[lbo-talk] Why I Skip Anti-Globalization Protests

[Mr. WD]

The first thing I noticed from looking at pictures of the protests
http://www.flickr.com/photos/isisdc/ is that nearly all the protesters
look very young -- most of them probably can't even buy beer legally.
As far as I can tell, the DC protests this past weekend were a
complete and total bust: They received hardly any attention in the
mainstream press and what attention they did receive was about some
poor girl getting hit with a brick in front of the Abercrombie store.
Clearly, the youth need theory, because this shit ain't working.  No
capitalist is quivering in his boots this morning.  The Jena protests,
though they weren't as sexy, were more successful by leaps and bounds.

I was nervous about the Georgetown protest from the beginning since
organizers wrote weeks ago that "This will be a rowdy march, and the
coalition embraces a diversity of tactics. Please plan accordingly."
http://octoberrebellion.org/en/georgetown

I definitely recognize the need to clash with the cops, but this thing
seemed more geared towards vandalizing chain stores than accomplishing
any sort of objective (e.g. like shutting down a meeting).  If the
point is to fight consumerism, there are more effective and subversive
ways of doing that -- Buy Nothing Day, for instance.

-WD

On 10/21/07, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here we see the "global justice" movement's best and brightest
> referring to "a woman unintentionally being hurt in an unfortunate
> accident" after she was HIT IN THE FACE BY A FUCKING BRICK THROWN AT
> THE STORE WHERE SHE WORKED by a protester:
>
> http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/141282/index.php
>
> Notice that the DC Independent Media Center considered this most
> asinine of all possible communiques worthy of space in their center
> "features" column.
>
> http://dc.indymedia.org
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