Peter
>I was a bit surprised to see Richard Esposito use a piece I
wrote for
>the Left Business Observer in 1996 in his strangely cop-friendly
take
>on the World Economic Forum demos in New York ["Law of the
Fist,"
><http://villagevoice.com/issues/0204/esposito.php> January 29].
>Esposito seemed to confuse my critique of author David
Korten-the MBA
>who did a stint with the U.S. Agency for International
>Development-with my critique of the founder and funder of the
>International Forum on Globalization, former sweatshop magnate
Doug
>Tompkins. My point in highlighting the elite and business
connections
>of Korten and Tompkins was to criticize them for not being
militant
>enough, and for leading discontented activists along a path of
>fantasy and compromise. I didn't bring them up to promote any
faux
>working-class sympathy for cops.
>
>My feeling is that most of the violence at these headline demos
over
>the last few years has come from the police. Smashing a window
now
>and then is hardly serious violence in my book, but smashing the
>heads of demonstrators is, and there's been a lot of it.
>
>Apologias for cops joined to smears against anarchists-who
follow an
>honorable political tradition, even if it isn't mine-aren't
things I
>expect to read in The Village Voice. I guess that's why I don't
read
>the Voice much anymore.
>
>Doug Henwood
>Manhattan