there are two distinct options: either work toward some degree of unity, in which case the means by which boundaries are established and decided has to be examined more thoroughly than it seems to have been (and all those who call for unity have not, IMO, been willing to be honest about the particular means and methods of doing so, preferring to leave it to the corporate media -- or apparently self-evident assertions -- to set the framework of the permissible); or, enact a diversity that, however difficult it may be for those used to aspiring to, or claiming, leadership by fait accompli, is _not_ a preordained pluralism nor an 'everything goes' position. by that, i mean that there are no rules or guidelines laid down that are supposed to apply to anyone who was not privy to those decisions, and nor does it mean we have to tolerate groups or tactics we find abhorrent.
i'm not fixated upon particular tactics or organisational methods, they each have their limitations and place. but i will say that those actions i've been where we argued every night over what to do and how in mass meetings that included everyone were really only ever useful for the various tendencies to spiel their lines to an imprisoned audience in the hope of winning more recruits or in order to present the doctrinal purity of one group viz another. they were sect-fests posing as actions.
otoh, those actions that i've been a part of that did not submit each and every action to the judgement of everyone turned out to be much more dynamic, actually were a lot more effective in doing the limited things they set out to do (stop X from happening), people 'voted with their feet' when it came to deciding which actions to join, and the various tendencies still got to try to convince others that their politics were the best ones, but they were forced to do so by example and not that well-honed rhetoric they learn at party-school or in huddled meetings. there were numerous things that various people did or tried to do that most of those present objected to, myself included. but at no stage did anyone, to their credit, play out these disputes in the media*, and at no stage did anyone call on the cops to cart away the potentially dangerous nutters (and there were a few wandering around who did in fact pose a real threat to the safety of others, none of whom bear any resemblance to the disciplined and thoughtful actions of the black bloc, imo.)
what this means is that unity and representation -- if by that we take it to mean a sense of political direction and perspective on tactics, etc -- emerges from _within and through_ movement, and not outside of or 'above' it. it does so through debates leading up to, during and after, which is why the J18 pamphlet was so important, as i hope the forthcoming one on the anti-wto will be.
* the somewhat constant claim that trashing 'makes us look bad' in the media really has to be taken apart a little: a) we surely have sufficient media and means of communication of our own with which to present ourselves and conduct debates (at least to a limited audience, but certainly larger and of wider scope than at any other time in history); b) there's no reason to assume a liberal spectatorship simply because of a liberal media presentation; and there's certainly no reason to assume that the specific tactic of 'non-violent civil disobedience', relying as it does on an image of a 'good victim' and expected moral outrage at the behaviour of the cops, is going to impress anyone other than those who might still manage to be shocked by police violence; c) i don't beleive for a moment that many of those people who have denounced 'the violence of the black bloc' loudest really are dogmatic non-violence adherents. it's all about who controls the action and is seen to represent it.
an afterthought, but related... no doubt about it: various groups (in particular groups who have a largely passive membership) see this as a renewal of 'civil society', a new corporatism bolstered in its play by the threat of a more implacable force. but, the key to whether or not the various constituents accept or not the various representatives (and this may well mean even in the limited sense of rank and file acceptance of the current AFL-CIO exec) seems to me to be always premised on whether or not such a corporatism can deliver. then again, it may well be that the accent of various positions already implies a recognition that not much at all can be delivered, hence the resort to foreigner-bashing -- that in fact i think is about all the Dems can deliver, social democratic and left liberal fantasies being not only utopian, but downright ill-equipped to distance themselves from such a manoeuvering. what's more than apparent is that, here, it's the 'eugene anarchists' who are being singled out for attention as the outer limit of 'the movement' and as the threat to an imputed unity, _not the buchananites_. that is not the case elsewhere: for instance, in the paris demo, an anti-racist group physically removed an anti-immigrant group from the rally and podium.
Angela _________