there's a lot of bashing of san diego organizers going on, so i wanted

to point out a few things:

1) "the organizers" is a very very broad term. anyone who went to a san

diego coalition meeting saw that the organizers were not at all unified

on quite a few issues, especially the one of civil disobedience and

direct action. so to say "fuck the organizers" is very shortsighted,

because a lot of the organizers are totally down for the bloc and

direct action.

2) i was in the interesting position of both being one of the organizers

and in the bloc... quite a few of the "harmony keepers" were black

bloc kids who decided to be harmony keepers since they were so sick

of peackeepers who were anti-bloc... harmony keepers were giving the

bloc all the information we had about police presence, logistics, the

legal situation, the medical situation, etc. we got legal observers and

medics for the march (when it was going to be just the bloc and rcpyb),

and stickers to put on bandanas when the cops were threatening to arrest

people for wearing masks. on the march back, the cops told the police

liason, "i like you, stay away from the black bloc" ... so she came

running over to tell us this, and started telling everyone else to stay

near us. on the march to the border, the people had one lane and the

cops had the other, and when the police started to try to come into our

lane and push us further south, she went up to the cops and said "hey,

get back in your own lane!" then one of the black bloc kids pushed her

and called her a fucking cop. this is the same girl who is quoted in

the indymedia article as telling us that we have to wait till 2:30 to

leave... she actually said that we should wait till art and revolution

was ready to come with us (about 1 minute)... and someone in the bloc

yelled "yeah, there's strength in numbers" and we left on the march

when art and rev. was ready. now, i don't know if any of you who were

calling her a cop or a liberal or whatever, and making all sorts of

assumptions about her because she was an organizer noticed this, but

she can't move her neck. this is 'cuz she got beat up at a16 trying to

block a jail van with her a.g... this is someone who is totally down for

the bloc and direct action, but was attacked and criticized because she

was an organizer, and they assumed that automatically means that

she is a liberal.

3) i don't know where the idea that there was a march that was cancelled

came from... the original plan was to drive to border field state park,

but that got cancelled because the road washed out. there was never a

cancelled march.

4) jumping back to the divisions withint he coalition, the story behind

the action guidelines is this:

there's an organization called la red de globalfobicos, which, we found

out later, was formed by global exchange, who came down to tijuana and

handpicked which nice little liberal groups and people they want to

work with. (global exchange are also the ones who called this action

without talking to anyone from san diego or tijuana first, by the way...)

so anyway... the san diego coalition meetings were 4 hour long fights over

things like consensus vs. voting, spokescouncil vs. stacking meetings,

etc. the globalfobics are claiming to speak for all of mexico, the

iso is bringing 7-10 members to every meeting and trying to sell papers

afterward, and youth and radicals in the coalition are being yelled at and

disrespected by various older and more "liberal" members. at one meeting,

some americans in the globalfobics show up with the proposed points of

unity, saying "this is what everyone in mexico wants". we fought over

these points of unity for about an hour, with us trying to get rid of the

4) jumping back to the divisions withint he coalition, the story behind

the action guidelines is this:

there's an organization called la red de globalfobicos, which, we found

out later, was formed by global exchange, who came down to tijuana and

handpicked which nice little liberal groups and people they want to

work with. (global exchange are also the ones who called this action

without talking to anyone from san diego or tijuana first, by the way...)

so anyway... the san diego coalition meetings were 4 hour long fights over

things like consensus vs. voting, spokescouncil vs. stacking meetings,

etc. the globalfobics are claiming to speak for all of mexico, the

iso is bringing 7-10 members to every meeting and trying to sell papers

afterward, and youth and radicals in the coalition are being yelled at and

disrespected by various older and more "liberal" members. at one meeting,

some americans in the globalfobics show up with the proposed points of

unity, saying "this is what everyone in mexico wants". we fought over

these points of unity for about an hour, with us trying to get rid of the

no property damage, direct action, or civil disobedience clause, and them

trying to get rid of anyone whose view of social change isn't "so who do

i write a check out to to solve this problem?" the compromise that we end

up with is no planned civil disobedience, and us warning the coalition

that if we have the points of unity include these things, the coalition

is being completely unrealistic, and will come back to haunt us later.

Many misconceptions have come from the FTAA S/T border action. The individual in the bloc who said "Whatever bitch." was reprimaded, though allegations were blown out of proportion. I only have two complaints against the organizers. One is that one organizer was seen talking to the police, she said:

"I'm so sorry things have gone this way (This is after the bloc attacked police at the fence)."

Police officer: "Don't worry, your doing a good job."

A reliable agent reported this to the other members of the SKAA affinity. If the police who murder us and slaughter the innocent think your doing a great job, then you obviously your doing someting wrong. The other is that the march WAS cancelled, three organizers brought this to the attention of the BB. The BB replied that they were going to march anyway, and they said "Ok, but I don't think it's a good idea to march by yourselves." RCPYB (Revolutionary Communist Party Youth Brigade) reported that the organizers approached them and told them, "Don't cause any trouble." Sounds like the god damn police. After the RCPYB, Black Bloc, Art And Revolution, and several other groups conspired together to march anyway, the organizers got up and said:

"Ok we are going to LET you march"

Thanks god, we needed your permition. We respect the organizers tactics. We DON'T respect the organizers imposing tactics on other groups. Organizers KNEW that the bloc was going to ignore their demands, so they tried intimidation the bloc, telling them that they are surrounded, that immigrants would be shot if we did illegal things (How far will they go?!), that the entire neighborhood around the borderwill be pillaged by the police, and picked on for years (What? Police don't harrass working class neighborhoods right now?). Don't sit around and try to come up with lame far fetched reasons the black bloc shouldn't do things. The fact remains that besides liberal groups who fear that their money from non-violent groups will be pulled if the ruckus comes, the rest of the people at the protest agree with the bloc's tactics (A lot of times they join in). In fact some have come up and thanked the bloc, or have said that they are glad we were there (I don't know why they didn't just throw on some black clothes and join in). Most groups now are making alliances with the bloc at actions. Still the middle class will never approve of us, and we don't care. You organizers who are not like this, this isn't meant towards you. Organizers who were (You know who you are), this is.

-Agent Pookie of SKAA

its interesting that you write "middleclass people will never approve of us" cause it seems to me that most bloc people are white and middleclass. wonder why?

im not going to respect those who dont respect me

Pookie,

If the black bloc actually knows what all the people at demos

want, why aren't there hundreds of people in the black bloc

in southern california? Why is the black bloc the same size

every time?

I think I know the answer - the black bloc needs to seriously

look at its practice and how it relates to anarchism.

The black bloc functions with authoritarian tendencies, both

internally and externally. As you so often point out, it's

authoritarian to claim to speak for people who haven't had

any input into what you're saying.

This is exactly what you're doing, according to your post.

Why don't you try to negotiate with the other

participants at events? Why do you just straight out reject

their ideas? Why even bother going to an demo organized by

other people if you don't plan to accept any input on how

to demonstrate? Why does solidarity mean only going along with

the black bloc?

From my experience, the black block does not function democratically

even internally. It relies on an elite core for leadership.

The "consensus" process is merely a means of rubber-stamping

the decisions of the elite, with accusations of "liberal!" for

those who disobey. Unfortunately this elite core doesn't even

have a head for street fighting tactics.

The black bloc often accuses those who oppose its tactics to

be "liberals," but I would claim that the black bloc has

exhibited liberalism of the worst kind - that kind of rugged

individualism "do your own thing and fuck everyone else"

that is promoted by capitalism.

It's a disgusting insult to the name of anarchism.

I'm not trying to claim that the organizers of the border event

were not authoritarian, however, I think it's insane to fight

this authoritarianism with even more authoritarianism.

i'm fucking tired of people always accusing the black bloc of being white middle class. how the fuck can you tell if someone is rich or poor by looking at them? especially when they've got on all black and a mask. even those people in black bloc who grew up middle class reject that privilege. we don't follow the path we're told to, going to college and getting a high-paying job. we're workers, train-hoppers, squatters, thieves. we're not living off our parent's money, we're out there spanging and dumpster diving. and what difference does it make if some of us have white skin. don't you all know that race doesn't exist and that we can't change the color of our skin. does the fact that someone has light skin mean that they don't have the right to fight against this system. anarchists realize that you don't have to count as some official minority (dark skin, immigrant, womyn, queer, etc) to be oppressed. we're all oppressed by this system, everytime we work at a job we hate, every time a cop tells us to get off the street, everytime a forest is cut down or new houses are built. we are all fucked over by those who have control of our lives. it doesn't matter what color our skin is, we're gonna take back our lives.