>Black Bloc actions are one tactic among many, adopted not with a view to
>communication or the creation of 'spectacle', but because of the
>concrete effects it has on participants. No-one thinks Black Blocs alone
>will bring down capitalism, but they do have a particular value in
>anti-capitalist struggle.
Well, maybe they could study human behavior a little better. The things they say they do that are superior to other types of protest? That there's no central comm. planning it all, that they provide a space and allow peole to do what they will.... Those things are rituals, no less than what takes place at the events they denounce. Both approaches build the same kind of solidarity and have the same salutary _and_ deleterious affects on participants.
The claim they make about it being more democratic and all about expressing yourself? This is funny. When it comes to the sociology of power, research points to the fact that the anarchist approach to 'organizing' is probably the most effective way to get people to act in unison, toe the line, whatever you want to call it. And, most importantly, it binds them to the ideology of anarchism more strongly than were the approach more centralized.
I'm sorry, but the notion that there is more control going on supposedly 'authoritarian' demos is utterly absurd and completely fails to understand what researchers understand very well about human behavior in groups, organizations, and crowds. And you'd think this stuff would be important to an anarchist who needs to hsave some way of explaining how things *get done* in an anarchist-based society. We know how it works, the research, the theories, etc. it's all there, there to bolster their argument. But one thing they'd realize if they really read the material? It's bogus to suggest that, somehow, you're less cookie-cutter, more individual, more free under anarchist approaches to oranizing a demo.
When I read the communiques Ian forwarded I about wet myself laughing at how much they sounded like some boring sectarian marxists that some people complain about here.
And the topper?
the close:
"Don't Wait for Instructions, Don't Ask for Permission Resist the System! Free your Desires and Take Action Now Realize your Dreams and Destroy the Capitalist Nightmare!"
Now, if that's not a recipe for a rather authoritarian social order, I don't know what is.
And these people complain about the 60s hippies? heh.
kelley
and jeeze fookin' louis. i'm putting together some editing samples and notice how many times the ex-exploiter freakin' capitalizes everything and anything and how I spend a lot more time than necessary, if he'd just have stopped capitlizing like the capitol city of fuckwits! It's _marketing writing for pity's sake, the influence of marketing writers on everything and anything. Just capitalize it~!
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin