We were stopped by Pottawattamie Co., Iowa, sheriffs late last night on our way home, in by far the sketchiest traffic stop I have ever personally witnessed. Everything turned out OK, but it served as a reminder to me, and hopefully to all of you, of the importance of knowing your legal rights and practicing talking to law enforcement agents… one more excuse to keep it in the back of our minds at least. A lot of us are becoming sloppier with security culture, and with DNC/RNC coming up and probably lots of rad direct action being done in the next year for DSP and other campaigns, it is invaluable to know what to do when stopped by police. Midnight Special Law Collective has a good guide to dealing with police (http://www.midnightspecial.net/materials/dealingwithpolice.html), and I encourage local USAS groups to organize “Know your rights” workshops with the ACLU, NLG, or other similar groups in your area.
The 3 most important things you should take away from this experience are:
*NEVER CONSENT TO A SEARCH. EVER.
*Remember the magic words: “Am I being detained, or am I free to go now?”
*Cops operate on fear and intimidation, and use our lack of knowledge of the law to obtain information about ourselves or others we normally wouldn’t give them. And all the practice in the world doesn’t help much when you’re in the cop car and being grilled.
So what happened… I was driving through Iowa on I-80, around 1:30 am. Pottawattamie County is just on the Iowa side of Omaha. I was going about 75 in a 70 zone. I saw a sheriff’s deputy parked on the shoulder, so I slowed down and moved over a lane. I saw the car pull out and follow me for a few minutes, then speed up until he was behind me and put on his lights. From the time I passed him until I got pulled over, I was doing exactly the speed limit. When he got out of his car, he didn’t come to my window, but to the rear passenger’s window, where xxx was sitting. He proceeded to ask for all of our IDs. This should have been the first sign of things to come: by going to that window, I wasn’t in a position to talk to the officer about why I was pulled over, and he had strategic power to get me out of the car and isolate us. Additionally, I’m not sure xxx and xxx needed to give their ID, but in this case I don’t think it did much harm.
I was asked to step out of my car and stand between my car and his, supposedly so he could talk to me about why he pulled me over (he could have talked to me at my window, drivers must give a lane of space for emergency vehicles pulled over, and this was satisfactory when I’ve been stopped in the past). I initially assumed I would be field tested for drunk driving; I clearly wasn’t drunk and assumed it was just routine. Really, what he wanted was to interrogate me away from the other two. He asked where I was going, I told him the truth: Madison. He asked where I was coming from: I said Boulder. Why was I there? I was visiting some friends and I had some family in the area (in Denver and Co. Springs). I didn’t see the need to talk about being at a labor conference, and thought my answer would be satisfactory considering I assumed it would be a traffic stop/citation.
I was told I was going a little fast, and that he would just be giving me a warning. He asked me to sit in the passenger’s side of the squad car. I’m not sure if this was necessary to comply with on my part, since I clearly was not being detained (warning). While I was in the car, he ran all three IDs through the computer, as he told me it was to make sure there weren’t any outstanding warrants, which I assured him there were not. He told me “it looked like you were goin’ about 75 back there, but then you saw me and hit the brakes, because I only clocked you at 67 or 68.” Remember, the speed limit was 70 (and don’t we all hit the brakes when we see cops?) He asked me more questions; he asked if there were any narcotics in the car, and there weren’t. He then asked me a bunch of kinda bullshit questions, like where are you from, what I did in school, etc. I think this was partly to keep me a little on edge, but also to get me prepped so he could catch me off guard later. He also asked me about xxx’s immigration status (citizen), since he has a weird Dutch name, and about my Russ Feingold for Senate 2004 bumper sticker. After all the IDs cleared, he told me he was going to return the IDs to the other guys. LIE. I realized he had me in the squad car so, like before, he could interrogate them without me hearing. Obviously, I could give them their own IDs back after I got my warning.
He came back, and asked me about the conference. Shit, they had mentioned it. I clarified that I went to see friends I knew through USAS. Then he started grilling me about drugs. This is more or less how the conversation went: “Do you have any narcotics in your vehicle?” “No, sir.” “Would you mind if I searched your trunk?” What? “I’d rather you didn’t.” “Are you sure you don’t have any drugs in your car? Even just a little marijuana?” “No, and I won’t consent to a search.” (Always say, I DO NOT CONSENT TO A SEARCH, if you just say yes or no, either way they may use it as consent to search) “Why not? You shouldn’t mind if I search if you have nothing to hide.” “I don’t have anything illegal in my car, but I do not consent.” “So if I bring the dogs out, they won’t find anything?” “No sir.” “Honestly, if you just had a pipe, I could care less.” I don’t own one. “You don’t have any hard drugs or hallucinogens?” “No sir, I do not. I’ve had friends mess up their lives with drugs.” “So, you’re not going to let me search?” “Look, sir, I know my rights, I know you don’t have probable cause or reasonable suspicion, and I’ve told you I won’t consent to a search.” Without reasonable suspicion or probable cause, it’s very unlikely he could get a search warrant or bring out a K-9 unit, and without consent he has not other way to search. Then he said, “I guess if you know you’re rights, then you’ll want to go?” Out of options. “Yes I do! Are you going to give me a written warning now?” “No, have a good night.” And I walked back to my car and drove off. So I was more or less pulled over because he thought I might be running drugs across the corn belt in my little Toyota.
The moral of the story is, never ever ever give consent for a search, and be very clear that you in fact do NOT give consent. There is never any legal repercussion for refusing to give consent; they may search you anyway, but typically anything they find will be inadmissible in court. Had I given consent, I realized later, there wasn’t anything illegal in the car, but there was political material throughout the car (maps of St. Paul for the RNC, lit from groups targeted by the green scare, and contact info for USASers and other activists), and sensitive material on laptops and in notebooks. All of this could have been potentially harmful for other people, or could have linked myself to “illegal” activities. Maybe not, but why risk it? I also should have asked earlier on if I was being detained. So, I’ll repeat it again: never give consent for a search! And if you are being interrogated, never lie — instead, ask “Am I being detained, or may I go?” or choose to remain silent and ask to see a lawyer.
Familiarize yourself with the law, and practice various scenarios. I had been to workshops before, and in the past week have been putting together “Dealing with police” info for folks going to the RNC, and even still, I didn’t feel in control, and didn’t handle the situation as well as I could have. So I hope this was a welcome and friendly reminder to all of you to become more familiar with how to deal with police situations, like the one above or in activist contexts.
Much love and solidarity
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Where is Bono to save us? Communiqué from the Save the Children Collective
To the native and immigrant peoples of Northern America
To the peoples and governments of the world
To the international press
To rockstars and celebrities on this planet and other heavenly bodies
From the Southern shore of Lake Mendota, the Save the Children Collective (the recent merger of the historic Cow Pie Collective and Cheese Curd Coop) demands that Bono and all other celebrity activists attend the upcoming Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN, September 1-4.
President Bush is expected to address the RNC on September 1 — Labor Day — and presidential candidate John McCain is likely to be confirmed as that party’s choice candidate on the final day. Roughly two thousand delegates are expected, with another 40,000 attendees, families, and impartial journalists trampling St. Paul and Minneapolis like a herd of elephants like they have trampled over the economies and cultures of the world. But clearly, this is not sufficient for the perfect execution of the corporate orgy in the Xcel Center; 65,000 delegates — including 5,000 black-clad, scary anarchists — representing the people of the territory known as the United States have also been invited to the convention center, for a newly-invented polling procedure to be unveiled and carried out in the streets surrounding the capitalist cuddle puddle in the Xcel Center.
On the ballot are:
militaristic imperialism in Afganistan, Iraq, Palestine, Colombia, and Mexico;
aggression against the sovereign territories of Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan;
corrupt lending practices by corporate banks in this country, and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank globally;
militarization of our black and latino neighborhoods, racial profiling, police brutality, and inequalities in our prison system;
slow and negligent disaster responses in New Orleans, the Midwest, and throughout the world;
raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and local law enforcement which divide our communities and go against our family values;
attacks against unions and our basic rights to organize, and exploitation of labor world-wide;
violent attacks against our queer and trans friends, and the complicity or participation by police;
the continual rape of our environment, and disregard for our endangered animal friends;
deprivation of basic land rights, and rights to healthy food;
the endangerment of human life and the health of our Earth through denial of global warming;
raids and attacks against global and domestic activist communities under the guise of the Green Scare and the War on Terror;
and generally, patriarchy, heteronormativity, sexism, transphobia, racism, fascism, capitalism, jingoism, classism, and all other forms of domination and oppression which exist in our daily lives and the lives of people around the world.
But, without messianic figures, who have gained celebrity through the power of transcendent vocals or compelling film roles, our movements simply lack direction and leadership, and the wisdom to know what is best for impoverished and oppressed victims of imperialism and neoliberalism around the world. This should come as no surprise, because, as anarchists, we lack a corporatist, hierarchical organizational structure, and any sort of leadership or organization would go against our very nature. Without a Bono, or a Geldof, or a Sean Penn, we simply cannot be hip. Try as we might with our snazzy all-black get-ups, or our pink and blue spandex, it simply is not enough.
At this point, 26 days away from the convention, we would even settle for a Barack Obama appearance. His message of hope and change makes us teary-eyed, and believe that, by voting for him, and leaving our future solely in his hands with no further action on our part, yes we can! change the world.
In the 200 years of this occupied territory’s history — and that of modern anarchism too, we should add — there is one thing we have learned, above all others. It is that people cannot take their personal liberation into their own hands, and must depend on a savior to be freed. The 8-hour work day, women’s suffrage, the end of slavery, and the overthrow of Jim Crow were, of course, granted to us through the goodwill of the State and corporations, not through any effort or sacrifice on the part of common people. As we fight for human and animal liberation, an end to domination and exploitation, and ecological health and sustainability, our own individual and community resistance will be fruitless, as long as we lack a celebrity to personally profit off of the campaign, and guide us in the correct direction.
Therefore, the Save the Children Collective, and all other oppressed peoples around the planet, call on Bono and Obama to step forward and deliver us to salvation.
In love, anarchy, and mad riffs,
B3t0, October, and Zooropa
Save the Children Collective
savethechildrencollective@gmail.com
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See the following articles for a more comprehensive review of what happened. Police and much of the corporate media consider the driver to be the victim, without wasting time gathering eyewitness reports.
http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/last_nights_critical_mass_melee (with longer non-cyclist witness reports)
http://seattlest.com/2008/07/26/media_no_one_is_safe_from_rampaging.php
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/372364_criticalmass27.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008075512_reading27.html
As an avid cyclist and occasional Critical Masser, I can attest to the cyclists’ view that the driver was the aggressor. Just this summer, we have had a car bump the back tires of massers, and finally run over a guy’s bike (the driver was in a Prius, no less). One car went into oncoming traffic to pass us, then stopped and feigned backing up into us. Others honk, swear, and engage in dangerous driving just to get around us. Critical Mass asserts cyclists’ rights to be safe on the road, but also challenges American drivers’ ill-perceived sense of entitlement to drive, and to drive fast.
The right to be safe is always in danger when biking alone or in small groups, which is why Critical Masses are so important — it’s safety in numbers, and when a driver hits one of us and drives off, there are more to make sure he is stopped.
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The immigration movement has reached somewhat of a stand-still: Republicans will not barge on amnesty, and seem content with flooding our senses with increasingly Orwellian and dehumanizing terms like “illegals” and “anchor babies”; and Democrats, since 2006, have lacked the spine to take any sort of positive action to protect immigrants living within our borders. Furthermore, all discourse has been completely void of any mention of economic, social, political, and cultural conditions in home countries which breed the necessity of emigration.
Ever-worsening conditions
Two wonderful documentaries — Documigrante and Voice of a Mountain — were screened over the weekend in Madison, Wis., which show conditions in Guatemala, and follow immigrants to the United States. In 1954, democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown by a U.S.-led coup d’etat, at the behest of the powerful United Fruit Company, which had on its Board of Directors the U.S. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen, the head of the CIA. Following the coup, Guatemala was plagued with several decades of a brutal dictatorship and harsh repression against indigenous peasants, who make up the large majority of the country’s population.
Peasants and communities were stripped of land, which was given, or “sold,” to large multinationals like the United Fruit Company. U.S. foreign policy unanimously supported UFC’s agenda and the dictatorship, up until the mid-1980’s. A guerrilla army formed to counter the government, and Guatemala was hurled into civil war. Peace accords were signed in 1996, promising land ownership and additional economic security, but these were broken promises. During the Civil War, 450 indigenous rural communities were destroyed, and over 1 million Guatemalans were displaced, with many fleeing to southern Mexico and the United States. Truth Commission reports have found a deliberate governmental policy of genocide against the indigenous. Despite the return to free elections, peasants lack basic social services like health care and education, and they continue to lose land, their chance at subsistence.
Some communities, like Santa Anita (which is featured in both documentaries), have fared better than others. Santa Anita has formed a partnership with Madison-based Just Coffee, a fair trade coffee distributor. But it is also trapped in debt, and struggles to even pay off the interest of its loans. And it is impossible for the whole country to follow this path. Often, the only solution is to travel to the U.S. to look for work, either to provide for the family there, or send remittances back to relatives in Guatemala.
But Guatemala is not unique
Unfortunately, what has happened in Guatemala is the rule, rather than the exception, in Latin America. With the help of the CIA, but sometimes independently, most countries have spent much of the past 50 years in dictatorships. Even borders have not provided security, as operations have extended internationally to track down and jail or kill dissidents (most notably, Operation Condor, which even led to an assassination of a Chilean politician in Washington, D.C.). Economic policies coming from NAFTA and the IMF have only exacerbated the problems, by stripping land from peasants and small farmers, privatizing or eliminating access to social services (health care, social security, education… and even clean water), further militarizing police against protest and dissent, and further degrading working conditions in factories.
If unpermitted immigration is indeed a problem for the U.S., it is a problem exclusively of our own doing. With the barrier to legal entry so high, it should not be surprising that many find other ways into the country. Even a tourist visa is cost-prohibitive for many middle class Latin Americans, but entering on this type of visa (or on a student visa) is one of the most popular ways of entering without permission. It is often ignored that many from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean are undocumented — several of the detained Postville workers were from Israel and the Ukrain — and these groups cannot just walk across a border; instead, they come legally and stay longer than they are allowed to.
If we are to reduce unpermitted immigration (for it simply cannot be eliminated, nor would we want it to be), we need to take a diagnostic approach to the problem. Treating the symptom is not enough, we cannot seal the border or deport millions of immigrants and expect the problem to be solved; we need to look at the social virus that leads to emigration and immigration, and begin taking responsibility for unleashing it upon the world. The danger that many in Mexico and Central Americans go through to come here — days without food or water in the desert, train-hopping, dealing with coyotes — is clearly desirable compared to what they are fleeing.
Preventing another Postville
We should not expect any meaningful action on immigration reform before Obama or McCain are inaugurated in January, nor is there any reason to believe that things will be sufficiently different during the next presidential term.
Protests and rallies like the one in Postville this past Sunday show that many Americans do favor a more compassionate approach to immigration, but it really does little to free the nearly 400 workers still detained and those forced to wear ankle monitoring bracelets. Nor does it guarantee that another raid will happen in the near future. There was very little discussion about what steps should be taken in the future, and indeed this is a question which has received scant attention.
As in most civil rights and human rights struggles, it will probably take the arrest of many allies and supporters (since unpermitted immigrants cannot risk arrest) before things can change. We have reached a juncture where a nationally organized campaign of direct action and civil disobedience is absolutely imperative.
Such a strategy would be two-fold, with direct action and civil disobedience organized separately (as they fill separate roles), but strategically united, with neither condemning the other. A diversity of tactics and approaches is always necessary, but tactically it would follow two main paths. Currently, churches and religious institutions have played a critical role in the movement, and have established a consensus on the moral argument surrounding immigration.
Civil Disobedience. This is the more pacific or tame part of this strategy, but nonetheless necessary. Because of the moral argument built by the religious community, this is most effectively carried out by religious leaders, but is appropriate for labor leaders, immigrant leaders, students, or just about anyone else. Such a strategy can involve sit ins at government offices or outside detention centers, or locking oneself to the gates of jails where immigrants are being held. It is non-confrontational and non-violent in all interpretations; it is “going to jail for justice.”
Direct Action. This is a more radical approach, creating creative space for those who can risk more. It is beyond the symbolic strategy of civil disobedience: it physically confronts raids, detentions, and deportations, and the structural conditions which breed hatred for immigrants and minorities and their exploitation. It is also strictly non-violent, in that it refutes aggression, the injury of living things, and the destruction of personal and community property. But in its very nature, it is an ideology of self-defense, physically defending our relatives, friends, and neighbors from physical, social, and economic harm.
In simpler terms, what this means is real-time civil disobedience, targeted to prevent raids, detentions, and deportations from being carried out, even as these actions are initiated. This can mean human and material blockades of homes and businesses where large raids or smaller arrests are happening; blocking streets or surrounding ICE or local police vehicles to prevent officials from transporting arrested individuals to detention facilities. Activists engaging in direct action tactics may also choose to be detained alongside unpermitted immigrants; refusing to show identification, giving false immigration status, and speaking only Spanish or another language will force ICE and local law enforcement agencies to process U.S.-born and naturalized citizens as unpermitted immigrants, and will slow down and confuse ICE’s ability to process detained immigrants and carry out basic institutional tasks.
Next steps
Such a strategy will require coordination on several levels: nationally, among the various organizations already fighting for immigrant rights; regionally, so that activists can respond quickly and provide bodies for actions; and locally, among churches, NGOs, activists, and most importantly, immigrants. All Americans should fight on behalf of immigrants, since they are a part of our communities; but taking part in actions may place them in jeopardy of deportation — and since our main focus is to prevent the unnecessary fracturing of our families and communities, the rest of us with less to lose should take up more of the burden when we can. But throughout this process, because they do have so much to lose, both through action and inaction, we must be very cognizant of their best interest; thus it is critical that we be in constant contact with the immigrant community.
Developing ties of solidarity and communication with immigrants, especially unpermitted or undocumented immigrants, is necessary for rapid responses to raids and detentions. But it can also mitigate the culture of fear that is pervasive in immigrant enclaves. Often, crime and exploitation goes unreported because the victims are afraid of their status coming into question; this allows employers like Agriprocessors to exploit workers, short workers on overtime and normal wages, demand long hours, provide inadequate working conditions, and prevent unionization or informal hiring. We cannot hope to achieve total protection and always keep ICE out of our communities; but by standing up and defending our neighbors, friends, and family, we can hope to create safe space for those individuals to also stand up for themselves and demand justice where there currently is none.
That is one thing which the Postville rally did achieve. While news coverage highlighted that many of the attendees were from out of town, given the small population, the turnout gave people from Postville their own voice. By lending our solidarity and bodies in coordination with immigrants provides greater security so that they may clamor for justice and respect and demand an end to abuse and exploitation.
If you have any interest in helping coordinate such a project nationally or developing an additional call for direct action to stop the raids, email betinho@riseup.net.
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http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gPTbcw3PrMnPkSg3Pd2IYYetk-MwD926ONUG0
By HENRY C. JACKSON
POSTVILLE, Iowa (AP) — As the chants of 1,000 or so people roared near the center of town, Dave Hartley stood on the periphery wearing a look of wonder and bemusement.
The 50-year-old Postville resident said he never expected this sleepy community of about 2,200 to become a flashpoint in the debate over immigration. As a three-hour protest concluded just blocks from his house, he spoke regretfully about what the town had become.
“It’s not their fault,” he said of the protesters. “It just didn’t need to get to this, to a boiling point.”
With chants of “End the raids!” and “Si se puede!” — or “Yes, we can!” — hundreds of immigration protesters brought a national debate to this isolated corner of northeastern Iowa. The protests came in response to a May raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant, the largest enforcement effort in U.S. history.
Busloads of protesters from the Twin Cities and Chicago as well as hundreds of others from around the region rallied as residents sat on their lawns and gaped. Organizers said there were more than 1,000 people participating.
Protesters walked, stomped and chanted on a route about a mile long. The rally started at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, winding its way through town and pausing near the driveway of Agriprocessors.
“This is an awesome moment, a historic moment,” said Sister Mary McCauley of St. Bridget’s. “We’re calling for reform, not raids.”
The May 12 raid at Agriprocessors — the nation’s biggest kosher meatpacking plant — resulted in 389 arrests. Most of those arrested were Guatemalan and Mexican nationals who lived in Postville and the surrounding area.
Sunday’s protesters included hundreds of Hispanics but had a diverse collection of ages, races and genders. Elderly white women marched next to young Hispanic men and Jewish men from Minneapolis and Chicago. They clutched banners and signs like one that read, “United for immigrant and worker rights.”
The protesters circled the streets of Postville before returning to the center of town. They passed a much smaller group of anti-immigration protesters along the way, outshouting them during their march.
One of them was Claire Jamison, who said she’d traveled from Minneapolis to protest the protesters. She wore a hat emblazoned with a U.S. Border Patrol logo and held up a sign reading “What would Jesus do? Obey the law” as she shouted across the street.
“I’m just so fed up as an American. We have laws. Why can’t they obey our laws?” Jamison said. “I empathize with those people, but they are not victims. They should not have even been here.”
Apart from a few moments of cross-shouting, Sunday’s protests remained orderly. Local police formed a perimeter around the march, separating anti-immigration protesters from marchers.
The march ended with a rally outside St. Bridget’s, before a heavy rain storm forced the crowd to disband.
Getzel Rubashkin, an Agriprocessors employee and a member of the family that owns it, said it was unfair to blame his family and Agriprocessors for the raid and theorized that unspecified competitors and enemies of the plant were behind the enforcement action.
The reaction from Postville residents appeared largely supportive. Cindy Moser, 53, from nearby Elkader, said her daughter and son-in-law were marching while she watched her two grandchildren.
“If they want to come and work here I say fine,” Moser said. “We all saw the effect of this. My grandson, he told me, ‘Grandma, they took my friends away.’ I hope this stops.”
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The full + original version of Naomi Klein’s speech is here.
Stimulator writes:
Naomi Klein’s speech at the National Conference for Media reform was not included on the conference website. subMedia contacted Free Press, the organizer or the conference, to ask why Klein’s speech could not be found online, and the person explained that Free Press is a non-profit organization and that I should reefer to the disclaimer on their website which reads:
“Despite our best efforts, we feel that some of our speakers encroached on electoral space during their remarks at the National Conference for Media Reform. It is not in our interest to disseminate these recordings. We are reviewing all of our video content and will add that which we determine to be free of electoral statements to this page.”
I don’t quite understand how these things work, but whatever. Two sources have told me the reason Free Press did not include the speech was Klein’s criticism of Barack Obama. It would be pretty fuckin lame if it were true.
She is so completely spot on. “Power yields nothing without a demand,” or so says Frederick Douglass. By blindly supporting Obama (and giving him money) without placing demands upon him, we have signalled that he has our unconditional support, no matter how his policies shift. As Klein points out, DEMOCRATS RECEIVE MORE MONEY FROM THE WEAPONS INDUSTRY THAN REPUBLICANS! And Obama, despite his claims, is receiving large contributions from corporations who are hardly progressive in their outlooks. What this means is this: Obama knows he has the support of the left locked up, so he is free to shift further and further right and renege on his original promises.
This is further empowered by the willingness of supporters to excuse and apologize for all of these policy changes and political sliding. And we are beginning to see the same logic of the past two elections: “A vote for [insert 3rd party candidate] is a vote for McCain.” This continues to lock up unchallenging, undemanding support for Obama without forcing him to stay true to his progressive promises. It also enslaves voters into the continuing 2-party system, and prevents them from lending support and legitimacy to a candidate who truly represents their interests, instead submitting to the interests of elites. Want to vote for someone who supports Palestinian right to return, or an end to the embargo of Cuba, or the immediate end to the war? Tough shit, you might as well be voting for McCain, who is guaranteed to be worse.
Supporting (or threatening to support) a 3rd candidate makes Obama work for your vote–he has to slide left to capture those critical votes, instead of feeling entitled to the left’s support. This demonstrates the poverty of the “lesser evil” mentality: it in fact creates a greater evil out of that “lesser evil,” and it explains why the Democratic Party has slowly shifted right with each election, and consequently lost each, despite the massive discontent with the Republicans. Instead of whining about Nader “stealing” (which implies a sense of entitlement and deserving) votes, they should have made a real effort to appeal to those voters, instead of appeasing the corporate donors who supported each party.
I will also agree with Klein that this doesn’t mean we should boycott elections or vote for Nader or McKinney. What should be clear, however, is that much work needs to be done to steer Obama in the direction we need him to go, by building a mass, militant movement to hold him accountable to us.
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Albeit nurtured in democracy,
And liking best that state republican
Where every man is Kinglike and no man
Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see,
Spite of this modern fret for Liberty,
Better the rule of One, whom all obey,
Than to let clamorous demagogues betray
Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.
Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane
Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street
For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign
Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade,
Save Treason and the dagger of her trade,
And Murder with his silent bloody feet.
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“Next to money and guns, the third largest North American export is the U.S. idealist, who turns up in every theater of the world: the teacher, the volunteer, the missionary, the community organizer, the economic developer, and the vacationing do-gooders. Ideally, these people define their role as service. Actually, they frequently wind up alleviating the damage done by money and weapons, or “seducing” the “underdeveloped” to the benefits of the world of affluence and achievement. Perhaps this is the moment to instead bring home to the people of the U.S. the knowledge that the way of life they have chosen simply is not alive enough to be shared.” – Ivan Illich, “To Hell With Good Intentions”
“We must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.” –Boondock Saints
We are rapidly approaching the Republican National Convention. Groups are packing community centers for public meetings, and living rooms for affinity meetings. Trainings in direct action, legal observation, and street medicine will begin shortly, if they have not already begun.
And just as we prepare, so are the city of St. Paul, the St. Paul Police, and right-wingers. Nothing to be surprised about: the city has long been trying to shut down protest in the city to keep open the orgy of corporate money, pollution, and war crimes, and the SPPD has been all too complacent in assisting in this, stocking up on tasers and other lethal weaponry. And right-wingers and military supporters (although surprisingly not vets) are talking hard about beating, jailing, and killing “extremists” and “protesters.” Such evidence can be seen in a Star Tribune article detailing STP’s propaganda campaign against protest, which includes a clear effort to dehumanize and marginalize protesters, so that–at least in the public eye–police won’t really be gassing or killing real people when they inevitably attempt to do so. Just check out the comments section, where there are clear calls for violence against protesters.
The ironic thing is that those who will be instigating the violence, destroying property and lives side by side, are not those mysterious black-clad hooligans, but rather those who continue to believe the lie that they are agents of peace: yes, the police.
But the real threat that we, the “radical” “fringe” “extremists” on the “left” face (radical: getting to the roots of the problems we face, rather than playing petty politics; fringe: operating outside of a corrupt and sick society that values money over life; extremist: extreme poverty and catastrophe merit extreme measures) is really others within the “left” as it is defined in this country. Before explaining why they contribute more towards our imminent collapse more than to its alleviation, let me talk about the protest itself.
September 1-4, the Republican National Convention will be held in St. Paul, MN. There is a three-tier, three zone strategy in place with the goal of preventing the convention itself from happening, much less the coronation of King John. The tiers represent a hierarchy of escalation, meeting primary goals then rising according to capacity and strength. The zones, meanwhile, permit a separation of time or space, to give all who are needing to protest an opportunity to do so in line with their comfort levels, without restricting the ability of others to do the same. Thus, it lets black bloc actions happen simultaneously with the peace march, while (hopefully) escaping the infighting which happened in Seattle, where protesters devote more energy to doing the jobs of the police, rather than spending that effort confronting power holders. This is part of what I will talk about later.
We have faced assault after assault over the past 8 years (well, since time immemorial, but who’s counting?). War has implicitly been declared against us–the left, the students, the poor, the women and queers, the workers and farmers–and every action taken by the current administration can be seen as an attack, an act of war. We are tired of being assaulted as such, we are tired of being jailed, starved, robbed, and injured. On September 1, we have a chance to stand up, and in the style of the Zapatistas, say “YA BASTA! Enough is enough!”
Many will show up to “protest,” to practice their “right to free speech.” We will not. We come out of self defense, both of ourselves and of our world, and of our neighbors all over this beautiful planet. The feeling of entitlement to speak freely and protest smacks of ignorance and naivety of the daily struggles of most people in our own country, who face a denial of both in their daily lives–people of all colors, women, gays, lesbians, queers, and transfolk, the poor, workers, and farmers: any of us who lack a voice in our everyday environments, who lack the freedom to be who we are in public without facing violence, who lack democracy in their jobsites. And this “right” to free speech also pivots around a faith in the Consitution, and in law and order, and in the state, which we really know are just tools to be used against us at the convenience of the holders of economic and political power in this country. Thus, we should not be so incessant about our rights as Americans, because those rights are merely carrots to lead us around the circular track of complacency. Rather, we should not be afraid to act in our own defense, and denounce those who abuse us, even from outside the bounds of their law. We should feel no remorse at confronting them in their offices, at their homes, in their streets, at their conventions, for they felt no similar remorse when they enslaved us, raped or beat us, or stole our lands and livelihoods.
This brings me to the point which I intended to make. As you can view in that same comment sections, or anywhere where there is discussion of direct action, you will encounter a holier-than-thou, morally-superior attitude amongst those Obamaniacs and self-proclaimed “progressives”, who support that false “right” to protest, but apparently will go out of their way to deride those who choose other forms of protest. We do not condone, obviously, the killing of cops or others, for they are workers too, with families. Yet we also do not expend more energy selling out those who are more radical, with the purpose of crowning ourselves heir to the left base. This is why the Democratic Party suffers the poverty and spinelessness it does now; it and its moderate supporters have been more than willing to dance with the devil, working with the real opposition to decapitate anarchists, communists, socialists, and all those who more legitimately represent their captured base. They claim to be the left, while sitting on thrones of trust funds and mansions; really, they are the bourgeoisie, opportunists and power-grabbers each and every one.
Additionally, their power-preserving doctrine has created the sins of “partisanship” and “divisiveness.” In short, they want everyone to be on the same side–that of the bourgeoisie. They know that if there are battle lines drawn, the artificial left/right divide will morph from what it is now (split over gun laws and abortion) and will become a real class division. Obviously, a united working class is dangerous (more dangerous than the currently united exploiting class).
We are expected to act civilized and as gentlemen; we have never been treated as such. We are the wretched of the earth, the filth, the producers of all wealth yet the receivers of none. Everything for everyone and nothing for ourselves. Such an outlandish suggestion is perpetuated by those same elites that claim to be our allies yet seek only our domination. The lines have already been drawn, my friends, those very same lines which we are supposed to ignore, by the bourgeoisie itself. It has declared war long ago, and it is time to respond in kind.
Most troubling is the pseudo-moral, voluntary capitulation and pacifism of the middle class. It is widely thought that allowing yourself to be brutalized, even killed, is the most effective way to bring social change. I won’t talk about this in-depth; instead I will recommend Peter Gelderloos’ “How Nonviolence Protects the State” and Ward Churchill’s (despite other controversies) “Pacifism as Pathology.” For the people who promote such an absurd idea are not the ones being beaten and jailed, but rather those already abused and exploited–allowing yourself to be victimized more will clearly not win anything. And such a strategy relies on paternalism: that powerful white males will see this and be converted, and then support them from their ivory towers and trust fund thrones. NO! Only by acting in self-defense can the exploited, the wretched gain empowerment, and even conceivably gain victory and equality. Such strategies, as employed in the past, have resulted in the whole-sale slaughter of radicals, while civil rights leaders sold out their base and delivered them to the wolves in liberals’ clothing.
In the context of this convention, no protest or display, no matter how victimizing, will convert Republicans. We are not there to convert, we are there to protect ourselves. We do not target hearts, we target bodies. This is not doublespeak for violence; we are merely physically shutting down the convention, and prohibiting business as usual. We recognize that in all actuality business will go on; but we strive for a performance that empowers others to action, that shows our strength and creates space for others to feel power over their own lives.
This manufactured fear of divisiveness and partisanship protect the rights of the elite over the rights of the rest. That delegates, war criminals and executives have the right to meet over our right to protest is elitist to the base. Perhaps it is good intentions; but as I said before, rights are not universally applied. Just as we have never had true freedom of speech, we should not be so preoccupied with protecting the supposed freedoms of our oppressors, especially when that speech results in a global genocide.
So I say, to hell with good intentions, to hell with non-partisanship and unity, for these things are myths, they are privileges which are not meant to benefit us. Let us be as divisive and anti-partisan as possible! The elites of the party are our enemies, plain and simple, for they only see us as animals to exploit and dominate. I’ll repeat, they are our ENEMIES, and should be thought of as such, for they already treat us accordingly.
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(From Soccer in Sun and Shadow, by Eduardo Galeano)
Enrique Pichon-Revière spent his entire life piercing the mysteries of human sadness and helping to crack our cages of silence.
In soccer he found an effective ally. Back in the forties, Pichon-Revière organized a team among his patients at the insane asylum. These locos were unbeatable on the fields of the Argentine littoral, and playing was their best therapy.
“Team strategy is my priority,” said the psychiatrist, who was also the team’s coach and top scorer.
Half a century later, we urban beings are all more or less crazy, even though due to space limitations nearly all of us live outside the asylum. Evicted by cars, trapped by violence, condemned to isolation, we live packed in ever closer to one another and feel ever more alone, with ever fewer meeting places and ever less time to meet.
In soccer, as in everything else, consumers are far more numerous than producers. Asphalt covers the empty lots where people used to pick up a game, and work devours our leisure time. Most people don’t play, they just watch others play on television or from stands that lie even farther from the field. Like carnival, soccer has become a mass spectator sport. But just like the carnival spectators who start dancing in the streets, in soccer there are always a few admiring fans who kick the ball every so often out of sheer joy. And not only children. For better or for worse, though the fields are as far away as they could be, friends from the neighborhood or workmates from the factory, the office or the faculty still get together to play for fun until they collapse exhausted, and then winners and losers go off together to drink and smoke and share a good meal, pleasures denied the professional athlete.
Sometimes women take part, too, and score their own goals, though in general the macho tradition keeps them exiled from these fiestas of communication.
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From Behind the Orange Curtain 