Color of Anarchism Re: Protest ISO...

[Chuck0]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> When blacks truly riot violently on their own as in Cincinnati, white 
> anarchists, many of whom relish the mystique of street battles with the 
> police, are nowhere to be found in the riot.

Right. We aren't vanguardists, so we feel no need to be at the front of the 
riot. ;-)

> White anarchists don't have enough numbers to riot by themselves 
> either.  (Also, a significant number of anarchists are pacifist 
> communitarian types, more in favor of Food Not Bombs and like activities 
> than confronting the police.)

Ever heard of something called the black bloc?

By the way, black blocs don't just consist of "white anarchists." Actually, 
black blocs have more diversity in them than your typical anarchist events.

Yes, there are many anarchists who are pacifists.

> Folks in the black bloc appear to show up at demos mainly populated by 
> others who don't share their ideology and use the crowds as cover for 
> their vandalizing, maneuvering themselves so they won't (hopefully) get 
> arrested, leaving the crowds to fend for themselves when the police 
> riot.  

Yoshie, you are just full of shit on this one. You should know better than to 
throw out a flame this lame. Black blocs use a variety of tactics and they've 
worked well with other protesters. Black blocs in Washington are a good 
example of this cooperation with other activists.

And to cite one example of when the black bloc here was doing some minor 
vandalism, it was off by itself when the cops surrounded it. We were rescued 
by a parade of liberal NOW types.

>It's the non-anarchist crowds who are left holding the bag.  

Ah, yes, the liberal whine about the black bloc. Yoshie, I thought you were a 
socialist. Why are you sounding like some WSF liberal, or some peace nazi?

>The 
> boy who was killed in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani, was not a member of the 
> black bloc.  Lots of Italians and others who went to and wrote about the 
> G8 protests were saying that the black bloc was infiltrated by the 
> police or the police masqueraded as the black bloc, though Chuck0 
> insisted that there was a real black bloc at the G8 protests also.  

The Italian police organized their own black bloc, which I maintain was done 
to create a split between the anarchists and everybody else. It worked 
beautifully. It was a transparent strategy and loads of unthinking activists 
fell for it.

And lots of anti-anarchist activists picked up on it as ammunition to 
marginalize anarchists.

Blaming anarchists for the police violence at Genoa is like blaming a woman 
for being raped. The state has always resorted to violence when the working 
class gets out of control. This is like Labor History 101.

> Whichever was the case, the black bloc (if the authentic one was in 
> Genoa then) was a minor element, though it certainly didn't help.

The black bloc in Genoa was not very big, but I will point out that there 
were lots of anarchists in Genoa who were not in the black bloc.

Chuck0

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