This is not to attack organizers who worked long and hard, but Im just wondering what the goal of S2KLA was. Did we not want to shut them down? Or at least be so disruptive we couldn't be ignored?

If the cops had not over reacted a few times, we would not have even been in the mainstream news at all.

What happened to the methodology of Seattle, DC and Philly? I noticed only 2-3 unpermitted sit-downs and even some of those were done in cooperation with the police.

Given the LAPD's irrational behavior we would have had the media coup we desire with images of peoaceful protesters chanting and locking arms in an intersection being treated poorly by the cops. We would have been putting ourselves on the line for our beliefs, disrupting the cscripted DNC and exposing the true face of the police (without the bottle throwing).

LA is the last major protest event in America for at least a year or two. Why did we let it peter out?

I dont mean to sound so irked, ut I really would like to know what DAN's strategy was in going into this. I heard rumors about blockading corporate offices and Democrat fundraisers but saw none of that.

What happened? Did we win or lose? Was our goal just to have permitted amrches? Why?

While I agree with you that the convention wasn't shutdown, from what I've been reading on IMC, the demonstrators did a good job disrupting the city, and I am sure, the convention. I agree that it could have been more as planned and more like Philly (hiways closed, streets blocked, delegates locked in their hotels) but I do think LA activists worked long and hard and came out with a good result. That's just one person's opinion. (I did not like hearing about people who orchestrated arrests just for the mainstream medium - that is like giving up without a fight and a tactic I do not understand or agree with.)

As for the last protest for a few years, that is far from true. Everyone's organizing for Boston, and that's gonna be huge and will defintely put the struggle into the spotlight. Besides that, we have the TAB meeting in Cinncinnatti in November (essentially the powerhouse nations/people behind the WTO), and several others. Don't worry, there's plenty of things to protest - this system SUCKS)

This is why people agree that there were some victories:

http://www.phillyimc.org/article.pl?sid=00/08/17/1116220&mode=thread

I'm glad you've brought up these criticisms. I wasn't in L.A. this week, but I've been following events pretty closely. I was one of the organizers at the A16 anti-IMF/World Bank protests in D.C.

In my opinion, the protests this week in Los Angeles have been very successful. The issues got out to the public, via media that were more willing to cover protests than two weeks ago in Philadelphia. The protests were creative, inventive, and thought-provoking. The LAPD police department came out looking like the violent thugs they really are. They brutally attacked a mostly peaceful concert on Monday night. Last night, they clubbed people in a subway station. And contrary to the mayor's anti-activist ravings, the anarchists didn't burn the city down.

Just because a tactic was used successfully at past protests doesn't mean it should be used at every big action that follows. The blockades of Seattle and Washington were successful in what they were trying to accomplish. I'm sure that the L.A. protest organizers wanted to do something different. I agree with you though about the lack of civil disobedience. From what I've read on this site, I've concluded that the protest organizers spent too much time trying to please the cops and not enough time practicing civil DISOBEDIENCE. If anything has embarassed our movement, it's this ongoing collaboration with the authorities. If we have 2000 people in a march, we should be able to walk down the streets if we want to. The streets belong to us. There's no good reason why automobile traffic should be given priority over people excersiing their free speech rights.

We can expect to see a long lull now in the United States, as far as these big actions go. This doesn't mean that we've lost momentum or that our movement has fizzled out. We need the time to reflect on what we've accomplished, examine the stuff we screwed up, and organize people for the next round of actions against the capitalist class. At the same time, we will be organizing in our communities, building counter-institutions like the IMC, practicing what we preach everyday, organizing our workplaces or calling in sick, and so on.

And don't forget Prague and Melbourne next month!

Everybody in L.A. should gve themselves a round of applause. From my vantage point on the East Coast, I got the exciting feeling that the spirit of Seattle continues!

I agree with the orchestrated arrests. I HATE that. What is the point? I'm sure some of these people are the same ones who denounce some anarchists for breaking corporate windows and spray-painting political messages.

It seems like a very privaleged act and I'm sure it turns the public off. "Since we have no guts or creativity, we'll make our point by negotiating arrests with the police!!!! People will get our point then!!!"

if you judge your successes using the mainstream media coverage as your yardstick, you are going to fail time and time again. to present the scenario of peaceful demonstrators being beaten by out of control cops as "the media coup we wanted" is way off base. i don't feel like our movement is looking for a media coup. im not involved in this movement to maximize airtime. i don't think that having lots of footage of friends getting their asses kicked on tv is a victory.

i feel like challenging state power is an important part of this protest movement. and while people may not have locked down intersections, they did just that. the DNC of 1968 lives on in history as a milestone in the left's protest movement of that era and there wasn't a single lockdown or intersection blockade. in fact, the events of that convention were eerily similar to the events of this DNC. and the mainstream media didnt pay enough attention to those folks, either. thats the way it is, my friend. they arent and wont ever be on our side.

whats important is to recognize this as a movement, not a collection of provocative actions. they all tie together in an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist movement for democracy. an alliance of rank and file and students protesting for progressive political change in this country. im excited about whats happening in america right now.

this movement isnt just about protests and blocking traffic. you need to take the passion you felt in the streets home with you and organize within your community. a good example is in nyc, where the direct action network came back from A16 and organized a DAN labor action working group who worked three different strikes around town with different unions. thats the power of this movement, bringing it back home and making it real to people, not just images on television.

Be accurate: you didn't SEE more disobedience. Those who attempted to engage in any act contrary to official plans and orders were promptly beaten and shot along with any bystanders and journalists on hand. We caught what we could on camera, but we couldn't catch it all. Civil disobediance only goes so far when working against an occupied state that is willing to use violence against those who even attempt to document what was occuring.

And then there was that little matter of a full-scale pre-emptive military deployment throughout the city. In Los Angeles this week, bicycling, jaywalking, and asking questions were all considered Civil Disobedience.

The LAPD has also been specifically trained to divide and enclose protesters, to block coverage of CD, to carefully hide their own command systems, to pre-emptively arrest potential protesters, to brutally protect areas which are genuinely sensitive. Just imagine the bloodbath if "violent anarchists" had attempted a lockdown in Bel Air... as if any protester could have even figured out a way to drive into Bel Air or Malobu or Palos Verdes without getting impounded.

The cops continue to learn from us, and the lack of more obvious CD is evidence of their sophistication. We need to quit complaining to the movement and help each other plan valid counter-startegies.

Since I don't have a TV, I can't say if the corporate media showed any acts of CD or not. But those small acts have been documented on this website. I can see why people are disappointed that larger acts didn't happen (at least not obviously).

The enclosure and division tactics by the police are standard operating procedures, at least here in D.C. When people do CD in front of the White House, the cops typically surround the arrestees with police vehicles. They also cordon off a large area so nobody can get close, not even the media. The way to counteract these tactics is for the crowd to be more assertive about their rights to see what is happening and be close to the action.

Whoever they vote for, we are ungovernable!

Chuck0

One more point:

I was in a cluster consisting of 3 Affinity Groups which were PREemptively struck & taken out before we ever even reached our destination in downtown Philly (we also feel an infiltrator was onvolved).

One more point:

I was in an action-cluster consisting of 3 Affinity Groups which were PREemptively struck & taken out before we ever even reached our destination in downtown Philly (we also feel an infiltrator was involved)!

So, we were never on the news, nor acknowledged in our disruption (our vehicle was pulled over on an OffRamp, thereby blocking traffic for over 2 hours). I'm sure the same happened in LA, thereby taking some of the more disruptive groups out of Media eyesight.

Of course we can never expect valid and honest stories in the mainstream press (except for when the reporter gets arrested it seems. But to be completely ignored is almost worse I think.

In today's papers I have been unable to find a single mention of the final day's protests. We all know the press want a spectacle. They never showed one photograph among the 4 papers I looked at all week of masses of people marching. They only showed the police confrontations..

But really, how else did we get 60 Minutes to interview people at ananarchist commune? How dd we get Newsweek to explain what the IMF is?

Unfortunately, attention comes from clashes, which is probably the biggest re-hashed debate so I wont go on about that.

As far as the CD, the one day I was in LA (monday) it felt so stiffling to march along police sanctioned corridors. Philly had been liberating as we took the streets as we chose. In LA im not even sure motorists could see us due to all the cops standing infront of every intersection (watching them all run ahead was realy amusig though. Probably their first workout in years.)

And the very ia of a protest pit is so degrading.

I understand the forcefulness of the LAPD was far greater than at other times, but I never felt right donig things the way they wanted. If it means a baton in my face, so be it, butI really disapprove of permitted marches - yes they are important some times, but definately not all the time.

I should note that during the one or two sitdowns in intersections during Monda morning's Uwa march, because of that sit down, I read several articles in the mainstream press explaining Occidental Petroleum and Gore's investments. That worked.

One thing we must always be willing to do is to change and adapt our tactics. Every situation is different, and we should try not to be predictable.

The one I keep trying to figure out how to pull off is the "fake protest". This would be where months of internet activity points to a major protest. The state spends millions on security and police. Then no one shows up. Haven't figured out how to pull that one off, but it would be a blast to see a thousand cops on the street in riot gear and not a citizen in sight.

It was noted in here earlier that the sitdowns in Philly Highways blocked delegates, but to set the record straight, they never did. The highways and roads blocked were at rush hour when most of the delegates were either in South Philly or downtown for lunch. Then they either took the subway back to the convention center (which was never slowed) or they took the Ben Franklin Parkway to 76 to the FU center. They weren't even stalled except while walking by and laughing at your foolish attempts to stop them. research is important.

I was in Philly, and in some of the lockdowns, and delegates WERE blocked from getting to the convention hall. Even mainstream media quoted a bunch of delegates who said they were blockaded in their hotel, so even someone as naive as you should have been able to find that info. In addition, the delegate buses had to be rerouted several times because people, and the cops helped by closing streets themselves, blocked off access routes. *YOU* should research before you talk.

I don’t know how many delegates you managed to block from the Republican convention, but from talking to my friends in Philly I do know that you definitely succeeded in inconveniencing tons of working people who wanted nothing more than to get home to their families. Maybe that is why people were applauding the bicycle police in the week after the convention. Way to get your message across.

look, i worked as a bus driver during the conventions, and I assure you that you blocked noone. Most delegates (minor ones) took the subway, and those that took buses went up Ben Franklin Parkway to 76 to Broad. If you had simply called the companies, they probably could have told you their routes ahead of time and you could have protested something. And if you were part of the lockdowns, then you saw jack because your ass was thrown in with the child molesters. Please don't try to use lies to retort a fact. Your propaganda is not wlecome here.

Look, people, I get the sense that many of you were out there in the rest of the country, rooting for us, but expecting a replay of Seattle or Washington or Philadelphia. Events unfolded in LA the way they did due to the climate of paranoia in the city, based on the extremely sophisticated and large army of authorities, and based on the fact that it was impossible to engage in civil OBEDIENCE.

We met our match in LA in a way that we did not in Seattle and DC, or even Philadelphia. Seattle was our coming-of-age, DC was disruptive despite the best efforts of the police, and R2K was able to keep the police guessing until it was too late to stop the affinity groups' actions on August 1st.

In LA, however, we met our match--the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, LAPD (9000 strong) and CHP (2300 strong) simply occupied the city center for a week. They were as savvy, organized, and revved-up as we were--and they had weapons, helicopters, suveillence cameras, infiltrators, propaganda, and the support of the establishment and the citizens in a very chaotic and riotous city to carry on as they pleased.

This is not pretty, green Seattle. This is not compact, stately DC. Nor is this a highly centralized city of cohesive neighborhoods like Philly. This is a city that is on edge MOST of the time; fear of chaos is endemic here. Few believe the city is under control on any given day, and any large-scale challenge to authority in this city is a fearsome event to the citizenry. Downtown was battened-down and boarded-up. The freeways were at less than half of the normal volume into and out of the central city. I parked on the street in downtown LA every single day, with no problem--because the city was holed-up or determinedly "on vacation" this week--according to today's LA Times, 65% of corporate workers stayed away from downtown's office towers this week. This climate of fear translated into support for the LAPD and the other agencies to occupy much of the city, and to control the demonstrations at any cost.

And this is what happened--the authorities controlled our protests--blocked them, encircled them, canceled them, dissolved them, cleaved them, and drove the mechanics of our protests completely. We had permits to march from the official staging zone to the official protest zone--but guess what? We usually didn't get there. We had officially sanctioned march routes, but guess what? We got surrounded and trapped for hours. We had a sound system and a schedule, but guess what? All protest in the official protest zone became illegal around 8:30pm, when the delegates began to filter out of the convention center, and the first and last challenge to this illegal infringement of our rights resulted in batons, bullets, pepper spray, and injuries to us, the media, and bystanders by hundreds of mounted police. We were outnumbered, overpowered, and outmanouvered.

In this kind of environment, you tell me how to determine what is civil disobedience and what is not. In fact, it was impossible to be civilly OBEDIENT this week. Permits, protest zones, concert schedules--nothing could be relied upon. Everything could become illegal at any given time--and almost every rally and march shifted from legal to illegal and back to legal again, but some unexpectedly ended in mass arrests or baton hits, rubber bullets and pepper spray. The authorities successfully kept us confused and on edge, trapped or denied access, on the verge of arrest and subject to violence at all times, day and night.

Civil disobedience and civil obedience are fixed kinds of ideas which presuppose an environment in which one can tell the difference betweent the two, in which one can be obedient and then choose to become disobedient. We had no such choice to make. The definitions of obedient and disobedient became slippery and interchangeable and unreliable. Some "legal" protests became illegal, exposing peaceful protesters to more than they had consented to, and some "illegal" protests were facilitated by the authorities flawlessly and offered those intent on CD no point of confrontation to engage in.

I guess you had to be there to understand it, but as we begin to tell our stories and assess what happened, I'm sure we will get stronger--because what does not kill us makes us stronger, and we have never been more alive than we are right now!

Actually, 15 of us held a successful suprise action in Belair early Wednesday afternoon, at the "Major Convention Funders' Luncheon."

After liberating a lane in the street out front, (no sidewalks) we harangued and held signs. Eventually we crossed the street, with cash in outstretched hands, trying to "work within the system" and BUY ACCESS. Told we were tresspassing, we replied "We'll pay. How much?" and pulled out more currency....

The action aired as the lead story on KCBS at 5, the only big media present.