Cries in the Streets in LA

In the third Seattle re-enactment in nine months, activists

in LA attempted to recapture the legendary energy that erupted last November. Inside the movement, debates are raging about whether the focus on mass street protests is beginning to squander the energy rather than build on it.

by Naomi Klein

Tonight is the finale for insiders and outsiders in Los Angeles this week: In a few hours, Al Gore will be giving his acceptance speech at the Staples Center. A few feet away, thousands of activists will hold a rally outside. Yet at the Community Convergence Center, a four-story warehouse on Seventh Street in the Pico-Union neighborhood, the mood is more melancholy last day of camp than first day of the revolution.

In the rooms upstairs, activists are collapsed on their knapsacks, sleeping. Downstairs, pacing up the middle of the floor, is a cranky punk with a bullhorn: "Somebody took my black hoodie," she booms, referring to that indispensable anarchist accessory, the black hooded sweatshirt. "I want it back now." She pauses to shoot a death stare at a reporter from Channel 22.

Nearby, the antisweatshop banner-making sessions seem to be taking place in slow motion, and the mood isn't improved with the return of a handful of activists, back from a demonstration outside Citibank. "How was it?" asks Yuki Kidokoro, one of the LA organizers of the Direct Action Network.

"Lame," someone replies.

During the Democratic convention, protesters attempted to recapture the legendary energy that erupted on the streets of Seattle this past November during the World Trade Organization meeting. It was the third Seattle re-enactment in the country in nine months--first, Washington, DC, for the World Bank meeting in April; then Philadelphia for the Republican convention in July; now, in August, here in LA. And there have been at least as many self-described "next Seattles" outside the United States.

Inside the movement, debates are raging about whether the emphasis on mass street protests is beginning to squander the energy of Seattle rather than build on it. So much time is going into mobilizing the next dramatic direct action that little is left over to think strategically about how to turn a new taste for radical protest into a movement that's not only about confronting power but also about getting some. The irony is not lost on organizers who, even while making their giant puppets and filling buses for events, have taken to engaging in relentless self-criticism. Ruckus Society director John Sellers recently warned against "leading with our tactics instead of our message"--this from the man best known for cultivating the art of dropping banners from very tall buildings. On the Los Angeles Independent Media Center website, there is an editorial charging that the protesters yelling "Whose Streets? Our Streets!" are less interested in changing the political landscape than in simply expressing their sorrow with the status quo--protest as "a frantic cry from our cage."

For months leading up to the Democratic convention, the organizers of the D2KLA Network have been trying to deal with all the criticisms that have come up since Seattle, inside and outside the movement. At the Convergence Center, antiracism is made the number-one priority, a response to earlier failures to attract people of color. The street actions themselves--as many as four a day during convention week, the largest attracting as many as 8,000 people--focus on immigration crackdowns, violent cops, the death penalty, homelessness, homophobia, sweatshops and youth criminalization. "Local issues," Kidokoro says pointedly. "In Seattle, people said the issues came in from the outside."

Unfortunately, these efforts at times seemed to cancel each other out. The emphasis on antiracism meant that the protests were more racially diverse. On the other hand, making a target of the Democratic Party proved far less inclusive in other ways--the AFL-CIO was inside the convention, working for Al Gore, not on the streets as in Seattle. And it wasn't only the Teamsters and turtles coalition that took a hit: With the emphasis on local issues, there was little room for the internationalism that was the hallmark of Seattle, when US activists marched with Indian farmers and Mexican maquiladora workers.

At the same time, the decision to focus attention on the two major conventions was an important post-Seattle development. For many of the younger protesters, until now it has been an article of faith that party politics are so corrupted that engaging with the electoral system is a waste of time. Better to go after Nike directly, or Monsanto, or Occidental, or the WTO. But by trying to "out" the money in politics, the LA protesters were joining the fray, attempting to turn an anticorporate backlash into a pro-democracy movement. On the streets, the protests' "meta-message" about the corporate takeover of democracy was delivered by theater troupe Billionaires for Bush (or Gore), by young activists gagging themselves with fake million-dollar bills and at demonstrations against Gore's ties to Occidental Petroleum.

The umbrella demand of reclaiming democracy from corporate interests could certainly have housed all the issues on the D2K agenda, from private prisons to environmental racism. And yet, despite the self-awareness of many organizers, far more effort went into recruiting bodies and training them in civil disobedience than into developing a coherent economic framework for all the protests and a political strategy for what comes next. Protesters thus fell back on familiar rhetoric and slogans, and D2KLA at times came off as a laundry list of grievances, a colorful parade of complaints. Protest, in very short order, has gone postmodern: less about the issues than the tactics, the permits, the police response, the trials afterward--protesting about protesting itself.

It's a lesson of particular interest in Boston, which will host the first presidential debate this October. Ben Day, one of those plotting the local activist response, says actions will focus on educating the public and "on demands for specific [electoral] changes." He reports that "the group here unanimously agreed that the obsessive attempt to replicate Seattle hasn't been a fruitful method of trying to build a popular mass movement."

Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (Picador).

Copyright

Naomi Klein's reservations about squandering our energies on tactics instead of message are well taken, but by concentrating on the negatives, she failed to list the positives.

1) GETTING OUT THE MESSAGE -- Plow through the hundreds of press clippings, and you'll see that in maybe half of them, we DID get the message out. The message was this is not an unconnected laundry list, but many facets of one issue -- the corporate domination of just about everything.

2) ENERGIZING OUR BASE -- Anyone who lives in LA and was part of D2K knows that many, many people had their lives changed forever by the experience. D2K leaves behind a new base of activists and it created a new network that cuts through lines of age, gender, income, geography, race, etc. This alone was worth the effort.

3) WHAT WAS THE ALTERNATIVE? -- How could we NOT have mobilized and protested the Democratic convention? What message would that have sent?

4)POLICE ISSUES -- It was never our intention to turn this into a police issue, but it happened anyway. If nothing else, we woke up the general population on the serious issue of police abuses in our community and we drove another nail in the coffin of the LAPD. Even the local business community is pissed off at the LAPD's actions.

5)THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY -- There's no question the Democrats got the message that there a cost attached and a price to pay for abandoning a popular agenda. The fallout on this is still to play out.

6) THE LAUNDRY LIST -- In Boston the issue will be compressed into a very specific point, and that's a good thing. In LA the issue was as broad as the agenda of the Democrats, and that's how it should have been. The corporate agenda is all-encompasing and so must ours be.

7) LABOR -- Labor WAS present, though in much smaller numbers than in Seattle, and it was an uphill fight to pull them in. We did our best to publicize our part in D2K and our issues, but I agree most of the media ignored us. D2K left behind a solid progressive labor network in LA to continue to fight for labor's agenda against corporate domination of our political system.

On balance I think we did a great deal of good and no harm. I too question the great amount of time put into tactics. Ruckus went to a great deal of effort and the result was one banner hanging, but the energizing of the kids who attended Ruckus is much harder to measure and will stay with us much longer.

The targeted corporate campaigns will go on, but with more participants, more committment, and more energy. The student movement too will grow, along with education around the issues. I don't know what impact D2K will have elsewhere, but in LA it leaves behind a changed political landscape.

Michael Everett

Naomi Klein's reservations about squandering our energies on tactics instead of message are well taken, but by concentrating on the negatives, she failed to list the positives.

1) GETTING OUT THE MESSAGE -- Plow through the hundreds of press clippings, and you'll see that in maybe half of them, we DID get the message out. The message was this is not an unconnected laundry list, but many facets of one issue -- the corporate domination of just about everything.

2) ENERGIZING OUR BASE -- Anyone who lives in LA and was part of D2K knows that many, many people had their lives changed forever by the experience. D2K leaves behind a new base of activists and it created a new network that cuts through lines of age, gender, income, geography, race, etc. This alone was worth the effort.

3) WHAT WAS THE ALTERNATIVE? -- How could we NOT have mobilized and protested the Democratic convention? What message would that have sent?

4)POLICE ISSUES -- It was never our intention to turn this into a police issue, but it happened anyway. If nothing else, we woke up the general population on the serious issue of police abuses in our community and we drove another nail in the coffin of the LAPD. Even the local business community is pissed off at the LAPD's actions.

5)THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY -- There's no question the Democrats got the message that there a cost attached and a price to pay for abandoning a popular agenda. The fallout on this is still to play out.

6) THE LAUNDRY LIST -- In Boston the issue will be compressed into a very specific point, and that's a good thing. In LA the issue was as broad as the agenda of the Democrats, and that's how it should have been. The corporate agenda is all-encompasing and so must ours be.

7) LABOR -- Labor WAS present, though in much smaller numbers than in Seattle, and it was an uphill fight to pull them in. We did our best to publicize our part in D2K and our issues, but I agree most of the media ignored us. D2K left behind a solid progressive labor network in LA to continue to fight for labor's agenda against corporate domination of our political system.

On balance I think we did a great deal of good and no harm. I too question the great amount of time put into tactics. Ruckus went to a great deal of effort and the result was one banner hanging, but the energizing of the kids who attended Ruckus is much harder to measure and will stay with us much longer.

The targeted corporate campaigns will go on, but with more participants, more committment, and more energy. The student movement too will grow, along with education around the issues. I don't know what impact D2K will have elsewhere, but in LA it leaves behind a changed political landscape.

Michael Everett

Stating the obvious is pretty easy to do. Many of us

who have been organizing for years are very

well aware of the limitations of street actions, but

recognize them as vital to the spiritual and political

growth of the disenfranchised.

You should perhaps focus on the advantages that this new

movement has over its predecessors; namely, the tactics

and organizing strategies that have come from the

anarchists:

1. Affinity Groups

2. Consensus decision making structures

3. Direct Action

All of these elements of the new movement have been in

use by anarchists since, at least, the Spanish Civil War.

There is much to say on these topics, but for now i am

less interested in punditry and more interested in organizing the next phase of this movement.

J.T. Organizer

Naomi, the self-proclaimed "powerful voice in the anti-globalization movement"

has a rhetoric of her own which sounds like the type of person who really cares

how her "powerful voice in the anti-globalization movement" appears in the

commercial press.

Contrary to her assertion that "Protest, in very short order, has gone

postmodern: less about the issues than the tactics, the permits, the police response,

the trials afterward--protesting about protesting itself." What has gone "postmodern"

are the likes of Naomi and her squalid band of old lefties at the Nation magazine; not

to mention their local poster child Marc Cooper.

What's outrageous is the assertions of Naomi that somehow local issues are not

tied to corporate globalization, or the implications that police brutality and the

prison industrial complex are not the symptoms of capital flight and the growing

superfluous population who are not involved in wealth production (for the rich, of

course).

As a native of L.A and someone who was present in Seattle and D.C, I can assure

that we are not organizing to simply replicate Seattle. In fact, the ones who are replicating

Seattle are collectively known as law enforcement. What is being replicated is the

paramilitary nature of the police state which we are subjected to.

What is also being replicated from Seattle, D.C, Philly, etc are the most positive elements

of the growing movement for social justice; namely, consensus decision making (we dont

want the old school hiearchies and professional party "leaders"), the Direct Action Network

(we don't want "lame" boring demos which don't raise the social costs to elites), the

Independent Media Center (we don't want boring pundits or the Nation Magazine

to be our voice, let people represent themselves), and diversity (we don't want all white

middle class professional NGO types running anything around here).

I agree with the post above: Less Pundits, More Organizers!

Most of us would welcome a "Next Seattle."

There is a political and tactical battle being waged. In any battle both sides sum up the lessons and move on from there- the police and the powers that be sum up their lessons and we sum up ours.

What we should Not fall into is following Klein's orientation toward politics as usual, get out the vote and (yawn) all that. Getting out the vote and its corrolary- campaign finance reform- didn't make this movement and won't sustain it.

There was a tremendous heroism on the streets of LA, a heroism Klein reduces to an anarchist's lost sweatshirt.

The people went toe to toe with police in a militarized zone that looked like a military coup on the streets of Chile.

The Battle of LA was a victory for the people. Thousands of people from the bottom of society stood side by side with the anti-globalization activists in confronting the powers that be. That's a real breakthrough.

That there are lessons still to learn about how to turn an overwhelming police presence into its opposite is not a fault, but an opportunity.

The rest has been said by others.

The tone of this article is so common, some self appointed intellectual condemns our tactics/choice of clothes/lack of bending over backwards for the corporate media/anger/lack of obvious leaders and does it all in a toneof condescending constructive criticism when they are not a participant in the actions. Most articles in the Nation, the progressive, in these times have this same tone. Which is because it is the managerial class who writes the articles, run the unions, call us "self-described anarchists" after extensive prompting from the doctrinal system, make 50 grand a year and don't want a revolution because they have so much invested in the current power structure. At the root of it is simply the fact that there are some people in the movement or at the periphery who are using the movement to further their own careers. You see it in a big way as the head of SEIU exhorts his union to vote for Gore, while he is making 250,000$ a year and after 4 or 8 more years of unchecked neoliberal advance and his service employees are even worse off than they are now, he will be able to go get a job lobbying in DC or working as a corporate lawyer, because he kept up his relations with the ruling elite. Did he ever work in a sweatshop? Well if he ever did he must have forgotten what it's like because he is supporting, financially contributing to the destruction of the power of unions. Anybody remember NAFTA? Does he really give two shits about what is good for the rank and file...he probably fears their growing militancy. Ultimately there are a lot of people who have too much to lose by a resurgence of popular struggle. I think this also helps to account for the barrage of negative condescending articles towards the movement in what are normally thought of as leftist circles

In addition to this phenomena, whether it's journalists from the Nation or Medea Benjamin or Tom Hayden or Kalle Lasn, there seems to be no shortage of people eager to take advantage of an opportunity to make some press for themselves by condemning groups within the movement. Lately it seems that the favored target for disgust is the black bloc or the "anarchists". On the morning of the 16th I saw Tom Hayden on tv condemning the two people waving the flag on the fence monday as " self-described anarchists" trying to make a peaceful protest violent. Well guess what Tom, many if not most of us are anarchists you shithead. Keep that in mind the next time you are at a convergence center hogging the media so you can tell us to vote for gore and how anarchists are some sort of fringe element that is blemishing the purity of your demonstration. If it wasn't for anarchists his ass would be home on the couch worrying about how to get corporate contributions for re-election. These types have no respect for unity because they aren't interested in building the movement but riding it to personal power...thus they are always oblivious to the need for unity. Hey let's critique what we do, of course, but using the media as the forum for that is totally inappropriate, we are too weak to be able to afford condemning groups within our meagre numbers in the media so the corporate media can then use that as an opening (as in the property destruction ceaselessly chanted in the corporate media, thanks medea benjamin..) to divide us or to have us focus all of our energies on convincing people that we are not that bad, etc.

Here are the main points of contention that I draw from this back-n-forth, and my own take:

1. Getting From Laundry Lists To AnalysesÑ

Having spent the week noodging reporters of various outlets and biases to publish somethingÑanythingÑabout the demands we raised, and hearing the endless refrain that "there are too many demands", I have developed something of a Pangloss take on the frustrations of messaging.

I think that we don't really get the messages out during the week, and we shouldn't kick ourselves too hard for not succeeding, especially on the specifics. After the dust settles, the media understand that the various causes and campaigns they saw in the street are part of something BIG. The week of the demo, with few exceptions, the story is what's sexy: black bloc, arrests, cops, banners, and god bless em, puppets. Weeks and months later, our causes and capaigns receive a real boost because people associate them with these beautiful explosions of popular fury.

So it behooves us to craft a soundbite that captures the fundamental thrust, stick with that, and tack on our own cause afterwards. And not worry too hard.

2. What Is That Analysis, Anyhoo?

Problem is, the unifying theme -- corporate control -- isn't universal. Nor is it sufficient. It's understandable that Ms. Klein would push that as the fundamentalÑmany of us doÑbut corporate control is a junior partner in many of the crimes for which we seek redress: the death penalty, American militarism, border crossing deaths. Yes, Wackenhut, Lockheed-Martin, and agribusiness all merit our attention, but I don't think they're the most direct routes to get there. (Oil companies are implicated in the genocidal sanctions on Iraq, but who was the corporate manager behind East Timor? help me outÑand lord knows no one wants easier border crossings more than the growers.) Is it worth the stretch to have a unifying enemy? It might be.

3. What's The Organizing About (No Offense, Pundits)

Additionally, in L.A. the DAN organizing collective insisted that we focus on anti-racism as part of our commitment to organizing in our community. And because it's really fucking important. I think this was highly successful, especially as evinced by the colorful day of protest against police and the prison-industrial complex. I think it was less successful in the message; the right-wing victories of the past generation have really stripped us of powerful anti-racist language, IMHO.

Klein worries that internationalism took a backseat in L.A., and that's also fair. It's also appropriate for protests outside a nation's political conventions to call more attention to a national-to-local spectrum of issues, as compared to protests at the functions of the international finance and trade bodies that we love to hate. And we did call the Dems on their support of global capital's worst features. Was the internationalism subdued? I'm not sure. I think a lot of the international groups stayed away, logically.

The great advantage of the community focus this time around was that this movement, much maligned in the U.S. media as fly-by-night tree huggers with dreadlocks and bike locks, really made bridges with local residents. Obviusly this didn't capture the world's attention. But the payoffcould be tremendous. This is one instance in which being close to the organizing affords us a vantage point that Naomi wouldn't have, and couldn't be expected to have. But I don't think the international foes of global capital should worry that the links have been sundered. We ain't goin' nowhere.



4. I Don't Have a Fourth Section, I Just Want to Wrap Up Now.

So what are the hard questions we need to look at?

-- How do you developing an internationalist, anti-racist, anti-corporate message and get it out?

That's a two parterÑone of the biggest problems, once you develop the message, is communicating it. It was big enough a deal coordinating media between DAN and D2K, and there wasn't enough coordination with out-of-towners. And I won't even talk about the effects of fur activists and breast-feeding protesters (anyone meet the Royal Normans guy?) on the message. But as to developing the message: well, there's where our pundit friends come in handy.

-- How do we rebuild around the alliances that anchored Seattle, namely environmental and labor inside and out of the U.S., while continuing to incorporate the communities in which the protests are held?

I think I just said it. I think future organizing efforts can learn a lot from the folks who did community outreach for L.A. Labor, it can be assumed, won't sign on en masse to anything that targets the Democratic party, and that's not something we pierced ones will change anytime soon. But we can and should replicate these alliances in our local battles, as we have been for years (light a candle for Judi Bari here). If we want union bodies on the streets, we have to pick union fights. The WTO was one. What's the next one? Privatization?

--What are we for (take question one and replace 'message' with 'agenda')

Again, a toughie, and a movement-breaker. Are we for a global institution that protects the environment and workers' rights? Or is that by nature oppressive/d.o.a.? Are we for campaign finance reform? Debt abolition (which equals cash transfers from governments to financiers, remember). I don't know where the hell we start with that one. Individual groups have their demands, but who's going to build the alliance for instead of the alliance against? Tough work.

-- Who do you think is going to clean out the convergence center, your mother?

That's all for now. Sorry so long. Keep 'em coming.

Late,

Josh

I'm sorry that the very short commentary I wrote for the Nation on the

strengths and weaknesses of the LA protests is being taken here as

comprehensive coverage of the activism that went on in LA during the

Democratic Convention. The Nation is running several articles about the

protests, in addition to its radio and online coverage. I have written

about and spoken publicly on the importance of the LA street protests,

the heroism of the activists, and the outrageousness of the LAPD's use

of force. However, the article posted was not about these things, and it

was about something else.

I agree enthusiastically with Michael's Everett's assessment of what

went right in LA, but I also don't think that simply saying what went

right is enough. With similar mass actions planned for Prague in

September and for the Free Trade Area of the Americas Summit in Quebec

City in April, there needs to be a healthy, open debate about how best

to marry direct action tactics with a concrete political plan. That

doesn't mean "getting out the vote" as one writer suggested: it means

thinking as much about developing a strategic and coherent agenda as

about shutting down meetings and writing good slogans. Precisely because

of the strength of the LA demonstrations, I assumed the anti-corporate

forces were strong enough, at this point, to sustain an airing of the

questions that we all know are being asked within the movement itself.

There is one point I'd like to respond to directly, made by "annoyed."

This writer states that by saying the protests lacked the

internationalism of Seattle, I was saying "that somehow local issues

are not tied to corporate globalization, or the implications that police

brutality and the prison industrial complex are not the symptoms of

capital flight and the growing superfluous population who are not

involved in wealth production (for the rich, of course)."

I wrote no such thing. I clearly stated that all the issues were indeed

connected to corporate power. I also said that it is going to require a

more concerted effort to reframe these issues inside a critique of

capitalism if that argument is going to be convincing to people who do

not already agree. Without it, the protests *look*, from the outside,

like a laundry list of grievances, even if they are united by much more

than that.

Coalitions may come together when groups of activists agree on a common

enemy but peoples' minds are changed when that agreement is turned not

only into protests but also into a credible, coherent agenda, grounded

in persuasive arguments and analysis. That's why it matters when more

energy goes into organizing the next Seattle than into developing and

deepening the intellectual threads that tie this movement together. This

isn't about "pundits" versus "organizers" -- analysis and protest are

both part of organizing and both need to be taken seriously. While I

know all of this is easier said than done, dismissing any critical

analyses of the movement as the work of armchair pundits doesn't help.

One last point, on internationalism: U.S. politics -- left and right --

are always in danger of lapsing into myopic parochialism, as witnessed

most powerfully by the fact that the anti-corporate movement is now

spoken of inside the U.S. as if it began in Seattle. What actually

happened in Seattle was that U.S. activists joined a movement that was

already exploding around the world, drawing tens of thousands to the

streets of New Delhi, Auckland, Jakarta, London, Paris, Manila, Kuala

Lumpur, Geneva, Birmingham, Cologne and Vancouver (to name a few).

That's what I meant when I said that while the issues had become more

locally based (a strength, clearly) the protests have lost some of their

internationalism (a weakness, in my opinion, and a distressing

development to many of us outside the U.S.). In LA "the spirit of

Seattle" seemed at times to be oddly divorced from the efforts to build

a new people's globalism -- which is where, I thought, this mobilizing

first began.

Like I said, I think debate is good. Thanks to those of you who

responded.

With respect,

Naomi Klein

I must say I'm disappointed in the level of debate this piece sparked. Klein wrote this piece in the spirit of constructive criticism, as someone who is interested in seeing the movement succeed. Several individuals recognized this and disagreed intelligently, but a few reacted childishly enough to slam her radical credentials without offering any points of real substance. That's a shame. A movement that can not accept criticism in the spirit with which it was offered has very serious problems.

i haven't yet read all the comments, but i think that more dialogue is really healthy, especially if we can keep open and take things with the intent with which they are given. during the dnc in la, i had a chance to talk briefly with naomi before a panel she was on called money culture. i've posted it to the global and la sites and here's the la url. hopefully, we can take all of this (article plus commentaries plus frustration) and see it as a way for us to delve more deeply into where we are going as a movement. we have many differences and that is what makes us powerful, but even more powerful is when we accept our differences as something that can help us be more than the sum of our parts. for this to be truly a global revolution, we will need to overcome this.

http://www.la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=3496

i haven't yet read all the comments, but i think that more dialogue is really healthy, especially if we can keep open and take things with the intent with which they are given. during the dnc in la, i had a chance to talk briefly with naomi before a panel she was on called money culture. i've posted it to the global and la sites and here's the la url. hopefully, we can take all of this (article plus commentaries plus frustration) and see it as a way for us to delve more deeply into where we are going as a movement. we have many differences and that is what makes us powerful, but even more powerful is when we accept our differences as something that can help us be more than the sum of our parts. for this to be truly a global revolution, we will need to overcome this.

http://www.la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=3496

"The movement" has become a singular proper noun, like a person's name - not "a movement" or "The X Movement" (where X is a variable, not a generation). And so the time seems ripe for getting to know this Movement - how it's feeling, what its motives are, what's on its mind.

Naomi's article was written for an audience much broader than those who compose the Movement, and it was aimed not so much at diagnosing the Movement or telling it's got bad breathe, but more at getting a sense of how it views itself. The fact is that many helping to organize and participate in these actions have become self-critical. This doesn't mean that we're trashing our previous accomplishments, but it indicates the necessity of putting our ebulliance in check and maturing somewhat about the realities of what we hope to accomplish. I think this sense has been much stronger among those attending the Philly convention, which - although accomplishing important things - lacked strong organization, a clear message, an ended in hundreds of arrests of protesters who weren't able, this time, to simply negotiate releases, but who were held at exhorbitantly high bails for long periods of time. The sense here in Boston - from where many of the Philly protesters flocked (as in the D.C. protests) - was one of disappointment and exhaustion. The event had been billed as one of the much heralded "next Seattles," and turned out fairly low numbers. Those showing up on time to scheduled rallies and direct action locations found cops rallying on their street corner. Where the events happened at all, people trickled in frequently hours after planned.

For those interested in a more broad evaluation from Naomi Klein on the L.A. protests, I'd highly recommended listening to her interview on Fresh Air, NPR. It can be found in streaming audio at:

http://whyy.org/rameta/FA/FA20000816_20.ram

Therein she flags the "Shadow Conventions" as important steps forward, as efforts to begin constructing parallel political structures. These have not only a parodic value, undercutting the events they mimic and drawing critical attention to their structure, but offer viable alternatives for both observers and participants to involve themselves in a different form of "participatory democracy" - one not controlled by the agendas of [insert malevolent Other of your choice here]. This is actually rather high praise for the Convention protests, pointing out new directions these actions have taken which were not to be found in previous "Seattles" (or Seattle itself, for that matter).

Now that we, I would hope, have put to rest this notion - which several commentators here have conveyed - that Naomi has spurned the protest movement (the Movement which, she has mentioned, she has been cheerleading for for the last five years), on to concerns which her article raise - concerns proffered in good faith, and as an active participant in the movement she describes.

The fact is that the Movement has actually lost diversity since Seattle - most notably in the distance that labor has taken from these actions - and it has taken none of the steps that would be required to support a mass movement.

To gain some perspective, take the general strike held in India and South Africa in mid-May, in which over 20 million participated. Although this event didn't even make a blip on the screen in mainstream media, take the most outrageous estimation you've heard about the numbers to turn out in Seattle, D.C. or any of the Convention protests (hell, take them all together) and divide into 20 million for a truly humbling factor.

I bring this up because confrontational tactics take on a very different meaning in situations where protesters have gained popular support. Of course, the police tend to initiate conflict when protesters engage in non-violent civil disobedience, but this is precisely because they can afford to without disturbing the population at large. Direct Action is not a physical tactic, it's a political tactic. It locates a point at which the actions of the powers-that-be are at odds with the sentiments of "the people," and creates a situation in which their hand is forced: to either take drastic action maintaining the status quo - action which, not enjoying legitimacy among the population, threatens the stability of their position of power - or forcing them to prevent their own destabilization at the cost changing their tune on the issues in question. This is how sit-ins against racial segregation policies managed to be so effective. This is how STRIKES - the paradigmatic direct action (although the meaning of this term has been drastically altered today - "street action" is a more appopriate term) - succeeded.

Of course police responses to our direct action have been outrageous - but we simply don't have the popular support needed for these outrageous responses to be politically productive, namely for the average citizen to find them outrageous because they BELIEVE in what we're fighting for, and thus for such responses to result in politically volatile situations. We can't force anyone's hand without popular support - nor should we, since this would be patently undemocratic, a form of vangardism.

Thus, it seems that there is a class of upandcoming activists who think that this IS activism - showing up to the "street actions." But this is only the form of activism that makes the 7 O'clock news. Popular support comes from the ground up - the hard work of working with people and helping them with their day-to-day struggles, with housing, with unionizing workers to let them benefit from collective bargaining, with health care and child care for the working poor, with womens and homeless shelters and organizing the homeless. The fact is that this type of activism lacks altogether the glory of the media spectacles we see as constituting "the movement," but it is the royal road to the building of a mass movement. The other fact is that the structure of "the movement" - consensus based, non-hierarchical, transient networks - is not suited for such activism, nor is it suited for the participation and organization of working people.

One reason that organized labor has not played a central role in this movement, and frequently seems reticent to play even a peripheral role, is clearly its very weak political position today, when union numbers have been hacked down and the labor market is being recomposed with contingent labor. Although the AFL-CIO's endorsement of Gore bothers me - the notion that the Democratic party represents the interests of working people is laughable - I can understand it at the level of political necessity. Unions would be pretty fucked without any support within mainstream politics at all (which is exactly where they'd find themselves if they placed themselves in opposition to both mainstream parties). Thus, organized labor can only do so much to offend Democratic sensibilities if it wishes to retain some clout in the mainstream (which it certainly needs to effect the passage of bills in congress, as well as more immediate negotiations in the work place).

Beyond this, though, working people simply can't play the game that activists have written the rules for in the new Movement. The lack of permanent institutions works well for drive-by events, if this movement wants the sustained support of regular working people, stable institutions which can link these more spectacular happenings with everyday community struggles need to be built. More importantly, though, the structure of these institutions cannot be such that they are biased towards those with leisure time - those who can show up to all of the many meetings where the decision-making process takes place. While the constituencies of student organizations can usually turn out in numbers and control the agenda of such decentralized decision-making structures, the constituencies of labor organizations are working, are raising families... Working class people need to be able to vote on a host of issues and representatives who can represent their interests at reasonable intervals which can fit into their busy lives. When we decentralize decision-making, we not only allow the class of people who can afford to "decentralize" their own schedule to dominate the direction of actions and events, but we exclude working class people from the very process.

This, I think, is a major stumbling block for the building of a popular movement. The "participation" of labor in Seattle was also largely autonomous - a cooperation between "the movement" and labor. This was an extraordinary coupling, and one that has yet to be duplicated, but it was also not labor participating "in the movement," which is why the disappearence of labor from subsequent events was possible. The movement cannot be a student movement if it is to gain mass support, and if it wants to do this, it has to stop structuring itself like a student movement, and its activists have to show solidarity at a more tangible level - turning out for strikes, picket lines, and standing behind community efforts of the groups we attempt to do Outreach to. Lasting Outreach doesn't consist of ENLISTING various interest groups to join in our one-day struggles (we even name them after days, e.g. A16, O17, etc.), it has to be a reciprocal form of support - this is the time-honored meaning of "networking."

Since racial minorities tend to be overrepresented in lower-income brackets, this lack of accomodation to the interests and participation of working people will especially harm the goal of racial diversity.

In any case, I've gone on long enough, but I think that a reevaluation is in order, and that the structuring principles of our predecessors' movements - those which have succeeded in gaining a mass base of support - should not be so easily dismissed as something which we have cast out and improved upon.

This is a look towards the future, though, and not at all a degredation of the truly remarkable accomplishments achieved in LA and elsewhere. Keep up the good work everyone, and I hope to see you all in Boston for demonstrations against the first presidential debate at the University of Massachusetts-Boston on October 3.

---- Ben Day