--- Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> > However, I'd estimate that Doug is about right
> about
> > what would happen with an attempt to have stopped
> its
> > operations for real. In fact, people doing that
> would
> > risk being charged under the new anti-terrorism
> laws,
> > not available then, that make it domestic
> terrorism to
> > engage in otherwise illegal activity that poses a
> > threat to persons or property with the intention
> of
> > influencing government policy. Naturally if you
> > brought out tens of thousands of people that would
> > change the political equation, but I don't see
> anyone
> > bringing out tens of thousands for lawful demos or
> > nonviolent civil disobedience. Or did I miss
> > something?
>
> How pathetic. You really believe this?
I know it, I don't just believe it. People are doing long jail sentences _now_ for illegal direct action intended to influence government policy.
>
> How is this any different than the climate for
> protests in 1997? 1987? 1967?
(a) The antiterrorism laws raise the stakes a lot. (b) In 1997 (Seattle), 1987 - really 1980-82, we had semi respectable mass movements in the streets. In 1967 -- really 1968-72 -- we were terrifying the government with our numbers. Do I have to tell you about these differences?
>
> If you adopt this point of view and don't fight,
> even using the limited
> tactic of mass CD, than you are a slave.
I certainly fight and want to do more. I'd support limited mass civil disobedience in an appropriate circumstance, but proper planning, training, and honest instruction about the risks (which would sure as help lower the "mass" element), would have to --as it always has -- be part of the package.
>
> Uh, yeah, you would need to bring out thousands of
> people. A few dozen
> symbolic protesters would be a waste of time. You
> don't shut down an
> army plant with a few nuns and peaceniks. You have
> to mobilize tens of
> thousands and bust the jails.
Bust the jails. By which you mean, fill them? Or bust out of them?
Chuck, I have been run down by mounted police, pepper-sprayed, or maybe it was tear-gas, and illegally held in a football stadium overnight. This at a peaceful legal demo when no one was, as far as I know, consciously planning to break the law. I have marched as an activist and a legal observer with the Chicago police in full riot gear and been held illegally, along with _thousands_ of other peaceful demonstrators (not at that time breaking the law) while cops went batshit beating people bloody and hauling them off. It's really difficult to go up armed men with guns who don't care about the law.
Here's a true and literal excerpt from a conversation with a Chicago Police Commander at a mass detention during a protest of the start of this Iraq war: Me (in suit and NLG hat): "You know that this is totally illegal, Commander." Him, in classic Chicago style: "Counselor, dis ain't a court a law.")
So don't bullshit me and can the slave crap. With tens of thousands of people who are willing to take high risks we might be able to change the political equation. But _we ain't got those people_, not here in Chicago, I bet not in New York or Kansas City or even the Bay area. So we have to figure out to do what we can with what we have. If we had what we had in 1970, the world would be a different places. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
>
> Chuck
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