----- Original Message ----- From: "David Crockett Williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "July30Phila" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 6:43 PM Subject: [July30] street demonstrations warning > July 30 in Philly - www.unity2000.com > > British press feedback and evaluations of perception of street > demonstrations, forwarded from a reader in France, offered for consideration > by those planning actions in Philly and LA around RNC, DNC, Shadow > Conventions, etc. For what its worth, please forward to other lists as you > see fit. > > --------------begin article------------ > > The Guardian Weekly 6-7-2000, page 23 > > Losing their way in the streets of shame > > Debate George Monbiot > > George Monbiot > > Non-violent direct action is a misnomer. It is not a direct attempt to > change the world through physical action, but a graphic and symbolic means > of drawing attention to neglected issues, capturing hearts and minds > through political theatre. > > It may slow down the building of a road or an airport, but it will succeed > in preventing others from being built only when it is part of a wider > democratic assault on the policies that gave rise to them. When force > becomes the sole means of preventing something from taking place, the > ethics of political activism become indistinguishable from the ethics that > encouraged the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin to shoot the burglars in his > house. > > This is just one of the lessons that Britain's Reclaim The Streets has > spectacularly unlearnt. The movement that once produced the best political > theatre in Europe, winning public sympathy and galvanising debate about the > environment and social justice, has lost the plot. It has turned into an > association of incoherent vigilantes, and has forgotten that activism is > useless unless focused. > > It might have been able to sustain an attack on global capitalism if it had > identified a workable alternative. But without clear proposals for change, > the protests in London last year and on May Day this year were disasters. > Floundering in huge issues, aping the language and actions of > revolutionaries, but without a revolutionary programme, the organisers left > the press and public dumbfounded as to their aims and intentions. > > Reclaim The Streets has failed to draw boundaries around its political > objectives' and around the means by which they might be pursued. By > refusing to condemn violent protest the organisers issued an invitation to > every psycho in London to come for a ruck with the police. > > Although incapable of deciding what it wants to achieve, the movement has > become all too adept at deciding whom it will talk to. It has refused to > explain itself to the mainstream media, or to forge strong links with > anyone outside the protest community. Criticism has come to be regarded as > a capitalist conspiracy. > > Instead of trying to persuade the unconverted of the virtues of their > arguments in terms they can easily grasp and appreciate, the organisers > have pictured instead a miraculous transformation of society, whereby > the public abandons its use of the mass media, logs on to the Reclaim The > Streets website and immediately agrees that "it is in the streets that > power must be dissolved". > > But by convincing themselves that there is no hierarchy, that the protests > they start are spontaneous uprisings of the people, the organisers shed > responsibility for their actions. Reclaim The Streets is in fact less > accountable than many of the institutions it seeks to overthrow. > > The violence on May Day was the direct and predictable result of the > absence of boundaries and the abdication of responsibility. Digging up > Parliament Square to stop global capitalism is so futile, so utterly > frustrating and disempowering that the more hotheaded protesters could > almost be excused for wanting to do something more spectacular. As the > nutters in the crowd smashed up shops and defaced the Cenotaph, they must > have believed they were precipitating the assault on the entire world order > that Reclaim The Streets had promised but had wholly failed to deliver. > The result is that the protest, three days before the local elections, > jeopardised the best electoral chances radical politics had had in Britain > for 15 years. It achieved the otherwise impossible feat of making the > Government's anti-terrorism bill appear sane. It made the police look like > society's guardian angels, and it allowed every reactionary to feel that he > or she had been justified in dismissing the direct action movement as an > inarticulate threat to human life. > > Tony Blair couldn't have hoped for a better result if he had organised this > protest himself. > > The Guardian Weekly 6-7-2000, page 23 > > ------------------------end forwarded article-------------- > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > An IRS approved tax relief method cuts monthly income > taxes by hundreds of dollars for most working people > using little known home-based business deductions & > exemptions. 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