"Violent" Anarchists at the Gap

Is somebody going to answer, or are they going change the subject?

Just come out with your opinion on the matter rather than laying in wait to pounce on the next unsuspecting person who might consider answering your loaded (and seemingly rhetorical) question.

Your snide attitude doesn't really invite anyone to answer you sincerely, but maybe that's the point you are trying to indirectly make, and the question itself is indeed rhetorical after all.

Why not just answer the question? It doesn't matter who asked it or why. Either way, it's a valid question. Answering it would help our movement learn, grow and evolve. Avoiding it, especially with ad hominems, is counter-productive. it doesn't help our movement learn, grow and evolve. It hurts our movement and holds us back. That helps our enemies. Are you *trying* to help our enemies? Are you *trying* to hurt our movement? If not, then why not answer the question?

Video shows protester wearing Nazi symbols on his jacket...that's sure to garner support for their idiocy

Is your authority on the matter what makes your question superior and more valuable to the movement's learning, growing and evolving?

I asked you virtually the same question, what you think of this action, and you refuse to answer. Are you *trying* to hurt our movement? If not, then why not answer the question? Be specific.

At least I'm asking someone who is reading this thread (you) and not some anonymous poster who obviously is not returning here.

what Nazi Symbols?!?

I see a Crass and Conflict logos -- those are British punk bands, nothing to do with Hitler or WWII

"I see a Crass and Conflict logos"

the "SS" (Nazi Runes) and bent cross are nazi symbols...so what if they're part of some punk band's logos?

it matters a lot because it means these are not admirer's of Adolf in the video, so the link you draw is not apt, even if you think the people in the video are "idiots"

no offense, but it also means more that your reading of symbols and symbolism in this video is more shaped by the History channel than long-term world history and/or a large genre of political music since the late 1970s dear to many post-hippy protesters of today

I found this online, regarding the Crass logo I think you are referring to:

"The Sonnenrad or Sunwheel swastika was the old Norse representation of the sun."

Should we take from that that these protesters are fans of the Norse and/or worshippers of the sun? Or should we reject wholesale everything that the Nazis claimed for themselves, in vain attempts to expropriate pre-existing powerful imagery from throughout human history, from pagan symbols to classical art to Nietzsche to Christianity? Or should we just admit most symbols have histories before and after the Nazis that have nothing to do with Nazis whatsover and leave it at that?

You look like dumb, violent idiots.

And your jacket logos look like nazi/SS symbols.

If your goal was to look like violent, SS maniacs, mission accomplished.

If this makes us look violent... why don't you think about what violence means to you. Sure, maybe you think we look silly dressed in all black with bandanas wrapped around our faces, maybe even threatening.

But our militant appearance does not denote violence. Carrying a gun attached to your belt with a billy club in your hand makes you look violent. Driving tanks through foreign villages with a shooter perched atop your ride. These make you look violent.

If being dressed this way makes you think about violence this only demonstrates your own insecurities.

And to answer that question... what did this accomplish...

Your implication is probably correct. I don't think our march did accomplish much. But, by comparison, what the hell did the ANSWER rally accomplish. An anti-war town was able to get a few thousand people to participate in a permitted march, a few people stuck around to hear the same listless speeches with diluted communist themes that are repackaged for every fucking rally.

We took to the streets without a permit, tried to break up the monotony that was the ANSWER rally, participated in some old-school civil disobedience by locking down an intersection, managed to regroup without police presense and reclaim the street on our march to the park.

We brought the war to people's minds who were mindlessly shopping, we recieved support from a number of people that stumbled onto our march, and we exercised non-hierarchal communication methods to reach consensus about our plans for the march.

In the grand scheme of things, no, we didn't accomplish anything. But internally, I think the black bloc march on the 19th was very successful and a number of tactics were honed that can be employed for future actions.

Instead of asking what we accomplished, start out instead by asking what you've accomplished and go from there. The fact of the matter is that none of us are doing shit to make a real difference. Not because we aren't willing, not because we're not making the effort, but because no one knows what success will look like or how we can make it happen.

Until then, please do your part; we'll continue to do ours, and hopefully if we continue to do everything we can to uproot the system our subtle victories will eventually become monumental achievements as we continue to demand an end to war and an end to capitalism.

Sure, maybe you think we look silly dressed in all black with bandanas wrapped around our faces, maybe even threatening.<<<

Terrorist wannabees...

>we didn't accomplish anything. But internally, I think the black bloc march on the 19th was very successful

These two statements contradict. Success, by definition, is when you accomplish something.


>and a number of tactics were honed that can be employed for future actions.

(1.) Which ones?

(2.) If you want to learn how to think tactically, you’ll learn a lot more playing sports. Soccer is good. American football is better. But the best way to learn urban street tactics is to play ringolevio.

(3.) Don’t neglect the books. Riot Control: Material and Techniques, by Col. Rex Applegate (U.S.A.-Ret.) is a good place to start, but don’t stop there. Read Art of War, by Sun Tzu, Book of Five Rings, by Miamoto Musashi, Anarchy’s Cossack, by Alexandre Skirda, Face of Battle, by John Keegan, On War, by Clausewitz, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, by the Kerner Commission, Police Officer, by O’Neill, Hammer and Steinberg, etc.

(4.) Think strategically. Without strategy, tactics are useless.

(5.) Think logistically. Without logistics, neither strategy nor tactics are possible.


>Instead of asking what we accomplished, start out instead by asking what you've accomplished and go from there.

I already know what I’ve accomplished. I want to know what you’ve accomplished. So I asked. You, too, should ask. Every action, no matter what type, no matter how small, should be followed up with, in depth analysis, criticism and self criticism. This applies to envelope stuffing sessions, pot lucks and and fund raising, as well as to full scale insurrection. That way the process of organizing is a self correcting mechanism. Otherwise, it just loops.

Seems like business is on parade, the gap between rich and poor is widening, the war machine rolls wherever it pleases, and we've got fundamentalists passing laws to interfere with a woman dieing naturally.

For the benefit of the rest of us, what exactly *have* you accomplished? Be specific.

When you inform us what you have accomplished, please do follow that up with in depth analysis, criticism and self criticism of your accomplishment(s).

This thread is about the Gap action. Focus please. If we don't learn how to focus, we'll never learn anything else. We can talk about me some other time, in some other place. Suffice to say I've participated in more successes than most people reading this, and in many more faliures than successes. I've learned more from the failures. I'm still learning. I'm currently involved in three very successful, long term projects, and still experimenting in new ones.

What about maoist self criticism? Reread your red book please.

It is a severely flawed method because it presupposes, a priori, that Mao’s thought are a valid benchmark. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mao was wrong about most things. Ergo, Maoists can’t be objective. Both criticism and self criticism by Maoists take place relative to a false ideal. The less like Mao you are, the more you get criticized.

Valid criticism and self criticism takes place in an atmosphere of objectivity. Only the actual facts have bearing.

So what have we learned from this action?

anyone who Boo Hoo's about violence is a woosey!'

and no justification and or any reasons at all will change this!

"What have we learned from this action"
What have you learned from this action? Obviously you have a strong opinion since you keep yelling your question into the void.

certain people would rather we didn't evaluate our actions, learn from our experiences, grow, adapt and get better at what we do.

I also notice that the Gap is still up and running, and people still shop there. From this I have learned that if the action was meant to impede the Gap in any way, it failed.

What I have not learned, is at what, if anything, it succeeded. I've been told that it was "very successful,” but not what that means. I was told that “tactics were honed,” bit not which ones or how. Whether this is because of the concerted disruption, or because people don’t have answers yet, I don’t know.

It is encouraging that any discussion is taking place, especially in view of how hard it being suppressed by active disruption. It is disappointing that it is not the norm to publicly discuss, evaluate and analyze every action. It is not surprising to learn that certain people try to still trying to suppress and disrupt the process. It is disappointing learn that that the editors here aid and abet them. But i wasn’t surprise.

What I have not learned, is what the intent of the action was. Maybe I missed something, or maybe it was hidden. So what was the intent of the action, anyway? What was it intended to accomplish?

"I also notice that the Gap is still up and running, and people still shop there. From this I have learned that if the action was meant to impede the Gap in any way, it failed."
Can you name an action against a local business that didnt end with the business continuing to operate? A PR campaign that hurts the Gap hurts their bottom line more than petty vandalism which is covered by insurance.

"What I have not learned, is at what, if anything, it succeeded."
I'm sure the kids who took part in this had fun and got to release some frustration about the state of the world in a less controlled environment than an ANSWER protest.

"Iwas told that 'tactics were honed,' bit not which ones or how.
Street fights with the police are a dead in stret if you think in terms of tactics and outwitting them. They are not very well trained but can call in more and more backup until you always lose.

"It is encouraging that any discussion is taking place, especially in view of how hard it being suppressed by active disruption."
Nobody who engages in marginally illegal actviity is going to talk online in a forum where the FBI monitoring IPs above the ISP can figure out who is posting. I guess people coudl try to use real anonymizers to answer your question but the discussion is still in public and the police can jsut read the site to see what was learned and learn form that themselves. These types of things are best discussed offline.

"It is disappointing that it is not the norm to publicly discuss, evaluate and analyze every action."
That easy to say when you are not at these things and facing risk of arrest.

"It is disappointing learn that that the editors here aid and abet them. But i wasn’t surprise."
Since you are not getting much of a response over here you coudl try your site and yell at yourself for not getting a response.

"What I have not learned, is what the intent of the action was."
My guess is that it wasnt planned and was mainly a group of youth at the march who wanted to engage in an unpermitted march for its own sake to break the confines of the ANSWER protest. If it was planned it wasnt announced anywhere so if peopel are being that seceretive its doubtful that those who could analyze the pros and cons of what occured are going to post on here to tell you.

>Can you name an action against a local business that didnt end with the business continuing to operate?

No. That’s one reason I question such actions. Why do something already proven ineffective?


>A PR campaign that hurts the Gap hurts their bottom line more than petty vandalism which is covered by insurance.

Now you’re talking. Strikes, sabotage and “shrinkage” hurt, too


>I'm sure the kids who took part in this had fun

I’m sure they did. I know from experience. The very first breakaway march I ever heard of, I led:

http://www.transbay.net/~nessie/Pages/mutt.and.jeff.html

But what did it accomplish? Are we to plan our actions on the basis of how much fun we will have, or on the basis of what they can accomplish?



>and got to release some frustration about the state of the world in a less controlled environment than an ANSWER protest.

Momentarily, perhaps. But is it not frustrating to engage in yet another fruitless action? How much more satisfying would it be to have just as much fun, but also actually accomplish something?



>Street fights with the police are a dead in stret if you think in terms of tactics and outwitting them. They are not very well trained but can call in more and more backup until you always lose.

That’s not true. We have outwitted the SFPD on a number of occasions. There is a finite limit to how much back up they can call, where they can deploy it at any given time, and how mobile they can be. We have learned, for example, that they will never divide their forces in such a way, or to such an extent, as to endanger ability to protect their first priority, the financial district. This enabled, among other things, the precedent setting encampment in Golden Gate Park during the Democratic Convention in 1984.




>These types of things are best discussed offline.

Some are and some aren’t. Those that aren’t, should be discussed in public. For example, what did this action accomplish? Did it have goals? What were they? What better ways could they have been addressed? Etc.

But of course, don’t confess to any crimes.


>That easy to say when you are not at these things and facing risk of arrest.

On the whole, I have accomplished a lot more without risking arrest than I ever did by risking arrest. Risking arrest for its own sake is an unwarranted self indulgence. Yeah, it’s fun. The adrenaline is a rush. But so what? Are we doing this stuff to amuse ourselves, or are we trying to change the world?

Incidentally, you don’t necessarily have to obey the law to avoid risking arrest, far from it. Just remember that, whatever else it may be, revolution is a crime. Just remember the old prison joke:

Q: What do you call a criminal who is not also a criminologist?

A: a convict.


>Since you are not getting much of a response over here you coudl try your site and yell at yourself for not getting a response.

(1.) it’s not “my” site.

(2.) This is where the discussion started.

(3.) I’ve been getting a lot of responses. We can learn something from every one.



>My guess is that it wasnt planned

History is clear, to engage in crime without a plan is risky at best.


>and was mainly a group of youth at the march who wanted to engage in an unpermitted march for its own sake to break the confines of the ANSWER protest.

That’s obvious. What it accomplished, is not. Just because we *can* do something does not necessarily mean that we should. Any action, particularly any public actions, have repercussions far beyond how they make the participants feel. As revolutionaries, we have a responsibility to the cause to see that those repercussions help and not hurt.

Now back to “honing” tactics. Wouldn’t it be a lot more educational, as well as a lot more safe, to learn tactics by playing paint ball and ringolevio? Are street actions *really* the best place to practice? Wouldn’t it be better to practice somewhere else, and go into the street already prepared?

"But is it not frustrating to engage in yet another fruitless action? How much more satisfying would it be to have just as much fun, but also actually accomplish something?"

Sure, but if accomplishing something doesnt involve unpermitted street marchs then where is the outlet for rage. You can talk on and on about learning from the past but once you get into the position where you tell people to hold their rage and think before acting and you become ANSWER and whatever well thought out event you plan will have its own youth contingent breaking away from it.
Having "elders telling youth to not engage in this type of behavior because "we learned from engaging in such behavior and know better" is pretty pointless. Most of those in the pictures of those arrested at this thing seemed like new activists so they couldnt have "learned" from past actions and perhaps they engaged in a break-away march to get away from people like you constantly lecturing them about doing things the "correct" way. At the Bookfair you could have gone around and talked to all the youth about how they should act, but you didnt probably knowing that doing so would be pointless.

"We have outwitted the SFPD on a number of occasions. There is a finite limit to how much back up they can call"

Thats true in the short term if you just see it as a game but in terms of doing anything that could actually change things would give them time to call in plenty more backup. You can look at the LA Rebellion to see a much larger group than a breakaway march that was dealt with via just a small number of national guard troops. Outwitting the police mainly seems like a machismo game that allows a few pumped up activists to feel self-important rather than something that can really result in social change. You can say that practice outwitting the police prepares one for larger scale resistance if it ever came to a war, but ignoring the conservatism of the bulk of the US public you only have to look to Iraq to see that the skill-set has almost no relation to street protest tactics (I dont quite see how coordintaed actions via nonencrypted walkie-talkies prepares you for dealing with the NSA, air strikes and building IEDs)

Successful rebellion brings reward. Unsuccessful rebellion brings prison, death and more repression.


>Sure, but if accomplishing something doesnt involve unpermitted street marchs then where is the outlet for rage.

Letting your rage out, for the sake of letting it out, is what three year olds do. Listen, this is not about you or your feelings. This is about all of us, and the planet we live on. If you want to express rage, try rugby, bar brawls, kinky sex or performance art. Revolution is not about expressing your displeasure at the old world. Revolution is about creating a new world. That is the standard by which each and every action must be judged, not “Did it get my rocks off?” but “Did it make the world a better place?”



>you tell people to hold their rage

No I don’t. You’re putting words into my mouth. I say direct your rage into constructive activities. Breaking the windows of retailers is useless. Want to break things? Break the war machine. Put aluminum oxide in it gas tanks. Drop paper clips into the ventilator slots of its computers. Jam monkey wrenches into the gears of its production lines. Sever its fiber op cables. Murder is CEOs in their sleep. Burn their mansions to the ground. That’s constructive. Breaking the windows of retailers is not.

Neither is protesting, peaceably, violently or any way. The powers that be ignore protest. Direct physical attacks on their infrastructure gets their attention. What? You thought they cared about your signs and banners? Gimme a break. It would have showed up by now. It hasn’t.

I’m not against violence. I’m against pointless violence. I’m also against pointless non violence. I’m against all pointless activities. If it’s not constructive, it’s not revolutionary. If it doesn’t create more than it destroyed, it was pointless. Breaking retailers windows creates nothing. What does not breaking them, but standing there chanting create? I don’t know. You tell me.


>Having "elders telling youth to not engage in this type of behavior because "we learned from engaging in such behavior and know better" is pretty pointless.

And how pointless is reinventing the wheel, over and over and over again?


>they couldnt have "learned" from past actions

They couldn’t learn from their *own* past actions. But they could learn from history. Either we learn from history or we repeat it. If we repeat it, our enemies win, and the world continues on it way to hell in a hand basket.



>At the Bookfair you could have gone around and talked to all the youth about how they should act, but you didnt probably knowing that doing so would be pointless.

At the Book Fair, I stayed at my post and carried out my mission. This year I was a projectionist, as well as a janitor. I didn’t give a speech because I don’t give speeches, because I know better, because I learned from personal experience that I will accomplish more in the long run if I stay in the background. Anybody who wants to talk to me face to face can look me up. I live around here and I seldom travel. I’m not that hard to find. If you know the right people, they’ll introduce you. If you don’t know the right people, meet them. Gain their trust. Then ask them to introduce you.



>Thats true in the short term if you just see it as a game but in terms of doing anything that could actually change things would give them time to call in plenty more backup.

Back up only works against fixed positions. If you disengage, disperse and regroup behind their lines, they’re flummoxed. If you force them to split their forces and/or leave the Financial District undefended, they’re flummoxed.

The example I cited from ‘84 did have a permanent effect. There had been a ban on live bands in the park for over a decade. We occupied a piece of the park with dozens of vehicles, mostly school busses drawn up in a circle, hundreds and hundreds, eventually thousands of people. We built a stage, fired up a generator and had live bands play anyway, ban be damned. They couldn’t stop us because they didn’t have enough cops to do it without leaving downtown vulnerable to mob action. It set a precedent. The city decided that live bands in the park wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Now bands can play in the park.



>You can look at the LA Rebellion to see a much larger group than a breakaway march that was dealt with via just a small number of national guard troops.

There was no such thing as the “LA Rebellion.” It’s a myth created by the capitalist spin machine. In actuality, civil conflict had erupted in 52 separate cities.

See:

http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/rodney.html


It was suppressed, and it’s history covered up and distorted, because it failed. It failed because it was not a coordinated effort. It was a bunch of pissed off people, and not all of them youth, not by a long shot, spontaneously expressing their rage, without bothering to plan how to go all the way, by supporting each other, or even communicating. In short, Americans made the same mistake the Koreans had made a decade earlier in the series of uncoordinated, sequential, and ultimately doomed rebellions that took place in response to the Kwangju Massacre. They could have learned from history, but they didn’t. Most of them never heard of Kwangju.

Insurrection is not revolution. Rioting is not even insurrection. For real revolution to take place on this planet, there must be simultaneous mass insurrections across the globe. Unlike us, global capitalism *is* vulnerable to a decapitating strike. But it has many head. They must all come off at once. If you are not organizing the social infrastructure that it will take to make that possible, you’re not making revolution. You’re jerking yourself off.


>Outwitting the police mainly seems like a machismo game that allows a few pumped up activists to feel self-important rather than something that can really result in social change.

Indeed. It is not the cops, but their masters we must outwit.


>ignoring the conservatism of the bulk of the US public

I’m not ignoring that. I just have a bigger vision. It’s not about America. it’s about the world. The US is six percent of humanity. Capitalism is global. So, too, must be our resistance. When the rest of the world rises as one against it, our job here is to be ready to rise up and strike it from behind.


> the skill-set has almost no relation to street protest tactics

Indeed. What’s more, history is clear, protests alone are totally useless. Sooner or later, it will come to a fight. We need to be ready. Carrying signs and chanting slogans wont make us ready.

In a very real sense, it has come to a fight already. Even as we speak, resistance to global imperialism is mounting. We need to open a front behind the empire’s lines. That means physically disrupt the war machine. Don’t talk about it. Don’t chant about it. Get out there break the machine. No army can fight without spare parts. The mighty Luftwaffe, for example, ground to a halt when it ran out ball bearings, and the Wehrmacht could run without fuel.

But their real Achilles heal is the soldiers themselves. War cannot be fought without soldiers. The Viet Nam War, for example ground on through years of useless, futile protests. Then the soldiers themselves began to sabotage and mutiny. Then the war ended.

Read history. Learn something:

http://olymedia.mahost.org/Olive-DrabRebels.pdf

Then get out there and make friends with soldiers.

When, in the entire history of the world, has this ever happenned, every last person rising up as one across the planet?

It has never happenned and never will. It's more about majorities, and critical masses, and strategic alignments.

The rest is dreamy poppycock.

Don't dream, organize.

How to judge the effective of an action depends largely on what its goal was. If the goal of the GAP action was to bond, and to build network and moral, then it was an outstanding success. If the goal was to impede capitalism, or even just the GAP, then it was a dismal failure.

Every action should have at least one clearly defined goal. This applies to individual actions as well as collective actions. It applies to both ad hoc and long term actions. It applies to both legal and illegal actions. It applies to all actions.

Always have at least one clearly defined goal. Otherwise you are wasting your time, as well as endangering yourselves, your comrades and the movement.

Goals should be S.M.A.R.T.:

(S)pecific

(M)easurable

(A)ssignable (who does what)

(R)ealistic

(T)ime-Related

Without feed back and analysis, there is no real way to understand how well, if at all, your goals are being met. Clear goals are not enough. To be at all meaningful, they must be achieved, their process learned from, or (ideally) both.

Or, we can stumble about blindly, banging into brick walls and each other, and falling into traps.

The choice is ours. It’s a quintessential no-brainer.

I certainly wouldn't pay for such vague and basically useless "advice"

what would be more useful than your haughty authoritarian attitude is an actual case study of an action you planned/participated in that lived up to your "smart" paradigm, including things you learned, instead of just preaching to others. But, I'm not holding my breath, as you'll probably respond to this comment with an authoritarian lecture on staying focused on this single action even though you yourself speak obliquely about greater movement goals and accomplishments.

also, you show little ability to distinguish between macro and micro goals, acting as if building morale and impeding capitalism are even in the same ballpark

change is often incremental, does indeed include symbolic actions to build support or make evil-doers aware of your objections, and it is not always measurable in tangible and linear ways

when was the last time you impeded capitalism or even just the gap, Mr. Bigshot?

"Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child." -- Cicero

My own sense is that far too many of the self-identified anarchist groups that have been garnering so much media attention are focused on destroying property and opposing order, without any clear positive, reconstructive, program in mind. Many of these groups are more reminiscent of 19th century Russian nihilists than they are of the collectivist or communist anarchism that played so large a role in the Spanish revolution. As Rebecca DeWitt noted a few years ago, in a report on (anarchist) activity at the Seattle WTO protests, ". . . I am left with the impression of the anarchist activity as either an empty moralism, a practice devoid of theory, and as unwittingly giving energy to reforn-tist politics. Anarchists need to move beyond these traps to formulate a theory of anarchism that will sustain a political movement." Cindy Milstein argued along similar lines, "It is time to push beyond the oppositional character of our movement by infusing it with a reconstructive vision. That means beginning, right now, to translate our movement structure into institutions that embody the good society; in short, cultivating direct democracy in the places we call home . . ."

It is important to remember, of course, that the mainstream media tend to over-report incidents of property destruction, and to ignore or underreport the more grassroots, day-to-day, anarchist-inspired organizing around toxic dumping, environmental quality, feeding the hungry, advocating for low-cost housing, etc. that is taking place in communities around the country. Such positive, reconstructive, direct-action activities tend to be chronicled-if at all--only in smaller-scale newsletters, community bulletins, and the like. As a consequence, some of the most important, truly social-revolutionary, work that is occurring in the country is virtually unknown to any but those who are most directly involved involved.

There is a time and place for doing things negatively-ending with smashing the state, capitalism, hierarchy and all the negative oprressive systems and oppressors out there. There is a time for doing things positively-beginning with a new world in our heart, extensign to actually creating it on the ground in as many different ways as we (everybody) can think of. If we destroy without building, we have nihilism and eveyrthing everythign destroyed. If we build without destroying, we have alll the ills and garbage of our society with pretty flowers on the top of it. As Bakunin said, "the urge to destroy is also a creative urge."

the virtues of a "some codified mutual aid network" actually serious, or was it just wishful thinking?

You know, lots of lower income people actually have stronger family loyalty than upper-middle class people who are far more likely to move around between big cities several times for jobs and lose contact with cousins etc. - although this should be qualified by considering that economic stress causes more divorce or child abandonment for lower income people too. Religion and 'irrational' commitments to family cause the working class to provide a sort of off-the-books nongovernmental mutual aid network - which is difficult to see except for where it breaks down, and then by comparing different areas, you can see the effects of working class people preventing neighbors and family from reaching rock bottom.

For instance, I started recording memories sometime in the early 80s, but others tell me that there didn't used to be a lot of homeless people in San Francisco (despite the definitely higher drug use rate and hippie culture) in the 1970s, or anywhere else for that matter, even though the productivity rate and wealth of the country was lower in the 70s. Where did they come from? Probably, they are from nuclear families in other areas of the country where they were cut off for having social problems like mental illness or drug use, and previously their family would have supported them, but now middle class families will push you out.
In my family, there are several losers with abuse or drug problems who have been bailed out several times. That's irrational to do if you decide the family isn't a special unit, but it does function the same as a mutual aid network that you're envisioning.
Anyway, the key to setting up a network like that is to set up rules so it wouldn't fall apart due to mistrust and scamming immediately. Take a look at some community houses that don't work such as a few co-ops by universities where there are some residents who always take but never give. What would the incentive be so that a few people don't become parasites.

the emergence of "homelessness" as a pervasive condition in the US since the 70s is due to the combined force of declining wages, sky-rocketing housing costs, and sharp cut-backs in government support for the poor. to suggest that it's due to cultural reasons (a la "the decline of the family") is at best horribly simplistic.

the emergence of "homelessness" as a pervasive condition in the US since the 70s is due to the combined force of declining wages, sky-rocketing housing costs, and sharp cut-backs in government support for the poor.


SO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS THAT IN THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES WE DID A FAR BETTER JOB OF DEALING WITH THE HOMELESS ISSUE, INTERESTING VIEW PLEASE TELL US MORE

In the fifties, homelessness was extremely rare in the United States. But don't judge the housing situation by the US. It's an aberation. The US itself is an aberation. The rest of the world isn't like us.

To see what happens when a million and a half homeless Brazilians get organized, check out the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil:

English: http://www.mstbrazil.org/

Portuguese: http://www.mst.org.br/

Yes, it's also quite important to remember that it is largely a myth that people started to develop social problems in the late 60s. My dad graduated high school in '43 and he explained how they all started to smoke and drink when they were 13 or 14 in Nebraska, and he was telling me about how violent kids were back then compared to our mild suburban experience, and the child abuse and ranchers shooting each other etc. Have you ever read books about the barbary coast in San Francisco?
There were tons of people with problems and flaws running around before 1969, but they all found rooms to stay in, but now the people in the tenderloin are paying above $550 and often much higher for their SROs.

Also, homelessness wasn't that high in the 70s, and people actually were doing a heck of a lot more drugs back then. Drug use declined all during the 80s, exactly when homelessness went up (I've been trying to figure this out, any ideas? http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/druguse/ )

This is also interesting. Usually socialists selling papers with lots of highlighted text and capital letters are the ones talking about things like this, but here USA Today slipped an article in about global economic slowdown, and msnbc had it as their hotmail sidebar link. http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2005-04-06-world-bank-usat_x.htm
So is anyone thinking about this? Michael Jackson