A good piece by Manny, but the suggestion that the protests are united is pretty flimsy. As many people know, most of the activists are not very thrilled about the presence of the IAC/ANSWER organization and their continuous underhanded and devious tactics. I'm learning new stuff daily about their activities in relation to this protest. ANSWER (which is a front group for the Workers World Party) has engaged in several misrepresentations about their relationship with other groups organizing the protests. There may be cooperation at this point, but when ANSWER claimed that there was cooperation several weeks ago, they were lying.
Richard Becker, one of the members of WWP's central committee, continues to manipulate the more moderate protesters into organizing the most lame, nonconfrontational protests imaginable. The Mobilization for Global Justice was going to march around downtown and visit various corporate targets. I was told that Rob Weissman and others had some great info about the various targets which would have been read at each stop. It looks like this idea has been abandoned in favor of a police-controlled march that will go nowhere interesting. Once again, when you play the permit game, you get burned by the police.
Becker and ANSWER are big proponents of the permitted protest. Last night, at a scenario meeting, he launched into an attack on the Anti-Capitalist Convergence for not using "their lawyers" or "getting permits" at last year's S29 protests. The ACC does not believe in getting protest permits or getting permission from the cops to exercise our basic human rights. We believe in fighting for and asserting our rights on the streets, not on our knee in the courts. Perhaps this is a paradigm that Becker doesn't understand, but this is a good example of how WWP/IAC/ANSWER operate to tame dissent on the American left.
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"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)