AUT: a response to "On Trashing and Movement Building" By Michael

[jeff <jeff@xxxxxx>]

>[ Here is something that I wrote and posted to the Food Not Bombs list in
>response to Micheal Albert's essay "On Trashing and Movement Building"
>that is being posted by a few non-violent types to discredit the actions
>of militant anarchists. At last year's anarchist bookfair here in Boston,
>I had the ill-fortune of dealing with the pretentious and arrogant
>personality of Mr. Albert in scheduling his talk, so admittedly I took a
>bit a pleasure in criticizing his essay (which I posted below my
>response), hopefully this doesn't shine through in any of my
>arguements...       -------MaRK ]
>
>It is nice that Mr. Albert took the time to offer his own detailed
>critical analysis on the controversial topic of the more militant forms
>of direct action that took place in Seattle. It is also nice to see him
>refrain from much of the sensationalist arguements that many others have
>resorted to when they have dealt with this subjct. Overall, I agree with
>the purpose of this essay (namely, that we should always be able to step
>back and be critical of our actions), however, I have a few disagreements
>of not only the conclusions that he comes up with in this essay, but the
>entire context in which he places his arguement within.
>
>Firstly, as with much of the criticisms coming from liberal-left, the
>arguement starts off by painting a false picture of the 50,000
>demonstrators who made up the opposition to the WTO in Seattle as a
>near-harmonious working group with a democratically agreed upon idea of
>what forms of protest were to take place, and unfortunately (parroting
>much of the mainstream media's spin on the situation), a few bad apples
>managed to spoil the whole week's worth of events and severely damage all
>hope of salvaging any sort of sustainable movement. I don't know, Michael
>is one of those sock and sandel kind of guys, so maybe he really believes
>in these wide-spread "mutually respectful ties" between the varying
>constituencies on hand and the unspoken democratic tactical
>understandings between the thousands of activists. For myself, I am not a
>sock and sandel kind of guy. My perception of the varying constituencies
>of demonstrators is a bit less "feel good". Essentially, though we all
>came to Seattle against the same common enemy, we did so with everyone
>having their own sets of agendas, and their own ideas of how their voice
>was going to be heard. This encompassed everything from the far-right to
>the revolutionary left. Concerning the democratic validity of the varying
>tactical forms of protest, well, it is quite true that nobody was
>consulted over the potential for strategic economic trashings. However,
>in pointing this out many proponents of non-violent civil disobedience
>overlook one important thing, namely that a great many demonstrators were
>also not consulted over the planned civil disobedience. Many
>representatives from various NGOs travelled halfway across the globe to
>voice their concerns over the impact of globalization in their home
>countries during the Ministerial forums and were downright furious that
>they were being blocked from doing so. I saw more than one occasion where
>perfectly legitimate critics of the WTO, some of whom coming from the
>poorest regions in the world, were not allowed to voice their protest to
>the WTO in the way they deemed most effective (by actually taking part in
>the Ministerial proceedings as a dissenting voice) because they were
>unable to make it through non-violent blockades, in many cases blockaders
>would not even engage in any sort of dialogue with the angered
>"suit-and-tie demonstrators". Is this not an example of certain
>protestors using tactics that are contrary to the means of protest to be
>used by another? Was any degree of "coherence, trust and solidarity"
>fostered between these two activist constituencies? No. The point I am
>trying to make is that there were many levels of tactical antagonism at
>work in Seattle, with the window-breaking anarchists receiving far too
>much of the spotlight (of course the beauty of the situation for
>non-violent activists and liberal leftists is that much of the tactics
>that they hold dear, which at one point in history caused nothing but
>reactionary disgust amongst a majority of mainstream American society,
>now look quite mild and acceptable in comparison to the politically
>motivated property destruction of certain factions of militant
>anarchists).
>
>If we are going to be completely analytical about how certain tactics
>play a dynamic role in popular movement building, we should not pretend
>that our arguement holds more weight simply because we pay some sort of
>homage to the "the majority" who we perceive to share our views. For all
>of the dogmatically non-violent people who claim to be acting in the
>interest of "the majority", we should take a step back and ask "the
>majority of who?". First off, it would be ridiculous to think that they
>are representing "the majority" of Americans, because a majority of
>Americans do not support overtly political acts of any kind on the part
>of individuals that involves disruption (even non-violent disruption).
>Secondly, I am not even all that sure that non-violent civil disobedience
>was adamently supported by "the majority" of demonstrators who made it
>out to Seattle, considering that out of 50,000 demonstrators, under 5,000
>took part in these actions. And amongst those who did give overwhelming
>support to the non-violent civil disobedience, there was all sorts of
>disagreements on tactical savvy, ranging from locking-arms and singing to
>building barricades out of garbage dumpsters and overturned police cars.
>Comparatively, the more militant forms of protest -- including smashing
>windows, clashes with police, spraypainting and barricade building --
>enjoyed a far more diverse make-up in regards to race and class (while,
>admittingly, remaining predominently youth based), whereas the most rabid
>partisans of dogmatic pacifism (i.e. "the peace police") were almost
>always, without fail, white, middle class and politically liberal in
>temperment. This may come as a shock to some, but a good many of us don't
>place white middle class liberals as a high priorty in our political
>outreach. Just as many non-violent activists had no problem alienating
>the many suit-and-tie activists who came to Seattle to use the WTO Summit
>as a forum for their dissenting views by shutting them out of the
>meetings, many of us have no problem alienating white middle class
>liberals by disregarding their definitions of what constitutes as
>"legitimate forms of protest". We do not want to build a movement that is
>dominated by white middle class values, and we do not want to restrict
>ourselves to a politically liberal temperment. Unlike liberals, a good
>many of us don't get that icky feeling inside when we do something that
>is perceived confrontational or alienating to a good many people if in
>our hearts we feel passionately that it is the right thing to do.
>
>There are also other problems with some of the arguements posed in this
>essay, such as mystifying some forms of "trashings" as being "organic" in
>nature (such as burning and bombing ROTC buildings during a prolonged
>anti-war movement) therefore making them acceptable (or at least
>acceptable 30 years later!) and condemning other forms of "trashings" as
>"alienating" and "unnecessay". Acting as if most of the people involved
>with the "destructive" actions (such as window breaking and
>spraypainting) had nothing to do with any the "creative" actions
>throughout the week (such as the non-violent blockades, the festive
>resistance, etc.). Overlooking the fact that if not for the militant and
>"alienating" forms of action that took place in Seattle, the resistance
>against the WTO would not have enjoyed the world-wide attention that it
>did. Insinuating that these actions "dilluted" the overall political
>content of the protests (when in actuality they were partly responsible
>for making the WTO a household word). Blaming these actions for the
>brutal repression that we all suffered at the hands of the police. And
>finally, and this is the most disturbing (but perhaps this was
>unintentional), casting relatively small-scale property destruction
>authored by anarchists (which was largely symbolic destruction,
>considering that if they wanted to achieve large-scale economic
>destruction they would have used more than rocks, hammers and crowbars
>and it probably would not have taken place in the light of day) in the
>same light as Weatherman bombings.
>
>My feelings on the subject are summed nicely by a quote given by William
>Domhoff (from his book "The Power Elite and the State"):
>
>    "...Liberals, labor, and minorities, despite their great numbers,
>never win much against the conservative coalition unless there is a fear
>of disruption and violence loose in the land due to the actions of
>strikers, civil rights demonstrators, angry rioters in northern ghettos,
>or students demonstrating against wars... I am asserting that social
>disruption, whether violent or non-violent, is an essential factor in any
>successful challenge to the power structures in the United States."
>
>
>                          -------------MaRK
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>---------------
>
>On Trashing and Movement Building
>
>By Michael Albert
>
>This is a response to a post-Seattle debate troubling many folks
>regarding
>movement tactics. As a preface, it goes without saying, I hope, that we
>all
>understand that as far as violence is concerned, the violent parties in
>Seattle were first and foremost the President of the U.S., his entourage,
>the other major heads of state, the leadership of the WTO, etc.
>Poverty-inducing violence imposed with a pen trumps a brick breaking a
>window every time--not to mention that the former is to defend and
>enlarge
>injustice, while the latter is to fight it. For that matter, in the
>streets
>of Seattle, mass media coverage aside, in a large public discussion for
>all
>statistical or moral purposes the only physical violence was that
>perpetrated by police and national guard at the behest of the state.
>Pepper
>gas, rubber bullets, and truncheons all directed at citizens attempted to
>dissent from vile economic agendas trump broken windows every time on any
>violence meter, much less on one that accounts for motivations. Debate
>about movement tactics arises publicly therefore overwhelmingly because
>of a
>manipulative and distorting mass media. The issue of movement tactics as
>it
>arises inside social movements, however, gains attention because of
>potential implications on future attitudes of activists toward trashing,
>property damage, civil disobedience, and other possible demonstration
>tactics as well as participation in demonstrations. That said...
>
>Any useful discussion of movement tactics must be about their efficacy
>for
>movement building, winning short-term demands, and laying a basis for
>winning longer term aims. Assessing tactics means evaluating how they
>cause
>a movement to grow or decline and whether they enlarge or diminish
>immediate chances to win some goal.
>
>I have been involved in demonstrations in which trashing grew organically
>from the event's logic and intentions--for example, clearly enunciated
>assaults on particular draft boards or ROTC buildings. I have also been
>in
>demonstrations where trashing was counter-productive and
>irresponsible--for
>example endangering innocent folks and diluting the message and
>solidarity
>of the event. Which was true in Seattle?
>
>Seattle was a massive event and those who tirelessly organized it were
>committed to legal marches and rallies and also to illegal but
>non-violent
>civil disobedience. Upwards of 70,000 people attended. In the first days
>success was overwhelming and mutually respectful ties developed between
>usually fragmented constituencies, (turtles and Teamsters, Lesbian
>Avengers
>and steel workers). The prospect that civil disobedience would grow was
>extremely exciting and optimism was contagious. Movement participation
>was
>climbing and, amazingly, the official WTO gathering was already
>thoroughly
>disrupted. The police began to employ gas, clubs, and rubber bullets. At
>this point, the highly organized trashers broke off and attacked windows.
>Afterwards they celebrated that due to their mobility and organization
>none
>was arrested or harmed.
>
>I remember all too vividly some sixties demonstrations in which
>over-eager
>dissenters would taunt and otherwise provoke police and then disappear,
>leaving others, often utterly unprepared families, to bear the brunt of
>the
>response. I was always far more impressed with the courage of knowing
>folks
>who could easily see what was coming and escape if they wished to, but
>who
>instead used their talents to help protect their less well prepared
>co-demonstrators, then with the self preservation instincts of those who
>brought down repression and then fled the scene. In the sixties, such
>trashers' behavior was caught up in a set of mistaken expectations and
>hopes. I suspect that the same holds nowadays.
>
>Imagine that the various contingents in Seattle who had provided energy,
>song, creativity, and militancy at the rallies and especially at the
>civil
>disobedience, had then also, on top of that, not gone off breaking
>windows
>but remained with others shielding them, assisting those who were hurt,
>helping those suffering from the gas. This would have capped their
>otherwise positive involvement with exemplary behavior on behalf of their
>fellow
>demonstrators, rather than tailing off into counter productive window
>breaking. The meaning of anarchism conveyed by this would have been
>creative militancy plus humanity and solidarity, in tune with the rest of
>the
>anarchist involvement in the Seattle demonstrations.
>
>Does this mean, however, that there cannot be a time and place for
>confrontation and property damage? No, it doesn't mean that at all, at
>least not in my view. Instead, the time and place for such behavior is
>when it
>will meet widespread approval and increase the power of protest rather
>than
>providing an excuse for folks to tune out or become hostile to protest.
>Up
>to the trashing, anarchists in Seattle added energy, creativity, art,
>music, and often greatly needed militancy, courage, and steadfastness to
>many demonstration venues. They uplifted participants' spirits and
>otherwise played a very positive role within the rubric of the
>demonstration's guidelines. It was only when some went off breaking
>windows
>against the demonstration's norms that a problem arose. And we should
>note
>that it isn't just trashing that is sometimes warranted and sometimes
>not.
>Sometimes civil disobedience is out of place too. It too can be at odds
>with the mindsets of people's current orientation and planning for events
>so that spontaneously undertaking civil disobedience would violate an
>event's logic and promise, alienate people who are moving toward dissent,
>and not spur new insight and solidarity but reduce it. Other times,
>however, employing civil disobedience makes excellent sense and is even
>pivotal to success, as in Seattle, for example. For that matter,
>sometimes
>even a march can be adventurist; other times is can be the ideal tactic.
>
>In other words, what tactics at an event are warranted and will help a
>movement grow and strengthen, and what tactics at an event are
>unwarranted
>and will hurt a movement and its cause, is very rarely a matter of
>unyielding principles but depends almost always on how the event has been
>portrayed and organized, who is at it, what their expectations and
>consciousness are, what the event's prospects are for impacting social
>outcomes, and how the event and the tactics are likely to be perceived by
>and to impact non-involved constituencies. Regrettably, once activists
>enter a trashing mindset, they most often don't care about such
>calculations. To trash is good, they feel, exuberantly, because, after
>all,
>the targets are criminal corporations and damaging them is a step toward
>demystifying and destroying them. Anyone against that must be
>pro-corporate, they announce. The mindset isn't about discriminating the
>impact of possible tactics, but only about what target to hit. But it is
>not the acme of wisdom to deduce that McDonalds and Nike are better
>targets
>than random passersby or a family grocery store. As far as Seattle is
>concerned, despite other fantastically valuable contributions to the
>event,
>for a relatively minuscule number of participants to impose on a massive
>demonstration tactics contrary to its
>definition was undemocratic behavior that should be transcended in the
>future.
>
>The events in Seattle had, before any trashing occurred, already entirely
>hamstrung the WTO. They had already evidenced militant creativity and
>creative organization and knowledge. They had already begun to generate
>new
>allegiances and ties among diverse constituencies. They had already
>combined many levels of creative and militant tactics in a mutually
>supportive mix. Speeches at rallies already in many instances made the
>obvious leaps from opposing free trade to opposing free markets, and from
>opposing global profiteering to opposing capitalism per se. The ground
>was
>laid for the work we all now need to do. The addition of trashing had no
>positive effects. It did not win useful visibility that would otherwise
>have been absent. It did not enlarge the number of folks participating or
>empathizing with the demonstration. It did not cause more substantive
>information to be conveyed either in the mainstream or on the left. It
>did
>not respect much less enlarge democracy. What it did do, instead, was (a)
>divert attention from the real issues, (b) provide a pretext for
>repression
>which would otherwise have been unequivocally seen as crushing legitimate
>dissent, and (c) and arguably most important, cause many to feel that
>dissent is an unsympathetic
>undertaking in which instead of actors respecting one another, some, at
>least, feel that they have the right to undemocratically violate the
>intentions and desires of most others.
>
>Just so we are clear: again, the issue isn't is trashing per se good or
>bad. Suppose that the trashers hadn't embarked on breaking windows but
>had
>become a support group for those suffering police assaults, rallying
>spirit
>and protecting bodies. Suppose that hundreds and then thousands more
>students and workers had joined the civil disobedience efforts. Suppose
>that the state had used gas and charging cops repeatedly to break up such
>efforts. And suppose in this context a good part of the city's population
>and of the "audience" around the country and a large majority of the
>constituencies in
>Seattle to demonstrate felt solidarity with the law-breaking
>demonstrators.
>Now imagine, in this context, that the police charged and folks didn't
>run,
>but instead suddenly stood their ground. More, suppose they then turned
>and
>decided it was time to push the police back. Imagine that this led to
>battles, and then to cars turned over, barricades built, and so on. The
>property damage by protesters in such massive melees would dwarf anything
>committed by the trashers in Seattle and it would no doubt extend beyond
>corporate targets and damage even the property of innocents. Some would
>say
>this couldn't possibly be to the good, but I would say, instead, that as
>described this would have a completely different flavor and logic from
>the
>trashing in Seattle -- and would expand rather than diminish the involved
>movements and constituencies. There is therefore a judgment call in the
>use
>of tactics.
>
>Sometimes a tactic is wise, other times the same tactic is mistaken. What
>was wrong about the political folks who self-consciously trashed in
>Seattle
>was that (1) despite their other genuine and valuable contributions to
>the
>events, regarding trashing their judgment was horribly faulty. And (2)
>they
>egocentrically thought that their judgment alone was sufficient
>justification for them to dramatically violate norms accepted by tens of
>thousands of other demonstrators.
>
>Changing society isn't a matter of breaking windows, it is a process of
>developing consciousness and vehicles of organization and movement, and
>of
>then applying these to win gains that benefit deserving constituencies
>and
>create conditions for still further victories, leading to permanent
>institutional change. Cultivating movement coherence, trust, and
>solidarity
>-- not just in a small affinity group but far more widely -- is a big
>part
>of this agenda. Coherence, trust, and solidarity are not furthered when
>small groups undemocratically violate the agenda of massive
>demonstrations
>to pursue their private inclinations, even when the small group has a
>plausible case for its preferences, unlike in this instance.
>
>The fact that corporations are so vile that attacking them is warranted
>if
>it will do good, doesn't mean they are so vile that attacking them is
>warranted if it will do harm. When I was a college student organizing
>against the Vietnam War I used to appear in front of very large and
>animated audiences, give long talks, and then field questions. It was a
>tumultuous time and I was often asked, for example, "would you burn down
>the school
>library if it would end the war?" My reply always took more or less this
>form -- "What moral midget wouldn't burn down a library to save a million
>lives? Of course I would, in an instant. But there is no connection
>whatsoever between burning a library and helping the victims of U.S.
>imperialism in Indochina, nor is there any connection between burning a
>library and altering the fabric of our own society so that the U.S. no
>longer engages in such pursuits. Worse, such behavior would have exactly
>the contrary impact, benefiting those committing the vile bombing. Can we
>now please get on to something serious such as how to communicate
>effectively to new constituencies about the ills of the war, and how to
>build sustained and serious resistance to it, and leave the posturing and
>baiting behind?"
>
>Back then, it was often very brilliant, well-trained, and highly capable
>minds that drifted into Weatherman and other such formations. What was
>always quite notable was that these individuals could engage carefully,
>critically, and caringly in many domains, but reverted to odd leaps of
>faith and fancy regarding their out-of-touch lifestyle and "activism"
>choices. I really hope we do not have to witness and suffer a replay.
>
>The events in Seattle were stupendously successful in bringing the WTO
>into
>the awareness of people in the U.S. and all over the world, in making
>clear
>to tens of millions that there is great opposition and therefore that
>there
>is something here to look into and have an opinion on, and in laying
>seeds
>for further effective activism of many diverse and powerful
>constituencies
>willing to respect and relate to one another, to multiple agendas, and to
>diverse tactical options. This was all achieved, however, not via the
>trashing, but in spite of it.
>
>Some of the pronouncements of defenders of the trashing remind me of a
>very
>brilliant and eloquent friend of mine, who came to my apartment one 1969
>night, about 2 AM, and with three or four others snuck in and said "We
>are
>the Vietcong, we need a place for the night...the revolution is imminent,
>we are underground, don't mind us, go back to sleep. Wake to a new
>society." They had as excuse for their delirium that they hadn't done
>just one
>demonstration, but had been enmeshed in full-time activism for years.
>Their
>environment was almost exclusively their friends in Weatherman and they
>had
>all lathered themselves into a well motivated but utterly out of touch
>turmoil of hope, rage, desire, paranoia, anticipation, and abstract
>rationalization that was so divorced from reality as to render them, so
>long
>as the mindsets persisted, virtually useless as positive agents of social
>change. These were in many cases the best minds and best hearts of my
>generation. So please note: those who read this essay or others about
>Seattle or who were there and are angry at the political people who
>trashed--do not make the callous and ignorant mistake of thinking the
>trashers were by nature anti-political, uncommitted, insensitive, or
>unsympathetic, much less police agents. Life is not so simple. It isn't
>the
>case that those you disagree with are always in some way abhorrent. These
>are overwhelmingly movement people, indeed some of our best movement
>people. For those who were involved or supported the trashing to sharply
>disparage those who didn't, or vice versa, isn't going to get anyone
>anywhere useful. There is misunderstanding on both sides, but the
>distance
>to unity and progress is much less than the distance was between
>"turtles" and
>"teamsters" before Seattle. We all ought to be able to quickly bridge
>that
>gap and agree on the broad logic of how to assess tactics -- if not to
>agree on every judgment about every single specific tactic, of course --
>and especially on how to abide collective norms at our demonstrations.
>This
>accomplished we can move on to Philadelphia, NYC, SF, Chicago, Denver,
>Miami, LA, Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Detroit, in unity and
>without fear of one another.
>
>I hope those who did trash won't take these words as disparagement of
>your
>potentials and aspirations. I hope you will seriously consider, instead,
>that perhaps with the best intentions you are mistakenly repeating one
>part
>of sixties movement history--the saddest and least functional part--and
>will in reaction rise above the temptations and confusions that bedeviled
>many of the best of my generation.
>
>___________________________________________________________________
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>To: aac@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 03:13:20 -0500
>Subject: Re: "On Trashing and Movement Building" By Michael Albert
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