On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 8:06 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:
> one thing of note: diversity of tactics emerged mostly in the context of
> organizing *across* continents. Graeber does a case study of a Montreal
> action, when they are trying to organize people coming from all over the
> world.
>
> 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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>>
>
> --
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
> ______________________________**_____
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/**mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk>
>
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