Green Scare - Reflections in Green and Black

... that i don't know where to begin. I will agree that the mainstream press made a media circus out of Eugene and it's proimitivist anarchist scene. But ths article throws the baby out with the bathwater, and tries to change history as if the radical insurrectionist anarchist trend (which includes but is not limited to Primitivists and people form Eugene) was not a major part fo the mix that made Seattle years ago, what it was.

"It made the anarchists feel more powerful and important than they really are/were to the
struggle in Seattle and elsewhere. It also provided a tool in beginning the dismantlement of a movement that had the potential to shift the power relations in the ecotopian bioregion and possibly spread beyond." The anarchist presence (in many different forms) was widespead. I would say that anarchism was the largerst tendency in the "Battle of Seattle" from the decentralized but coordinated blockades to the masked activists breaking the windows of large multinational captialist businesses tha have the brand-names that make up "free trade" as we know it and the modus vivendi for the WTO's existence and eveyroen in between. One should not forget that about half the unionists who showed up joined the anarchist organized blockades, and i bet but could never prove that a few of the people breaking windows were workers.
The purpose of this piece seems to be to discredit militant direct action at a time when it is so needed, and to discredit with the back of his hand people who do some of it. As someone who has read both Timber Wars and John Zerzan's writings, and actually has talked to both of them (and disagreed with both of them at times), i find their ideas more similar than different. They both believe that the environment is the most important stuggle to be had. They both believe that small-scale direct action will make a difference. I believe that you need to have millions of people acting in as many different ways as they can think of to save the earth and people and to create a better more freer world.

There is seldom serious critical analysis offered on this website. Some very good and important news stories from the struggle, but we need not shy away from being real, from looking inwards, from realizing that growing and transforming, as many of the green scare defendants themselves have done over the years since their incendiary activities is nothing to be ashamed of, in fact it is a critical part of resistance...especially in creating a resistance that can win.

I know that some Union members joined in the barricades in Seattle, but this again begs the question of what is needed in order to win. And please don't assume that the vast majority of people in the Battle of Seattle were/are anarchists, this is just not true.

We so often talk about the fight. Asking ourselves and others, "Are we willing to do what it takes?" This is often posed as a question of whether or not we are willing to engage in whatever is perceived to be the most radical tactic be it arson or armed struggle. Less frequently asked is the question, "What do we need to do to win?" Of course this begs the question of what winning means, defining parameters, deepening understanding of what the struggle in fact is all about.

In my critique of radical environmentalism morphing into the current global justice movement, I did not solely focus on "young idealists", I also mentioned people like John Zerzan, Judi Bari and others who were/are by no means young. I think that any one of us at any age can choose to be led by our passions or by our intuitive animal brain. Let me stress here that in my mind these are not mutually exclusive, and they certainly are not simply dictated by ones age.

Creating a dynamic movement of social transformation must encorporate many aspects of our beings, but it cannot be fueled simply by a dire sense of what is to be done...this can lead as easily to Leninism as is can to actions of earth liberation.

My main point of analysis has to do with building revolutionary infrastructure which includes maintaining forums like indymedia, counter-spaces, organizing and participating in mass mobilizations, childcare, food shelves, prisoner support, and also creating structures of accountability to eachother as individuals and collective structures where we can look at internalized oppression, white paternalism, class outposts in our heads. All of this analysis can help us to go deeper, take the next steps in figuring out what we need to do to win.

We have to be willing to look at how easily we are manipulated. How we are led through the Weather Underground Looking Glass. How often our tactics and subcultures are not as much of our choosing as we would like to think.

Doing what it takes could include building cells that don't take direct action, but who build, educate, network, link different struggles, weaving them together in an organic and perhaps less than visible way. Doing what it takes might include taking off the black bloc uniform and taking a year or more to dig deep into a neighborhood, getting to know what the issues are, talking with eachother about how to get those things that people want. Doing what it takes might mean creating structures that are multi-level, that include an above ground wing, a middle wing of 'uninvolved', 'apolitical' people who are not on anyones watch list but who have things like cars, cell phones, houses, apartments, infrastructure in other words, and a below ground network that can take a critical look at what, if any, direct actions can move the whole thing forward. Doing what it takes could take decades, even generations as it has in many of the countries of Central and South America that we are so inspired by right now, who are engulfed in flames, but not random fires, carefully placed and executed fires that move us all forward, fires that are coordinated with teachers unions, student unions, agricultural organizations.

Doing what it takes might envolve taking a good step backwards, taking a long sober look at where we are right now and dedicating our lives to winning. Winning is no longer about being right or righteous, it is about our very survival, the air we breath, the ocean in our veins.

I have been involved in direct action for decades, occupations, street barricades and more. I am by no means stating that militant tactics are not absolutely necessary when they are coordinated and part of a broader movement. But let me repeat myself, 'militant tactics do not a revolutionary strategy make."