Direct Action

You people all ROCK!!!

A heartfelt THANKS for your actions and may your voices be heard!

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An open letter of congratulations and constructive criticism to the organizers of this morning's financial district action
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3/14/03

Comrades in Peace,

I was lucky and happy to be at this momentous event this morning. I had mixed feelings about what happened. I am new to direct action and did not risk arrest with the brave people who blocked the doors of the stock exchange and the intersections. I did meet some of them and they were very cool folks. I don't want to discredit their heroism in any way by saying what comes next.

Blocking intersections indiscriminately wastes everyone's time. It targets the financial district as a whole, so you're going to get to some business exec types, but there are were ordinary working people who were resentful of us. I don't believe that helps our cause.

"No more business as usual," is the new motto, but guess what? We didn't keep anyone out of the stock exchange. We didn't prevent one stock trade from happening (though perhaps the fear we gave them effected trading). Only one of the exchange's eight entrances was blocked while the dozens of arrestees were in the streets blocking access to every kind of vehicle, including a fire truck and an ambulance with sirens on trying to get to an accidents across town. Blocking ambulance paths is what the IDF does in Palestine and I'll have no part of it. It is true that there are many crosstreets in the city for them to drive on, but it isn't right for us to risk delaying rescue workers. We as peace activists should all understand and support the necessity of help getting to those who need it.

It's not right to block intersections which are needed by everyone. I personally am still 100% in favor of direct action before a war starts, but direct action against military, financial/corporate, and governmental targets, not to block traffic and get arrested just to make a scene. Though it is a scene which must be made, it must be made in the right ways. Traffic is an indiscriminate civilian target with no direct connection to the war makers.

I came to shut down the exchange, not the intersections. Though I have to admit it was kind of cool that it was Bush St that got shut down.

To end, I am still very glad I went. I learned a lot and met some amazing people. The movement is young yet and has much room for improvement, but we are strong. We are so so strong and we're getting stronger, as this event has shown.

Thanks to All,
And Special Thanks to St Boniface Church and Father Louie for letting us sleep there,

Earl Berg
Santa Cruz, CA
earlb [at] realityfusion.com

The point here is that it is sometimes beter to sit down than to stand up against opposing forces. "Sitting in"
has a natural built-in rhetoric that suggests "we shall not be moved".