quotes for these times: February 2005

THAT'S NICE, LET'S TALK ABOUT ME NOW

Hopefully some folks who don't know me will read this. To give you some idea of where I'm coming from, I'll blabber about me for a minute before talking about the RNC.

I'm a retired punk-rocker who still hollers in a generic thrash band. I'm a recovered alcoholic and drug-addict. I'm totally obsessed with adolescent pop-culture (comic books, video games, action movies, etc). I'm involved with Food Not Bombs, a needle exchange, and a still incubating infoshop. I flirt with vanguard socialist groups, but am too skeptical of centralized leadership and personality cults to join up.

I grew up around regular discussions about how to reshape the world and that gave me the silly idea that change is possible. I do not think markets are natural, or that capitalism can be "nice.” I'm a revolutionary meaning I want to radically change the relationship between people and power and work and wealth. I don't think this can be done while the power structure that exists now is intact. I think the ideas of the left are the best hope for a better future (socialism, anarchism, feminism, left/cultural nationalism).

I think that many people who call themselves progressives or leftists or revolutionaries take their leadership from the political right. (By my definition, the political right starts in the space between the Green Party and the Democrats.) I should let you know why I'm hyper-critical: I think the political left has made a lot of mistakes in the past 30 years in the U.S. and has not recognized or corrected them. Pointing out the mistakes and how they should be corrected is crucial to reclaiming the political initiative in the U.S.

FRIDAY NIGHT IS ALRIGHT FOR BIKING

I got into NYC Friday morning and made my way to a bike shop owned by my friend Alex. We spent the rest of the morning catching up. Alex loaned me his work bike (he's a messenger) and I got to learn to ride a fixed gear in the East Village on three hours of plane sleep. After two hours I was almost used to the idea of not coasting, but the hunk of chiseled wood that Alex uses as a saddle was totally tearing up my ass. I made my way around the legendary sites of the lower east side and east village and settled in Tompkins Square Park for Food Not Bombs.

The pigs where off the hook; a van, three on foot, four on scooters, four on motorcycles and a crew of obvious plain clothes detectives, they kept buzzing in and out of the park. The kids were reserved, almost timid but still defiant. It's illegal to sit on the ground in Tompkins or to be on the grass. So as soon as the cops would cruise in, the kids would stand and move off the grass. An outreach worker came through distributing condoms and telling folks about other services. She was loud and bold and took the edge off the otherwise repressed atmosphere.

I tried to strike up conversation with a couple folks, but people were freaked and I didn't want to push limits. A Canadian kid chatted with me for a bit about the difficulties of keeping a small town Food Not Bombs running. A local squatter woman offered me some alcohol wipes to clean the chain grease off my hands. People were friendly but there was a feeling of impending something-not-very-nice.

I decided to try and hunt down a cup of coffee. That didn't work well, only deli/cart coffee or Starbucks in all of Manhattan. I settled for deli coffee and went to Union Square to wait for the Critical Mass ride.

The NYPD was out in force again, this time using the nice cop face, handing out flyers about NYC bike regulations. The first rule was no un-permitted parades. Times Up, a local pro-bike collective, were flyering for bike bloc actions for the coming week and mildly taunting the cops.

The crowd built almost imperceptibly. After circling the park for a couple hours, I found myself surrounded by thousands of people on bikes. Some dude was using the crowd as a backdrop for his homemade movie about him getting his ass kicked. That didn't go over well; he left.

Then it happened. Someone (I wish it had been me) got the idea to burn the bike regulation flyer a la a draft card. A cheer went up. More flyers piled on top of the first. A small pile was burning in center of the crowd when one lone body-builder cop waded in to restore order. It was comical. Here was one cop built like the Govenator, squinting at thousands of kids on bikes and stomping out a couple dozen burning pieces of paper. The crowd closed around him booing. Locals started to try to defuse the confrontation which was strictly schoolyard defiance.

The cop didn't give an inch, but was amiable with people that he recognized as locals. A couple minutes went by and a line of cops came through the crowd and retrieved their buddy. This was the first police escalation of an otherwise harmless outbreak of public expression that I witnessed.

The ride was beautiful. Thousands of us. I saw people I recognized from all over the country. We ruled mid-town down to the east village back over to the west side, up and down and back and forth, splitting and rejoining. I rode with friends from Oakland and Santa Rosa. Late in the ride, a guy in a wheel chair joined. I rode with him from Union Square back to Tompkins Square Park. It was close to 10pm and I needed to catch up with Walter, my place to crash.

So I left the ride and called Alex. He was on the other side of the park, picking up a bike for a friend who'd been arrested. Apparently the cops had been sweeping up stragglers all night and had decided to "net" folks at St. Marks a few blocks up from Tompkins Square. The net was a new detention tactic rolled out for the RNC. Police would use orange plastic safety netting to cordon people off and then arrest them.

For the entire three-hour ride I had heard no orders to disperse and none was claimed to have been given by the police. This represents truncation of the traditional dance of civil disobedience. In the past people have protested a stupid law by breaking it (lunch counter sit-ins, burning draft cards, giving away food, riding bikes) and the police watch to make sure only the stupid law gets broken. Then after awhile the police get bored or hit budget or whatever and give an order to disperse and a reasonable amount of time in which to do it.

They didn't do that in New York. This isn't new, but it is spreading and it is being accepted as the new order. This tactic by the state should be opposed and exposed loudly and often. It limits the 1st Amendment (freedom of speech, assembly and petitioning the government for redress); it is an attempt to profile the movement; it costs whatever jurisdiction practices it lots of money in housing and processing the arrestees; and, finally, it's an issue we can get principled agreement on from people who would oppose our reasons for acting.

When you debate this point, you'll have to pull apart a lot of bullshit. The opposition will talk about order and public safety, throw out ridiculous “what if's” about ambulances caught in a swarm of bikes (as if Manhattan has only one road, as if cops and paramedics can't communicate). With a few deep breaths and focus on the real issue, freedom of speech and assembly, anyone but a bald-faced fascist would agree that folks who think a bike centric (or not car centric) transportation system should be supported have the right to gather and discuss and demonstrate their ideas. This debate needs to happen.

I hooked up with Alex, returned his bike, got my bags, found Walter, went to his Aunt Maggie's apartment in midtown. The place was sweet, right near the subway; I got a feather bed on the floor. Maggie was really nice. We talked about politics a little and Max, my sick dog, a lot. I spent a lot of the late night hours of the next 5 days talking tactics, strategy and vision with Walter in that room.

Walter worried me in the first half decade I knew him. He was brilliant and destructive, an awesome and scary combination. He's grown up well, maintaining his brilliance (a tough thing to do when you live as hard as he has) and transforming his semi-directed adolescent nihilism into a focused study of politics and a fearless self-examination that we should all emulate. Walter is also far more personable and nice than me, making him very handy in tight spots where my binary social skills usually make problems worse. He wants me to be the executive director of a teen center or group home in Santa Rosa so he can be our lawyer.

CHASING CIRCLES

The Bridge

We got up Saturday morning and called some friends of ours, to see what they were doing. They were three moms from our hometown who’d fund-raised enough cash and found child care reliable enough to travel out for the week. We decided to meet them on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge since they were marching in the Women's March that was coming across the bridge. I stuffed my pockets full of stickers that Not My Government sent me out with and we hit the streets.

We went through Chinatown down to the Financial District; this was the first time that I'd been near Ground Zero. It was weird to see bomb barricades on every street. It had the downtown-Oakland-on-a-Sunday-ghost -town-zombie-movie feel except for the cops on every street corner.

We got to the bridge and there were streams of people coming over. We walked toward Brooklyn handing out Not My Government’s sticker. We had two designs: the three network news anchors with "Lies" stamped across their faces and a mock-up of an NYPD patch that had a pig head in the middle and said, "Oink! Stay in Line!" The "Lies" one was a universal success. The "Oink" one was a big hit with kids and radicals and got snorts of scorn from the mainline Democrats and liberals. I wonder what that's about. We got to the middle of the bridge and called our friends, The Moms, to see where they were; The Moms still hadn't moved out of the rally on the Brooklyn side. This thing was massive.

We waited and handed out stickers and handed out stickers and waited and waited and handed out stickers, all the while looking toward Brooklyn.

Then Walter turned and said, "Hey, the Statue of Liberty... and Ground Zero." I turned back toward Manhattan, saw what should be a statue of freed slave, but isn't thanks to chicken-shit white supremacist American politics and a gaping hole in the skyline. That image and all the history bound up in it boggles the mind. A statue that was supposed to celebrate the end of slavery and ended up a truthful whitewash of a new form of slavery (industry dependent on immigrant and competitive labor), and a murderous slaughter that gave the American empire a great excuse to expand, a fuck of an eye-full.

Then a cop asked us to move along. We did... just out of her view, and handed out stickers and waited. Eventually we ran out of stickers. I'd brought hundreds. We were thirsty and hot and decided to head back to the Manhattan side and get some water and eats.

Indy Media Center

After food we literally stumbled into the Independent Media Center Infoshop. It had A/C and pretty pictures so we browsed a bit. I scrounged some more of my bro’s stickers out of my bag and left them with the flyers.

Walter got an IndyMedia press pass and we set out to find The Moms. Dani saw us coming and called us over. DW and Terrie were sitting with a heat stroked and hyper-hydrated Lila. We sat for a bit. I spread out some posters Not My Government had made. Most folks liked them, but the "Vote For Kerry For More Of The Same Bush Shit" one pissed some people off. People had a hard time believing the posters were free, or understanding what to do with them. (It's a post-er, the instructions are in the name.) But it was the end of a long hot day, so maybe brains were dry.

The Women’s March was by far the most "mainstream" event of the week; it brought together a coalition of mostly Democratic and some Republican groups to defend abortion rights and access. The focus was strict maintenance of things as they are; no steps back and no steps forward, no creative thinking, no new solutions for old problems. And the only action called for was in the ballot box, so it wasn't surprising to me that large parts of the crowd were not looking for what they could do next. Don't get me wrong; the issue is crucial and the only one that gets me even thinking of Kerry positively and the crowd was energetic and creative. But the message from the podium was a mantra of "vote, vote, vote." Sorry, but what about the other 3 years and 364 days (actually it is 4 years solid cuz of the leap year)? What about clinic defense, what about transporting and housing women from counties where there are no abortion providers, what about grass roots education and resistance, what about demanding that doctors learn one of the most common medical procedures as part of getting their MD, what about Kerry being a fucking Catholic and the papal fucking rhythm method?

Ground Zero

The next few hours were spent chasing each other around Manhattan while we tried to eat, find Lila a place to sit and recover and make it back to Ground Zero for a vigil and bell ringing.

We met back up at the tail end of the bell ringing at Ground Zero. The site has been cleaned and construction on the new building begun; the gut wrench I expected wasn't there. Walter's Uncle Bill had died

photographing the towers when they collapsed. Bill made it his life work to document conflict, photographing the first Intifada in Palestine and earning the trust of the IRA. The site hit Walt like a brick. It's always hard for me to know whether letting someone feel shitty is the best thing I can do for them.

Not In Our Name Convergence Space

From the bell ringing we went to the Not in Our Name convergence space.

I'd been playing phone tag with my brother's roommate for two days; she'd been in NYC organizing with NION for the past two months. Finally, we were gonna connect. We got to the space and banner making for the next day’s rally was in full swing. We grabbed some brushes, masking tape, spray paint and staplers and got to work.

RCYB Convergence Space

Just after I finished filling in a blue triangle on a banner for disappeared and detained immigrants, I got a call from another friend inviting me to the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade's convergence space. I'd been in the RCYB for a few years more than a dozen years ago and have stayed in touch with them and folks that work with them ever since. I thought it'd be a kick to see what they were up to so I headed over.

I got there late and most of the meeting/orientation was over but what I saw was impressive. I don't know if it's me or them, but there was a level of maturity and depth of understanding in that room that I don't remember from my days in the Brigade. I may have just been a hooligan, but I remember a lot of pining for street fights and outright dismissal of other trends and tactics. However, that night I saw an honest discussion of the tradition of non-violent civil disobedience (that didn't dismiss it out-of-hand as ineffective, as I usually do) and jail solidarity that left the option open to affinity groups (called squads). There was a principled reminder that while the demonstrations may be fun, the real organizing needs to happen in neighborhoods and amongst people not yet acting politically. And the vision of political action needs to change from massive protests to seizure of power. They had folks prepared to spread their paper at the big march on the 29^th. But also on the morning of the 29^th, they were planning to canvas in the outer boroughs and mobilize new folks.

I'm really conflicted about the role of a vanguard party. (I'm not gonna discuss whether or not the RCP actually is one here; but if you want to get a hold of me,we can babble for hours). I don't think that many people will spontaneously become revolutionaries, so I agree that an organization that helps shape revolutionary thinking is needed.

However, the way power is assembled in vanguard groups is a problem for me. A secret central committee bugs me, although I understand the need to keep leadership secure, especially post-Palmer raids/COINTELPRO. Cults of personality bug me although I do understand that some folks will need a revolutionary Tony Robbins to latch onto. I understand that power is currently put together in a way that people, generally, will not act individually or spontaneously in a way that actually promotes revolution. Usually they'll break a window or burn down a worthwhile target forgetting that the gatekeepers of the media are not on our side and will paint them as criminals to be feared. And most people will believe it because there is no opposition. An organization that can coordinate activity on a national level is critical to building a base for revolution. It demonstrates an ability to do the kind of organizing that reshaping society will require, and it builds the skills to do the work.

And here is where I sacrifice what little anarcho-street cred I have left... A regular propaganda medium is another crucial tool, one that is canvassed to the people it claims to represent, not some website (that requires a $1200 fancy pants TV to look at, or the time to transit to the library wait in queue, get a machine, disable the filters, and then wade through the non-hierarchical labyrinth of blathering to the good stuff), not the scores of zines and free quarterlies that can be found at gatherings of folks who are already looking to burn this fucker down, but something that is regularly distributed to the oppressed that informs them of resistance in other parts of the country and world, that challenges the brainwash, that is in the neighborhood or at the job every fucking week or more often. Just call me Chairman Ben.

Back to NION

The meeting broke up. I made plans to connect with my friend the next day and headed back to the NION convergence space. I stood on the wrong platform for 20 minutes. I went over ground to get on the phone and find Walter. He was in mid-town unloading a truck at the NION office: I went to meet him.

NION had an incredible group of youth from all over the country with them. I was really impressed by the kids from Hawaii. And, of course, the crew from the Bay kicked ass; they were non-stop always on the move. Walter volunteered to help set up for the next day's NION rally at Union Square; we made plans to meet back at the office at 7am and then went to get food.

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

Saturday becomes Sunday

Walter and I got up about 45 minutes after we closed our eyes and headed over to the NION office to load the truck for the rally. We showed up just in time to watch the roll-up door come down and the truck drive away. We joined up with the rest of the NION folks and hopped a train to Union Square.

Tabling with NION at Union Square

At Union Square the stage was already set-up, so we started to unload the truck and set up the various tables for press and speaker check-in and literature and merch distro. I tracked down a couple boxes of t-shirts, zines and stickers that Not My Government had sent out and set up a table to slang them from. Walter got pressed into service as a monitor. The NION rally was cool.

NION often is accused of being a front group for the Revolutionary Communist Party. It does have members and supporters of the RCP in it's leadership core. However my acid test for a "front" group is several fold: the parent organization has to politically dominate the front, not true in the case of NION. In fact, the explicit politics of NION are fuzzy enough for everyone from Quakers to Maoists to agree on them. The stage and speakers at rallies and forums are dominated by the parent group. While Clark Kissinger MCed the NION rally, he was the only person affiliated with the RCP to touch the mic and only made one call for folks to check out the RCP. The folks who do the actual grunt work and organizing for the front are members of the parent group. Walter definitely isn't a revolutionary communist, he's more like a Nader Democrat. Anyone calling Andrea from Berkeley Copwatch a commie dupe needs a head check. So, NION gets a clean bill of political independence in my book. These are hardly the times to refuse to work with an individual or organization because their cousin used to date someone from the wrong party. The speakers on stage where diverse, not the predictable partisan blatherers. I was really impressed by the folks who’d recently received Courageous Resister Awards, regular folks who’d simply done that right thing in impossible situations.

I did brisk business hawking Not My Government's shirts until the NYPD came by to shut down sales. Apparently it's against the law to sell stuff in the park, but legal to do it on the street. So the vendors could trundle up their wares and haul them across the street or give them away. Andrea from NION/Copwatch was on the cops quick. She demanded to know what law was being broken, and the Lieutenant couldn't quote it. She hopped on stage and announced this through the mic, making sure everyone present knew the cop’s name and that he was shutting down t-shirt sales because it broke a law he couldn't find or quote. The cops surrendered the point and let us sell shirts again.

I was interviewed by a news weekly from Puget Sound Washington, and some guy in a suit with an NPR press badge. The Puget Sound guy seemed to have a pretty clear grasp of the radical edge of the crowd at this

rally, that for the most part we weren't Kerry supporters or even people who defined their political lives by 5 minutes spent alone with a piece of paper once every four years. He anticipated my answers about the Clinton years; that good ol' Bill presided over the killing of 500,000 Iraqi babies, invaded Kosovo and Rwanda, politically blundered the best shot at workable health care, was responsible for NAFTA and the WTO, and generally is a slave to the same class interests that Bush/Kerry represent.

The NPR guy, however, was visibly shocked when he asked a question about what effect these protests would have on the elections and I answered that wasn't my goal. He looked even more confused when I said, “Whoever wins, my core concerns lose. Neither candidate has a plan to immediately remove U.S. troops from Iraq, or to end the drug war, or to guarantee health care, or to extend democratic rights to the workplace, school and home. Both candidates are anti-worker and that is my defining social relation. I survive by selling my work.” The NPR guy was baffled. Then I said I was here to help build a powerful social movement for change, because that is the only thing that has ever worked. Social movements ended slavery, Jim Crow and the Vietnam War. Social movement secured suffrage for women and youth, worker rights, and abortion access. His eyes were nearly crossed with confusion. I was about to quote Fredrick Douglas ("power concedes nothing without struggle") when he lowered his microphone, frowned and turned to the guys next to me who were slinging shirts that read "Buck Fush" and started a conversation with them. They were good looking young Democrats, the NPR guy liked them, and he interviewed them for the next 20 minutes.

Here we have the "brain" of mainstream U.S. media (NPR) being confused by the idea of class struggle, unable to understand the tactic of long-term social organizing, unable to recognize a viewpoint that sees the Democrats and Republicans as fundamental allies in American imperialism. Instead of rising to the challenge, they turned to the cutesy middle-brow "Buck Fush"ers. This is a problem. Media coverage for the week would be like this. Local press would get a wider view than national press. National would be focused on the Republicans exclusively, not covering the protests due to a lack of the forecasted violence. And the movement press would be the only folks giving the movement deep coverage. In other words, most folks were only hearing ideas they already where familiar with.

As the rally ended, I packed up Not My Government's stuff filling my bag with stickers. This time I carried three designs: the "Lies" and "Oink," ones from before, and one that has Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld with pig noses and helmets that says "three little war pigs." The NION truck made room for the rest of the leftovers and I helped pack the remainder of their gear. After packing up, I raced to catch up with the march that was feeding into the larger United for Peace and Justice march. The NION contingent was rowdy, loud and energetic.

UfPJ March

We caught up to the UfPJ march quick and then stood still for almost an hour. I never got a coherent story about what the delay was. I heard that the NYPD had altered that march route taking us further away from

Madison Square Garden than the agreed route, and/or there was a celebrity civil disobedience at the head of the march in protest of the altered route or just to grab a headline. There was talk about breaking off down a side street, before that happened the march started moving again. I stayed in sight of Walter as much as possible, but he was carrying a banner and I was passing out stickers so we got separated fairly often. People were more open to the "oink" sticker that day, maybe because of the route rumors or maybe because the anti-war movement is based in the streets to a greater degree than the pro-choice movement or both. The "war pigs" sticker was a huge hit, swarms of p-rock/hippie/anarcho-kids would take stacks, and even the Marxist/Leninists would take some without insisting I take their propaganda as well.

It felt good to see half a million people out in the streets against the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq. The crowd had a predictable demographic, mostly young white and middle class, but there was a radical edge to the chatter I heard. People seemed to recognize attempts to shift the anti-war movement into a war on terror movement for what they are - a cynical right wing ploy to politically capitalize on September 11th. I saw very few Kerry signs and heard people talking about opposition to the "Bush/Kerry agenda." The anti-war movement continues to surprise me with its size and sophistication. The lessons learned in opposing the Vietnam War seem to have jumped the generation gap. There is very little reliance on the Democrats for anti-war leadership. There is broad recognition that opposition to the war is solidarity with the troops. There is talk in support of Iraqi nationalism. There is understanding of the political link between Iraq and Palestine. I think lots of people misunderstand the impact that the anti-war movement has had. It delayed the invasion of Iraq by at least 6 months (Bush and co. wanted to go to war in October 2003.) It showed the world and the ruling class that the American people are not a blind monolith. And it is teaching us what is really needed to prevent war.

Jake has died

I got a call from Dani; they were stopped for lunch two blocks ahead of me. I called Walter to regroup and join them. While Walter and I were looking for each other, Walter got a call from home. Our friend Jake had overdosed and died earlier that morning. Jake had been sober for a couple years, but hit a rough spot on Friday and relapsed. When Walter told me what had happened, I made a choice to cram the emotions until I got home, that I'd try to help the folks I was with and handle my own crap later at home. That was a mistake. I don't know if you've ever tried to comfort someone half a foot taller than you, but it can make you feel pretty damn tiny.

We found Anne and the others, left the march and sat down on a side street and bawled for half an hour. Some jerk ball wanna-be journalists kept snapping pictures of us. I think Walter knocked a camera out of someone’s hand. Every time I felt the despair and sorrow coming on, I'd take a deep breath, grit my teeth and stuff it. Sometimes I'm really dense. Even now, it's hard to feel that stuff.

Walter and I contacted NION and let them know that we were going to flake on the rest of what we'd committed to (banner carrying and unloading at the office). We cried off the first wave of crap, regrouped, and decided to cut up a side street to get closer to The Garden and hop back in the march.

Back to the UfPJ March

We got back to the march just past The Garden and hopped the barricades into the crowd. We ran into a bunch of counter protesters from Protest Warrior. (Check their web-site for some prime neo-fascist imagery. The group was founded by the arch-typical 98-pound tech nerd millionaire, who posts glamour shots of his trophy girlfriend as enticement for the troops, and seems to know a good source for human growth hormone, steroids or pectoral implants.) They were at the corner of 6th.

A group of youth came up the street fists in the air chanting, "We know what a police state looks like; this is what a police state looks like." A papier-mâché dragon was carried by the crowd. It was rigged with sparklers to breathe fire and then it caught on fire.

The cops rushed the street, riot cops, beat cops, cops on horses, cops on scooters knocking kids and seniors to the ground. The Protest Warriors abandoned their position retreating to a further corner while chanting "NYPD" in support of the cops who were showing the crowd what a police state looks like.

Walter and I looked at each other and ran into the middle of the fray. We spotted two cops who had two kids tackled against metal barricades and were bending their arms near to breaking. The first cop lifted his arrestee off the ground and walked him away; the second took the hold further and crammed the kids face into the barricade.

I started screaming at him. He looked up at me and told me to "get the fuck away." I said I was observing the arrest and that he was hurting the kid. I read the cop’s badge number and repeated it as loud as I could over and over. Walter grabbed my shoulder, I looked around and we were about to be under a horse. The cops had formed a perimeter by this time and we were inside it. My gut sank; I did not want to get arrested.

We put our hands high and started shouting, "We are only observing!" A cop told us to move away. We asked, “Which direction?” He nodded behind him. I asked if we could cross the line, he didn't answer. I said, "We are only observing." And I crossed out of the perimeter. We got away. Walter tracked down a National Lawyers Guild observer and gave him a report. Then he called in the cop’s badge number to the NLG office. It took about a 20 minutes for the cops to give the street back to the protesters. Shortly after that, our whole crew was together again.

On the way back to Union Square, we passed a lone Protest Warrior, which seemed odd to me, usually rats travel in packs. I'd always wondered what these guys would think of the "Lies" stickers, the one with Brokaw, Rather and Donaldson’s faces stamped out with the word "Lies." Protest Warrior accuses the media of liberal bias, which I agree with (I just think ideas further to the left need more coverage). So I walked over to the guy, showed him the sticker and said, "At least we agree on this, right?" He nodded, and said, "But not for the same reasons." And I gave him the stack of stickers. It made him really uncomfortable.

Central Park

We finished the march, and headed to Central Park. There had been a big legal battle to get a rally permit for Central Park, with the city negotiating in bad faith and the movement falling for some pretty obvious tricks. The resolution was no permit for sound in the park, but an informal understanding to go there after the march anyway. We got there and there were about 10-20,000 people sitting and milling around the great lawn.

I had my only negative experience with native New Yorkers as we walked into the park. We were skirting near one of the softball fields and the guys playing on it started heckling us. It would have been nothing, but they called us "liberals" and that really pissed me off; I fucking hate liberals.

I played phone tag with Goose, a guy I use to be in a band with, and found him pretty quick. Goose let me know my god-daughters’ absent father/sperm donor, Dave, was staying at his house. I let him know that the woman Dave had abandoned broke with two kids, was on the other side of the park. Then I let him know about Jake. Just call me the grim reaper.

The park was chill, a good unwind from the emotional roller coaster the day had been. I saw some folks I know from doing harm reduction work and talked shop for a minute. Walter and DW had a gum catching contest; I think they tied at 1 for 3. NION tried to organize the crowd into a giant "NO" and some hippies degraded it into a peace sign, which was followed by a "NO" creating a semantic conundrum for those paying attention.

Sunday ends

We split up for the night, The Moms and DW headed back to Brooklyn, me and Walter going to see the director's cut of Donnie Darko, which oddly enough capped our day pretty perfectly.

Walter reminisced about Jake quite a bit; it was good to hear the stories. My remembrances of people are usually more archetypical and Jake had been all over the board. It's impossible to pigeon hole him with one role. He'd been the kid who spontaneously cleaned up after shows without coaxing, threats or guilt trips. He'd been my connection; he sold me the only copy of Damaged that I ever paid for. He'd been one of the folks that coaxed the 1993-98 Sonoma County P-Rock renaissance into being. He was part of the glue that kept what eventually exploded from exploding sooner. He'd shown up at my house just before he hit bottom, obviously fucked up. It was raining and past 2 AM. He asked if he could crash; I waited a long time before I said, "Yes,but only tonight and you leave as soon as you wake up." He did, but he left a big pile of broken stuff in my driveway for the next three months. I miss him.

UPSET THE SET UP

The Rally

Monday was the day of the “March for Our Lives: Stop the War at Home” from U.N. Plaza across town to Madison Square Garden. It was organized by Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, and had the gall to go un-permitted, assuming that the First Amendment applies everywhere inside the U.S. all the time. The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights

Campaign is an impressive coalition of grassroots poor peoples and working class organizations. We got to the rally while it was already in progress. I was hauling around a box full of the last of Not My Government stickers, posters and t-shirts.

On our way into the rally, a monitor wanted to search the box. He thought the stickers I had in my hand (the “Oink” ones) were off message. I agreed and said I wouldn’t distribute them. Then he wanted to hold the box; I refused and he let us in. People recognized me and kept asking for the “Oink” stickers and I told them what was up and that I’d do what I could to get them some later. The podium was awesome, a non-stop rapid fire barrage of: “this is who I am, this is where I’m from, this is the group I’m with, this is the work we do, this is how many folks we brought” followed by a cheer. They went through 60 speakers in a half hour, no boring didactic breakdowns of class relations, just a “we're poor, they ain’t, let’s get to work.”

The March

We spotted Dave, the sperm donor, right at the beginning of the march.

Dani got ready to choke his face off and, thankfully, Walter had the presence of mind to point her in another direction. I just stood there dumbstruck shaking my head. Of all the things this dude could do with himself (send a check to one of his forgotten offspring, make amends to the folks he’s ripped off, figure out a way to get money that doesn’t involve a sob-story), he comes 3000 miles to wave meekly at one of the women he’s ditched after bleeding dry. Amazing.

Of course, the crowd was much more diverse than the prior day. Imagine, organizing people around the material conditions of their lives sparks more interest than abstract international relations thousands of miles away. Who’d have thunk it? The march was led by young, elder and disabled people of all shades.

Dani was interviewed by a print journalist. From the snippets I caught, she talked about the gutting of the programs she relies on to live, like Section 8 and student aid and family aid. She should have something in here or check her column in the Sonoma County Peace Press.

It took half a day to cross Manhattan on foot. But we did it, staying loud, focused, energized and attracting new folks the whole way. I finally managed to exhaust my supply of stickers by the time we were nearing the Garden, so I dug out a stack of posters.

For the most part the police only escorted us. I saw them break into the crowd twice to snatch people. And there was definitely no solidarity about un-arresting folks, so the police got away with it.

As we approached Madison Square Garden, the sun started to set. Lila, DW and Terrie decided to bail for food. Dani, Walter and I continued on enduring bursting bladders and hunger so severe we resorted to Kellogg’s breakfast bars. The route we were on took us around the Garden at a two block distance. As we turned up 8th Avenue, Walter finally connected with a friend in Brooklyn who he wanted to talk about Jake with, so he left the march.

Time to Leave the March

It was dark, Dani and I were staying close to the cheer squad that our friend Jamie was in; Dani snuck her food and water in between routines.

I noticed that there were barricades on both sides of the street now and that there were no pedestrians on the sidewalks. On the rest of the march there had only been barricades on the Garden side of the march and plenty of pedestrians on the sidewalks. There was a small break away march, what looked like mostly young people, single file with hands on each others shoulders. They pushed apart a barricade and headed down a side street towards the Garden. The cops were on them immediately. Dani noticed police on the rooftops and said there had been none up there on the rest of the route. I got nervous and suggested we leave.

Then something happened at the front of the march; Dani and I bolted. We got down a side street, noticed the local Fox affiliate and several other news vans. I turned my shirt inside out and tried to make the beat-to-shit cardboard box under my arm look inconspicuous. Cops were streaming in down the side street, scooters, motorcycles, horses, running on foot, cars careening with sirens wailing, then the ghetto bird. We walked with a woman and her baby for a couple blocks, encouraging her to get inside ASAP in case the cops broke out tear gas.

We were invited into an Indian restaurant; the owner searched the TV for live news and found nothing. I peed, Dani got direction to the nearest subway station and we hit the streets. We were on 9th Avenue and it was full of garbage trucks; it was bizarre. I don’t know if they park there everyday waiting for the end of business to pick up garbage or if it was special for the convention. My first thought was rolling barricades and crowd control, but that seems silly now.

Out to Brooklyn

We ran into some other refugees from the march, including Vermont’s number one Nader booster. We walked most of the way to the subway with him, nonchalantly across some freshly glue-gunned red carpet. We made our way to the East Village to meet DW, Lila and Terrie; got some kick ass falafel and I decided to bunk out in Brooklyn with The Moms. I called Walter and perpetrated the worst psychic misread of the trip, thinking he was fine and happy out with his friend. He definitely wasn’t; fortunately, he has other friends and knows it.

On the way to Brooklyn many suspicious glances were thrown at my trashed cardboard box. One snoop almost jumped out of her skin when I dropped it. You’d think this city had suffered a recent catastrophic attack and an entire summer of candy coated terror alerts, plus a series of daring just in time arrests over the past week. Wait! They did, didn’t they? I wonder whatever happened with the two bomb plots uncovered the week of the convention. I was definitely beginning to get a bad vibe.

We got back to the apartment, turned on Nightline and saw what happened at the front of the march. A Nightline reporter got stuck in the march, just as a plain clothes detective on an unmarked scooter plowed into the march. The scooter was shoved to the ground and the crowd broke over it trampling the detective. Then uniformed cops came in, formed a line and started shoving protesters back, giving no order to disperse, no instructions on which way to move or why. At one point the Nightline reporter said, “The police are hitting people for no apparent reas… They just hit me, for no reason.” Then we see someone we know wrestling with a cop for a banner.

The cops were trying to provoke violence in preparation for Tuesday, which was a day of Non-Violent Direct Action. They wanted a pretext to do pre-emptive arrests, and they hoped to get a free pass to bust folks for pre-crime. It didn’t happen like the police wanted, but that didn’t stop them. The next day there would be over 1200 arrests, most pre-emptively, more than on any other single day in the history of New York City.

DIRECT ACTION?

I said earlier that I consider myself a revolutionary; I also said earlier that I typically dismiss the tactic of what is called "non-violent direct action" or "civil disobedience." I'm gonna pull these definitions apart for the next couple paragraphs. If thinking causes you pain, you might want to skip ahead to the paragraph that starts with Tuesday.

Non-violent direct action and civil disobedience have a long history, I think both are valid tactics, but I think any tactic that is not part of a long term strategy is at best theater and at worst masturbatory.

I'm a revolutionary; I have a long term strategy for the revolutionary transformation of the relationships between people and power and work and wealth. I think more people need to be brought into conscious political life. There are plenty of folks who hate this or that aspect of "the system," but very few who see the connections between these aspects or understand that "the system" is capitalism and that capitalism runs on the same fundamental rule as cancer: grow until death.

I think there needs to be a deep debate about the nature of capitalism that links the development of capitalism to the development of patriarchy, white supremacy and hetero-dominance. I think the people having these debates and developing this understanding need to work among the people who aren't. This is crucial and where I think today’s revolutionaries and radicals have missed the point. I think new organizations of people with new ideas; new solutions and new systems are the only way to get rid of old ideas and old systems.

I think a lot of time is wasted throwing around words that are meaningless, misunderstood or deceptive. What does sustainable mean? Is bio-diesel sustainable? Can 6 to 8 billion people have a relatively equitable standard of living with a capitalist economy that is powered by bio-diesel instead of petroleum? Or is bio-diesel a new entrepreneurial endeavor much like the transition from coal and wood to oil?

Is recycled everything sustainable? Would 6 to 8 billion people be able to have relatively equitable standards of living if all paper was post-consumer or mushroom based, if all plastics were 8th generation? Or would we still live in a world where 5% of the people control 80% of the stuff? The ways of doing things that are commonly discussed as alternative are visionary and important, but to think of them as being systemic change is wrong. Only systemic change is systemic change.

What does anti-authoritarian mean? Does it mean we don't want carpenters using their specialized knowledge of building to direct inexperienced folks in building? Does it mean we should not write applications for grants because that is asking an authority for help? Is it shorthand for anti-communist? Is it a symptom of unresolved parental static? Does it mean that person "A" knows nothing that person "B" can't know? Does it mean consciousness springs wholly formed from the womb? Or does it mean shut the fuck up, thinker guy; the revolution is in my 40 ouncer? Every definition of anti-authoritarian I've read is a negative one, meaning one that describes anti-authoritarianism by what it is not, instead of by what it is. It is very easy to say you are opposed to division, to wealth, to power; it is very difficult to propose a way to pull wealth, power and division apart.

What does direct action mean? Is shoplifting direct action? Is

dumpstering? Is hitting a cop in the face? The easy answer is ‘yes’ to all of these. The more important question is when is and what kinds of direct action are effective? Face hitting, while a thrill, isn't gonna be effective in any situation other than a full blown riot, street fight or rebellion. And even then, it will be grabbed by the opposition and used as propaganda against us. So it should only be used in legitimate self-defense, preferably when the ability to generate our own media. The instances of direct action that we are taught about in school are few: the Boston Tea Party, the Underground Railroad and, if you had an exceptional history or social studies teacher, maybe the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Freedom Rides, the student sit-ins of the early 70's; and those of us who pursued history on our own might know about early industrial unionist job actions, recently forest defenders have made effective use of the tactic with tree-sits.

All of the examples I list were or are components of broader resistance movements. One of the most effective forest defense movements in the US is the continuing struggle for Headwaters. Most folks think Headwaters has been saved. It hasn't. There are continuing legal and direct action battles over that forest. Why doesn't everyone who cared about Headwaters 10 years ago know that the work isn't done? In my view the legal work has been compartmentalized away from the direct action work which has been compartmentalized away from the popular work. Without a popular base, in my view, the direct action and legal work is political warfare between two entrenched sides - one of which holds state power, the other of which is baseless. I think you know where I'm going; direct action without popular support is only theater. And theater is worthwhile. It can teach, excite, and invigorate; but it is important to call things what they are. My band can teach, excite and invigorate but, honestly; it is not going to change the world. Only a popular movement can do that.

What is non-violence? If I raise my hands to block a blow, am I being violent? Is reaching for a wallet just cause for a street execution? Is knowingly causing harm to airborne bacteria violence? I'm writing this on a computer that will eventually stop working, that I will (being a thoughtful guy) take to the recycle center where the large reusable components might be removed and reused, but eventually the motherboard and other bits will end up in South Asia where a new industry of micro-salvage of silica and heavy metals is springing up. Kids there die of toxic exposure to mercury, lead and copper while disassembling motherboards; silica dust lacerates their lungs. Knowing this, am I a murderer?

Violence is a social condition and a choice. I can escalate or minimize the violence in my life, but I cannot eliminate violence from the world. And I cannot honestly expect to live a life free of violence. I try to minimize it, but I also spend 4 hours a week practicing ass kicking. Any movement built around a fundamental denial of reality has big problems. Violence is real. To be non-violent in the face of violence is ultimately suicide. Even that is only true if you hold to principles and don't call on an outside agent to commit violence for you, i.e. police to run out your unwanted neighbors, a military to secure a border, etc.

Non-violence is a fine tactic, but a lousy strategy. Even the piecemeal reforms that pepper the history of the U.S. were all won with broad social movements that had violence in their tool box. The independence of India is often credited to Ghandi. An examination of the actual history shows broad internal and external violence and an exhausted British Empire played at least equal roles. Nelson Mandela is held up as a great non-violent leader. His first speech after his release from Robin Island opened with thanks to his comrades who had maintained armed struggle in his absence.

I don't think that the only valid protest is a violent one; however, it makes no sense to me to only allow the state to use violence legitimately. I think it is irresponsible to call on people to struggle against a power structure that refuses to even apologize for the only use of nuclear weapons on a human population, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the de-population of the North American continent, the Palmer Raids, COINTELPRO, internment camps, the reservation system or the recent round-ups of immigrants without encouraging knowledge of basic self-defense. To teach people to submit to arrest, and that submitting to arrest is "the only" way to affect change is dangerous and wrong. Non-violence trainings are important and necessary; I think they should be supplemented with discussions about self-defense and self-defense training.

Tuesday was a day of Non-Violent Civil Disobedience. There were some great creative actions: the people holding pink slips lining Wall St as an illustration of the human cost of recession and "off-shoring;" the

Fox news "shut-up-athon" made me smile; the Man-In-Black Bloc was a beautiful sentiment. Democracy Now gave the day great coverage. However, it had no effect on life inside the Garden, it didn't break the mainstream media black-out, and it didn't Stop The City. It did land 1200 organizers in jail until the end of the convention and keep all of their support people busy until the end of the convention. This meant that the impact of protest was greatly reduced on Wednesday and Thursday. I am not going to condemn anyone’s choices that day. I believe we should protest at every opportunity. I also think it is important to avoid arrest, especially an arrest that allows the state to lawfully hold you until the end of the event you are protesting.

Walter had gotten about 500 "peaceful protester" buttons from the RNC welcome center that morning. The mayor of New York (after denying permits for nearly all protests, militarizing the police and criminalizing organizers) decided to hand out these buttons that would get the wearers similar discounts as RNC delegates. However to get these things there was a multi-page application which asked for lots of info about applicants, so no one applied.

We spent the late morning doling these out around the East Village. The Times Up Collective was a bit uptight about accepting our gift. The irony was lost on people who'd been harassed for weeks by cops, infiltrated by feds and held in jail without charges for days. Most other folks thought the happy face statue of liberty and star spangled "peaceful protester" slogan was hilarious.

All day we chased various actions; we missed them all. Everywhere we went we were met by a cordon of cops. By late afternoon I was completely vibed out. Everywhere we went protesters were getting caught in sweeps and no one was trying to un-arrest or run off. It was lemming-like. Walter and Dani didn't have the vibe I did. We should have split up. For some reason we decided to grate on each other until feelings got hurt.

LEAVING EARLY

Lila and Dani's flight left Wednesday morning. Walter had changed his to Wednesday night. By the end of the day, I'd change mine to leave early as well.

In the morning we meet at Union Square where an art installation of boots symbolizing dead U.S. soldiers and shoes symbolizing dead civilians was being set-up. Dani helped the set-up and staffed the table.

I was anxious; my dog Max was going in for an ultra sound to look for internal bleeding. I was burning out from the running around watching stuff happen; I wanted to DO something. I got a call from a friend who works with Not In Our Name asking if I wanted to help them build for their march on Thursday. I was there as quick as I could be.

We were handing out flyers and stickers and asking folks to make a sign that says "NO" and hang it somewhere visible on Thursday, the day Bush accepted the nomination. People's response was very positive; we got out thousands of stickers to people of every walk of life, shop owners and folks living on the streets loved the idea of the simple DIY protest.

Midway through the day Desiree called to let me know the ultrasound had turned up a metastasized tumor from Max's liver to his spleen. I just about broke in half. Max has been with me for thirteen years, through several broken hearts, drug addiction, alcoholism, and abuse received and distributed. Three times he's put his 60-pound body between me and certain pain, once earning himself a two inch gash in his chest. It took a lot to keep going. Thankfully, my friend had lost her cat recently and helped my brother deal with the murder of his best friend; so perspective was close. Having important political work that needing doing was helpful too.

We started at Pier 57, then headed to the East Village, worked back towards Union Square and in the afternoon went back to the NION office in mid-town. I tried to sit in on the NION meeting that afternoon, but kept getting overwhelmed thinking about Max and Jake. Again I was impressed by the NION core. Despite over half of them getting swept up observing Tuesday’s actions, they kept moving. And the youth were awesomely hard-headed wanting to do everything from jail support to building for the following Thursday’s march.

At the NION office, I got another call from Dez. She'd been to a specialist; Max was given 0 to 30 days to live. I changed my flight. I called Walter, headed back to Maggie's and packed, I was out Thursday morning.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

So Bush got back in, there was a right-wing popular backlash against the idea of gay marriage, the Anybody But Bush movement seems to be disintegrating instead of refocusing on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the racist war on drugs continues, the scape-goating of immigrants goes on, the Democratic Party has once again played its post-World War 2 role of redirecting left social movements into electoral politics and then abandoning them after the election. Think about what Kerry/Edwards did election night: "We won't stop until every vote is counted." And the following morning: "Now is the time for unity." This is some of the best exposure of the Democrats that revolutionaries can ask for. The Democrats are about co-opting social movements into a system ruled by capital.

Walter is studying poli-sci; Dani is finishing college SF, raising her two kids, hosting Food Not Bombs twice a month, on the board of the Peace and Center and other good stuff; Lila is working with the info-shop project and raising her child; Terrie is in India with her child, DW is waiting for Terrie to come home and learning to use In Design. I still holler for a generic thrash band and author grumpy screeds from my ivory tower, occasionally staffing a needle exchange and cooking for Food Not Bombs. Max has survived cancer for going on three months, although an x-ray found a tumor in his bladder today that may be causing him pain. I'll get to read up on hospice and weigh my privilege and wallet against Max's dignity, comfort and right to a natural end.

Make no mistake, revolution is what we need, it will not come out of a ballot box.

quotes for these times

Monday, February 21, 2005

RUNAWAY!!!

only bread is bread

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Steve Sansweet sells me a timeshare

the chairman

My Summer Vacation

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