> I think Chris Doss' comment about Black Blocs versus the Wermacht is not
> as useless or off track as you seem to believe. The question can be
> re-phrased: how do anarchists who agree with your understanding of what
> anarchism means propose to deal with the very real power of states to
> destroy on a vast scale?
This is a very broad question, but it is more fair than drinking questions about the Wehrmacht. How exactly do we go up against the United States military, which is the primary machine of death around the world? It's obvious that multiple strategies need to be employed and it should be understood that defeating the American Pentagon-Industrial complex will take more than specifically targeting the standard anti-war targets. We need multiple movements that think big and we need American dissidents to get off their asses and stop making excuses.
One thing that needs to happen is an abandonment of tactics which don't work and marginalization of organizations like ANSWER which sabotage the movement and exist as a tremendous political liability.
Last night I was visiting a veteran anarchist here in Kansas City who has an incredible archive of underground materials. He showed me a stack of this underground publication from 1970-71-72 called "The Liberated Guardian." I was browsing randomly through the issues and came across an interesting editorial about the anti-war movement. This editorial criticized the repeated anti-war marches being held in Washington, DC. It correctly pointed out that these national mobilizations where symbolic and useless, but more importantly, that they sapped resources from local activists who could be doing more to resist the war machine at home. This was circa 1971-72, but the critique could be made today, especially about the ineffectual protests organized by ANSWER. The more things change, the more they remain the same. What stuck me is that our movements are filled with people who are ignorant about activist history, which creates a situation where organizations like ANSWER can cyncially manipulate anti-war activists in order to serve their own goals.
Marches on Washington can have their purpose, but they should only really happen every 2-3 years, at most. Nobody pays attention to the pointless, symbolic anti-war marches in Washington these days. George Bush and his cronies don't listen. The Democrats don't listen. The public doesn't listen. So why in the hell do anti-war activists continue to attend these protests? Because they are stupid hippies?
But the fact is that many people against the war are doing other stuff. There is more anti-war activism happening locally. People are sabotaging stuff, doing agit-prop campaigns, educating people, starting groups, and so on. But these people aren't getting the support from the people who should be supporting them. Like the progressives who write articles after article about the Democrats. Or the progressives who showered money on electoral politics and got a pro-war candidate out of it.
The tactics used will have to escalate. Local groups will need to take protests to local defense contractors, like Black and Veatch here in Kansas City. There will need to be more anti-military recruitment campigns on campuses in high schools, like that incident last week where military recruiters were kicked off campus.
Organized labor needs to start sabotaging the war effort. The economy of the U.S. could be shut down in three weeks by a general strike targeting the shipyards in Los Angeles and Baltimore, as well as the railyards in Kansas City. Moderan capitalism relies on just-in-time shipping, so a few well-targeted actions could really wake up the militarists.
We also need to do more outreach to military people, especially those serving in Iraq. This was what helped end the Vietnam War: GI coffeehouses and officers being fragged.
The answers are out there. But ANSWER is not the answer. ;-)
Chuck Munson