On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > > I can't exactly remember, Lance. But weren't you one of the black bloc > fans on Marxmail when you were there?
I don't know what "black bloc fans" are. Someone with a big, black foam finger with Black Bloc imprinted on it of the kind I see at local sporting events? I can't exactly remember what I have written in past years about "the black bloc" either, although I am not the writer of the high encomiums to them that I have seen from some quarters on the Internet. In terms of the idea that the black bloc hijacks protests, I have seen with my own eyes the reverse happen. When the War in Iraq was about to start, many in New York agreed that there would be direct action in Times Square on the day the war started. There were stickers put up around the city about this. Even the Washington Post reported on this five days before the start of the war - "Frustrated dissenters plan sit-ins and blockades at government buildings, financial centers, congressional offices and military bases and installations. The day after war begins, dissenters in at least 50 cities are planning direct actions. In New York's Times Square, protesters are planning to stop traffic." When I arrived in Times Square that day, the police had blocked Broadway off, and people were gathering on corners and traffic islands. As the crowd gathered, and were discussing blocking off Seventh Avenue as well, some group appeared (ANSWER? UFPJ?) and set up a stand, microphone, and speakers in the protest pen the police had created on Broadway. They began droning on with their pointless speeches. The police began directing everyone into the protest pen to hear their speech making. Their microphone siren call served very well to take any air left out of the balloon. Who these people were, or why they worked to deflate the protest so that it was just a bunch of people in a protest pen listening to inane speeches, I don't know. >From my perspective, it was just Bush, the police and them working together to make sure business-as-usual was not disrupted even for a few minutes on the day the war in Iraq started. I am happy Greeks are not taking this austerity as meekly as Americans in Times Square took the Iraq war start that day. -- LM _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
