From: durgaldur-AT-juno.com Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 09:06:22 +0000 Subject: Re: Eat your young On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 04:05:59 -0800 Sara Smith <duchamp-AT-earthlink.net> writes: > It seems like you replied without really responding to what he said. > For example, he pointed out that the anarchist movement was yanked back > at least 10 years because of the property damage done in Seattle and > this is how you replied: > > "What has your anarchist movement been doing for the past 10 years? > I mean besides going to Utah Phillips concerts?." > > I think this is a valid (and important) assertion seeing as the mass media > has mostly distorted everything. As far as I've noticed, they've mainly > protrayed it as 'random and senseless' and as a bunch of people from out of > state ruining beautiful downtown Seattle. Of course this is bullshit, but > most people (the majority of people in this country), I'm sure, who get > their information from the mass media think this. So, of course, it follows > that they once again are reinforcing their stereotypes of anarchists -- > namely, as violent, bomb-throwing, chaos-loving people. If this doesn't > help in setting the anarchist movement back in time, I don't know what > does. Most people didn't understand why the property damage was done, and > most certainly don't have negative opinions with regard to private > property. Overall, I think the property damage done resulted in more > bad than good. >From my experience it seems that we have never been rid of the "violent, bomb-throwing, chaos loving people stereotype". When people find out that I'm an anarchist these are the types of things they ask me about, along with assuming that anarchists are against any type of organization. It is easier to sit back and allow these opinions to continue then to get out there and convience people that this isn't what we are all about. We need to be explaining to people why the property damage was done and what is so bad about private property otherwise we have made those actions more bad then good, not the media's twisting of facts. > It not only alienated people in the mainstream of life, but also other > progressives (many of whom would be the first to sway over to anarchism). > Other organizers and demonstrators in Seattle were pissed because a few > anarchists took advantage of the situation and, in doing so, helped to > diminish the importance of the issues and the actions taken by them there > in the eyes of many people. This is connected with the mass media, of > course, since if they didn't report things like shit, there would've been > no distortion, etc. and therefore no diminishing of the issues the > demonstrators represented. We could hardly expect the mass media to portray > the events as they should've been portrayed. It all a matter of who you talk when talking about alienating people. I noticed something at my job (low wage factory work) when all this went down. White people tended to be against the property destruction (not all of them tho) and Black people tended not to care about it at all. With a little explaining I was able to show people why the property destruction was done and some of the evils of private property. It allowed them to start thinking about it. With more time they will more then likely be supportive of it. We can't expect the media to do this for us. It's up to us to do the work. No matter what the organizers thought of what happened, it hasn't diminished the importance. One opinion by a person at my work when this all went down was "well if it wasn't for the property destruction we wouldn't be sitting here discussing trading issues". This wasn't a progressive. Just a working class guy. The property destruction might have been more focused on in the tv news but it didn't stop people from discussing the issues. Print media (except for the big time newspapers) has done a good job discussing the issues. We are also discussing this as if America is the only place this has affected. What about how the property damage has affected the rest of the world? If it brought us down in the eyes of americans but inspired people all over the rest of the world should we not have done it? This is a global movement (both the anti-WTO and anarchism in general). I would love to hear from people in other countries what their (and the rest of the public's) opinions on it all is. > At first I was for the property damage. I thought it sent a good message to > the corporations that people wouldn't just stand idly by with a picket sign > in protest against, or ignore all together, their labor and environmental > abuses. While it did this a little, the fact that it tarnished the > anarchist name in the eyes of many and alienated anarchists from the > rest of the progressive community override any good effects totally. It alienated us only because we didn't do the work we needed to. We needed to be out there defending it everytime someone in a paper wrote an op-ed. Everytime someone said something about "those violent anarchists". We need to be defending our beliefs. > I've also heard people say that maybe anarchists shouldn't be invited to > this or that demonstration, because they were afraid they'd commit some > property damage, and then the rest of the demonstrators *and* their > message would be tarnished in the eyes of people passing by and reading > about or watching it in the media. Not inviting us to a demonstration?? This is very authoritarian of them and is something we should definately be arguing against. I've already had to deal with this type of liberal fascist. We had a rally in support of the political prisoners in Seattle and I had a bandana over my face (for several reasons including that i've had problems with cops because of my police brutality work and didn't want to be identified and also to show that we are not so "violent" since I was involved in a totally peaceful demonstration) and these people kept a distance from us even though they were involved in the protest (although about 15 feet away from it). To think that they can keep us away from protests is just plain silly. > We should be promoting anarchism - not doing the opposite. Expecting a > society that isn't very class-conscious to react positively in any > way to property damage is, I think, a long shot. We definately should be promoting anarchism. But no matter what, if the media covers us for ANYTHING, they will be putting a bad spin on it. So then should we not do anything because it will alienate us? We need to do what we feel is appropriate and back it up with explainations of why we feel that way. Communication is something we need to work on big time. I've even started putting out a little zine in my community that I just give away that has articles about anarchisms, pieces I write, labor news from all over the world, etc. I put them in pizza shops, laudramats, grocery stores, pass them out at work. They are gone within a day. Unfortunately I can only make up a hundred of them as they cost about 80 cents to make. (anyone know anything about publishing programs and printing shops? i'm hoping they might be cheaper then copy stores. if so please email me). > Sara Take care, Sam
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