Miami-we won in a victory of inspiration against the FTAA

While there has been so much talk of police repression in Miami there is also the tremendous positive side. First of all we won. The FTAA was basically destroyed. As JIM DEFEDE of The Miami Herald put it in a Nov. 27, 2003 COMMENTARY: "Thanks to Cops, the Anarchists are the Winners.
Their goal wasn't to cause $2 million in property damage. If they had wanted to do that, they could have gone to South Beach and torn things up. Their goal was to equate the free-trade talks with repression. And we obliged them by turning downtown into an armed camp with 3,000 cops in riot gear". Of course the police were hard to outmaneuver but we have to remember that the police are only pawns following orders and that our real fight is not with them but against the exploitation of the global capitalist system. We have to look at who is afraid. The financial leaders are barricaded in the Intercontinental Hotel and surrounded by an army of police with guns and tanks while we have smiling sun puppets and funny cheers. The only arms we need are for linking with our friends and allies.
We always live in an oppressive world. Weather I'm thinking of my friend dying of AIDS in El Salvador while the US pressures them to privatize health care and the price of coffee falls or the US loosing good jobs, a sense of community and real desires to TV and consumerism while obesity, depression and other signs of desperate unhappiness abound. The streets are always filled with police there to protect private property and the power of the elite. In Miami it was just clear for all to see. That is how oppression always should look, oppressive.
The police basically used us as target practice. On the Morning of the 20th they were cautious, afraid that we could turn Miami into another Seattle. We didn’t have the numbers and our three tiered planning hadn’t come up with an effective direct action plan. We should always be lead by inspirational ideas and not be afraid to offend some people and take risks in planning, in this we did fail. By afternoon the police realized that they were way stronger than we were. After the union march a bunch of us wandered down to as close to the fence as we could get, in front of a huge police line. Hundreds of unionists and direct action folks milled about and chanted while a few folks played the drums. The police could have let us get bored and wander off to our busses or dinner. But no, they began to push us back with batons and to blast us with pepper spray. We began to get mad and some of us pushed back or threw the occasional object. The police then unleashed a barrage of 9 types of projectiles. It was like being in a horizontal hailstorm. We all ran back. I stood in front of everyone waving a flag. Thirty feet away a cop kneeled. He took careful aim and tuk, tuk, tuk, tuk, tuk, tuk. Half a second later the pepper spray filled bullets impacted on my rib cage, tearing my shirt, covering me in burning powder and raising huge welts. Was I a threat to the police? Was I stopped from breaking the law? No, I was just forced to retreat for a while and live with the pain. Then again maybe I am a threat to them. Maybe I am an example of someone who fears exploitation and destruction of this world more than the police and maybe with hundreds or millions of others just like me we can change the future of this planet we call home.
Most of the unionists left, others got scared and left as well, and the crowd shrank. Shortly after we were pushed off of Biscayne police who surrounded us on three sides massively outnumbered us. They could have surrounded and arrested us all. They could have charged and scattered us but instead the police slowly advanced blasting away with all their new toys, I mean weapons. They had just spent 8.5 million on them and they were not about to not use them. What about the embedded reporters, a silly thing to do if there is no war. Also notice how no one was arrested for throwing things at police, building barricades or setting trash fires. The police didn’t want to spoil their own fun. Once it was all over it was a completely different story but they kept the battle going as long as they could.
While the police could win the physical battle we were wining quite a different battle. The battle against the FTAA and for a world of solidarity, love and respect. Pushed by the police into a poor black neighborhood we, mostly white people, debated weather we should bring police pressure on them. As we really had no choice we continued. The response was overwhelming. People came out of their houses and stuck their fists in the air. One man even threw a rock at police before running back to his porch. Later at the bus stop two small kids on a bike cheered us and a white guy in a suit gave us the thumbs up as he strode by while a whole family gathered at their fence to cheer and the mother gave us energetic words of encouragement. Later in jail, as I walked down the hall I passed one of the few non-FTAA prisoners I saw. He whispered, "Fight for what's right". I also remember marching in El Salvador on October 12, Columbus Day, against CAFTA/FTAA and people came up to me and asked me to fight free trade in the US where there could be an effect. But clearly we need to all fight and inspire each other. I will fight with them for a better world for everyone even if borders are made to divide us. When we have solidarity and support one another together as people we can see that change is possible.
I was there when we were finally able to bail the last of the protestors charged with felonies out of jail. One said "How did this happen" in great surprise to be out since he didn’t even have an idea for how to come up with the $5,000 for bail. I explained that we can't totally transform society just yet but we do have a large and strong movement that tries to look out for its own people while fighting for everyone. In Seattle, at the height of the belief in their capitalist model of economic exploitation, we caught them off guard, both tactically and politically. Now they are better at tactics but in the last five years neoliberal plans are running into more and more resistance. Their slogan "Free trade is good for everyone" rings more and more hollow as reality steps in. As Gandhi said "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win". They are already fighting us.