Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999 10:28:29 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Fringe anarchists in middle of violent demonstrations 


Re: Fringe anarchists in middle of violent demonstrations 
http://www.seattle-pi.com/local/anar01.shtml

Ruth: I want to thank you for the interesting article on the anarchists
at yesterday's Seattle protests. It was good of you as a journalist to
spend some time talking with SOME of the anarchists who were present
yesterday. However, there are quite a few problems with your account,
which are typical of mainstream media coverage of the anarchism
movement.

Let me first say that I am a 34-year-old anarchist who works as a
webmaster in Washington, DC (three blocks from the White House).
Yesterday I attended two rallies here in D.C. to protest the WTO and
GM-modifed foodstuffs.

That being said, let me say that I fully support all of the actions
yesterday in Seattle, as long as they didn't hurt anybody. The whole
world saw who was really violent yesterday: the police. If that was a
restrained police action, should we get body bags ready for a "typical"
police action? All around the world today, people are looking at their
newspapers and seeing cops firing chemical weapons at nonviolent
demonstrators sitting in the street.

The street battles yesterday represent a frustration that many
nonviolent activists around the world are having with the police. We
can't do anything nonviolent without getting beat up or pepper-sprayed.
The cops have left us with no way to protest effectively.

I'm not sure how much the Eugene anarchists were involved with
yesterday's street battles, but they have legitimate reasons to be angry
with the cops. Over the past years, they have experienced pepper spray
attacks, a terrorist incident where the cops held the mom of an
anarchist at gunpoint, and last, but not least, the incarceration of an
older anarchist for 7 YEARS for throwing a rock at cop. He'll do more
time than most rapists and murderers.

I'm getting really sick and tired of reading journalists describe
anarchists as "self-proclaimed" or "self-described." We are anarchists,
period! Do you call Bill Clinton a "self-described Democrat?" Or
Governor George Bush a "self-proclaimed Republican?" You've gotten off
to a good start by describing the history of anarchism, but please
accord us with the same respect you use for any other political flavor.

More importantly, there were more anarchists in Seattle than you
counted. Probably in the thousands. I should know, because I helped one
financially travel there, and I know that many others were there. Not
all anarchist dress like the ones you interviewed. There were probably
ones there dressed like hippies, or students, or just middle class
suburban people. There were anarchists among the people who sat
nonviolently in the street. There were hundreds of anarchists (IWW) at
the labor rally. Other anarchists helped with alternative media work,
including websites and the micropower radio station. I suspect that
several dozen were involved with that building occupation.

Anarchists are all around you, but we don't all dress the same, nor do
we agree with each other. But we all stand in unity in our opposition to
capitalism and secret trade bodies such as the WTO.

Seattle is just a taste of things to come.

-- 
Chuck0

Mid-Atlantic Infoshop
http://www.infoshop.org/

Leonard Peltier Freedom Month 
Executive Clemency For Peltier!
http://www.freepeltier.org/lpfreedommonth.html

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!
http://www.infoshop.org/gulag/mumia_idx.html

"A society is a healthy society only to the degree 
that it exhibits anarchistic traits." 
        - Jens Bjørneboe