Hi, Everyone--
I've been a lurker on this list for some time, now. The
discussion on the WTO demonstrations has been very interesting.
I'd like to forward a couple of messages from a sociology faculty
member and community organizing facilitator who has been
watching these events closely. I hope you will find the links helpful
and useful.
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 12:52:48 -0500
From: Randy Stoecker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: N30Black Bloc Communique
To: Lisa Tracy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Hi Lisa. I have been following this very closely, connecting through the
Internet with activists on the ground in Seattle and Sydney (where much of
the Internet information flow is managed) and relaying information from the
Seattle Independent Media Center (IMC) through the list-serv that I run.
Please make sure that people know about the IMC (http://www.indymedia.org)
where there is an important discussion not just about whether property
destruction is OK, but about whether all or part of the Black Bloc may be
agent provocateurs whose job was to incite violence to give police grounds
to beat up peaceful protestors. There are some very scary stories about
things like cops beating and gassing people sitting in the street while
less than a block down the street masked men were kicking in windows, and
the inability of the Black bloc to present any of its members who were seen
being arrested. There has been a propaganda analysis of the Black Bloc on
the IMC arguing it illustrates favored government propaganda techniques,
etc. I don't know who to believe, but if people are only talking about the
"morality" of property damage they are missing a much bigger question.
It is also important that I don't see people talking about whether this was
good strategy--only whether it was moral. And to me, the morality question
on this one seems to be a distraction also. In fact, talking about it as a
morality issue is a surefire way to continue to divide people. It was just
windows and coffee, afterall. So for me the question is whether property
violence furthers the strategy. And that question actually appeals not to
the heart but to the mind and is much more easily addressed without being
divisive. In this case, if the Black Bloc really were protestors and not
agent provocateurs, window breaking backfired miserably. Without TV images
of violence the police would have had an impossible time opening the
streets because it would have been much harder for them to use violence.
The WTO would have been shut down all week or the police would have
provoked such rage that there would have been massive global escalation.
Which came first in Seattle--window breaking or head busting--is not nearly
as important as which came first on the corporate media. And the corporate
media continue to spin it as windows busted first and then heads busted.
Randy
At 11:59 AM 12/8/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi -
>
> I found this interesting. Don't know what all you've been
>able to glean from the WTO protest coverage, but I've been pretty
>much in the dark, missing even the mainstream news. I saw
>images of violence, destruction, and arrests and didn't have a clue
>about what was going on. This puts another light on the issue.
>
>------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
>Date sent: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 09:18:51 -0600
>From: Sheila Bayle-Lissick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>kelley wrote:
>
>> hi folks,
>>
>> i've enclosed another lengthy one, a communique from N30 Black Bloc which
>> is their statement on why this particular group purposefully set out to
>> destroy private/corporate property which they distinguish from "personal"
>> property. the basic logic, of course, is that private corp property is
>> used to destroy all living things: the logic of capital is inherently
>> about lining its pockets with the bodies of the dead. personal property, to
>> expand on what they say below, is for people to use, to live, to regenerate
>> and sustain life. on the view of this particular anarchist group, then, it
>> is possible to make a distinction between the two and to use different
>> strategies and tactics accordingly.
>>
>> that said, i think it's a mistake to demonize all of the anarchists. i've
>> read some complaints that they distracted from the peaceful, non-violent
>> message of the vast majority of protestors. i worry about that. i don't,
>> though, think that much different would have happened. from the accounts
>> that i've read, the police started their attacks before much of the
>> destruction broke out. anyone familiar with police behavior when they are
>> not dealing with white middle class citizens probably knows that what
>> happened is altogether too normal. i don't think that the anarchists
>> caused the violence at all. they unwittingly, of course, only added fuel
>> to the media fire which continues to justify police behavior by demonizing
>> anarchists and "wilding teens" and gangs [sadly, to be sure, exacerbating
>> racist stereotypes]. however, i'm not altogether certain that the media
>> wouldn't have done so anyway, even without some groups to demonize.
>>
>> kelley
>> p u l p c u l t u r e
>> a list for the discussion of media/culture/politics
>> http://www.flash.net/~oudies/home.htm
>>
>> Forwarded From: David Barbarash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> : N30 Black Bloc Communique
>> by ACME Collective 10:48am Sat Dec 4 '99
>>
>> A communique from one section of the black bloc of N30 in Seattle
>>
>>
>> On November 30, several groups of individuals in black bloc attacked
>> various corporate targets in downtown Seattle. Among them were (to name
just
>> few):
>>
>> Fidelity Investment (major investor in Occidental Petroleum, the bane
>> of the U'wa tribe in Columbia)
>> Bank of America, US Bancorp, Key Bank and Washington Mutual Bank
>> (financial institutions key in the expansion of corporate repression)
>> Old Navy, Banana Republic and the GAP (as Fisher family businesses,
>> rapers of Northwest forest lands and sweatshop laborers)
>> NikeTown and Levi's (whose overpriced products are made in
>> sweatshops)
>> McDonald's (slave-wage fast-food peddlers responsible for destruction
>> of tropical rainforests for grazing land and slaughter of animals)
>> Starbucks (peddlers of an addictive substance whose products are
>> harvested at below-poverty wages by farmers who are forced to destroy
>> their own
>> forests in the process)
>> Warner Bros. (media monopolists)
>> Planet Hollywood (for being Planet Hollywood)
>>
>> This activity lasted for over 5 hours and involved the breaking of
>> storefront windows and doors and defacing of facades. Slingshots,
>> newspaper boxes, sledge hammers, mallets, crowbars and nail-pullers were
used
>> to strategically destroy corporate property and gain access (one of the
>> three targeted Starbucks and Niketown were looted). Eggs filled with glass
>> etching solution, paint-balls and spray-paint were also used.
>>
>> The black bloc was a loosely organized cluster of affinity groups and
>> individuals who roamed around downtown, pulled this way by a
>> vulnerable and significant storefront and that way by the sight of a
police
>> formation.
>>
>> Unlike the vast majority of activists who were pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed
>> and shot at with rubber bullets on several occasions, most of our section
>> of the
>> black bloc escaped serious injury by remaining constantly in motion and
>> avoiding
>> engagement with the police. We buddied up, kept tight and watched each
>> others'
>> backs.
>>
>> Those attacked by federal thugs were un-arrested by quick-thinking and
>> organized members of the black bloc. The sense of solidarity was
>> awe-inspiring.
>>
>> THE PEACE POLICE
>>
>> Unfortunately, the presence and persistence of "peace police" was
>> quite dsturbing. On at least 6 separate occasions, so-called "non-violent"
>> activists physically attacked individuals who targeted corporate
>> poperty. Some even went so far as to stand in front of the Niketown super
>> store and tackle and shove the black bloc away. Indeed, such
self-described
>> "peace-keepers" posed a much greater threat to individuals in the
>> black bloc than the notoriously violent uniformed "peace-keepers"
>> sanctioned by
>> the state (undercover officers have even used the cover of the activist
>> peace-keepers
>> to ambush those who engage in corporate property destruction).
>>
>> RESPONSE TO THE BLACK BLOC
>>
>> Response to the black bloc has highlighted some of the contradictions
>> and internal oppressions of the "nonviolent activist" community.
>> Aside from the obvious hypocrisy of those who engaged in violence against
>> black-clad
>> and masked people (many of whom were harassed despite the fact that they
>> never
>> engaged in property destruction), there is the racism of privileged
>> activists
>> who can afford to ignore the violence perpetrated against the bulk of
society
>> and the natural world in the name of private property rights.
Window-smashing
>> has engaged and inspired many of the most oppressed members of Seattle's
>> community more than any giant puppets or sea turtle costumes ever could
>> (not to
>> disparage the effectiveness of those tools in other communities).
>>
>> TEN MYTHS ABOUT THE BLACK BLOC
>>
>> Here's a little something to dispel the myths that have been
>> circulating about the N30 black bloc:
>>
>> 1. "They are all a bunch of Eugene anarchists."
>>
>> While a few may be anarchists from Eugene, we hail from all over the
>> United States, including
>> Seattle. In any case, most of us are familiar with local issues in Seattle
>> (for instance, the
>> recent occupation of downtown by some of the most nefarious of
multinational
>> retailers).
>>
>> 2. "They are all followers of John Zerzan."
>>
>> A lot of rumors have been circulating that we are followers of John Zerzan,
>> an anarcho-
>> primitivist author from Eugene who advocates property destruction. While
>> some of us may
>> appreciate his writings and analyses, he is in no sense our leader,
>> directly, indirectly,
>> philisophocally or otherwize.
>>
>> 3. "The mass public squat is the headquarters of the anarchists who
destroyed
>> property on November 30th."
>>
>> In reality, most of the people in the "Autonomous Zone" squat are
>> residents of Seattle who have spent most of their time since its opening
>> on the 28th in the squat. While they may know of one-
>> another, the two groups are not co-extensive and in no case could the squat
>> be considered the
>> headquarters of people who destroyed property.
>>
>> 4. "They escalated situations on the 30th, leading to the tear-gassing of
>> passive, non-violent protesters."
>>
>> To answer this, we need only note that tear-gassing, pepper-spraying and
>> the shooting of rubber bullets all began before the black blocs (as far as
>> we know) started engaging in property
>> destruction. In addition, we must resist the tendency to establish a causal
>> relationship between police repression and protest in any form, whether it
>> involved property destruction or not. The police are charged with
>> protecting the interests of the wealthy few and the blame for the violence
>> cannot be placed upon those who protest those interests.
>>
>> 5. Conversely: "They acted in response to the police repression."
>>
>> While this might be a more positive representation of the black bloc, it
>> is nevertheless
>> false. We refuse to be misconstrued as a purely reactionary force. While
>> the logic of the black bloc may not make sense to some, it is in any case
>> a pro-active logic.
>>
>> 6. "They are a bunch of angry adolescent boys."
>>
>> Aside from the fact that it belies a disturbing ageism and sexism, it is
>> false. Property
>> estruction is not merely macho rabble-rousing or testosterone-laden angst
>> release. Nor
>> is it displaced and reactionary anger. It is strategically and
>> specifically targeted direct action against corporate interests.
>>
>> 7. "They just want to fight."
>>
>> This is pretty absurd, and it onveniently ignores the eagerness of "peace
>> police" to fight us. Of all the groups engaging in direct action, the
>> black bloc was perhaps the least interested in engaging
>> the authorities and we certainly had no interest in fighting with other
>> anti-WTO activists (despite some rather strong disagreements over
tactics).
>>
>> 8. "They are a chaotic, disorganized and opportunistic mob."
>>
>> While many of us could surely spend days arguing over what "chaotic" means,
>> we were certainly not disorganized. The organization may have been fluid
>> and dynamic, but it was tight. As for the charge of opportunism, it would
>> be hard to imagine who of the thousands in attendance _didn't_ take
>> advantage of the opportunity created in Seattle to advance their agenda.
>> The question becomes, then, whether or not we helped create that
>> opportunity and most of us certainly did (which leads us to the next
myth):
>>
>> 9. "They don't know the issues" or "they aren't activists who've been
>> working on this."
>>
>> While we may not be professional activists, we've all been working on
>> this convergence in Seattle for months. Some of us did work in our
>> home-towns and others came to Seattle months in advance to work on it. To
>> be sure, we were responsible for many hundreds of people who came out on
>> the streets in the 30th, only a very small minority of which had anything
>> to do with the black bloc. Most of us have been studying the effects of
>> the global economy, genetic
>> engineering, resource extraction, transportation, labor practices,
>> elimination of indigenous autonomy, animal rights and human rights and
>> we've been doing activism on these issues for many years. We are neither
>> ill-informed nor unexperienced.
>>
>> 10. "Masked anarchists are anti-democratic and secretive because they hide
>> their identities." Let's face it (with or without a mask)--we aren't
>> living in a democracy right now. If this week has not made it plain enough,
>> let us remind you--we are living in a police state. People tell us that if
>> we really think that we're right, we wouldn't be hiding behind masks. "The
>> truth will prevail"
>> is the assertion. While this is a fine and noble goal, it does not jive
>> with the present reality. Those who pose the greatest threat to the
>> interests of Capital and State will be persecuted. Some pacifists would
>> have us accept this persecution gleefully. Others would tell us that it is
>> a worthy
>> sacrifice. We are not so morose. Nor do we feel we have the privilege to
>> accept persecution
>> as a sacrifice: persecution to us is a daily inevitability and we treasure
>> our few freedoms. To accept incarceration as a form of flattery betrays a
>> large amount of "first world" privilege. We feel that an attack on private
>> property is necessary if we are to rebuild a world which is useful,
>> healthful and joyful for everyone. And this despite the fact that
>> hypertrophied private property
>> rights in this country translate into felony charges for any property
>> destruction over $250.
>>
>> MOTIVATIONS OF THE BLACK BLOC
>>
>> The primary purpose of this communique is to diffuse some of the aura of
>> mystery that surrounds the black bloc and make some of its motivations more
>> transparent, since our masks cannot be.
>>
>> ON THE VIOLENCE OF PROPERTY
>>
>> We contend that property destruction is not a violent activity unless it
>> destroys lives or causes pain in the process. By this definition, private
>> property--especially corporate private property--is itself infinitely more
>> violent than any action taken against it. Private property should be
>> distinguished from personal property. The latter is based upon use while
>> the former is based upon trade. The premise of personal property is that
>> each of us has what s/he needs. The premise of private property is that
>> each of us has something that someone else needs or
>> wants. In a society based on private property rights, those who are able to
>> accrue more of what others need or want have greater power. By extension,
>> they wield greater control over what others perceive as needs and desires,
>> usually in the interest of increasing profit to themselves.
>> Advocates of "free trade" would like to see this process to its logical
>> conclusion: a network of a few industry monopolists with ultimate control
>> over the lives of the everyone else. Advocates of "fair trade" would like
>> to see this process mitigated by government regulations meant to
>> superficially impose basic humanitarian standards. As anarchists, we
>> despise both positions.
>> Private property--and capitalism, by extension--is intrinsicly violent and
>> repressive and cannot be reformed or mitigated. Whether the power of
>> everyone is concentrated into the hands of a few corporate heads or
>> diverted into a regulatory apparatus charged with mitigating the disasters
>> of the latter, no one can be as free or as powerful as they could be in a
>> non-hierarchical society.
>>
>> When we smash a window, we aim to destroy the thin veneer of legitimacy
>> that surrounds private property rights. At the same time, we exorcize that
>> set of violent and destructive social relationships which has been imbued
>> in almost everything around us. By "destroying" private property, we
>> convert its limited exchange value into an expanded use value. A
>> storefront window
>> becomes a vent to let some fresh air into the oppressive atmosphere of a
>> retail outlet (at least until the police decide to tear-gas a nearby road
>> blockade). A newspaper box becomes a tool for creating such vents or a
>> small blockade for the reclamation of public space or an object to improve
>> one's vantage point by standing on it. A dumpster becomes an obstruction
>> to a phalanx of rioting cops and a source of heat and light. A building
>> facade becomes a message board to
>> record brainstorm ideas for a better world. After N30, many people will
>> never see a shop window or a hammer the same way again. The potential uses
>> of an entire cityscape have increased a thousand-fold. The number of
>> broken windows pales in comparison to the number
>> broken spells--spells cast by a corporate hegemony to lull us into
>> forgetfulness of all the violence committed in the name of private
>> property rights and of all the potential of a society without them. Broken
>> windows can be boarded up (with yet more waste of our forests) and
>> eventually replaced, but the shattering of assumptions will hopefully
>> persist for some time to come.
>>
>> Against Capital and State,
>> the ACME Collective
>> "Peasant Revolt!"
>> -------------
>> Disclaimer: these observations and analyses represent only those of
>> the ACME Collective and should not be construed to be representative of
>> the rest of
>> the black bloc on N30 or anyone else who engaged in riot or property
>> destruction that day.
>>
>
>Lisa Tracy
>Arts and Sciences
>Lima Technical College
>4240 Campus Drive
>Lima, Ohio 45804-3597
>(419) 995-8856
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Randy Stoecker, editor/moderator
COMM-ORG: The On-Line Conference on
Community Organizing and Development
http://comm-org.utoledo.edu
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lisa Tracy
Arts and Sciences
Lima Technical College
4240 Campus Drive
Lima, Ohio 45804-3597
(419) 995-8856
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
