Summit Protests Are Obsolete

Thanks for highlighting this technique.  It's a perfect time right now for this tactic, even though as easily predicted, it's become a fairly hot marketing gimmick for advertising agencies promoting products and getting PR too.  When done right, flash mobs can work in so many different contexts and are so effective, especially on the local levels, which is key.  I was impressed with this recent one in San Francisco that was even a little more aggressive in nature:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-79pX1IOqPU

Hopefully by highlighting these Al, you're inspiring some great ideas that'll be implemented across the globe in the coming months.  Thanks.

Doing the same thing over and over is never a good strategy.  Doing what your enemy expects is never a good strategy.  Charging headlong into defenses that your enemy has prepared because he expects you to do the same thing over and over is never a good strategy.  That's about the protest movement equivalent of World War I generals constantly trying to charge the enemy trenches and machine guns.

 

Seattle and some of the world bank protests that had an impact in the late 90's and early 00's were successful just because the opposition didn't see them coming.

 

And, remember, our enemy is a beauracracy.  They'll do studies and hire experts to teach them what to do to counter what we've done in the past.  They'll spend months planning and training to counter what we've done in the past.  But, they won't be very good about thinking on their feet to deal with changing conditions if we do something differently.  They'll have all their men and women trained and deployed to counter what we've done in the past, and they'll find it very difficult to break the training and the mindsets and the plans that they've spent months teaching.

 

Our strong points should be our creativity, and adaptability, and we should certainly be able to out move and dance around this lumbering beauracracy.

 

I long harbored doubts about the efficacy of these summit convergences, but listening to this interview (shortly after last year's G20 in Pittsburgh) sealed the deal for me.  Recommended listening for anarchists, 'progressives,' etc.: http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/234/id/431525/wed-10-21-09-milita...

Shout-out to Jesse (and Jill for the excellent radio special she produced looking back at Seattle).

And that is precisely the definition of a failed action that accomplished nothing but occupying the hours, resources, and budgets of all those who traveled to them in lieu of organizing something real at home.

For me, this is the crux of the obsolescence.  The built-in thuggoons always show up and "play anarchy", for the MSM camera, distorting any possible message of purpose and subsequent organizing. [time and $$; bang for the buck]

Looking forward to reading any "one sentence" purpose(s) of protest.

 

 

 

 

Hi Al,

Really nice post. Proving your point, this page came across my browser today:

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/06/does-n-e-1-know-what-g20-protesters-are-even-protesting-seems-like-they-just-want-to-make-jpg-internet-memes.html#more-9336

A small blog, sure, but one that has received boatloads more attention since being listed in Time Magazine as a "Best Blog" (?!).

Anyhow, nice post, and thoughts with which I feel a good deal of solidarity. ...quite curious about what you've been up to lately. It seems as though something is brewing. Saludos y un abrazo a todos mis amigos en la colonia.

 

...to the security measures put in place as 'Stephen Harper's billion dollar tar baby' for a while now, but I still can't believe anyone would be so stupid as to jump into the briar patch after it. Which makes the claims of police provocateurs (reinforced by glimpses like this of undercover cops in what appears to be Black Bloc outfits) all the more plausible.

 

http://singcitychronicles.blogspot.com

Here's one thing we should try some time.  We should spread the word loudly that there will be a big protest.  Then we should all not go.  Nobody.  Let them spent millions and deploy thousands of riot police and soldiers against empty streets.

Gotta throw a change up at them every once in awhile.

Exactly!

Now we're cookin' with gas.

The challenge is how to inspire our own troops to understand that discipline and planning wins the day.

Al, I'm disappointed you even gave it this much attention. These criticisms of summit-hopping are, by this point, almost as old and played out as summit-hopping is itself. I think Naomi Klein started calling it a McMovement back in...2002? Not that I hadn't written a similar article for the WTO anniversary, so I can't say too much. But still, I expected more.

 

I think the problem is not so much that people haven't heard these criticisms before, but that they can't see anything better. I know a lot of people who go to these protests (when they're geographically convenient) or cheer them on from afar (when they're not) who would not disagree with most of your article. Some of these people are community organizers or rank-and-file labor activists themselves. I guess on one level there's not that much you can do about cognitive dissonance, but I think a lot of the problem is that these protests are so big that even people who couldn't care less - like you - still feel compelled to comment on them. That's an emotional pull that's stronger than any of your intellectual arguments, which means that they don't mean a thing until I start getting emails from NarcoNews telling me about "non-sexy" grassroots organizing that is going on in America right now. Just telling people to organize in their own communities isn't enough until you start talking actual community organizing campaigns more than you talk about the G20.

Joshua - Feel free to feel disappointed all you want. I don't write to please everybody. I write about what I'm thinking about at any given moment.

For ten years we've reported to you on social movements and community organizers from Argentina to Bolivia to Brazil to Colombia to Ecuador to Guatemala to Honduras to Venezuela and from 31 states of the Mexican Republic, and we'll keep doing that every time something real happens.

The Toronto actions, however, did more damage than previous ones, especially to the name of anarchism, and the hour has come to make it painful for those who keep doing this harm over and over again, to raise the costs to those who do it. They are more an obstacle to real change than the bumbling fools in power who want to be!

And Naomi Klein may have written about "McMovement" years ago, but based on her column yesterday in McHuffington Post, about the Toronto protests, she's still out there beating the same monotone drum as she has for a decade. OMG! Did Giordano just say that? Welcome to the sacred cow barbeque, all.

who just love to go to these kind of events to get their fight on.  Not interested in joining any group, or signing on to a charter of non-involvement or non-violence, they are there for themselves only.

They can go, attack symbols of capitalism and corporatism, get tasered, pepper sprayed or beaten up by police, pay their fine and get bragging rights for years to come.

"Don't think you're the better anti-corporatist leftist progressive, *I* was beaten up in the 2010 G-20 riot in Toronto!  You don't know what reality is, man, you weren't there!"

This, then, removes the need to do any actual work on important causes, and can be used to prop up their anarchist street cred.  Also, there is also the possibility of using this info to also get in with the girls who go to these events too.

If it were possible to get mass amounts of people to say they will be there, en mass, and then show up, it could also stifle such people from either attending or at least doing something stupid - Mainly because they desire two things: 1) A crowd so people will see what they are doing, and/or 2) the very same crowd with which they can blend back into and make a hasty retreat if things go really pearshaped.

I always thought the dance-based flash mobs came off as a tad ridiculous. They seem like a prank, more than a protest...and in that vain, the idea of attaching some significant political message to them seemed to make the message a joke. I'm in totally agreement that the protests/marches of yesteryear are simply ineffective and easily dismissed, for a variety of reasons. I've been trying to think of alternatives for a while now, though come up mostly emptyhanded on larger-scale protests on the cheap. Maybe this would be more effective than I'm giving credit for, it could just be me.

The G20 protests are an extremely inefficient tactic for illustrating police brutality and that "the law" isn't the same thing as justice (and is too often a weapon against it), but that's about the best that can be said of them. I can absolutely understand the attraction to them, but if people want to see a truly high-profile recent tactic that was very effective, they ought to instead take a good look at the Freedom Flotilla blockade-breaking tactic from several weeks. It's heavily and intelligently symbolic (and in ways that anyone can understand), it's attention-grabbing, and it frames the issue(s) at hand very well while opening up topics for debate that were, in too many pieces, laid to artificial rest. These are all good qualities in a smart tactic; I see none of this at the G20 protests. There's very little effective symbolism (or the unity, planning, and organization that such symbolism requires), the media shrugs these things off with a yawn nowadays, and it did little to frame the issue apart from getting some folks arrested and brutalized who, for the most part, ordinarily would not be subject to police brutality.

While I generally agree with your posts, on occasion I've been more to the right than you so I was wondering what your position would be on these G-20 protests.

Glad to see that this is yet another thing we agree on, although in retrospect it is pretty obvious that not only are the protests ineffectual, they are actually counter productive.

Yesterday a local radio station in Vancouver had a call-in poll asking if the government is too soft on protesters. They got a 90% YES result. Granted phone-in polls are notoriously unreliable and unscientific but a 90% result is still an indication that the message of the protesters is being lost in the tactics of the thugs.

 

 

Travis - I see your point, and it kind of depends on what kind of people one wants to attract to a movement or cause. "Serious" actions have attracted by and large serious, droll, boring and talentless participants. "Ridiculous... pranks" will attract pranksters with a flair for the ridiculous. If we look at human history, the latter have changed the world a lot more than the former! In other words, you get out of an action what you put into it!

The oft-talked-about vuvuzelas at the World Cup would be a great decentralized noise weapon - and a hilarious way to make an action fun. A mass of people showing up outside of a summit buzzing on their vuvuzelas would make work awfully hard to get done there. The more I think about the idea, the more I like it.

 

 

So the solution is that the next Summit protest  be choreographed by Paula Abdul ( or someone more Gaga-like) and have a mad dance song. This would be something along the order of what the Dustin Hoffman character brewed up for Robert DeNiro's character in "Wag the Dog". What you're looking for is a "pageant." You think that's going to make things better. At least it won't bore you. But lets face it: "The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity."  Let's kick back, grab a beer, some popcorn and  allow ourselves to be entertained to death by the lastest multi-media extravaganza " Fall of the Empire" (live, personal and up-close!) It's the best show out there right now!

I certainly don't disagree that curmudgeons generally don't change the world...though they can get pretty high in the Republican Party (ZING!).

Like I said, I've been trying to come up with something.  Following the same analogy you used, I've been searching for something that I'd still like to be considered creative (as the dance mobs are) but also alightly more motivating to others.

Not really leaving it up to curiousity about "what the heck was that?"  But I think there's totally room for both approaches.

I know I'm going to have trouble articulating this thought but I'll try.  One benefit that I see in the past 10 years of large demonstration/mobilizations patterned after Seattle 1999 is a kind of democratization of police brutality in that middle class whites are disproportionatly attending these things.  People have also been subjected to police brutality in electoral political demonstrations herded in to the 'free speech' zones.  Over the past 10 years a lot of middle class, white people have directly experienced or know of someone that has gone to a demonstration or anti-Bush rally and were brutalized.  I think in years past victims of "police brutality" were seen as only poor black or hispanic males so I see a kind of positive shift in enlarging the victim pool.

A friend of mine from the J-School sent me this article, wondering about my particular perspective.

 

In 2004, the way I knew to get in touch with radical / revolutionary people was to go to the DNC in Boston. I learned my lessons, and many others didn't. I've quickly turned to community organizing and other ways of attacking. Most of the criticisms you have put up here have been argued since before I was aware of these kind of summits. And they still hold true.

 

When the G20 was in Pittsburgh, I didn't want anything to do with it. But I also knew, being in & from PA, that it would be an important place for me to be in order to meet young people that showed up there. Maybe they'd be anti-war, maybe they'd be black bloc, etc. But everyone's on a path.

 

Not satisfied with just showing up, seing a few sights and getting my ass kicked, I was an organizer for the People's Caravan. We brought 30 people accross the state in two days, town by town, with local events organized in each. There was no clear message in Pittsburgh, but the message we spread along the way was "Some of the most powerful people in the world will be getting together behind closed doors to decide the fate of the rest of us." That was well recieved everywhere we went, esspecially because PA was almost 100 days late on passing it's budget at that point and many state workers weren't being paid.

 

Those 2 days were really important to everyone on the Caravan. We grew fast together, and by the time we entered the hostile paranoia zone that is a protest summit, we had strong trust between ourselves. By the end of the summit, people were telling us that we were one of the most organized groups there. Considering we began planning only 1.5 months ahead of time and disbanded afterwards, that's a depressing idea that speaks to how badly organized these protest events are.

Basically, we accepted that this was going to happen with or without us, but that more experienced organizers should consider showing up to help people see past the protest.

I've been paying attention to the news of the Toronto G-20, even as we work on our media campaign for a friend beaten and arrested in Pittsburgh for filming police violence. The news articles I read about Toronto's G-20 read to me like stock articles. Change the name of the city, the name of the police commisioner and alter the numbers a bit and you have 75% of the articles I've read about protest summits since 2004.

One word of caution, though, is not to fall into the trap of stereotyping. There are white people with trust funds there. They are smashing windows next to people with black skin, people with no bank account, etc. You can tell when they go to court, because a few of them get good lawyers and get their cases dismissed, while others facing the same charges have their whole lives spun arround.

 

But I couldn't agree with you more- the tactics are rock-stupid and it's sad to see people waste so much of their energy and resources to organize a few hundred people to get arrested for no clear message.

That same strategy was applied in Mexico City in 68' during the student movement protests. The government infiltrated payed clash groups, also students, called Porros, to attack the students involved in the movement, creating fear and violence. Later when the police and military openly killed over 2000 people, mainly students, in la Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco during a peaceful sitting, the media was reporting that the "the students where attacking and shooting each other"!! jajaja!!! The nerve!! It's the way it works. "Divide y venceras". I'm almost possitive, the Black Block is directed by government power, and there's a bunch of tag alongs don't even know they are being used, that are just happy to get their furry and frustration out through violence. The strategy is: Divide and win. That's why you don't really see police going after them and with all the destroying and breaking stuff they give the whole movement a bad rep, like the right wingish family father and mother sitting on the couch watching the news saying to the kid.."See Kids look at those violent people!!! They're crazy, we don't want to be like them, I don't want to support them" Very Smart tactic folks, the oldest in the book and we still don't get it.

Peace!! Peace!! Peace and word!!

Violence creates violence and fear.

 

Travis, the good news is that there is enormous tactical diversity available to any campaign or movement, depending on their situation, skills and training.  Here's a good page to start with: http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/index.php/what-is-icnc/methods-of-non...

I think the reason I don't think the dance-flash mobs connect with me is because it's not all that memorable to me. I know that may sound strange, and these things are likely very memorable to most people. I've seen them in person before, as well as other flash-mob pranks, and I think "heh, that's cool". Maybe I tell a few people about it, but I'm never compelled to pull out my camera phone, or would bring it up without prompting the following week. I guess the idea that I'm searching for is based on the idea of somehow getting bystandards INVOLVED in the protest somehow. Like imagine if somehow you could get the dance-mob going, but be able to grab people who were not a part of the mob and get them out there too. That interaction would really stay with them. That might not be possible for the dance-mob protest, but I'm searching for a way to make it work.

Here is a good report from authentic journalists from the Media Co-op (http://www.mediacoop.ca/) which was aired on Democracy Now!: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/28/toronto_police_arrest_over_600_in What wasn't covered was how concern over whether Narco News would cover the event factored into the organizing process... First, not really a big deal, but still,there were probably only about 50,000-70,000 people in Seattle, not hundreds of thousands. Also, you take a shot at people at Seattle who have had success since then, for selling books and publishing articles. Isn't that potentially a good thing? Don't we want a critical message and analysis of our current global political economy to reach more people? Why do you automatically disregard their work as nothing more than consumerism, or doing nothing more than creating "a product and product makers"? Also, who are these summit hoppers or "trust funders" you speak of? Do you know them, their background,have you talked to them, about how they funded their trip, or what they do the other 360 days of the year? And maybe protests at summits are an effective way of meeting new people, learning from eachother and creating new communities? The events weren't just about the street protests and theater. Maybe this is one of the underlying reasons why the government cracks down on them the way they do--and they would, and have, whether there are authentic black bloc actions or not.

And flash mobs are the answer? Really?

Cyril - If you think it is useful to march around spouting the same tired slogans repeating the same old tactics, I'm certainly not trying to tell you that you can't. But since these "events" get so often confused with other people's good work, it is likewise my right, even duty, to publicly disassociate myself from them.

If you think it's working, well, that's a joke! What accomplishment of the Toronto actions can you point to? How did it advance the effort to break free of capitalism? Truth is, it did nothing.

And yes, I have known a good many of the trust-funded summit hoppers, and seen them in action. Remember we get hundreds of applications to the School of Authentic Journalism including some of them. We've even tried to work with some over the years as they've come down to Latin America wanting to be near "the barricades" here, and truth is most have been more trouble than was worth it.

We reach 40,000 readers a day here and talk to hundreds of organizers and change-agents each week and have a pretty good view of what is happening, what is working and what is not. But if you find the same stale actions inspiring, it's a free world! But you're being a dupe by creating the skirt for the window-breakers to hide under!

I linked to flash mob in San Francisco up in the first comment of this thread.  It had a clear message and a clear call-to-action, which Al talked about in his main post as being essential.

Because of that video I saw on YouTube of the effort, I've since let those hotels know I will not be staying there, and explained exactly why.  I've passed this link and info to many other associates of mine already.  Those local organizers are responsible for this through their thoughtful actions.

I doubt smashing a bunch of windows or shouting slogans would get me to take these same actions.

Like most things, it's best to not be too predictable, and I didn't take Al's post to mean flash mobs are the answer to everything, but just another action arrow to pull from the quiver when appropriate.

As the video report showed, the street protests are just one component of the events activists organized around the G-20. We can't expect the events surrounding and including the protests to show immediate tangible results in the "effort to break free of capitalism." We have to look at it through the lens of the big picture, or long haul.I can speak through my experience of being radicalized at the WTO protests when I was a student, when I was just beginning to get into politics. I was waking up at 6 am every morning and taking the bus downtown. While the protests and marches were fun, and I got to meet and talk to people from all walks of life (which was both inspiring and educational), I was also running around to as many talks and workshops as possible and devouring all the literature I could get my hands on. I've been involved with global justice struggles, one way or another, ever since--not to suggest I am having a profound impact on the world, but I am trying to do something and I am engaged--and the events around the WTO definitely (where there was window smashing as well) had something to do in sending me down this path. I am sure there were others like me and I would like to think people at the G-20 might have similar experiences. As to the events overshadowing or getting confused with other peoples good works, that is a weakness, or deliberate manipulation, of the mainstream media, which is why jesse's and the media co-op work's is so important!! And I still don't understand why you have such a belligerent and/or belittling opinion of people who are writing and selling books post-wto, (who are nothing more than product peddlers), or organizers who in addition to doing other work 360 days of the year decided to engage with anti-g-20 events (dupes)?

Oh, I'm in full agreement that breaking windows and shouting doesn't work anymore. As I said...I guess I'm more focused on the idea of interaction.

We are moving to the interactive generation, where everything you do allows for, and in fact promotes, an individual to interact with it. Using the dance protest as an example, imagine if you had the same sort of thing we see in the examples posted by Al. But somehow you were able to have people who were a part of the protest go grab bystanders and invite them to join. They would jump in step, making the protest bigger and creating a personal experience/connection with the protest unlike anything they could get from snapping a picture and tweeting it.

Now, you'd have to be up front about what you were protesting - otherwise you'd risk backlash from people upset they were "tricked" into protesting something they might not agree with. And obviously this would be tough with the dance protests since even simple dance numbers need to be learned. But that "interactive protests" concept is where my mind is heading...and I certainly would want to keep the positive and energetic attitude the dance protests create. That atmosphere is WAY better than the image of riot cops and broken windows.

This article and comment threads are full of more hate than all the Black Blocs, anticapitalist vandals, and general countersystem violence-spreaders it has ever been my honour to meet. We all stand against something. Our oppositions define us in ways our propositions are simply unable to. When we stand against something, we identify with those who stand with us, all around. Solidarity accross diversity can only be found in the antis, because our ideas are so different. So to hear the virulent and spiteful attacks here about the Black Bloc is shocking. We stand together against capitalism. We stand arm in arm against the forces of imperialism, and war, profit-driven "austerity measures" and the exploitation of our planet. These are the things that unite us. These ideas threaten the status quo, threaten an established order which has at its disposal the power to bully, intimmidate, jail, intern in psychiatric institutions and assasinate those who shake it.

Despite your pessimism, the foundations are shaking. They are rotted, and always have been. Their existence and development is the putrefaction of human potential and planetary resources, but both of these have arrived at a streching point. Peak oil is nothing compared to peak social exploitation. The crisis which stems from that strikes fear in economic and political elites to an extent no crisis for material resources can, and as a response these elites are mobilising their considerable resources to neutralise the threat of social upheaval.

Throughout the USA in the past few months the Police and Federal Authorities have been quietly rounding up Earth and Animal Liberation activists along with other anticapitalists in massive coordinated efforts. In the United Kingdom Police Intelligence officers have been increasing their efforts, targetting leftist direct action networks and community organisers alike. So when a news service like Narconews and its community decide to abandon ideas of solidarity with Summit protesters they leave them exposed to this harrassment and disruption. A harrassment which left unchecked ultimately extends deep inside community organising, so that when comes the time to disrupt a coal mine (say) in England activists are catalogued, tagged and neutralised well before effective community discontent can be organised.

Where the author and his loyal followers abandon the movement, those who use Black Bloc tactics are there to protect it. Indeed, you all seem to conveniently forget all the times when Black Blocers forced the police to pull away from a peacful protest, or unarrested community organisers, or bocked police access to vital community centers. They have been able to do this again and again because they all dress in balck and rely on the support of those they've engaged themselves to protect from the torment of the forces of law and order. This ingratitude and selective memory means you now condemn all black bloc tactics as harmful and coutnerproductive. That a group of people wear black is not enough for them to be Bloced up. They play a specific role in reaction and against police brutality and aggression.

I've rambled a lot, but i want to say that your spitefullness, your hate-mongering and your attacks on these groups leaves the real community work at much greater risk. Once the State has neturalised concentrated convergences, then all of us, no matter how far removed from their centers of power will come under attack. We need to take the fight to them, so they don't take it to us. Every police officer in Toronto is one that was not in Alberta, making sure no one was digger-diving (for example). We need to use the convergence style strategically to support our other efforts.

 Pacifism can be like any other dogma: fanatical and full of hate, and a moral-verbal violence which cuts deep into the heart of anyone who's put effort and time, and their health and freedom at risk, into opposing the state and its practices of violence directly, confrontationally and yes- violently.

RazBoz - Wow, that's quite the balloon full of gas you've got spewing there!

According to you, if we don't support the violence fetishists, we are "leaving them exposed to harassment and disruption."

Dude, when your tactics *are* harassment and disruption, you're going to get back what you put in whether or not I or anyone else supports you.

You're also foolish to accuse me or others of being "pacifists." The same essay, above, calls some armed revolutionary movements "courageous" (something you Black Bloc spoiled brats are not) for their discipline, planning and strategic action. I am not a pacifist, but that's my personal perspective. Nor am I stupid enough to go provoking a fight with the cops at mass demonstrations where most of the participants are not looking for a scuffle with them.

You're a jerk, filled with illusion that you and your ilk are somehow more revolutionary or radical than those who use their street smarts in fighting against power. There are so many ways to fight that don't involve your parasitical tactics. Like I say in the essay above, if you believe so strongly in those tactics, why do you never do them without the skirt of a larger demonstration to hide under, you coward!

You're the assholes putting a larger community at risk. Now you want to emotionally blackmail us by projecting what you do upon us. Go fuck yourself and the horse you rode in on! How's that for a "pacifist" response?

What I find most amusing about your rant is the ignoring of the simple fact that the police know you're coming and plan accordingly.

While a large mass of people is certainly difficult to manage, basically you all march along pre-determined paths set up with little blockades to move you through like cattle.  Cattle wearing black bandannas.  Sure, you may wander off now and again...but they have contigency plans for that too.  And really, you're done in a few days, so what have you accomplished?  You gave some cops a few crappy days of work, which will probably be eased by the overtime pay they got.  You have some pictures to put up on flickr, and a video on youtube to show how hardcore you look...while being herded.

You can keep it.

We'll be spending our time actually trying to change minds.  We'll spend our time finding cracks in the system and exploiting them.  We'll spend our time shaking hands, exchanging info, and building networks of intelligent and passionate people.

And maybe at some point we'll take a short break from that to shop for some black bandannas, and do some yard work or something.  I do look sharp in black...

SOLIDARITY!

Okay fair enough Al. First off it would make it a lot easier if you didn't use so much verbal abuse to answer some of your points. ("don’t gratuitously insult other commenters") Secondly, i don't represent the black bloc or any of its memebers. I only speak for myself and my opinions.

Re: the Black Bloc

The black bloc tactic is not about fetishising violence. Nor is it about confronting the police for its own sake. As i mentioned as a tactic its more about protecting those who defy the state and its agents than about attack said agents. That people refer to the black bloc otherwise is a mis-labelling. I think that antisystem activists tend to aim to disrupt and harass the state and its agents. Some do so openly and others do not.

I'll admit calling you (Al) a pacifist is an exageration. Calling many of the commenters of this post pacifists is not. There are some really hardline comments up there, who despite nominally accepting a diversity of tactics, reject the black bloc and confrontation entirely with no nuance.

You correctly point out that the cops use large numbers of agent provocateurs. I've been to protests where this has been the case, and where the protesterss attending fell in with the agents and attacked the police. This never endswell, for anyone involved. But i've also seen black blocs hold together ("discipline"?) around the peacful protesters and keep the police at bay for at least a short while. And im sorry Al, but if you're at a mass demonstration against the global regime of capitalism and the state then you've already provoked a fight with the police.

They'll do it slowly or they'll do it fast, but they WILL clear the streets. Now its up to the protesters wether that happens memorably or in cooperation.

Now about being a coward. You use words like strategy, and discipline and honour and cowardice. All of these are the lexicon of militarists and vanguardists. Not only do i shit on them, but i don't think you are one. So why is being a coward an insult? You yourself say that using "street-smarts" (code, i assume, for agreeing with you) is a positive thing. Confronting thestate on its own terms is foolish, but using mass protests to attack it is not. These mass protests need to be protected, from a tactical point of view, precisely BECAUSE most of the participants do not want to engage in violence. I've never been the USA. Nor have i ever "summit-hopped". But i do know that the where i come from people involved in black bloc tactics typically DO confront the state at other times WITHOUT the option of protecting themselves. they are not cowards. Just because they don't have guns or don't lead a lifestyle you agree with, does NOT make them afraid of fighting for social and climate justice with their lives. What im getting at is your accusation about skirts is patronising and inaccurate. Black Blocs are anonymous.

Oh yes, and its rich for you to accuse me of being more radical than thou, when you keep claiming you represent and guard the wider community, and have so many "street-smarts". WTF are street-smarts? Do they stop military recruitment? Maybe they block coal mines? Or maybe they shut down capitalist institutions and open the way for alternatives...

This is what direct action does. If you were less douchey about dealing with your critics, i'd probably say that i agree with your main point about summit protests. I'd go further and say that all protests are obsolete. The age of militancy is over. Freezing your arse off to hand out flyers abour sweatshops, or blistering your feet to march to the IMF is never going to be as effective as dismantling sweatshops, or blockading an IMF meeting.

You really need to chill. Answer my points and quit insulting my character and the character of people YOU DON'T KNOW. That is NOT effective community building. Dialog IS. Argument IS. Concensus is as well.

Razboz - Whatever "the Black Bloc is about" one gets a different answer from so many different factions within it. Many have said to me and others, "the goal is the photo on the evening news of a police car burning." Others say "property destruction *is* the message." Others just burp and drool.

I must admit, though, that your argument - that they are there to "protect" the rest of the protesters (even though they weren't asked by their damsels in distress for said protection) - is a new and novel one.

The problem with that kind of thinking, since you say you are against vanguardism, is that it imposes a vanguard of the physically strong (predominantly young men, although, yes, there are some young women who join in) and therefore masculinizes a movement that never asked to be masculinized. It is thus an imposition just like the ones it claims to protest against.

It would be one thing if the organizers of the larger actions asked the Black Bloc or some other group to play a protective role. But that hasn't happened, and isn't likely to happen. It is the act of imposing themselves as the cops of the movement that make them the mirror image of the cops.

And what do people with street smarts do, you ask? They organize. They go door to door. They work phone banks. They get to know the people of a community in order to best be able to mobilize the people according to what the people really want! That's where they get their street smarts. By working the people in the street, not be tossing shit at buildings and windows, inanimate objects which have nothing to teach us. Good listeners have street smarts. Organizers are good listeners by necessity.

And if you spend any time listening to the workers and poor of any land, they're not inspired by Black Bloc tactics. It's been 11 years and they still don't amount to more than a few hundred people at any action. That would tell someone with street smarts something very important: if the ranks aren't expanding, we're doing something wrong.

As for "effective community building," my experience that an "all are welcome" policy is about the worst thing for community building that can happen. Some folks, if they behave certain ways, have to be excluded in order that the larger community can grow and build. That includes all aspiring bosses and vanguards, including of the Black Bloc tendency, but not exclusive to it.

Hi Al,

Some thought-provoking sentiments, for sure. But you weren't in Toronto (or Vancouver), and it shows.

There has been quite a bit of thinking about "summit-hopping" (one example) among activists, and a lot of it is pretty interesting.

You didn't mention, and I hope it was because you didn't know, that the mobilization consisted of months of community-based consultations in Toronto (organized by the TCMN) designed to focus in on the concerns of communities and neighbourhoods in the city, and build popular power. The themed days of action had a huge amount of creative energy in them. There was Queer street theatre, a "toxic tour" of Toronto, a packed people's assembly on Climate Justice, an historic day of action on Indigenous Rights that brought together reps of native communities across Canada and non-native supports in a rally 3,000 strong (unprecedented for that issue). On the Saturday, 30,000 people marched, and then the black block (with a few thousand more or less supporting, or at least milling about) did its thing.

The media, naturally, ignored all the creative aspects of the marches, and took photos of the one or two arrests or scuffles with cops. But if you look through the Toronto Media Co-op's coverage, you'll see lots of diverse and creative actions.

This summit was very skillfully used by local groups to build up work around popular organizations, while confronting the unaccountable, secretive G20 while it was in the global spotlight.

This model of organizing has certainly been a boon to media work. The anti-Olympics mobilization jump-started the Vancouver Media Co-op as a democratic, reader-supported news source, and the Toronto MC looks to be following suit.

The search for effective action is ongoing, but I don't think that the latest instantiation of the "summit-hopping" model can be dismissed as easily as you imply above.

--Dru

Dru - I didn't claim or infer at any moment to be in Toronto, and in fact explained why I didn't go and don't go to these summit actions. So that's kind of a straw man, to start.

Do you really think the social movements in Toronto are better off as a result of the events in last weekend? I spoke with another colleague in Toronto last night who is very upset about the precedent set (and he's a lot more sympathetic with the window-breakers than I am) by the police and the drawback of civil liberties that resulted. According to this colleague, you guys have lost the public relations war to define the event, the media is predictably lined up against you, and public opinion has followed them.

I don't doubt that y'all involved community organizations in the planning. The question is, after all is said and done, did the ball advance on their causes and movements or has almost every single one been set back?

That is the hard question to ask and I fear that time will answer it in very ominous terms for Toronto and Canadian movements.

The local Anarchist infoshop was thrown into operational turmoil when one of their events, a flashmob blockparty, was hijacked on MayDay, and a number of their college student volunteer employees were literally scared out of their wits by threatening phone calls, emails, and media calling to ask "Hey! are you the one who was throwing rocks?"

They're still having a hard time maintaining their open hours due to the need felt to always have two staffers on at any time.

Listen... I'm only going to state this once... Black Bloc=Police agents (One Facebook poster, NOT an Anarchist, even commented on their police-like shiny black shoes)... OR "Useful Idiots".

My town has EIGHT NEW POLICE OFFICERS (in a town of 55,000) hired against an already broken budget on account of that incident on Mayday, and of course, in the next budget, the cuts are going to come from services for the poor, and homeless.

You can tell who they work for by the results of their actions.

A comment from my posting, "Some Notes, From The Distance, On The the G20 'Summit' And The Concurrent "Toronto Troubles":

"...truth be told, someone who's angry enough to be taunted to commit an action that would run counter to a common goal with a larger community [For brevity I've truncated an example of a REAL Anarchist affinity group who NEVER went against the wishes or needs of their community but here's a link to their wikipedia entry ], or for that matter any discernible goal past just pure anger venting as observed by the general public, IS NOT IN ANY WAY AN ANARCHIST...

"Nihilist" would be the more appropriate term, and they simply do the work of "Useful Idiots" for whomever seeks to disrupt their community's safety and well being. In other words, they witlessly work for "The Man".

Again... Black Bloc=Police agents or USEFUL IDIOTS

Oh... look... I said it twice.

...and if I ever find one of the [expletives deleted] who caused the hiring of EIGHT NEW POLICE OFFICERS in a town already overwhelmed with police and police-like agencies causing a MASSIVE CUT in social services, something very, very bad is going to happen to that person.

I'll bet the little fOrker calls the police too... most likely they'll just take the little freak's deposition from the ICU at the nearest hospital.

I KNOW some of these useful idiot [expletives deleted] believe nothing will get 'fixed' unless it's broken, but here's a 411 for those psycho-emotionally stunted morons... We North Americans are "Exceptional", when we break something, it just stays broken.

Auntie Imperial

 

 

Protesting is in effect an act of defining power and the lack of it.

If you explicitly acknowledge power to be resting in the sovereign hands of the People, you cannot confront a transient authority that, by your own cognizance, is ultimately powerless.

Unless of course you wish to vent your ineptness to connect and to add your own genial creativity to the commoner's real and always underscored Sovereignty.

All Politics are local; all protests are singular; they become global and collective with spontaneous chemistry borne out of People's sudden shared awareness of Power. It has to be spontaneous to be momentous, for intimacy with power of self and selves ignites the precious moment.

And then, as it should be, seamlessly, they put the burden of the absence of it on whose shoulders they belong to.

Al, while it seemed at first that the BBlockers had totally undermined the Toronto protest, the extreme over-reaction of the police in arresting 900 people, almost all of whom were non-violent, their cruel treatment when arrested,  the assault of 6 journalists, the obvious lies told by the To police chief, coupled  with the possibility that the  cops allowed the  BBlockers to trash seem to be creating a back-lash in the other direction. As of last night, comments were running 10 to one against the cops and the govt. in the on-line CBC article on the arrests.

Although it is too early to say at this point, they may have repeated the same error that the govt. committed during the FLQ Crisis of 1970 when they arrested 453 intellectuals and activists, almost none of whom were connected with the guerrillas. To this very day those arrests arouse bitterness among most Quebecois.

Sorry, I'm not buying it. How sad if no one had showed up to protest! And who's to say that those that cut their teeth last weekend in Toronto won't also be doing more remarkable things in 10 years?
Flash mob dances are cool - loved Tilda Swinton's idea of Laurel and Hardy choreography for her children's film charity - but 6 hours is not near as much planning as some put into the summit protests. Dance is a welcome addition to the arsenal, as are other social media organized voluntary flash mob actions, but not any more or less likely to bring about serious change. Check out the organizing and planning by the lawyers of the Movement Defence Committee to have the legal backs of the Toronto protesters...  exemplary!
Are you also not going to cover APPO or Seccion 22 marches? Or their hunger strikes? Or their blockades?  What do they effectively "accomplish"? What concrete lasting accomplishments can be attributed to the whole APPO summer of 2006? But that question entirely misses the point: the APPO takeover was significant for many reasons including that it was the spontaneous and heartfelt action of a community supporting the teachers - who themselves have an enduring and admirable tradition of protest and planning - and demanding self-determination while saying ENOUGH!  It included brave and novel actions (such as the women taking over the tv station) that have motivated ordinary people to become activists around the world. All these actions, successful or original or not, build moral and inspire others to participate. If nothing else it is a relief for an individual to see that others care about the same issues and that creates hope.
Same for the Iranian students who exploited Twitter as a lifeline, and the Greek activists who took over media stations (perhaps inspired by la APPO?).
I don't know if la APPO is better organized this time around, or if instead the government is more prepared to come down even harder. Sunday will be telling.
However sitting on the sidelines and bragging about not covering expressions of resistance is cynical at best and "authentic" or not the alternative media should be there. Whining that summit protests are "obsolete" just makes you look old and tired - the next generation was there taking its blows and networking and twitting to an expanded internet audience and waking up a complacent conservative nation with one of - if not the - most radical street protests in Canadian history.
If you have any better ideas lets hear them! Or stop complaining that others are risking their necks and equipment while you make "been there done that" criticisms from a safe distance.
Re: violence, well I like rabble.ca's krystalline_k's idea that there is room for a diversity of tactics. Without burning cars and broken windows, would anyone have paid attention?  (In Oaxaca either?) Would the traditional tv news media devote as much time to the protests? There should be sustained and ongoing coverage on important issues WHETHER OR NOT there is anything new to report, but that is not the standard, not even according to your journalism school instructors. Unfortunately it is true that the issues being protested were in danger of getting lost, but I for one tried to remind some of the twitterers on location to keep repeating their messages along with reports of police intimidation, and some responded to the suggestion. Women's reproductive rights, indigenous rights to sovereignty, climate change, banking justice, disability rights, ending gender bias - people came motivated by different priorities but just the idea that non-white and non-male and non-propertied peoples whose lives were being affected were at least being seen was important!
Narco News rocks, but not when it has only sour grapes to spit at kindred spirits! The left always eats itself ! We self-destruct while the right circles the wagons!  THAT is what is tired and obsolete, the left nit-picking and arguing about who is more left than whom!

If the "effort to break free of capitalism" amounts to breaking windows, which was the visible part of the strategy in Toronto, then capitalism will be around for at least another millenium, since there are so many windows left to break.  It strikes me that just as property is fetishized by some capitalists, its destruction is fetishized by some anti-capitalists, and such mutual mirroring through events like the Tantrum in Toronto is a sideshow.  It's an ideological spitting match that's irrelevant to the systemic injustice that will never be dislodged without the mobilization of a broad representative, popular coalition -- a coalition of people of all ages and backgrounds who've learned from the movement how the costs of that injustice hold them down, and who also learn from the movement about the hundreds of disruptive, widely distributed nonviolent tactics that can drive up the cost of repression to the point that the government is forced to make serious concessions. That's what has happened in the history of civil resistance.

Tactical violence of any kind sends most civilians indoors, discredits the larger movement in the eyes of the broader public, and reduces the movement to those who don't mind being fired from jobs in order to spend time in jail. Gandhi said jail was a beautiful garden, but he had lots of reading material, which he put to good use once he got out. And when his campaigns suffered from fringe violence, he promptly shut them down, and told his followers to go home and dig latrines.  "We can't rule our nation if we can't rule ourselves," he said. Violence was then, and is now, the tool of those who want attention, not the tool of those who want to win.

I was interested in and took part in many fairly aggressive street protests, including several with vandalism and fighting.  I was enamored with the mythology of the late 1960s protesting (and mistakenly conflating that with what MLK was doing for instance) and thought it was good to keep that spirit alive.  I used to argue many of the same things expressed above about connecting with like-minded people and getting "engaged," and how these protests did those things for people.  Then I had my 19th birthday.

Over time I saw that we were only marginalizing ourselves (in most cases).  We weren't helping the cause - we were hurting it.  I feel like you can see that to this day in regard to the Vietnam protests, where the warmongers are STILL RIGHT NOW using those actions of violence, including the totally overblown idea that protesters were attacking the returning troops, to marginalize the Peace protesters of today, who are trying to bring our troops home now and stop the unnecessary killing.  Isn't that what Al's main point was?  That you get used as a pawn and too many are falling right into the trap?  The lingering effects of that can last decades as I just pointed out.  Hurting the cause - not helping.

I suppose I can think of some instances where aggressive street action has a place, although I can't think of too many examples in recent history where it's been effective.  So I started looking at what actually is making change, and I felt that some of the biggest results were achieved when people kept the high road in a non-violent way (MLK, Rosa Parks, etc), and people who worked within The System to change it.  I've had this experience in my own life now where I've (and others) created some pretty big changes by working our way up the ranks in some local organizations, but of course have been labeled a "sell-out" by some of my old friends I used to protest with.  They still do that stuff, just with much smaller numbers now and they lament how they can't seem to even get news coverage anymore.

President Barack Hussein Obama is the epitome of the value of the "high road" approach.  Imagine my surprise when I read one of his books and talks about how he had this exact same learning process as a college student.

There's a similar thing happening online right now.  I used to take Al to task for his aggressive stance toward some of the leading Liberal blogs as they rail against everything (literally at some places) Obama does and completely ignore the overall context he's operating in, and the incredible Change that's already happened.  I used to say it's good to have them pushing for what's right and so on.  But now over year into his Presidency, I see what Al was talking about when he says, "They're not on my side.  We're not on the same team."  They've been sowing seeds of discontent since long before Obama was even in office (we speculate as to why they do this).  End result though, is that they're hurting - not helping.

Effective Organizing and civil disobedience is an artform that people go to school for (Obama went to several over the years).  People like MLK, Rosa Parks, Pete Seeger and others, as they did in the 1950s as this picture shows:

http://www.highlandercenter.org/a-history2.asp

I'd say the results of their actions are impressive, and are standing the test of time.

Sta. Rios - Yet we do report the social movements in Mexico and Latin America. We offered the most exhaustive coverage of the five month "Oaxaca commune" in 2006, traveled every state in the Mexican republic with the Zapatista other campaign and gave you more han 300 stories about each of them. This week we're reporting the court ordered release of the Atenco prisoners and we've walked alongside the cause of Atenco since it began in 2002.

Interestingly, the Atenco folks carry machete swords in all their protests. But they have discipline. They've never used a single one to smash a window or hurt a human, not even a cop. For those farmers, the machete is a work tool, and a symbol. They actually know how to use it in a way that a college kid who throws a garbage can through a bank window does not.

From the uprising in El Alto, Bolivia in 2003 to the resistance to the coups in Venezuela (2002) and Honduras (2009) we've been there reporting more than any other news organization in English and more than most in Spanish. And we will continue to do so.

But those are movements with authentic, organized bases among the popular classes, not "astro-turfed" and parachuted in by activist organizations! Those movements win.

What did the APPO accomplish in Oaxaca? The first major example of an urban zapatismo. They held the city and much of the state for five months, expelled the governor and his police forces, and self managed their society through a popular assembly, with many new innovations along the way. The women took over the state TV station and the students took over the state university radio station and they pioneered new methods of authentic media and journalism. The model they created - remember that the legendary Paris Commune lasted only 50 days, while Oaxaca's lasted 150 - is something we will see revive very soon in other regions, maybe in more than one region at once. How do we know this? Because we're still here on the ground, listening to what the people tell us.

You can't compare summit actions to Oaxaca, a bona fide grassroots movement with its feet on the ground, in which nobody needs an airplane to get there!

In response to "rock this!": Yes - kudos to Narco News coverage of all the movements you mention
-The Atenco discipline IS admirable, and congrats to those released!
-I would distinguish between smashing property (and too bad the windows weren't covered in Oaxaca style political graffiti art rather than broken) and violence against fellow human beings - and although I don't commit property destruction myself, I understand the urge to attack businesses perceived to be profiting by the suffering of others, which also happened in Oaxaca (granted that some specific choices for vandalism in Toronto were off the mark and gratuitous). However the Zapatistas did not bring about their autonomy by pacifism!

-You missed my point in comparing Toronto and Oaxaca - clearly what happened in Oaxaca was a momentous achievement and ojala only the beginning as you mention - we probably were and are communicating with some of the same people on the ground - what I was pointing out was that criticisms similar to yours were made in Oaxaca after Nov 25 when hotels, banks and bus stations were vandalized - that also turned some people against la APPO - and I don't think such criticisms of either action lessen the accomplishments of activists in either venue.
Canada is not at the point of Mexico, but maybe some activists cut their teeth in Toronto . As Dru pointed out above a lot of local and creative organizing took place.
WTH - it's fun to argue with you, you had some valid points - but I think it was unfair to diminish and write off the 2010 - or any future - summit protests.  And apparently I failed to clearly communicate or you either misinterpreted or didn't bother to carefully read what I wrote about Oaxaca - you criticized Toronto on the basis of the end results AFTER the actions, and I meant to point out that many leveled the same criticisms in Oaxaca, that things actually got worse after 2006 when the government cracked down, although hopefully that was just the first round - nos vemos!

Sta. Rios - I'm not arguing to never destroy property, but, rather, who does it in what context makes all the difference in the world. The felling of the Berlin Wall by sledgehammers, for example, was on a qualitatively different level because it was in the context of clearly defined and organized human events.

In Oaxaca 2006, there was a slow deterioration as more and more international and national (especially from Mexico City) activists and outside collectives converged upon the city, many joining in the action, fueling and encouraging the "topiles" (bands of young men) to engage in summit style gratuitous trashing. Of course, police infiltrators also played a role in that.

For five months the smarter organizations in Oaxaca pleaded with me to help them keep gringos and Europeans without prior experience in the state from going there. Some other organizations (CIPO, Vocal, among them) saw the foreign and chilango "revolutionary tourists" as a source of income and provided housing and such for them. The influx of outside influence wrestled a lot of control over the direction of events from the local people to the professional activist class from outside the state. I wrote about this in my obituary of Brad Will, including excerpts from our email exchanges when I had pled with him to not go to Oaxaca. I have more than 100 such exchanges in my inbox from those five months with others. The problems caused by outsiders happened daily, and more often than not I was called to help pick up after them, and in some cases push and pull them out of the field of operations. Thankfully, most of the problems never reached the media! But it took up a lot of the APPO organizers' time that could have been spent on better things.

As for the Zapatistas, let's look at the timeline: December 31, 1993 was a guerrilla revolt followed by some weeks of intense combat, especially in Ocosingo. But within a few months - Marcos himself tells this story over and over again - the response of civil society convinced the EZLN to cease firing their arms and turn to what they called "pacific" struggle. The declaration of autonomy came two and three years later, and the autonomous municipalities in the late 90s, and both were the result of said peaceful struggle.

I think a book could be written analyzing how, despite the use of arms-as-theater, since 1995 the Zapatistas have been a model nonviolent movement! And have won many of their gains in that timeframe. Like the African National Congress, they began as an armed insurgency, and evolved into something else. There are differences - the EZLN still maintains its army in a state of readiness - but the overall result is they haven't fired a shot in 15 years and have deployed organizing tactics instead. The guns were what they had to use to establish the stage upon which to speak and be heard, I don't deny that or seek to rewrite that history. But the story I've covered since in Chiapas has been of a decidedly peaceful and disciplined struggle.

Hi Al,

All I did was point out that you were not in Toronto. That's not a "straw man," that's an accurate observation.

The $1 billion budget for security (and PR) was announced long before the protests. The window-breaking was used to justify the crackdown, but there was also a strong backlash in popular opinion. We'll see how it plays out as the real info filters out into the populace.

To answer your question, yes, I think that social movements in Toronto and Canada are stronger as a result. Thousands of people have been radicalized and motivated, and we'll see them in the streets again.

Dear Al, often I am a fan of your writing, but not without reservations. In particular this piece seems to have, in some ways, fallen into a conceptual trap first dug by Judy Rebick and later accentuated by Naomi Klein.

I would suggest taking a look at this reporting and analysis with regards to allegations of the police "controlling" or even just "allowing" the black black to do what it did.

http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/blog/oshipeya/3966

and

http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/blog/oshipeya/4012

It would appear that the notion of this grand, police-conjured conspiracy is actually quite dubious:

"Rebick is trying to convince us that the Toronto cops allowed the black bloc to run wild, that the cops purposely left their cars to be trashed and that they could have arrested the black bloc earlier on when their wasn't such a big crowd for them to mesh with... The problem being that she... is contradicted by numerous sources of photographic, video and verbal evidence... Nobody has to like or agree with the black bloc tactic or refrain from criticizing its use. But nobody has to make up conspiracy theories or lies about it either. Police infiltrate all movements and nobody should be called police agents without conclusive proof. We can criticize specific actions or methods without attributing them to police influence, especially since we know that the police themselves promote false accusations (known as bad-jacketing or snitch-jacketing)."

At this point, supposedly progressive reporters and analysts who subscribe to the "good-protester/bad-protester" dichotomy have hurt our diverse social causes, perhaps more than the police themselves have, by heaping tons of blame upon those who are struggling against unrestrained capital with a diversity of tactics, rather than focusing primarily on the states who's job it is to defend capital, and who's fault this mess really is.

Perhaps if these same analysts would spend more time explaining the actions of anti-capitalist demonstrators, and yes, rioters, to the general public, instead of finding new and more elaborate ways of criticizing and lambasting them for their choice of resistance activity, then the public would take the side of the police (and thus reaction in general) less often, and instead choose to resist in whatever fashion they feel comfortable. Surely this would be a more beneficial outcome for all involved.

Alec - First, calling them "Black Bloc anarchists" reveals that you and I have opposite views of what anarchism is. I've already explained, above, why people who impose themselves as aspiring vanguards on larger actions they did not organize can not, by definition, be anarchists: they are authoritarians.

Second, while it is cute to try and blame the critics for the bad consequences, there is nothing I could say or write to effectively defend or explain stupid tactics. What do you want me to say? "They're ineffective counter-productive assholes, but they mean well?" That won't convince anyone.

Third, I'm sorry to tell you that these asinine tactics will get nothing but all out conflict and opposition from me for the rest of my life. It's not even the tactics, per se, but the people who abuse them. College educated kids just are not the right people to play "street fighting man" and inflict it on everyone else. They get nothing but disrespect from me, and freedom of association includes the right of freedom of disassociation. I repeat: I have disassociated myself from them and from any action that tolerates "diversity of tactics," which is a fancy phrase for "we have no strategy at all so we'll just throw everything out there and see what sticks." Anyone in social struggle has a duty to have a strategy, and a good one at that. No strategy, no support. Period.

Al, I am completely with you on the rejection of thrill-seeking tactics which are not accountable to any community. I have never witnessed the fabled Bloc altruism in "defense of the movement" and I am frankly extremely skeptical: an acquaintance who ran with the Bloc as a street medic was quite emphatic -- they don't give a shit about anyone else in the movement. Their tactics directly and indirectly harmed many activists and others in our communities.

From there to saying we should stop protesting summits is however a bit of a stretch. The overwhelming majority of the 25 000 or so who showed up last Saturday were neither privileged summit-hoppers not Black Bloc vandals. Most can't afford plane fares anywhere, and many only made it to Toronto from other communities in Ontario because of concerted efforts by trade-unions and community organizations to put together buses and rides for them.

If we had simply pulled that mass march off -- plus the community actions all week, the indigenous and environmental events -- while rejecting the violent nihilism that grabbed the limelight, then it would have been well worth doing. For many it was the only opportunity we are likely to have to directly oppose the rich men's club that run the world's economies -- the next summit in Canada (if there is one) will almost certainly be inaccessible to most Ontarians. You can smugly dismiss us as passé because we missed Seattle, but your worldly ennui should not disqualify us from our sole opportunity to demostrate against global royalty. Like Jesse, we were in our own town (or provincial capital, or at most the capital of the neighbouring province, for the Québécois who also bussed in) and we knew very well what we were opposing and what we stood for. "Put people first" -- there is the suscinct purpose you were asking for (not my line -- that was the call from the Canadian Labour Congress, among others -- but it resonates for many of us).

A gathering of 25 000 is a lot of people in our country -- the last time we had numbers like that in our streets, our fence-sitting PM decided not to join Bush in the invasion of Iraq. Worth the effort, from my point of view -- though you may poo-pooh the classic anti-war march as a yawn. A successful anti-summit convergence would not have changed the predetermined austerity agenda of this summit (not binding, but still likely to set policy for many of our oppressors) but it would have been a significant show of force to others in Canada (including opposition politicians) as to what working people in this country will and will not accept. Those trade-unionists and allies (like my friend's mum who had never marched before but got on a bus full of auto-workers because she wanted to stand up and be counted for reproductive choice, now under attack by the theo-cons in Ottawa)  would have returned to their communities inspired and invigorated to throw themselves into local struggles. And we could've given the lie to the government's bogus security apparatus by being peacefully militant (including civilly disobedient) in the face of their expensive show of force.

Yes, we could stand to be more creative (who couldn't?), though there was a lot of creative stuff on the streets of Toronto last week (I thought the women who led the march with the gigantic coat-hanger were way cool!), and some of the real networking will carry on. But first we have to kick the unaccountable, nihilistic Bloc vandals far enough from our movements that they can't crawl back for cover.

"We have to unite. The only damn problem is these positions where we always think we’re right. It’s true, many people are right. They know how to tell if somebody’s doing something well, but if they don’t show up, what the fuck. Things stay the same…. Maybe other people don’t know how to do all this, but they do show up. They may be doing it all wrong, but they’re with you… "

translation of Ignacio del Valle's words at his release celebration in San Salvador Atenco on Sunday July 4th, 2010 as reported on elenemigocomun.net