> Chuck0 is misinformed here. Possibly he hasn't seen us in action in
> different settings and situations. No one tactic is always correct.
> Sometimes we have organized demonstrations with permits, and sometimes we
> have engaged in more militant activities. More times than I can count,
> really.
Gee, then you are saying that I shouldn't believe my eyes? I've been to a few IAC/WWP demos over the years and I haven't see one that engaged in militant action. I've heard that IAC/WWP events in other cities are routinely described as "boring."
Yes, no one tactic is correct. But if your group uses that one tactic *all the time*, then don't be surprised if the other activists characterize your events as boring, disempowering, and "Leftist paper sales."
I stand by my criticisms here.
> As to "stifling", what on earth is he talking about? On Sept. 29, members
> of the ACC were burning flags immediately in front of the security people we
> had provided for the ANSWER march/rally. Nobody "stifled" this. When the
> ACC march was "detained" by police, rally organizers led a chant for their
> release. I'm told that ANSWER sent legal people over to where the ACC was
> blocked.
Stifling of dissent ranges from obtaining permits for public spaces that are going to be used by a variety of groups, to IAC/WWP members actively stopping activist marches from taking to the street without a permit, and so on. I think I've already outlined the IAC's friendly relationship with the police.
Lou, you've really made a big mistake by bringing up the S29 events. The IAC spent all summer trying to get the ACC to work with them. We put up with their reps at our meetings, even when they intervened to disrupt our activities. We put up with the IAC/WWP leadership who crashed meetings to which they hadn't been invited. After months of courting us, the IAC decided the week before the actions that they wanted to have nothing to do with us. They told our representatives as much.
That was fine with me and many others, who were happy to see the IAC off doing their own thing. Come the morning of S29, I was staffing the ACC Welcome Center while most of our crew was downtown for our morning march. I spent several hours directing people to not just the ACC march, but to the IAC rally at Freedom Plaza. Later in the morning I got several calls on my cellphone from folks who had been trapped by the cops in front of the World Bank as the ACC march was ending.
On the streets, several people on bikes went over to the IAC rally to get some help. I was on the cell phone back at the Welcome Center, trying to coordinate people on the outside to create a large group to de-escalate the police containment. I got in touch with the anti-capitalist crew who had just aborted our planned takeover of D.C. General Hospital (which had been planned for over two months); they were ablt quickly get downtown, only to get thrown into the pit . ;-)
At one point I talked to somebody who I thought was an IAC organizer. They said that they were going to try and help out. Later I heard that the IAC had told somebody else that they would send help in "several hours." This chant that Lou mentions is typical of the IAC's idea of solidarity. It wouldn't have taken but several dozen people to free up the ACC folks, but I think we clearly learned that day that the IAC doesn't believe in solidarity.
> The irony of all this is that after Genoa, when people were trying to
> marginalize anarchists and "direct action" forces, WWP stood up against
> dividing the movement, defending Chuck0 and his trend against Newman and his
> trend. I wrote some things about this myself. In fact people who are
> following the recent discussion on this list are twitting me about this in
> e-mails now and comparing me to the woman in the story who rescued the
> frozen snake. However, principle is principle; we were -and are- right to
> defend anarchists from such attacks, regardless of whether Chuck0 is
> appreciative of this.
There were plenty of people who wrote defenses of the black bloc and militant tactics in general. If you wrote in support, I thank you. However, I will not change my criticisms of the IAC and WWP.
> Just now I ran across this page, which is devoted to the crusade against
> direct action:
>
> http://www.carolmoore.net/sfm/marginalization.html
>
> And who gets pride of place among the evil sympathizers with the "street
> fighters"?
She has an obsession with me. If I wasn't an anarchist, I would have taken her to court for slander.
> Links to Groups Whose Leading Members/Employees Actively and Publicly
> Promote or Condone Street Fighting and May Discourage Members of Their
> Organizations from Speaking Out Against It
>
> Workers World Party http://www.workers.org
> International Action Center http://www.iacenter.org/
> http://beatbackbush.org/
>
> Doesn't seem like stifling direct action to me.
Carol is one of our local wingnuts. Not exactly a credible source, if you ask anybody around here.
She's kind of like the Reverend Phelps of Nonviolence.
Chuck0