Do you have some experience working as a bouncer? Why does it matter how old these protesters are? If they are young people, that's good, because that means that we have another generation of young anti-capitalists. The problem here is that the older generations aren't involved in these protests like we should be.
> 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.
Apples and oranges. The Jena protests reflect a zeitgeist where many people are angry with the stupid amount of racism that still pervades this country. The DC protests never claimed that they would be some big thing. I'm actually impressed with the protests, because they got more militant. That's a good sign, especially if lots of young people were involved. It's also encouraging that U.S. activists are still organizing protests against the World Bank, IMF and capitalism and are willing to throw bricks.
The youth need theory? No, they need to get out there and throw more bricks. There is plenty of theory and plenty of armchair intellectuals (especially on this list). If you say that "this shit isn't working", then you are basically saying that militant protests, anywhere in the world, by anbody, is a waste of time.
> 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
Good for them, although I'm critical of these protests because the people involved aren't doing enough advance organizing. I've been critical of this on the Infoshop Forums, criticizing these manifestations over the fact that the younger activists are taking shortcuts and not understanding that successful black blocs in the past have always involved months of organizing.
> 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.
Buy Nothing Day is a fucking joke. Vandalizing chain stores is more direct and preferable. If people would go out and vandalize more chain stores, the capitalist chains would start having problems. McDonalds, for example, had to spend millions of dolalrs on PR after millions of dollars in damage were inflicted on the chain globally by anti-capitalist protesters. Chain stores are extremely sensitive to anything which affects their reputation negatively.
People can say that the capitalists aren't quaking in their boots, but Georgetown businesses did board up their windows. The capitalists were extremely worried about the anti-globalization movement. If these protests and actions gain some momentum, the capitalists will be worried again.
Chuck