In the case Graeber describes, the diversity of tactics approach was to address, among other things, the fact that the Mohawk nation on the US side was organizing, gasp!, a Mohawk Warrior Days of Rage - in which they planned to engage in extremely militant tactics.
And so the Mohawk Warrior Council met with the folks from other countries about the action. They returned to their community to consider how to go about helping people cross the border to get into CA for the protest. I suppose, of course, that we should tell the little teen girls of the Mohawk Nation to get it together and submit to the will of family, a bunch of organizers in Montreal, Spain, and NYC, right?
NOTE: there was some concern here on the part of people trying to get into Canada. If the Mohawks raised a militant ruckus, and brought down the wrath of the police state, the people counting on them to get them across the border would have been screwed.
And then he goes on to describe the Montreal action in a Temporary Autonomous Zone, 10 blocks from the convention, underneath a highway overpass where precisely the kind of situation we've described, gasp!, actually happened: people got out in the streets, ordinary folks, old and young, and started attacking the police, 1000s strong. Starting bonfires to disperse - !!!!! - the teargas! LOL
He quotes an activist who says, " 'We've been under attack for at least an hour now. It's amazing! There are thousands of people there now, more coming all the time. There was a pitched battle, and we won.'
She goes on to describe the building of a giant bonfire in the TAZ space to neutralize the tear gas. (shag: *cough* *cough* *gag*) The police brought up a water cannon to try to put it out. But people stuck it out. Meanwhile, more and more ordinary citizens are joining us. there are now thousands on the highway. They're calling them the 'bangers' because, for an hour, they've been banging rhythmically on the metal barriers on the side of the highway, making so much racket that it can be heard at the Convention Center ten blocks away. The police started mortaring the highway too, and sent lines of troops to clear the area using beanbag guns and plastic bullets, but to no avail. Even when they started using the water cannon. Old people, families, union folks, everyone started raining bricks and boards and flaming debris down at the cops. Finally, the police withdrew."
At 04:13 PM 2/10/2012, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>i agree with Ferenc. Please don't stop the pyscho-therapy session!
>
>Missy!
>
>whee! mommy-daddy-me!
>
>Graeber's article is like a Rorschach test. holee shit!
>
>but seriously, the point he's making, missy, is this:
>
>when you treat people as deserving of respect. when you assume that they
>reallly DO have the best interests of the fami...errr group at heart, and
>when you assume that they don't come up with their tactics b/c they are
>uncomprehending children, then you have to make room at the table for
>them. They aren't children to your adult.
>
>But because you reveal that you think of them that way - as wayward
>children in need of schooling - that is precisely why they get upset and
>no longer care what the hell you think.
>
>it's pretty much a basic principle of conflict resolution.
>
>you are not the adult in the situation and "they" are not the children.
>that you leak that basic assumption reveals, from the get go, that the
>enemy of solidarity is you, yourself. not to get personal, but there it
>is. try as y'all might to pretend to respect other people, you simply
>don't and leak it all over hell.
>
>mommy-daddy-me. please, stay on the couch!
>
>
>
>
>
>At 03:04 PM 2/10/2012, Julio Huato wrote:
>>Graeber's argument sounds to me like (and the anarchists will hate my
>>metaphor) a teenage daughter threatening her parents: "Do not even try
>>a curfew on me or ask me to do my room or my homework, because then
>>you're going to push me to do heroic drugs and move with my boyfriend
>>tomorrow." Well, missy, we have a family here. We need to pull
>>together or else we're not really functioning a family. (Wish family
>>and political issues were as easy as typing things here.)
>
>--
>http://cleandraws.com
>Wear Clean Draws
>('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
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