Seattle May Day

[Ele'ill]

Does it not deserve its own thread or something? and god damnit I love the band music in that first video.

dU5bs1OTX2U


News report that has to be like a madtv skit or something seriously

wu0TS4UR0jA

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

I'm proud of the protesters, especially for vandalizing Well Fargo. If they could also organize a statement for the mainstream press or get featured video on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, why we go after market institutions, we could possibly get more support for our cause. We need a PR campaign to relate to the people, by showing the corruption on a broaden scale, it would do us even more justice for our fight.

[Ele'ill]

A bit on Seattle

http://anarchistnews.org/content/why-all-smashy-smashy-beginners-guide-targeted-property-destruction

[Lobotomy]

I posted this elsewhere this morning but I'll delete it and post it here instead.

Alright here is a really good article on may day in seattle: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/05/01/may-day-protest-coverage

some pics: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Protesters-gather-in-downtown-Seattle-3525107.php#photo-2886223

and one of the best videos from yesterday: wB9gMKCAVKE

basically in seattle yesterday there were two main events: the anti-capitalist march at noon and the immigration march in the evening (which was bigger and more liberal). I think there were some skirmishes in between but I had to leave in the afternoon so idk specifics.

In the anti-capitalist march however, I'd say there were 200-250 people marching. there are some great pictures floating around of nike, american apparell, wells fargo and the court house getting fucked up. a lot of cars got smashed too. The march split up shortly after all that happened. I think someone in the crowd set off some smoke bombs and others thought it was tear gas and got all freaked out. Everyone just kind of panicked and ran for no reason and I looked over and there were only like 4 cops on bikes and that was all -____-

Sometime around 2-3 pm the mayor annouced that protestors were not permitted to have anything that could be used as a weapon. that included signs, flags etc. I heard that <10 people got arrested in all but that could be wrong. a lot of businesses downtown closed early in lieu of everything that was going on.

on a more personal note, this was my first explicitly anti-capitalist demonstration, and I'm really glad I was a part of it. Right now I'm just reading comments on news articles and looking through my facebook news feed and taking delight in what the spineless liberals are saying about it. also I saw one reporter on the news talking about vandalism done by the "black box" :lol:

[Ele'ill]

I think someone in the crowd set off some smoke bombs and others thought it was tear gas and got all freaked out. Everyone just kind of panicked and ran for no reason and I looked over and there were only like 4 cops on bikes and that was all -____-

Yeah I posted about this happening in Portland too during the anti-capitalist march. :lol:

[Lobotomy]

Yeah I posted about this happening in Portland too during the anti-capitalist march. :lol:

Yeah it's kind of a bummer to think of what could have happened if we had been able to stay together. idk what the pigs did to make us split up, but whatever it was, it worked.

[Ele'ill]

The issue is that the police came in and used an absurd amount of force cause they can without any likely chance of suffering any consequences at all. Mainly cause they have their perverse version of solidarity(the law, the courts, their union bud internal affairs bs crew). The question I guess is what does our solidarity look like? How do we protect one another?

[A Marxist Historian]

The issue is that the police came in and used an absurd amount of force cause they can without any likely chance of suffering any consequences at all. Mainly cause they have their perverse version of solidarity(the law, the courts, their union bud internal affairs bs crew). The question I guess is what does our solidarity look like? How do we protect one another?

The form our solidarity should take is defending all the arrestees from the bourgeois state, if they are being seriously prosecuted, which I'll bet some of them are. Marches & rallies, recruiting lefty lawyers etc.

I fail to see what all that window-smashing accomplished other than making some people feel good, but that's besides the point. An injury to one is an injury to all. Breaking a window at Wells Fargo is useless, but it is not a crime from the standpoint of the working class.

The real question is, where does OWS go from here, besides turning into a defense campaign?

Seattle is the land of the Black Orchid Collective, which says it represents the "89%," the non-unionized majority of the working class. They could prove it by organizing non-unionized workers to occupy their workplaces. But that is a lot harder than just having a demo in downtown Seattle and busting some windows and whatnot.

Till then, OWS is most potentially meaningful as an adjunct in certain circumstances to radicals within the actual organizations of the working class, the unions. But given the rottenness of the union leaders, this isn't even working out in the Bay Area. Thus you had the occupation of the Golden Gate Bridge called off at the last moment.

The high point of working class action on Mayday in the Bay Area, and in fact in the USA, was I suppose the nurses' strike at Alta Bates. Now, if thousands of OWS folk had joined the nurses to shut down the hospitals and stop the scab nurses from crossing the picket lines, that would have been a great thing.

But the CNA didn't even try to shut down the hospitals, as that might have been illegal and moreover would have meant a conflict with the other unions representing Alta Bates workers.

So the hospitals functioned without a hitch on Mayday, and the striking nurses aren't even being allowed to go back to work for a couple days, they're locked out, so as to humiliate them and make the point about how useless their strike was.

At best, radical union activists in the ILWU in particular have been trying to use OWS as support for their own internal political maneuverings, resulting in the fiasco in Seattle in January, which really set things back.

-M.H.-

[Ele'ill]

I fail to see what all that window-smashing accomplished other than making some people feel good, but that's besides the point. An injury to one is an injury to all. Breaking a window at Wells Fargo is useless, but it is not a crime from the standpoint of the working class.

http://anarchistnews.org/content/why-all-smashy-smashy-beginners-guide-targeted-property-destruction

I posted that as a partial response to inevitable incoming criticisms. I recommend you browse it.

[bricolage]

two things from this article that was posted above: (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/05/01/may-day-protest-coverage)

Is this the best chant ever?

Brendan reports, standing near Seneca. He reports that a contingency of people is chanting, "We're here, we're queer, we're unicorns, and we'll fuck you up!"

And this guy knows what it's all about,

"As I walk home through downtown, I see workers covering up fancy storefront windows with sheets of plywood. I asked one of the workers if everyone was boarding up for the night. He said, 'Yes, windows are expensive and we are not.'"

[Fawkes]

wu0TS4UR0jA

"May Day is traditionally a day for peaceful protest"

...uh, since when?

[Ele'ill]

:lol: this video is totally worth watching if you haven't seen it already its really pathetic, terrifying and hilarious at the same time especially the 'poop on the police' green paint in the background on that shield thing as we're supposed to be taking this dumbass seriously.

nDwaCRJUemY

[Paulappaul]

holy shit my metal black flags are in seattle!

[Ele'ill]

Report back from Seattle May Day organizers

http://greycoast.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/the-fight-for-a-life-worth-living-a-statement-on-seattles-2012-may-day-events-from-organizers/



The Fight for a Life Worth Living: A Statement on Seattle’s 2012 May Day Events from Organizers
Posted on May 24, 2012 by anonaminita
from Occupy Seattle

Note: The following statement is being released on behalf of a group of organizers of Occupy/Decolonize Seattle’s May Day events who have chosen to speak as a group regarding May 1st and the controversies in the media narrative since.

We are organizers and participants involved in this year’s May Day events. Many of us also participate in Occupy/Decolonize Seattle. We conceived the events of the May Day General Strike as a celebration of life in solidarity with the global uprising against economic oppression and the 1%. May Day is a day of pride for migrants and workers everywhere. It is a day of remembrance for the anarchists executed in show trials after the world’s first May Day in 1886, fighting for the 8-hour work day. Most powerfully, it is a day of struggle—of celebrating freedom and striking out against what hurts us.

Reports that May 1st was “hijacked by anarchists” are inaccurate and insulting. May Day was an inspiration to us all. The crowd was multiracial and multigenerational, and included many working class students who walked out from multiple high schools and colleges. Over 40 local artists took the stage during the day of music and community Hip Hop Occupies to Decolonize planned at Westlake Park. Organizers also scheduled three marches over a month in advance: a No Borders March, to join the May 1st Coalition march to the Wells Fargo Building; an Honor the Dead, Fight for the Living March, in honor of Trayvon Martin and all those killed by police and by white supremacist culture; and an Anti-Capitalist March. Thousands took the streets during these actions and disrupted commerce in downtown Seattle.

During the Anti-Capitalist March, participants in a black bloc smashed windows and damaged businesses and cars. Among the businesses targeted were a Wells Fargo branch, a Niketown, an American Apparel, and a Bank of America. There is tremendous anger worldwide directed at these institutions. Each of the corporations and banks that own the damaged stores inflict real economic and social violence on the planet and on poor people everywhere. Wells Fargo, for one, is complicit in enormous direct and structural violence through its 3.5 million shares in GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest operator of private prisons. The same corporation lobbied aggressively for SB1070, Arizona’s racist anti-immigrant legislation, to profit from the “enhanced opportunities” the law provides for immigrants’ incarceration. The rage expressed during the Anti-Capitalist March extends beyond the black bloc. No one should be surprised that people are angry enough to destroy the property of the 1%. Regardless of differences in practice, we share that anger.

Economic refugees and people of color everywhere are treated as exploitable labor. Media depictions support this exploitation. The media selects representatives from immigrant rights organizations to speak for all migrants and economic refugees, and silences the migrant workers marching in the Anti-Capitalist March and those of us organizers who are people of color, economic refugees, and indigenous people. Similarly, accusations that undocumented workers were put at risk on May Day conceal the truth: the only danger to participants in May Day activities came from the police themselves.

Mayor McGinn, the SPD, and the Seattle media have tried to split May Day participants between “good protesters” and “violent anarchists.” As organizers and participants, however, we reject all attempts to divide us, and stand together in defining our own message. We value people above property. The corporations attacked, and these institutions that protect them, are not on the side of the working class or the 99%. The lives these businesses destroy are more important than their windows. We remain in solidarity with those everywhere who fight for a life worth living.