Reaction to election NION and breakaway march-part I

I'm not sure what was going on here, and whether they had been part of the initial group, or should be given different treatment due to their observer status.

woo woo

that's worked so well before...............

Trantrums in the streets are not going to work.

Folks, these protest demonstrations are useful, but only to a point. They're positive to the point that they show that we, the opposition to the powers that be will not take the continued march down the hellish path to fascism will not come easy. But there is absolutely no positive outcome to be gained by setting garbage on fire in the streets or breaking windows. Even if these acts were caused by undercover agents of the state to discredit us, such acts serve that purpose quite well and we open ourselves up to that kind of sabotage by holding demonstrations such as this. There has to be a better way to resist the powers that be. Fortunately, I can think of several, but all of them require that you be serious activists and be willing to do a lot of boring mundane work:

(1) We must keep pounding away at the lies spread by both parties about the illegal and immoral invasion and genocied that is happening in Iraq. We must continue to expose the lies and coverups behind the Bush / PNAC engineered 9/11 conspiracy. We must continue to expose the so-called "war on terrorism" for what it really is: a war *of* terrorism. Most people, including many that voted for Bush don't know all of the truth or they would hardly have relected him.

(2) We must continue to expose all of the rampant election fraud, including doctored voter rolls, voter intimidation, and the "black box" voting irregularities caused by the diebold machines. These efforts are actually having an effect. I suspect very highly that this election was engineered to assure a Bush victory by a big enough margin to make it *seem* like he was "legitimately" elected even though he wasn't so that we'd all just shut up and go away and stop complaining about this obvious theft of our right to accountability from the government. Don't let them get away with this! Keep fighting this fight. Those of you who have been involved in that fight are making progress. Don't let this setback stop you.

(3) The alternative energy magazine "Solar Today" described the U.S. as potentially the "Saudi Arabia" of wind energy. Guess where the biggest potential lies? You guessed it, the reddest of the deep "red" Redpublican states. If the workers who have been devastated by the capitalist globalization schemes and the family farmers whose farms have been sucked up by corporate agro-business could be given the power to rebuild their community through this great potential, it will not only turn these red states a very deep *green*, and utterly undermine the Republican Party's stronghold, we'll undermine the stranglehold that the fossil fuel cartel has on us by a long distance. This is a great opportunity, but to seize it we have to appeal to a lot of people we tend to turn our noses up at. we may have to temporarily endure some prejudicial attitudes, but in the long run these folks will unlearn them when they regain their lost freedoms and gain new freedom they've never had before. The Native Americasn tribes in South Dakota are already starting to lead the way. Let's give them a hand as well. If anyone is intersted, I can point you in the right direction if you want to join in these efforts.

(4) Meanwhile, I am going to keep doing what I do, and that is organizing One Big Union to overthrow wage slavery a scourge enabled by both the Republicans and Democrats.

Folks, please don't set your course on a path of self destruction. The long term results will only be increased repression, and there is enough of that already. Radicals, activists, and anarchists can either take on leadership roles in progressive causes or they can marginalize themselves. Whether well intentioned or not, demonstrations like these tend to discredit us. (take it from me a veteran of several such demonstrationsover the past decade).

You "make your own community a nice place to live" and at the same time your troops (sorry, troops from your country) attack Falluja once more, making Falluja a not-so-nice place to die.
Americans, it is ALL up to you.

fire in the streets is a totally appropriate response to tuesday's election. hello - the christian right had a massive victory! what are we supposed to do, roll over and play nice? those people want to see us and our kind dead, or better yet, slave-laboring for them or at home and barefoot and pregnant.

now, i don't think demos where windows get smashed are a long-term organizing strategy. far from it. there is a lot of mundane work to be done on the ground. "revolution" (ha ha - we're so, so far from that now) is not just the glamour of fire in the streets, but is the organizing that moves people from being passive consumers to a more collective consciousness and ability to act, individually and as collective groups. whether or not the conciousness of the amerikan people can change is debatable. i think the majority of the country right now is dumb as shit, fed like babies on right wing media lies. can we counter this? i don't know. at this point i'm just disgusted.

but i see this as a demo in reaction to the war, and in reaction to the election. people are angry. don't tell them to swallow their anger. it needs to be expressed. hello! people are dying! hello!

Fire in the factories of the military industrial complex are what is appropriate.

Fire in the streets is a waste of matches.

Pay your taxes good people and arm your police to the teeth then go riot. Sheep you are being lead by NION which is like the RCP a phony resistance. Think! George Soros funded Move On and Move On accomplished nothing except giving us a phony candidate in a phony race and allowing feel good politics to dominate the day. Yeah it feels good to let off steam about a stolen election-then you can go back to work and support the system by buying more goodies. The Radical Right rules through your consent to their game. No consent, no game.

There are practical political actions which can be undertaken such as a willingness to risk ones life stopping the war machine at the ports. Kneeling on railroad tracks that are shipping munitions.

This discussion reminds me a bit of the parable of the elephant -- you know the one, where the blind man thinks that the elephant's tail is a broom, the other one thinks it's a stick, and so on? All of the approaches being proactively described here are effective (although I do agree somewhat that the choice of targets could be more useful). Don't shy away from direct action, don't shy away from exposing the lies (from 9/11 to voter fraud to WMDs and so on), and if you're of the inclination to put your body on the line, by all means do so. Arguing with each other over what's right and wrong, rather than accepting that not everybody is going to want to do the same thing all the time, is a false path. Let's rise up together!

AP

sounds like steve has it all figured out. all i know is what happened is fucked up and it doesn't represent us and so in the 12 hour period after when we are angry and depressed, burning effigies is an entirely appropriate response. strategy will have its own time and place later.

and this is the "liberal" nytimes, not even the real conservative press.

they're way ahead of us.

this sort of pathos-driven, out of touch, organic freak thing goes back to the hippie movement. does it still serve us? and if not, what can we do to better collectively self-manage our image in public?

On the Avowed Left Coast, a Feeling of Being Left Out
By DEAN E. MURPHY
Published: November 4, 2004

I'm sorry, but whatever. Compromising ourselves away in service to the New York Times isn't going to serve us well at all. Besides, this could easily be written off at west coast-east coast bs. If you want to understand the "red" states, go there instead of hand-wringing over some NYT hit piece.

dont assume i havent.

your complaint is about the messenger. if you think we're not reduced to a caricature, quite effectively, by our enemies, then you havent been to many red states yourself, lately.

the critique is valid-- we're so precious and all that. it's not a very effective strategy, democratically speaking.

what's your beef with that *idea*?

Pictures of this "protest" are on websites all over the country today. People are laughing at you. You just don't get how out of touch you are, even for here. I would suggest that the 300-400 perpetual losers who organize and attend these things to consider getting a real job. I realize it may be terribly cool to be a "revolutionary", or an "anarchist" when you're 22. However, it's not easy doing it when you're 50. Single room hotels and a diet of tuna cat food is no way to spend your later years.

well, for some of us, we really are that *precious*, it's not just an act. and as for being viewed as freakish -- well, i didn''t fit in the small town i grew up in, either. don't assume things about me, and i won't assume things about you. ok?

in terms of the carictature: well, it's been with us for a long time on both coasts. i do think people need to get out of the bubble of the coasts, so they can be more strategic about who they *are* in relation to the rest of the country. but ya know, i really am that pissed off, and yes, freakish, and plopping me in the midwest isn't gonna change that. if anything, i'd probably be even more pissed than i am right now. in short: it's not an act. get it?

i always thought the gay marriage (i.e. gay normalization) campaign was a mistake, that what gays had to offer everyone was the right to be different, not the opportunity to fit in. plenty of the latter.

i think of all those small town freaks who are afraid not to conform, who do the veneer-of-normalcy thing, and i wonder if there isn't some way to knock a hole in the wall with it.....

Have you ever heard of church? Being someone who does church attendance plus normal church socializing and volunteer work in the evenings has never been consdered something that will lead you to eat catfood. Why would someone spending an hour at 6pm at a protest instead of watching Friends, the OC, or a reality show be such a scourge. If those guys worship on their own and don't go to church, they'll come out positive in the spare time department.

You argument is immediately discredited because you assume that those of us in the street last night do not both engage in direct action and work all fucking year round to make change, just like you.
Except that most of us are not as self-righteous as you and do not puport that "Our" way is vanguardist and thus better, we organizie in the street, muck up complacency and work everyday in a variety of fields to challenge the same things you claim to challenge.
Maybe the only difference is that I am black and poor and you are prob. white and middle class claiming to be working class but won't step foot in my neighborhood while claiming to be anti-racist. If I am wrong here about you specifically, so be it. But I am not wrong about most folks who are too afraid and privleged to risk things in the street from time to time.
Again, I am not claiming righteuosness, but you are, and so have only demonstrated why this movement is fragmented - because of people like you.

Solidarity from Anarchists from "Germany"!!! Let's fight together against every politicians-in every country!!! No borders, no nations!!!

So damn people what is this shit that for just one night then go home I here a lot of fear in a lot of your articles. The Hotell strikers are out there every day so why arnt we and yes that is my point. So what are we-you doing enen now. Fuck your jobs you TV and everthing alse get of your ass out side and not just for one night but every day till something happends.

out of time

As an organiser of the IWW I'd like to first off say that Steve does not speak for all of us. I rode along and was part of the actions that took place and brought bread to the jail for people to eat. I support ALL actions against capital and the system. I know a lot of the people involved and know that their day-to-day actions speak volumes. I ask that while I understand the concerns raised, that smashing a window does do something, it is a symbol, it causes economic damage, it is an action, it is not to be discredited because one finds other actions to be personally more important. I organise in the same branch as steve, and love my fellow worker, but I disagree that these actions are counter-productive. How about we appreciate the diversity of tactics?
ALL TACTICS.
I disagree with the fetishization of tactics, romaniticisng certain actions because they feel "more revolutionary", but I think we need to look at as an all fronts war.
-keep loving, keep fighting.
harjit

a symbolic solution would be appropriate. The problem is not symbolic. It's not made out of glass, either. But that doesn't mean that it can't be smashed. It can be smashed, alright. We can smash it ourselves, with our ouwn hands, but only if we hit it everywhere at once, all across the globe, simultaneously. There is nothing, least of all glass, that can be smashed on one block of one street in one city on one continent, that will make a real difference in this world. The difference it makes on the block seldom lasts a day.

It sure is fun, though, isn't it?