> Actually, this isn't exactly true. Before I knew much about anarchism, my
> main contact with anti-capitalist culture was, as Chuck0 has mentioned,
> through the US punk scene. When the LA Riots happened, the long-running
> leftist punk journal, Maximum Rock-n-Roll, carried an issue of photosfrom
> the riots, and actually did document scenes of white, crusty punk rioters
> in the thick of it, ripping up cars and such (kind of funny in
> retrospect, and it did reek of the kind of tokenism justly assailed on
> the list recently). The Cincinnati riots also did prompt a fast
> mobilization by the mostly white ARA of the area.
Amen.
> Yes, the anarchist movement in the US is mostly anglo, as is most of the
> anti-corporate globalization movement. The insinuations that this stems
> from something instrinsically racist in left-libertarian thought are,
> however, absurd. Historically, as even you have conceded, the anarchist
> movement developed most fully in Latin nations - Spain, Italy, Mexico,
> on the periphery of white European capitalism. In these peripheral areas
> where anarchism developed, the peoples were regarded as "swarthy" or
> Mediterranean and just downright inferior by the
> eugenics-influenced whites of the time. The well-known anarchist figures
> from that era - Sacco and Vanzetti, Ricardo Flores Magon, Praxedis G
> Guerrero, Enrique Magon, buttressed the commonly held idea that anarchism
> was an "immigrant's" philosophy, a dangerous foreigner idea that
> threatened Americanism.
The idea that anarchism is inherently racist is illogical as suggesting that socialism is inherently racist.
> Fast forward to today, and despite thriving anarchist movements in other
> parts of the world, represented by groups such as Nigeria's Awareness
> League (see Sam Mbah's African Anarchism, See Sharp Press), or Cuban
> anarchists in exile (see Cuban Anarchism, also See Sharp Press), and esp.
> in S. America (interview with prominent Argentinean anarchist theorist
> Osvaldo Bayer at http://flag.blackened.net/ias/10bayer.htm )
There are also developing anarchist movements in the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia. I've been working alot lately with an anarchist in the Philippines and routinely exchange emails with anarchists in Southeast Asia.
>>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. It's the non-anarchist crowds who are left
>>holding the bag. The boy who was killed in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani,
>>was not a member of the black bloc.
>
>
> What you say is true (I share this criticism of black blocs, that they
> often parasitically use the mass of the protest as a springboard for their
> own unaccountable activites) - except for the absurd insinuation that
> black blocs
> caused Guiliani's death. Guiliani was killed by violent Italian cops, not
> black boc'ers.
Brian is mostly wrong here. There may be situations where a black bloc did use a protest as cover for activities, but most of the black blocs I know about and have participated in, not only worked with other activists, but engaged in activities on our own, away from other activists. This was the case with the A16 black bloc, the Inauguration black bloc, and the black bloc in Seattle during the WTO.
I'm disappointed that Brian uses the language of the liberals by saying that the black bloc engages in unaccountable activities. The people in a black bloc have a right to organize themselves and conduct their actions, just like any other group at these major demos. You will never hear this charge used against DAN, Ruckus, or other factions, because it is simply an anti-anarchist smear.
Chuck0
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