|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: joanna bujes
|| So the acid test for me is 1) what happens to the largely middle class
|| IMF/war protesters ...coming up in New York and Washington and 2) what
|| happens in the continuing saga of the looting of all public
|| goods and of
|| the impovrishment of the middle class in the United States.
||
|| As an example, note what happened to raisethefist.com (from a
|| subsequent post):
||
The RTF bust was straight out of Terry Gilliam; the only thing mising was the hole in the ceiling. It was, however, clearly a preventive rounding up of the usual suspects such as has been in force since Genoa, as a part of a full spectrum of police and intelligence activities. The black bloc is one of the main targets if not the top target. The goal is to prevent any manifestation of popular antiglobo opposition. Under the dictatorship of capital, such things are to be expected and do not indicate in and of themselves the presence of fascism. Don't make the same mistake the '68 protesters made when they called the state fascist. All NATO countries are pooling intelligence and coordinating police actions against antiglobo activists. A similar arrest could have taken place just as well in the UK or Germany, where the governments are nominally social democrat. Sherman is right; the antiglobo movement has gotten capitalism's attention, and that's why it's being repressed rather violently, but repression is not fascism.
In a fascist state, or in a country with a fascist movement, black bloc'ers would be denounced by responsible citizens, hunted by fascist vigilantes/militia, demonized by state or party propaganda, etc.
Hakki