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May Day ruckus at Santa Cruz, CA
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14998618
Now for my jab at (A): so the Mercury News is giving a one-sided account, and as a Leninist, I'll even concede that back in the day, anarchist predictions about Bolshevism came true... but how does this adventurist TCI crap bring the revolution any closer? The only class consciousness this generated was turning a dozen petty bourgeois into teabaggers.
Last edited by Kléber; 3rd May 2010 at 01:48. Reason: changed title
It doesn't, but neither does condemning these actions as "adventurist crap." Those who are "shocked" and "appalled" or driven to the "teabaggers" by these absolutely insignificant displays of frustration and anger generally have had no problem tolerating, excusing, justifying those far more massive and violent actions of the bourgeoisie.
We need to keep a bit of perspective on this, comrade and not reflexively react.
I'm sure breaking out windows at an Urban Outfitters will bring about more jobs, immigrant rights, and higher wages.
I meant the small businesspeople whose stores got fucked up, not random reactionaries for whom this was their latest reason to hate "the left," but I still think it hurts the appeal of communism to workers.
The story said 15 businesses were damaged, and lists more chain stores than local businesses, but some chains include stores that are independently owned; there was also an attempt to burn down a decent coffee shop, apparently as some sort of sectarian inter-café rivalry.
The official excuse is "Several expensive 'hipster' stores, corporate chain stores, and bourgeois shops that cater to tourists had their windows smashed."
Of course I would defend the rioters against anyone who said the inconvenience to some shopkeepers, most of whom will probably get insurance money eventually, was a bigger issue than police brutality or the ongoing imperialist wars and occupations. Perhaps I am overreacting but it is precisely because, as a communist who lives in this place, I find myself in the position of defending such behavior in conversations with the general population who is at best alienated by it, that I have chosen to whine about it on an online forum.
^Is this supposed to be dialogue with the working class?
Other graffiti included:
“Brick by brick we will bring it down”; “Destruction is the New Pink”; “Destroy the Destroyers”
And yes, as this YouTube video proves, for the most part it was a symbolic protest and I doubt most people there had wrecking in mind, so I regret referring to it as a "riot," which it was not, and have tried to change the thread title accordingly
+ YouTube Video
Nope, no more than not breaking windows at Urban Outfitters will bring about more jobs, immigrant rights and higher wages.I'm sure breaking out windows at an Urban Outfitters will bring about more jobs, immigrant rights, and higher wages.
What's the BFD? Why do these minor displays of such minor violence bother some individuals and organizations so much?
What would you like to do, create your own police force to arrest these people? That might be interesting because some of them are probably paid police provocateurs. SFW?
The problem with creating a police force is exactly that. Back in the day, in the US, the "Mobe" committee against the Vietnam War was very worried about "Red Flag" contingents who wouldn't abide by the "Bring Our Troops Home" bullshit, but actually insisted on calling the struggle in Vietnam a revolution, and linking opposition to the war to the support for that revolution. So worried that the Mobe trained "marshalls" to try and keep the Red Flag contingents contained and separated from the body of the marches and demonstrations.
These clowns made a few mistakes, like laying their hands on some members of the Red Flag contingent who weren't about to tolerate being segregated from the march. Big mistake.
But anyway, you don't know who did what in Santa Cruz, and as long as we don't know, why would you jump up and swallow the journalistic bait that's thrown into the water. You like chum?
OK, that's much more reasonable. I certainly like the graffiti.
I don't really care about the shop owners, but I do have a problem with this action (as described in the news report anyway - which could be a misrepresentation) considering that many immigrants are already (understandably) afraid of police crack-downs and may not want to organize with radicals or even come to marches if they feel like someone venting some frustration will end up getting them arrested and possibly separated from their family.
Because these immigrant workers are facing repression, it is really important that we build trust when organizing with people who would bear the brunt of any crackdown. Many working class people are already suspicious of the left and susceptible to claims that radicals "use" workers and have their own separate agenda. That's why it's more the secrecy and undemocratic organizing of things like this that are troubling to me.
If people wanted to make an insurrectionist statement or whatever, they should have organized their own separate "may day" not connected to the immigrant rights actions. I mean it doesn't even seem like they targeted businesses that had anything to do with immigrant scapegoating, so what is this action saying about radicals to people in the larger movement who are not yet radical? Is it helping to win people to seeing how worker's power and revolution are ultimately necessary to win civil and labor rights as well as creating a better and more democratic world? No, it's basically saying, we think smashing a window of a chain-store is more important that organizing a fightback against organized racism in Arizona and the rest of the US.
Because they alienate the vast majority of people, and only serve to give angsty anarchists some wank material, that's why.
A methodological point: The dominant assumption here is that the only valid point of protest actions is to convince potential allies to join us.
If that's the case, nearly 100% of protest actions are total failures. Fortunately, there are other kinds of message a protest action can send, and other audiences it can be directed toward. For example:
The SOCIAL ORDER OF THE FUTURE ...blends the fullest democratic control with the most absolute expert supervision, something unthinkable of any society built upon the political State. — James Connolly, "Industrial Unionism and Constructive Socialism"
We will sing of the great crowds AGITATED BY WORK PLEASURE AND REVOLT; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops...Standing on the world's summit we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars! — FT Marinetti et al., "The Futurist Manifesto"
In SF, there were some counter protesting Teabaggers. Me and 2 friends (one in the PSL) were tasked with getting garbage bags for clean up so we went off to find a store. on our way back we came across 10-15 cops surrounding maybe 5-10 people rougly my age, under 20, all in black, one girl with a bloodshot eye and all in cuffs.
i have yet to find a report on these people and why they were arrested. i hope they were just BANA idiots. Even if it wasnt BANA, and it was just some anarchist group that did this, there is no reason to start shit with the police. Berlin and Athens may be different but in CA, were not here to bring attention to any possible undocumented people at a pro-immigrant anti-sb1070 rally.
also, the teabaggers did get chased off
EDIT: just found a report of a black bloc that took place a while after the rally i was at. they ended up occupying an abandoned school. that i can support so long as the anarchists all knew each other and were not endangering anyone else.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
I think the above by comrade Higgins is totally legit and correct. That's the argument to make, not that it "alienates" shopkeepers, or gives the cops excuses, but that it places immigrants in danger of being picked off in the demonstrations.
I would recommend that leaflets for the demonstration itself stress the importance of not engaging in certain acts for the reason of not exposing migrant workers to retaliation.
In SF, there were some counter protesting Teabaggers. Me and 2 friends (one in the PSL) were tasked with getting garbage bags for clean up so we went off to find a store. on our way back we came across 10-15 cops surrounding maybe 5-10 people rougly my age, under 20, all in black, one girl with a bloodshot eye and all in cuffs.
i have yet to find a report on these people and why they were arrested. i hope they were just BANA idiots. Even if it wasnt BANA, and it was just some anarchist group that did this, there is no reason to start shit with the police. Berlin and Athens may be different but in CA, were not here to bring attention to any possible undocumented people at a pro-immigrant anti-sb1070 rally.
also, the teabaggers did get chased off
EDIT: just found a report of a black bloc that took place a while after the rally i was at. they ended up occupying an abandoned school. that i can support so long as the anarchists all knew each other and were not endangering anyone else.
OK, so the concern is tactical. I agree with that, too. Can you do it and strengthen the movement, and not get participants picked off by the cops. Sometimes it's the right thing to do, tactically; sometimes it's not.
Sometimes it's even the right thing to do strategically when you don't stand a chance of tactical success-- like fighting off the cops in August 68 in Chicago-- showing my age, ain't I? How's that for a blast from the past?
tactically and strategically there is a difference. i have no probelm with anarchists at all its just a bit of a problem with strat and tac. i dont think i saw any red and black flags though. but the IWW was there which was nice to see.
now, '68 may have been an appropriate time, and '92 in LA may have been an appropriate time, but right now, its not.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
Entirely aside from the morality of bloc tactics and sporadic outbursts against business buildings, it's simply not the most practical approach when there are widespread misconceptions of anarchism being nothing more than promotion of chaos and disorder.
[FONT=Verdana]The Anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority. -Benjamin Tucker[/FONT]
what does this have to do with tci?
this action happened separately from the immigrants march, as far as i can tell.
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
I expect the bourgeois media to get upset about some broken windows, but revolutionary leftists?
For the record I don't think destroying property gets us anywhere either but I'm not about to complain about broken windows when capitalism and the state violently destroy the lives of HUMAN victims. Lets keep our priorities straight. People are always going to be pissed off and I think they have pretty good reason to be.
What do you get if you put one communist in a room? A party.
What do you get if you put two communists in a room? Three splinter groups.
i don't think its a matter of being upset over the windows, but rather upset over the seeming lack of any strategy involved in these actions. attacking capital in this manner certainly shouldn't be removed from the tools we have available, but i think it should be undertaken with a bit more consideration.
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
I don't think it's the lack of strategy that triggered the criticism. The initial post did not comment upon, nor even cite this event as an example of, the overall lack of strategy.
It appeared to be dismay and exasperation at the untidiness of actual protest and struggle, explained with the usual "it alienates people," "it turns people off," "it turns people off who might be our friends," etc. etc. etc.
If the issue is protecting those in the demonstrations from retaliation that will do far more damage than any benefit that can achieved from the tactics being employed, I can understand and support that.
But if the argument is--"Oh this won't help us. It will turn people away from us"-- I think that's really wrong. The material economic conditions underlying and driving the protests will become more acute. People will forget all about the broken windows and move toward us as long as we can articulate and demonstrate a strategy and a program in opposition to the bourgeoisie.
If anybody would bring up the broken windows of a local coffee house as a reason to reject the substance of the demonstration, I think all you have to do is ask him or her how that damage compares to the 100s, 1000s, killed by predator drones.
i think this is a strategic concern.
i think it would be a stretch to say it is material economic conditions driving anarchists to break windows and even more of a stretch to say that anarchist actions in most of the country demonstrate anything like a strategy or program.
the broken windows are the substance.
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
The demonstrations on May Day were obviously given greater life and vigor by the current economic distress, no?
The substance of those demonstrations wasn't about trashing BoA, Wells Fargo, Starbucks, Raffetto's or Joe's Dairy-- and let me tell you, anyone who ever lift's a rock against either of those last two will have to answer to me and the rest of lower Manhattan-- but about migrant labor, unemployment, war, etc.
Not all attending these demonstrations were anarchists; not all anarchists attending these demonstrations trashed buildings, cars, etc; the demonstrations themselves were not demonstrations of anarchism.
