Yesterday I attended the Anti-captialist march in Palo Alto. Although the turnout was relatively small (400 people, I estimate), this demonstration-apparently organized by Anarchist Action- was one of the best I have attended in recent memory. I would say less than a quarter of the people there were anarchists though.
Here are the good points:
1) Clearly anti-capitalists, not just anti-war.
2) Small town, unusual venue. This had a number of interesting consequences. It made contact and discussion with spectators easier. Palo Alto does not have a riot squad, so San Jose had to send in their riot troops with horses, helicopters, the whole works (this is one of the few times I have seen police carrying rifles openly). As the SJ Police dont know the area that well, the demonstrators were able to take over a number of spaces, ie we took over the highway at a cetain moment and then marched through the Palo Alto Mall!!!
If it was a media event that you were trying to create, having a demonstration in a smaller town like this had more impact. You had all of the local press and even TV and radio like KCBS here. I am sure that having events in smaller/unusal places creates a lot more discussion of the topics.
3) More ideas got expressed because it wasnt dominated by a group. Palo Alto is just far enough from San Francisco/Oakland that the Vanguard groups did not make the trip. To their credit, Anarchist Action (which I think organized the event) made one speech and that was it. The event was not suffocated by a bunch of predictable speeches and this somehow allowed newever voices to emerge. A lot more truly diverse and interesting than your usual San Francisco/ Washington demo.
<<We are at such a point in mankind's evolution where changed conditions invalidate all our policies that have been so successful even in the recent past, and that presumably have constituted the ideal response to a presumably unchanging and unchangeable human condition. No wonder we are stupefied and confused-but our mistake is the same which many cultures have made before us, namely to force a rigid model upon a fluid reality.
Erich Jantsch - "Design for Evolution: Self-Organization and Planning in the Life of Human Systems"
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