Thanks to Cops & Blocs

Letter to the Editor and to the people of the Bay Area,

I am one of the more than 100 self-initiated organizers of Direct Action To Stop the War. In particular I worked to develop an Artists Coalition Against the War, encouraging artists to participate creatively in stopping business as usual the day after the war began, focusing on disrupting businesses that directly profit from the war, and on government sites including the Federal Building and the UK Consulate. This wildly successful action was reported all over the world as a historically significant popular uprising against an unjust US unilateral invasion.

There has been a lot of attention on the costs of our actions, especially in police overtime, and there has been an assertive response from the peace activist community criticizing the police for excessive arrests and brutality.

I want to thank the two most extreme communities who participated in the actions, the cops and the black bloc. Although there are always a few ‘troublemakers’ in each crew, they both performed rather calmly last week.

Firstly, I want to thank the police, who behaved non-violently most of the time, especially when compared with the police at any similar peace or anti-globalization actions, from NY to Seattle, from Israel to Iraq, from Brazil to Nigeria. And let’s remember that the one of the most reportable facts of the action was the over 2000 arrests. Yes I saw brutal and unnecessary tackling and hitting of protesters. Yes I saw people penned in and not given their legal right to disperse resulting in massive numbers of arrests which tied up police and sheriff forces for hours. Yes I was held, after being processed, for nearly five hours in the temporary jail of Pier 27, while over 100 police sat around doing absolutely nothing. But the lack of tear gas, pepper spray, broken ribs, rubber bullets, whips, rifles, tanks, stonings, assassinations and hangings illustrate that we are indeed more free to express ourselves here in San Francisco than almost anywhere else, and for that I’m grateful.

And I want to thank the ‘black bloc’ for their complimentary restraint. The bloc is not an organization. It is a temporary tactic and a social phenomenon. Appearing spontaneously on the fringe and at the center of peace and justice movements around the world, the black bloc is comprised primarily of angry and aware youth fulfilling the promise of a generation that has inherited a legacy of betrayal and oppression. When we stop betraying our youth, poisoning the world, killing and enslaving Third world peoples in their name, they will stop trashing our cities. Property damage, compared to similar actions around the world, was minimal last week. Most of the ‘violence’ committed by these riotous clusters of intersection-blocking activists was in response to the excessive force of the SFPD, as these activists bore the brunt of illegal overhead baton strikes and mass arrests. The damage that downtown SF witnessed, in the form of graffiti and throwing news boxes into already-blocked streets, being neither violent nor dangerous, seems mild when compared with the stone throwing, window breaking, fire starting and armed resistance that can emerge from this kind of outrage. The fearlessness and autonomy of the many ‘blocs’ last week was inspiring, even joyful at times.

So thanks to everyone for making these actions safe and effective. As the war continues, and as the dubiously legal regime of George W. continues its greedy and cruel empire building, the protests will continue. Let all those citizens, cops and protesters alike, renew their commitments to non-violence, to witnessing the humanity of both allies and enemies. Peace.

Keith Hennessy
San Francisco
3.27.03