>
> Here is a pre-copy-edited version of the Seattle Weekly
> "Impolitics" column for Dec. 9, 1999. This may be used as a
> regular story rather than a column due to our section of WTO
> post-mortems, and there was no column last week, also
> because of special WTO coverage. If anyone is interested in
> seeing WTO stories that I have written outside of the
> Impolitics columns, contact me at
> gparrish at seattleweekly.com.
>
> If you know of others who might be interested in receiving
> these columns, pass it on!
>
> Peace, love, & sabotage,
>
> Geov Parrish
>
>
>
> Possible pull quote:
>
> The Eugene anarchists' actions were a calculated attack not
> on the corporate state, but on the resistance to it.
>
> On "Violence" and "Anarchists"
>
> I know the folks who transformed a remarkable, peaceful show
> of power against the WTO into a media-characterized "riot."
> At least some of the vandals and looters who took advantage
> of the cover of the most significant mass direct action in
> Seattle history were from the group of Eugene anarchists I
> went down and interviewed for the Weekly last summer. Their
> spokesperson, anarchist author and theoretician John Zerzan,
> and I have kept in touch since then. We published two of
> their essays in our WTO issue, and we were to meet during
> the WTO. We didn't. If we had, I would have spit in his
> face. Consider this the written equivalent, and I hope he
> reads it.
>
> There was an agreement in place between the loosely-knit
> group of West Coast anarchists that organized for the WTO,
> and the Direct Action Network, to respect the nonviolence
> code downtown during the day of November 30. I don't
> consider property destruction violent in and of itself--I
> consider property violent, actually--but most of America
> does, and the nonviolence code agreed to by participants in
> the November 30 direct action reflected that. It was a
> protest that, with exposure to the totalitarian nature of
> the WTO and transnational corporate rule, a broad cross-
> section of our society could support.
>
> Obviously, our Eugene friends intentionally disrespected
> their agreement. That makes them liars, and it makes their
> word for any future political alliance less than
> meaningless. All sides calculated, correctly, that even the
> breaking of a few windows would overpower months' worth of
> organizing work and the concerted efforts of thousands of
> people in the media, and public, eye.
>
> The anarchists' enemy here was not the state, nor corporate
> America. Those windows cost a few bucks; the expenses will
> be picked up by insurance companies. The real damage was
> done to the integrity of an action that was successful
> enough to shut down the most powerful organization on Earth.
> That reality was lost in the overreaction to property
> damage. However unfairly, and to whatever degree it exposes
> an ugly truth--to most people, it doesn't--America cares
> more about property than it does about democracy in action.
> The Eugene anarchists' actions were a calculated attack not
> on the corporate state, but on the resistance to it.
>
> For 25 years, I have considered myself an anarchist. I
> believe in the power of self-government because it speaks to
> the best in people, because it is the only practical path to
> a non-exploitative world, and because mutual aid kicks ass.
> The direct action that shut down the WTO was the genuine
> anarchism in action last Tuesday. The glass-breaking and
> graffiti was, however unwittingly, abetting the state.
>
> In the face of this attack, there were some heroes. One
> story I heard was of Peace Action's Fred Miller, who, along
> with his daughter, held up a banner to protect the windows
> of NikeTown against the predations of the anarchists'
> hammers. Fred wasn't protecting NikeTown--or more
> accurately, their insurance company--he was protecting the
> integrity of thousands of dissidents' hard work. Despite the
> efforts of Fred, and the overwhelming majority of protesters
> who deplored the vandalism, a few thugs carried the day.
>
> In the future, in our trainings and preparations for such
> actions, we will unfortunately have to learn to do more of
> that. We will have to learn to protect ourselves and our
> actions from being hijacked by small gangs of cowards who
> won't take risks, who can't organize their own revolution,
> and so find themselves--much like the sectarian left they
> despise--using other peoples' work for their purposes.
>
> It's bad enough having to confront the awesome power of the
> police state. That was brought down in nearly full ugly
> force for the rest of the week not because of the vandalism,
> which largely hadn't happened when the first tear gas flew
> at 6th and Union at 10:05 AM, but because thousands were
> nonviolently effective. But the public approved of police
> tactics--pepper-spraying people on the ground, shooting
> fleeing protesters in the back with rubber bullets, and
> denying constitutinal rights to freedoms of speech and
> assembly--thanks to our "anarchist" enemies. That was the
> true violence of the week, not the shattered glass.
>
> Let's be clear. These aren't anarchists, and they are
> certainly not interested in building their movement. A true
> anarchist--as with the Seattle General Strike of 1919--works
> through mutual aid, not through taking their most likely
> compatriots, some of whom also self-identify as anarchists,
> and kicking them in the teeth. That's the state's job, and
> the Eugene clique helped out admirably. A few minutes of
> glass-breaking was far more effective than months of police
> infiltration would have been. Sad, but true. Now, the
> question: how do we deal with it in the future?
>
> Possibly the most significant mass action I'll ever see was
> a lot less effective in its global message than it could
> have been thanks to a few dozen people who hate global
> capitalism. Well, here's a big news flash: a lot of us do.
> But the revolution, the movement to reclaim our humanity
> that for at least a day kept the leadership of the global
> corporate state cowering in their hotel rooms, didn't and
> doesn't need these vitality-sucking Oregon parasites. It's
> not the property destruction we resent--it's the deliberate
> sabotaging of our work. To John Zerzan, Brenton Gicker, and
> all you other little punks in the Eugene clique, and their
> cohorts, fuck you. Fuck everything you stand for. And stay
> the fuck away from our revolution.
>
>
>
>
______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com