Oscar Wilde: “Libertatis Sacra Fames”
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.
Only Our Rivers Run Free
Irish Folk Song
- When apples still grow in November
- When blossoms still bloom from each tree,
- When leaves are still green in December,
- It’s then that our land will be free.
- I wander her hills and her valleys,
- And still through my sorrow I see
- A land that has never known freedom
- And only her rivers run free.
- I drink to the death of her manhood,
- Those men who would rather have died
- Than to live in the cold chains of bondage,
- To bring back their rights were denied.
- Oh were are you now when we need you,
- What burns where the flame used to be,
- Are ye gone like the snows of last winter,
- And will only our rivers run free.
- How sweet is life but we’re crying
- How mellow the wine that were dry,
- How fragrant the rose,but it’s dying,
- How gentle the wind but it sighs.
- What good is in youth when it’s aging,
- What joy is in eyes that can’t see,
- When there’s sorrow and sunshine and flowers,
- And still only our rivers run free.
To Hell with Good Intentions
“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.
The 2008 G8 on Hokkaido, a Strategic Assessment
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2008061813531813
Bristol, Mayday, 2008
zero
The authors of this document are a collection of activists, scholars, and writers currently based in the United States and Western Europe who have gotten to know and work with each other in the movement against capitalist globalization. We’re writing this at the request of some members of No! G8 Action Japan, who asked us for a broad strategic analysis of the state of struggle as we see it, and particularly, of the role of the G8, what it represents, the dangers and opportunities that may lie hidden in the moment. It is in no sense programmatic. Mainly, it is an attempt to develop tools that we hope will be helpful for organizers, or for anyone engaged in the struggle against global capital.
I
It is our condition as human beings that we produce our lives in common.
II
Let us then try to see the world from the perspective of the planet’s commoners, taking the word in that sense: those whose most essential tradition is cooperation in the making and maintenance of human social life, yet who have had to do so under conditions of suffering and separation; deprived, ignored, devalued, divided into hierarchies, pitted against each other for our very physical survival. In one sense we are all commoners. But it’s equally true that just about everyone, at least in some ways, at some points, plays the role of the rulers—of those who expropriate, devalue and divide—or at the very least benefits from such divisions.
Obviously some do more than others. It is at the peak of this pyramid that we encounter groups like the G8. Read the rest of this entry »
RNC WC: Solidarity with the Spider Monkey
We in the RNC Welcoming Committee want to express our solidarity with the spider monkey who recently used a garden hose to scale the wall of his enclosure and escape from a Michigan City, IN, zoo. Acts of resistance like that taken by the Spider Monkey in Michigan City remind us that true liberation cannot be handed to us- we must take it, by any means necessary. For, much like our comrade the Spider Monkey, we find ourselves stuck in a fucking zoo. A zoo called “electoral politics,” and if we had a garden hose, you can bet your sweet ass we’d scale that fuckin’ wall of oppression quicker than that Stingray killed Steve Irwin. Quicker than that Tiger mauled that jerkface that was taunting her in San Francisco a few months ago. Quicker than that one Elephant trampled its keeper over in Hawaii a few years back- remember?
As we’ve said so many times before, our focus for the next few months may be on the RNC, but we hope our work transcends this two-party dog-and-pony show. After all, it’s not just dogs and ponies who get fucked over by this show. It’s also: Spider Monkeys, Bonobos, Mountain Gorillas, Tapirs, Siberian Tigers, Snow Leopards, Servals, Grizzly Bears, Black Bears, Burchell’s Zebras, Giraffes, African Elephants, Asian Elephants, Ibexes, Aardvarks, Spotted Hyenas, and the Common Wombat.
And though the Spider Monkey in Michigan City was eventually caught (next door) by the zookeepers and returned, we know that liberation remains only a garden hose away.
Zookeepers get fuckin’ smashed,
the RNC Welcoming Committee
An ode to the folks in black
We dressed all in black, so that we could be free to act as individuals;
We covered our faces, so that we could be seen for who we truly are;
We carried spray cans and bricks, so that we could finally tell our side of the story;
and We organized, so that we could be strong and win!
On the food riots
If you didn’t already know, there have been riots over rising food costs and shortages of staple foods over the past few weeks. If this is a shock to you, it is probably because it has been largely ignored in the media. I am by no means an expert on what is going on, so I’ll include excerpts of two articles, one in AlterNet by Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute, and an interview on Democracy Now! of Raj Patal, author of Stuffed and Starved.
Mittal:
World food prices rose by 39 percent in the last year. Rice alone rose to a 19-year high in March — an increase of 50 per cent in two weeks alone — while the real price of wheat has hit a 28-year high.
As a result, food riots erupted in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. For the 3 billion people in the world who subsist on $2 a day or less, the leap in food prices is a killer. They spend a majority of their income on food, and when the price goes up, they can’t afford to feed themselves or their families.
Analysts have pointed to some obvious causes, such as increased demand from China and India, whose economies are booming. Rising fuel and fertilizer costs, increased use of bio-fuels and climate change have all played a part.
But less obvious causes have also had a profound effect on food prices.
Over the last few decades, the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have used their leverage to impose devastating policies on developing countries. By requiring countries to open up their agriculture market to giant multinational companies, by insisting that countries dismantle their marketing boards and by persuading them to specialize in exportable cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, cotton and even flowers, they have driven the poorest countries into a downward spiral.
In the last thirty years, developing countries that used to be self-sufficient in food have turned into large food importers. Dismantling of marketing boards that kept commodities in a rolling stock to be released in event of a bad harvest, thus protecting both producers and consumers against sharp rises or drops in prices, has further worsened the situation.
Patal:
For a start, there were just bad harvests last year. Some people say that this is a sign that climate change is biting in agricultural economies. And it’s certainly the case that there was some very bad weather, particularly in Australia, last year. So there’s a low level of crops available.
But on top of that, there are a few other factors. One of them, one of the issues, is that governments, particularly the US government, is very keen on biofuels. Biofuels are fuels that are derived from corn, from sugar cane, and they’re being presented as a way of achieving energy independence. The trouble is, of course, that the biofuels drive up the price of these commodities, which means that poor people can’t afford them anymore.
On top of that, you’ve got an increasing demand for meat in developing countries. And as people get richer in those countries and they shift to something that looks more like an American diet, you have a situation where the grains are being diverted away from poor people and into livestock. So, again, that’s driving up the price of grains.
And finally, I think one of the major issues is, of course, the price of oil. I mean, one of the problems with the way our food reaches us today is that it is industrial, it is very fossil fuel-intensive, not just to the distance the food travels, but also in the fertilizer. You know, fossil fuel is required to produce fertilizer, pesticide, these sorts of things. And so, when the price of oil is over $100 a barrel, that combines with all the other factors to make a perfect storm where food prices are absolutely beyond the means of the poorest people.
My general ideological, academic, and personal understanding of these events is really no more than that something big is in the works. The present is a product of the past, and a number of ill-considered policies in the past may be starting to catch up to us. I see basically three things going on:
1) Good food is being wasted or diverted into other projects. This is obvious; as Americans we probably waste nearly as much food as we actually consume. Policies are in place to protect us from disease, but they also have the unintended effect of keeping consumable and safe food from those who need it. The experience of Food Not Bombs underscores the paradox of these policies. Even “socially responsible” stores like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods and most restaurants often throw out fresh foods at the end of the day–this is day-old, perfectly eatable bread or bagels–and on top of that, lock their dumpsters. Police also scope out dumpsters and make sure no one is “stealing” food. Imagine that! Society is so protective of its own waste that it cannot permit others in need to use it for sustenance. Food Not Bombs and other groups seek to reclaim wasted food and use that to feed the hungry, but they still face constant harassment from police and governments who strangely enough would rather see good food rot in a landfill than feed humans. Yet our obsession with waste and cleanliness reaches a point of hypocrisy when you consider just how terrible the conditions actually are in which food is processed and prepared–the cockroach and mice problem at UW’s Memorial Union is enough evidence of that, or the “quota” of cigarette butts and rat feces that is allowed into some foodstuffs.
Additionally, a lot of food now is being diverted from the hungry and poor and towards more profitable endeavors: mainly the production of biofuels and the production of meat. Both of these are renowned for their inefficiency; basically, the amount of energy put into their production is greater than the actual payoff. In the case of biofuels, the amount of gasoline and power used to convert grains and sugars into ethanol is considerably more than the actual gasoline and electricity saved by using ethanol. The only reason it is even considered is the political pandering of politicians to rural votes and to agricorps. But this diversion creates demand, which raises the price of foodstuffs, mainly grain and sugarcane, and additionally raises fuel costs, further raising the cost of food (by raising the cost of transporting food).
Meat is seen as an important part of diets outside of the United States and Europe, where synthetic food production isn’t an advanced, and meat becomes the main source of protein for many. But to produce beef in the commercial market requires intensive use of grains in the raising of cattle: the amount of food consumed in the production of beef is far greater than the volume of food obtained from slaughtered cattle.
2) Thus far, economic and food aid problems have contributed more to poverty and hunger than they have helped. Paternalistic policies like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and imperialistic, opportunistic organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO), have reduced the access that the poor have to the land. Subsistence farming is being stomped out in favor of large commercial agriculture. USAID and the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) have resulted in crop dumping, where Western governments subsidize domestic agricultural production destined for export; using economic and political pressure, they force down tariffs and trade barriers; and then, using the economic might of the large GNP countries, undersell subsistence and small farmers.
Additionally, the economic power of agricorps like Monsanto, local corruption, and trade pacts like the WTO’s Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement have–amazingly enough–copyrighted ancient seed varieties. This has forced small farmers to stop the sustainable and responsible agricultural practices they are used to, instead leaving no other option but to use non-reproducing, un-saveable “terminator” seeds and extensive amounts of fertilizers. Very recently, this has led to deep debts for farmers, especially in India and Southeast Asia, where farmers have taken to committing suicide with those same fertilizers.
Other trade pacts have served to force farmers off their land. NAFTA required that Mexico revise Article 27 of their Constitution, which previously granted agrarian rights. The use of ejidos, or communal land holdings, was eliminated in many parts of the country. And the Drug War is often used as justification to further remove peasants and small farmers from their land. The IMF and World Bank’s predatory loaning practices has advanced this in other parts of the world, through conditions for loans, through incurred debts, and then, finally, through austerity measures intended to alleviate and repay those debts. The greatest irony is that, after small tracts of land are taken from peasants and small farmers and agglomerated into large estates, much of the land goes unused; but attempts at reoccupying the land are thwarted with violence from paramilitaries, police, and army units.
Just like with the example of dumpsters mentioned above, the rich and full-of-stomach use their economic, political, and sometimes military might to prevent and further hamper the ability of the poor and hungry to access food and grow their own food. After leaving the land, often the only choice left, the only alternative to starvation, is work in sweatshops–this also seeks to drive global wages further down, further prohibiting cheap access to food.
3) It should be painfully obvious to all by now the poverty of the “free market” and capitalism as a whole. It simply is incapable of distributing goods efficiently and equally. What we are studying today is the result of neoliberal policies designed to redistribute wealth and resources upward. We have reached the breaking point where the global poor have nothing more to hand to the wealthy. Now it is their turn. At risk of being ideological, this is the time when the people of the world will take back what is theirs, if it is not willingly given to them.
Activists, academics, opportunists, and politicians will surely use the food riots as justification for their own platforms, linking genuine outrage and spontaneous rebellion to their own objectives. There will be articles in newspapers using this to make the case for state socialism. Others will use these inconvenient riots to promote their fight against global warming. Still others will use it to promote their anarchist and ecological agendas. I of course am guilty of seeing food scarcity as support for my own ideas. But I would also recommend that we treat it only as it is, and nothing more. It is part of something greater, to be sure, but we cannot run the risk of placing ourselves in the vanguard of global uprising, attempting to use this widespread suffering to advance our own goals. It is part of something larger, as of yet still misunderstood, which I hope will be clear in time. There is a transformation taking place in the South which the North will be incapable of harnessing. We should not challenge it, but seek to understand the causes in our own lives in the US and look for ways to act in solidarity.
Recommended additional reading
Raj Patal, “Stuffed and Starved: the Hidden Battle for the World Food System”
Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”
Ha-Joon Chang, “Reclaiming Development: An Economic Policy Handbook for Activists and Policymakers”
¡Pedro Machuca vive!
“A cause worth fighting for is a cause worth dying for.”
Taking a class on Latin American history is a daily reminder: it is a reminder of what it is we’re fighting for and against. But more importantly, it serves as a reminder of who we, as anarchists and anti-authoritarians, are. We are the constant thorn in the ass of oppression and exploitation. However, because of this, we are not the vanguard any movement or struggle. But, as history has shown us, we are often in the vanguard of the firing squads. There is ample evidence of this: the Bolsheviks killed the anarchists before they confronted the capitalists; the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City in 1968; Brad Will in Oaxaca; and the inspiration for this article, the coup led by Pinochet, where thousands were murdered. As we bend over backwards to blindly mourn our own 9-11, we forget the 9-11 that our comrades and compañeros suffered.
A problem within the comforts of the University is that we do not take seriously ourselves as activists and agitators. With all the privilege we have, we do little to take advantage of it–instead, we are worried more about protecting that privilege than doing what is right. Activism for us is not vocation, something we come home to, but a hobby, an after-school club we go to when we aren’t occupied with more important things. Our destinies are laid out for us: moderate and live, or fight and die. This is not a choice many of us are comfortable making, but it is destiny, it is reality.
As Americans we are pathologically uncomfortable with reality. We suffocate ourselves with tabloids, fiction, and façades. We choose to whitewash our world rather than deal with what truly is. We paint over graffiti; we accept without a second thought the greenwashing of corporations; we categorically believe the lies of our leaders. We refuse to accept that anything worth fighting for could possibly be achieved, at risk of undermining our own complacency within this fake Hollywood set we try to live on. We look at other challenges to this global system through paternalistic binoculars: we emphasize the oppression suffered by others in the South alongside the color of their skin, without listening to what they are fighting for–we assign a different struggle to them to avoid comprehending the poverty of our world.
As I sit in a lecture hall in Madison after watching Machuca, there is a barrage of comments pitying the protagonist of the story, justifying his betrayal of his friend, otherizing and externalizing the story away from their own life. At the end of the discussion section, we abandon Pedro Machuca, and we abandon the tragedy of Chile.
Or at least we try. Can we really escape the legacy of fascism, just as Gonzalo Infante escaped the población? As much as we try to avoid it and deny it, we are just as capable of repeating 1973. We pattern ourselves a better bourgeoisie, we are less devisive. But do we not treat the poor with the same disdain? Do us “good” liberals not look down upon the rural poor of Northern Wisconsin and the urban poor of Milwaukee from atop Bascom Hill? We are capable of committing such atrocity. And that ability should be a reminder to those of us who fight out of convenience: if we do not fight like hell now, we won’t be able to fight when they come for us later.
Belachao
Una mañana, de sol radiante
oh Belachao, belachao
belachao, chao chao
una mañana, de sol radiante
tendré en mis manos al opresor.
belachao, chao chao
con el martillo y con la hoz.
Y sí yo muero en el combate
Oh belachao, belachao
belachao, chao chao
y si yo muero en el combate
toma en tus manos mi fusil.
Soy anarquista toda la vida
Oh belachao, belachao
Belachao, chao chao.
soy anarquista toda la vida
y anarquista he de morir.
ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE – September 1-4
This weekend was the Midwest Regional RNC Consulta. I won’t go into a lot of detail (partly because a lot is internal discussion, in the planning stages, or somewhat secret), but many good things came out of the discussions. In someways, large projects like the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 and the upcoming RNC convention protests in Minneapolis are more about creating the structures necessary to protest these things, than to actually protest them.
QUEERS BASH BACK!
Possibly the most promising and exciting thing emerging is Bash Back! Bash Back! has taken many forms the past few years, but only just recently was it formally organized. The first consulta was last weekend, April 5, in Chicago. The main goal is to create an organizing structure for radical queer- and transfolk (and their allies) to resist and work towards shutting down the DNC and RNC this summer. From the conversations we had this weekend, it sounds like a lot of awesome things are being planned, from subversive work at the corporate Pride Fests in Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago (mainly the commodification by sexist and heterosexist corporations and organizations–mainly Stonewall Democrats and Log Cabin Republicans and the financial exclusion of poorer queer, trans, lgbt and “- of color” communities), to large-scale, radical direct action at the RNC.
The first show of the strength and potential of Bash Back! since the Chicago convergence can be seen in the Take Back the Night Rally. Participants in the Midwest Regional Consulta formed a pink bloc to join the planned Take Back the Night events. Unfortunately, we missed the group at the Capitol, but caught up with them on Langdon. The TBTN people did a fabulous job organizing, and my comments should in no way be seen as a criticism of what they did. The TBTN organizers obtained a permit to march on the sidewalks, and when we met up with them, that’s where they were. However, the pink bloc members thought that to assert and stand up for our rights as LGBTQQetc, and oppose heteronormality, we would take the streets without permission or permit. After all, it only makes sense to chant “WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!” when you take complete control of traffic lanes, on your own terms. We finally joined the TBTN march, and all of us together marched down the middle of Langdon. I can’t speak for the others, and only have heard comments from other RNC participants, but for me at least it was incredibly empowering. We took over the street, and there was nothing police or anyone else could do about it!
That isn’t to say that there weren’t problems with it. We made some mistakes, we did some things which made others feel uncomfortable, and we didn’t organize or educate as well as we could have. Those things have been brought up internally, and I won’t waste much more space here with an itemization of problems.
RNC
The upcoming Republican National Convention is really exciting for us. First, we’ve been planning this for some time, and it’s really, really tight. The Welcoming Committee has done a terrific job, and deserve all the credit in the world for their work so far. Much care has been taken to separate actions by time OR location, to minimize spill-over effects from actions (mainly, police using direct actions to repress peaceful protest). So, actions are divided into red, yellow, and green zones (or fluffy, furry and funky), and there are three tiers of action allotted, depending on how each progresses. The intent is to completely shut down the RNC, and prevent the corronation of McCain as King of the Republican Party. It would force the Party to select McCain without the theatrical participation of the delegates.
Most importantly, though, are the institutions that will be created. Seattle gave us IndyMedia and other projects and tools, like affinity organization, and history will tell us what the RNC’s contribution to anti-authoritarian work will be. But looking ahead 4 1/2 months, the future is so promising, so hopeful, that we cannot lose.
Another world is possible, and that world begins September 1.
See you in the streets of Minneapolis!
From Behind the Orange Curtain 