Anarchists vs. Lefty Wing Nuts

so is ms. wallach saying that the violence was an act of outside agitators working for the police or corporations, or rather is she saying that these folks were actually anarchists from eugene?

she should clarify her remarks and anarchists should quite over reacting to these remarks until we know what she actually intended.

so when she describes ordering union members to physically deliver anarchists to the police ... somehow it matters whether she means outside agitators (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean) or real, authentic anarchists? as far as i'm concerned, anyone who turns another person into the police is truly an outside agitator and shows NO solidarity.

Move forward. Action, dissent and protest do not require a complete agreement between the groups particiapting.
Who needs the endorsement of anyone to express their resistance against corporate rule? To me this argument between two factions is pointless and trivial.
However, I find it ironic that she seems partial to Bove the same farmer who ripped the McDonald's in France down.

No she is saying the "anarchists were hired by corporate groups to disrupt.
LW: No, I don't feel responsible for it, I feel frustrated by it. We had heard rumors, early on, that there were some skinheads from Idaho that the corporate coalition was going to hire, to try and distract the message away from the substance, who would come wearing things like Greenpeace T-shirts and smash things up.

She's saying the skinheads were going to be hired to do this particular job by corporate coalition.

LW: I would hope not. We had heard some reports from people who knew people who had been contacted for a certain job or two. Which sounded fishy. I mean, we didn't take that seriously, but we had heard that there were people who called themselves anarchists from Eugene who might be interested

Here is the definitive part. People they knew had been contacted for a certain JOB or two. then later the anarchists might be interested. Interested she's obviously refering to the job. The job was she said smashing things
in order to disrupt the peaceful protest. Hired by the corporate coalition.

Given the nature of her activities, Lori Wallach is essentially a politician. As such, she is placed in an interesting position by the actions of the Black Bloc as well as the general mayhem which broke out in Seattle. On one hand, insofar as those actions and mayhem strengthened the impact of the Seattle protests, they strengthen her cause, while on the other hand, inasmuch as they stray from the specific line or approach
which she is pursuing, they weaken her position as a promoter of that cause. Thus her equivocal attitude, as shown in this interview and in her
testimony before Congress (see
http://www.house.gov/ways_means/trade/106cong/2-8-00/2-8wall.htm).

Now, some will no doubt be anxious to view these comments by Wallach as some sort of 'betrayal', while others will rush to issue warnings of a
COINTELPRO conspiracy to divide 'the movement'. This situation, however, offers an opportunity to assess some dynamics operating within the
so-called movement.

The reason I characterise Wallach's comments as equivocal (whereas some may perceive them as an outright condemnation of 'anarchists' and the
like) becomes clear through a careful reading of the texts of the interview and Congressional testimony.

Thus, for instance, she speaks in the testimony about a "French farmer handing out French cheese hit with high tariffs under current WTO retaliation on a dispute" at a "peaceful protest in front of a McDonalds", which was "disrupted" by persons who "despite their highly-regimented
paramilitary appearance ... identified themselves as anarchists". The French farmer in question is of course Jos Bov, well known for
dismantling a McDonalds restaurant in France. In the interview, she likewise speaks of "a totally peaceful, hilarious protest with Jos Bov
handing out Roquefort cheese in front of McDonald's". "He wasn't looking to rip down the McDonald's, he was looking to feed people who were going in for French fries." Bov, having recently ripped down a McDonald's, was for now apparently content to hand out cheese. But lo, "these anarchist folks marched in there and started smashing things", which anarchists
"ironically ... wore the exact same uniform and marched in order".

Wherease Wallach ostensibly wants to solemnly condemn violence or property destruction and to distance herself, her organisation or the protesters in general from the 'anarchists' who perpetrated it, the text of her speech
hardly amounts to a solemn condemnation and presents rather some sort of lukewarm, wishy-washy moralising as would come from the lips of a politician - a statement of the sort that, while it may indeed be swallowed whole by the ignorant masses, would not be (and would not be intended to be) taken literally by other political insiders or people 'in the know'.

In this vein, Wallach portays Bov as a harmless, hilarious French farmer, a cuddly and zany figure intent solely on distributing unpasteurised cheeses, to be contrasted with the frightening and violent black-clad paramilitary anarchists, hell-bent on destruction. The same Bov and his organisation, Confederation Paysanne, has been described by Time Magazine
as leading "commando attacks" against McDonald's and other targets
(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,35093,00.html).
In shifting the focus on clothing fashion and appearance, Wallach averts a discussion of the nature and impact of the actions of the various
individuals and groups involved.

There are many other such apparent contradictions within Wallach's
statements. Thus, for instance, Wallach seeks to present a picture wherein totally harmless, 'peaceful' protests and acts of civil disobedience, had been extensively planned in cooperation with the police - to be tarnished
only by a handful of so-called 'anarchists' - yet she states that each civil disobedience group was accompanied by medics equipped to deal with tear gas attacks. Why would medics have been extensively deployed if there was not at least a sense of substantial possibility that they would be required?


Why does Wallach, who apparently wishes to give the impression of condemning and distancing herself from all this 'violence', fail to take
any sort of principled stand in support of her supposed position?

In normal public discourse, violence is supported or condemned depending on whether it is carried out in support of or in opposition to the interests of the state and its ruling class. While engaging in the processes of the ruling class as a Washington insider, Wallach at the same time finds herself standing against the ruling class insofar as her policy aims contradict the corporate consensus. Thus, perhaps against her own wishes, she, like others of her ilk, is driven to assume this wishy-washy
position.

It is as if she wants to say, why couldn't the violent police just focus their violence against these violent anarchists and leave us respectable, peaceful protesters out of it. Apparently, the police were not interested
in doing Wallach's dirty work - they dosed out their gas and violence as they saw fit, and not in accordance with Wallach's prescription.

In short, Wallach is trying to play some sort of image game, which is something that politicians frequently do, but which does not in itself
disclose just what the policy interests of the politician really are.


The as yet vaguely defined 'movement' seems to have acquired two strands or types of people, what some call the revolutionaries and reformists, with all the latent suspicion by each group as to what the other is up
to, and the concomittant warnings not to let the two be divided by the psychological warfare apparatus of the state.

Those who see themselves as revolutionary or anarchist are perhaps rightly concerned about having their revolutionary energy be diverted
into useless reformist schemings or about being used as a pawn to set up a new 'progressive' regime and then being eliminated once their services are no longer required. More so than a genuine antipathy towards the reformists, there is rather an aversion to being led by them. At the same time, there is a desire on the part of the more radical ones to be lauded as heroes, like Jos Bov was, rather than being marginalised and put down by the progressive elite.

However, there is some ground for this state of things. At this stage, and certainly at the stage of Seattle, anarchists or other radical
revolutionaries have lacked the resources to organise anything approaching the scale or scope of the Seattle protests. Thus, while their
participation may have been essential to the outcome of those protests, as far as leadership capabilities go, they were largely in the back seat (or rather the boot) of the progressive vehicle, leading to a still continuing situation whereby they feel they are not getting full credit for their accomplishments or contribution, or being discredited altogether.

In a hierarchical society, this sort of outcome is inevitable. But it is ill-advised to ground one's critique of hierarchy on dissatisfaction with the fact that it marginalises you, as this dissatisfaction can be easily allayed by seizing the reins of power, thereby reproducing the very structure one initially sought to oppose.

Lori Wallach does not want multinational corporations to control and steer the world's economic agenda - she wants groups such as Public Citizen, where she is in charge, to have at least some of that control. With the
information, money and contacts at her disposal, Wallach is able to mount some credible 'opposition' and is thus a force to be reckoned with. As with any holder of power or authority, whatever else they may wish to do, the last thing they want is to lose that power or authority. To put it another way, whatever sundry tasks a given authority may serve, the first task is always self-preservation - maintaining that authority - without which it can do nothing. If Wallach had any specific pressing purpose in mind in making her statements, this was it. Insofar as these various radical elements become capable and effective, they erode Wallach's own position within the very movement which she needs
to claim some control or leadership over in order to have whatever power she has. On the other hand, Wallach and the various allied groups, such as members of the International Forum on Globalisation and the like, in some ways benefit from the antics of the crazy radicals showing up at her events. Thus she can say, as it were, you better do something to accomodate me and the 'good' protesters, otherwise you will have to deal with the 'bad' ones.

However, she is still left toeing a fine line, because her opponents are thinking the same way, and don't really give a damn who is good or bad, so long as they hold on to their power. Thus, it is rather predictable that Wallach's respose should be what it was, regardless of whether the black-clad individuals in question where police infiltrators, genuine anarchists or if they were deployed by Wallach herself.

It is thus rather silly for anarchists and the like to condemn it as some unexpected lack of solidarity, all the more so in light of the fact that anarchists by definition lack 'solidarity' with Wallach or other progressive capitalist leaders. It is important to distinguish genuine
solidarity from a temporary alliance based on certain existing contingencies.

Along this line, it is essential at the present stage for the revolutionary movement to build a solid grass-roots ideological foundation. We cannot just continue downloading ideas from Public Citizen, Global Exchange and the like and keep grousing about how 'unrevolutionary' a movement guided by those ideas is. That is the real 'COINTELPRO'.

To the extent that this is going on, we get some rather strange paradigms developing, where, for instance, how radical or revolutionary something is becomes a function of how risqu or confrontational it is, with the whole concept of the revolutionary subsumed into a dependency of the capitalist enforcement apparatus. What is revolutionary is to be judged in accordance
with one's revolutionary vision, not based on how the cops respond to it. The paucity of such vision, as reflected in the ideological leadership of the movement, leads to this dependent outlook, thereby greatly debilitating the scope of peoples' action. That is the real COINTELPRO.

"Left-wing nuts" would have been a MUCH better pun.