[lbo-talk] M19 in New York City

Lance Murdoch lancemurdoch at gmail.com
Sun Mar 20 22:47:20 PST 2005


On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 20:20:05 -0600, Chuck0 <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> I am unaware of any direct action that happened in New York City
> yesterday. Yes, I've seen your pictures and accounts. Good job. But
> yesterday in NYC I understand that the following happened: 1) a rally;
> 2) a march; 3) several stunts; and 4) civil disobedience that resulted
> in arrests.
>
> Those last two are better than the ANSWER rally, but even an isloated
> direct action yesterday would not be effective on the level needed to
> end this war and roll back the U.S. war machine. The people who are
> protesting military recruitment have the right idea, because recruitment
> is the Achilles heel of the war effort right now. The movements could be
> coordinating mass disruption campaigns of recruitment centers and
> distributing anti-military agitprop in neighborhoods.
>
> Another strategy that could prove to be more effective is a nationwide
> campaign against the corporate media. Not just sign-waving, but
> occupation of studios. Not just Fox News, but NPR. Support for this war
> and the overall Pentagon system is manufactured by the media. The media
> frames our protests and they ALWAYS frame us unfavorably. There are many
> possibilities in a sustained campaign against the media, ranging from
> civil disobedience, to labor organizing, to adbusting, to property
> destruction and violence.
>
> So I've just given you two strategies that might be more effective than
> another ANSWER rally. I've also given you a strategy that is more
> sophisticated than ANSWER's strategy, which is to hold mass march after
> mass march, all designed to get publicity for ANSWER and the leaders of
> the WWP.
>
> We know that ANSWER is not the answer, that UFPJ is timid, and that
> electoral politics is a dead end. The encouraging sign is that
> grassroots activists are figuring out a better strategy.
>
> Chuck

Well I considered #4 direct action. About two dozen people laid down on Broadway next to the recruiting station.

A similar scene happened the night the war broke out on Times Square - well, similar in some ways. 2/15/03 was the big demo, and there were lots of actions after that leading up to the war, but there was word out in the days just before the war that if the war started we would gather in Times Square for some really militant action.

At the time my boss and his boss were ardent Zionists, my immediate boss in an almost Kahanist vein. He was beside himself in glee when the bombing started and was watching it rapt through streaming video on the net. I left at 5PM (unusual for me, unfortunately) and didn't mention where I was going despite being asked.

5:30PM I arrive at Times Square. Broadway is blocked off by police above 42nd Street, below 42nd Street are barricades, with some fucking leftie speaker with a PA system. This fucking bozo with a megaphone and stage was a poster child for what you're saying - we were there for some DIRECT ACTION and this bozo with a megaphone was acting like a siren calling the unfortunate from the sea of people into the rocks of the police pens to be acquiesent sheep. I wondered - how the fuck did they get a permit for this since no one knew when the war would start?

Anyhow, not wanting to be a penned in sheep, I milled around Times Square on the sidewalks as did many others. The police had blocked off Broadway for us, so now it seemed the idea was to block Seventh Avenue before figuring out what to do next, a kind of Reclaim the Streets type thing. We did not succeed in this. Some reasons:

1) The bozo with the megaphone and platform below 42nd Street, who drew a crowd. Damn, why did they come at all? 2) More people would have been good 3) Less cops would have been good 4) Not enough coordination - I showed up and said hello to two or three people I knew vaguely - I didn't run into people I knew well until later. If we had more pre-planning we could have done affinity groups, communication and so forth. Then again, it's hard to plan for an event whose day you don't know. But it's not easy for the cops either - although it's unlikely the NYPD is able to be taken by surprise like Seattle's police were in 1999.

There was some sort of commotion on the traffic island below 48th and we tried to run up there but the cops blocked us from going. People were arrested up there.

It's too bad there weren't affinity groups and communication because I saw some opportunities were there were few cops on Seventh Avenue, and a number of people. With better coordination, we could have gotten a bunch of people to stand on Seventh Avenue. This would have emboldened more people to stand there, and would have successfully blocked all of Times Square for some time. In terms of direct action, it probably would have resulted in the same number of arrests as the one recently, but it would have blocked traffic longer. With even more success, an RTS type thing would have been possible. And Times Square has huge studios for ABC News, MTV and so forth. Oh well.



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