ANSWER, cops, breakaways

Chuck0 chuck at mutualaid.org
Fri Feb 7 09:20:03 PST 2003


DoreneFC at aol.com wrote:


> I am also amused by WWP's apparent line.Do you all think this is "we
> want to smash capitalism, but please don't do it during permitted
> rallies" or "we're so worried about our police files we don't want to
> endorse ..." or something else?

Ahhh! A good question that just isn't getting asked in movement circles. Why is it that groups run by the WWP avoid illegal actions and confrontation at all costs?

There are probably many answers to that question, such as the interest of the parent organization to not have its financial resources drained by legal costs. I think there are several reasons for this phenemonon. One has to do with notions developed by American activists about protests. Some of this has to do with the false mythology about how the Vietnam War was halted. Another factor is the belief that confrontation and militant actions alienate working class people (the opposite is usually true). I think the most important reason has to do with the goals of the parent organization. The WWP is not interested in stopping the war, capitalism or whatever. Their main goal is to recruit new members, build street cred for their leaders, and increase their influence in activist circles. If they were truly interested in stopping the war, they would have developed a strategy relying on a combination of tactics that would include civil disobedience and militant confrontation.

See, the style of protest practiced by the WWP and its front groups is the same thing preferred by other sectarian groups. My friends and I call this "passiveisim," to mock the sectarians who think that their permitted activities are a form of civil disobedience. Permitted rallies and marches are low risk events that look good in pictures and enable the sponsoring organization to put its leaders on the stage and its propaganda machine to hawk newspapers. Of course, the ineffectiveness of these actions have to be denied, often with dumb comparisons to Vietnam protests, or patronizing alarmist bullshit about the need for safe space for women, children, old people, and illegal immigrants.

But I'm sure this is old news for most of you...

Chuck0

------------------------------------------------------------ Personal homepage -> http://chuck.mahost.org/ Infoshop.org -> http://www.infoshop.org/ MutualAid.org -> http://www.mutualaid.org/ Alternative Press Review -> http://www.altpr.org/ Practical Anarchy Online -> http://www.practicalanarchy.org/ Anarchy: AJODA -> http://www.anarchymag.org/

"The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free..." ---Utah Phillips



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