> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Michael Feldman <JonathanMFeldman at hotmail.com>
> To: marxist at egroups.com <marxist at egroups.com>
> Date: Monday, January 08, 2001 8:22 AM
> Subject: [marxist] Streetfighting Redux
>
> >On the other hand Piven and Cloward have a theory about
> >disruption (in Poor Peoples Movements) which is far more
> >plausable...as opposed to "street fighting." Yet, Gary Marx's
> >sociological studies of infiltration suggest that certain tactics
> >lend themselves to agent provocateurs.
> >
> >It is interesting to read Todd Gitlin's account in The Whole World is
> >Watching. Disruption seems to reflect a scarcity of resources, but Gitlin
> >does not seem to explain an alternative media strategy for The New Left,
> >although acknowledging the alternative in Michael T. Klare's university
> >organizing approach...on SDS campuses.
> >
> >We read about "anarchists" in The New York Times who were active in
> Seattle,
> >but we don't see any resemblance to the "anarchists" that
> >Noam Chomsky has written about in The New American Mandarins, or the
> >anarchism of the Mondragon model. New York Times anarchism seems to
> >be about creating jobs for companies that repair broken windows. In
> >contrast...Did everybody see the article in The New York Times Week in
> >Review section? About the cyberspoofs? Well it was hilarious! The Yes
> Men,
> >they were called...posing as members of the World Trade Organization! This
> >is the wave of the future, not broken glass.
Broken glass has it's place in the pantheon of protest tactics. Dismissing it out of hand demonstrates the tunnel vision that has made the Left so ineffective over the past few decades. Where I'm sitting politically, that broken glass in Seattle had many benefits.
The anarchists that were mentioned in the NYT are the same anarchists that Chomsky writes about and the ones at Mondragon. Perhaps if this writer had done some more research he wouldn't be dishing out ignorant generalizations. The "Seattle anarchists", including the infamous contingent from Eugene, are engaged in quite a few practical projects when they aren't giving the state a hard time. The Eugene anarchists have set up housing co-ops, several cooperative businesses, and have reclaimed a few streets. They certainly aren't a bunch of one note hooligans.
Chuck0