groups and my heart often goes out to them. I believe that STARC has explicitly disavowed violence: someone correct me if I am wrong.
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)?
I didn't know there was a live satellite feed. Will there be one for LA? This could be answered at the last minute. I listen to NPR a lot during the day while I try to earn a living, but didn't hear much live coverage of Philly, here in the San Francisco Bay Area. KQED FM is happy to pay ultraconservative BBC (Don't they have lovely accents?) for one or more hours of programming daily, but when it comes to our own rights, I fear we're out of luck. Apparently KPFA radio has been "re-educated."
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?
The system was exposed and the system radicalized some people. Those who were radicalized may not get_it. Mr. Jones knows something's happening, but he doesn't know what_it_is. When the volume gets too loud, the message gets distorted. Strong emotions make it hard to think straight. The object is to get people to think about actual issues, like where_the_money_is_going, rather than the distractions that are proffered by mainstream media without hesitation.
Tactics should never make a goal unobtainable. While the mainstream media is hostile to "our" message(s), there must be limits on how far "we" go to get "our" message(s) across. Yet, how can we be reasonably sure that someone or some group will stop at nothing?
Apparently there must be some "top-level coordination" which can banish those who go too far, or threaten to, can identify what groups are involved and can come to relatively binding agreements among the groups. It groups can't agree, then they must make it clear to the world that they are acting separately. Large crowds readily get out of control, especially if they are unorganized. People are regularly crushed or trampled at Soccer matches, which have no mass agenda.
We need ways to outwit the mainstream media, rather than play their cynical game which only supports their advertising revenue model and nothing else. In the past, many terrible things were done trying to get the media to relent and carry one particular message or the other. Often these messages were not carried anyway. During the Southeast Asian War, many radical actions in the US were not even reported by the mainstream media, much less any attached message, or at least that's what I heard.
The mainstream media are sweating now because the Internet could just cost them their monopoly. Along with that loss of monopoly could come loss of control over what political parties get elected. That would hit the multinational corporations where it hurts, but wouldn't harm any individuals or destroy any property.
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.
Well put.
Before we start planning the next big mass
action let's start thinking about the next big local action.
Or perhaps, things without geographic basis. Maybe a mass phone-in here, something else there, etc.
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.
Reforming corporations is a rather large goal itself. To try to hold geographic territory militarily would be suicidal. We live by technology and generally cannot return to the days before a given technology existed without disaster.
Before the plow was introduced to Europe, Europe was covered with trees and there were a few people. Generations after the plow was introduced, Europe was covered with people and there were few trees. Before the plow, Europe supported those people it did because of the forests, which not only gave wood, but habitat to all the life in the forest. Had the plow been abolished suddenly, before Europe had colonies, the population would have plummeted far below what it was just before the plow was introduced, because the forests were largely gone! Mind you, I am not approving of what happened, just writing about how particular people would get their daily sustenance, or not, in a certain change.
We should be wary of anyone publicizing actions that can only have a bad outcome, especially just before a large demonstration or other mass action. There was one such email on the STARC list a few days ago, referring to "confederacies," etc. At this point, with several mass demonstrations already history, the various groups need to turn to actually being effective and being consistent with democratic principles (or, as we used to say about our parent's generation, not being "hypocritical").
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� 2000 Revolutionary Visions Media Productions
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National organizations of many groups may just be coming into existence now. In my humble opinion, soon coordination between groups must be considered to exert control over any mass actions. Safe and peaceful coordination of diverse groups in mass actions, which need not be geographic, would make demonstration effective.
Best Regards,
Byron Hale
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
