I don't see A16 as a defeat at all. True, we didn't shut down the IMF/WB meetings, but that was only one of our goals. In fact, the other side not only blinked, they cheated! They brought in most of the delegates early in the morning, before our 6 am rendezvous time. The delegates who got up late had all kinds of problems getting to the meeting. They had to try various ruses to get in. When the police tried to get buses through, they were turned back several times, but eventually got buses through several of our weak points, including one that I should have warned the scenario group about (I understand the political/security psychogeography of downtown very well).
The city had to shut down 90 blocks in order for the World Bank to have its meeting. This being in the capital of the world's "sole remaining superpower." Not bad for a rag tag band of young hippies. ;-)
They also gave the government workers "liberal leave," which was a victory we hadn't even been looking for. We had the media's undivided attention for several days and were able to get more Americans to think about the IMF/WB and affiliated financial institutions. The state even had to resort to outright political repression to slow us down, which was unsuccessful.
Yes, the cops arrested a bunch of us on Monday, but that was a rather awful morning weatherwise. We also hadn't anticipated how tired many of us would be after Sunday. Consider that the black bloc marched around downtown D.C. for 10 HOURS. Even though the cops clamped down on Monday, the rest of the day was rather festive and turned out better than many of us had anticipated, given the weather. In retrospect, we should have spent more time on planning A17, or just limited ourselves to 1 day of actions. Seattle was the result of 9 MONTHS of planning. A16 was the result of 3 months.
I know alot of people were pissed about the closing of the Convergence space. Bu tactically, the cops waited too long before they closed it. The closing of the space on Saturday morning was a setback to those folks who arrived in town that day and it caused us to cancel important trainings. But most of the people who were coming to town knew were the actions were taking place on Sunday. They couldn't move the World Bank and IMF buildings.
In retrospect, I should have trusted my feelings of deja vu. I didn't find out until after A17 that Ramsey had been involved in the harassment of our anarchist convention back in 1996. At least I had warned the Welcome Center coordinator before the raid to have copies of all important information stored offsite. We did manage to get the registration book out the door during the raid. I think one of the positive effects of the Convergence raid is that the younger and newer activists will listen to us movement veterans when we talk about security culture.
Did the police crush us tactically on A16? No. We had the advantage all day on A16 and they know it. Our advantage relied heavily on us having lots of people, both on the barricades and in the black bloc. I've been warning the anarchists not to draw the wrong conclusions from our successful black bloc. I've reminded them that we had the freedom to operate because most of the direct action people tied the cops down with the perimeter blockade. The blockaders also relied on the black bloc for support and to keep the cops off balance. It was a rather interesting form of mutual aid.
We were also better organized than most mass protests in the past. We had bike messengers who scouted the streets and provided crucial information to everybody, including the black bloc. We also had a walkie talkie system. These comms are the reason why the black bloc swung around from the Southeast quadrant to the East side (14th and New York). We were told that the blockade was weak on the east side, so we marched down K Street and eventually built barricades at 14th and New York. The bloc also had a police scanner and cell phones.
I was pretty encouraged by everything we did on A16 weekend. There were a few failures and problems, but overall I think we should all be optimisitic about the future.
I just love the idea that 1000s more people were radicalized that weekend. I'll take that any day of the week.
Chuck0