AUT: solidarity statement

[jeff <jeff@xxxxxx>]

INITIATIVE FOR A NORTHEASTERN FEDERATION OF ANARCHIST-COMMUNISTS (NEFAC)
SOLIDARITY STATEMENT TO THE ANTI-WTO ANARCHIST BLACK BLOC

The World Trade Organization (WTO), an international decision-making body
and enforcement agency for unrestricted globalized capitalism, met
recently in Seattle, Washington, for it's Third Ministerial Conference.
The WTO is a 133-nation governmental organization which favors
multinational corporations, exploits farmers, supports child slavery,
denies workers' rights, and destroys environments around the globe. On
November 30th, as delegates were scheduled to begin the opening
ceremonies of the week-long conference, they were met by tens of
thousands of protesters who not only prevented the WTO's opening
ceremonies from taking place, but also managed to shut down the entire
downtown shopping district of Seattle for the better part of the day.
This was achieved by the use of large-scale festive resistance,
innovative protest tactics and solidarity amongst the varying
constituencies of demonstrators.

As activists built effective blockades and successfully occupied street
after street throughout the day, the police responded with the unprovoked
use of tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades,
pain-compliance holds, and clubbings, thus forcing a volatile situation
into a series of riotous street battles.  As part of  the more militant
forms of protest, a loosely organized cluster of  individuals and
affinity groups known as the anarchist black bloc, engaged in various
forms of economic disruption by destroying specifically targeted
corporate property.  The corporations targeted included:  NikeTown and
Levi's (whose overpriced products are made in sweatshops), Fidelity
Investment (major investor in Occidental Petroleum, the bane of the U'wa
tribe in Columbia), the Bank of  America, U.S. Bancorp, Key Bank, and
Washington Mutual Bank (financial institutions key in the expansion of
corporate repression), among others.

The ACME Collective, in their communique on the black bloc, said it best
by stating:

"As anarchists, we contend that property destruction is not a violent
activity unless it destroys lives or causes pain in the process.  By this
definition, private property-- especially corporate private property-- is
itself infinitely more violent than any action taken against it.

Private property should be distinguished from personal property.  The
latter is based upon use, while the former is based upon trade.  The
premise of personal property is that each of us has what s/he needs.  The
premise of private property is that each of us has something that someone
else needs or wants.  In a society based on private property rights, those
who are
able to accrue more of what others need or want have greater power.  By
extension, they wield greater control over what others perceive as needs and
desires, usually in the interest  of increasing profit to themselves.

Advocates of "free trade" would like to see this process to its logical
conclusion: a network of a few industry monopolists with ultimate control
over the lives of everyone else.  Advocates of "fair trade" would like to
see this process mitigated by government regulations meant to
superficially impose basic humanitarian standards.  As anarchists, we
despise both positions.  Private property-- and capitalism, by extension--
is intrinsic violent and repressive and cannot be reformed or mitigated.
Whether the power of everyone is concentrated into the hands of a few
corporate heads or diverted into a regulatory apparatus charged with
mitigating the disasters of the latter, no one can be as free or as powerful
as they could be in a non-hierarchal society."

We, the Initiative for a Northeastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists,
express our deepest solidarity with our comrades who took it upon
themselves to strike capitalism where it hurts and demonstrating to the
world the important role militant resistance will play in the struggles yet to
come.

Do not let the blows against this capitalist system cease!  From Athens,
Greece to the streets of Seattle... Our anarchist resistance is, and will
continue to be, as transnational as capital!

Solidarity and Revolution,
The Initiative for a Northeastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists

signed;

Groupe Anarchiste Emile-Henry (Quebec), Nosotros Group (Baltimore), Prole
Revolt (Morgantown, WV), We Dare Be Free (Boston), Sabate (Boston), and a
number of individual revolutionary anarchist-communists from New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New
York, and Illinois
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