The False claims of the

You might want to reconsider your view of the organizers. Seems to me either some misleading information was leaked to you, or you are trying to provoke a division within the movement, The person you attack in your rants about the "pacifist left" has been involved with the movement for a long time. Are you aware of what happened to her during A16? Maybe you should read the following response that was posted the last time you ranted about the organizers. The fact that you keep posting attacks on specific organizers is a bit suspicious...What are you trying to achieve? Looks like you want to generate tension within the movement.

ORIGINALLY POSTED BY "T" (04-23-01):

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.

I and many others do not agree with you, nor do I have any more respect for behavior that incites spraying a crowd with rubber bullets and tear gas than I do for those who spray a crowd with rubber bullets and tear gas. Honestly, in my mind, they are the same.

Please read the comments of others—far better than I.

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”

--Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

“There is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does.”

--Francois De La Rochefoucauld

“Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.”

--Jean Jacques Rousseau

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

--Salvor Hardin

“Peace cannot be achieved through violence; it can only be attained through understanding.”

--Albert Einstein

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

--Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

im not an anarchist or a pacifist but i am fully committed to social change and an end to racism and what it fuels--globalization--by any means necessary

after waking up this morning to the headline of the LA Times:

Supreme Court Scales Back Part of 64 Civil Rights Act and then flipping thru the paper and seeing an article that tells me ONE THIRD of americans would not marry a Black person

....weve got a hell of a lot of work to do...

cant we recognize that we're all fighting for many of the same things? and i dont need to say that there are not alot of allies out there so we've got to cherish the ones we've got and figure out a way to get there!

it seems to me that degrading people for not being as "militant" as you

or throwing mystified quotes of ghandi at people (ghandi actually said that if there was a choice between being violent and being a coward he'd choose to be violent) are just shotting ourselves in the foot

these arguments are valid and important and people should have conversations and debates about them but being all dogmatic about it is just throwing up walls

i am going to offer my opinion of SD/Tijuana action just for the sake of talking through our opinions and getting to more of a place of understanding--im not pushing this opinion on anyone

i believe that there is space for nonviolent, nonconfrontational protest. this was what was planned and this was fully publicized as being the agenda for the day. people may question how this decision came to be or who made it but the fact is that this is what was arrived at and this was what the majority of people coming to the protest were expecting when they came. for people to come and not respect this put other people in confrontation with the police who weren't expecting to be in that situation. and thats unfair.

belive me--im not crying for any of the property that got destroyed and i honestly dont care if a cop was annoyed or pissed off but i do care if people came to the action on the grounds that there'd be no confrontation and were put into a situation they didnt want to be.

people who didnt agree with the way the protest was set up didnt have to go just like people who dont want to be confrontatinal with the cops dont have to go to a direct action. people shouldnt push there way of doing things onto others.

im just putting these thoughts out there. i hope theyll be alot more discussion about this because i see it as being a major divisive force in the movement.

Sorry I reposted my article but the first one was really fucked up and the first part was cut off.

Your right, the organizers were not a monolithic force and I did not mean to represent them as such.

I am not trying to create divisions, just to wake up all the Anarchists out there who have gotten involved with all of this liberal uselessness.

The response to my original article written by one of the organizers (an Anarchist) shows even more clearly than my article did that Anarchists dont seem to have much in common with this "movement".

If the Anarchists involved with the coalition who organized the protest had so much trouble dealing with the other pepole in the coalition (who have clearly different goals) then this is a lesson. Maby next time the Anarhcists shouldnt involve themselves. Thats just a big Maby? I know lots of Anarchists out there think that If we get involved with these coalitions that we might be able to influence them towards a more revolutionary ananrchistic stance, but so far this dosent seem to have been the case. The points of unity from the Border action clearly show this. I think its time for us to start organizing our own events. The southern california May Day Carnival Against Capital comming up is an Anarchist inspired event with no guidelines! For info go to www.angelfire.com/ca7/cac2001

Im sorry if I offended any of my anarchist comrades who were involved with the organizing. I would give my life for my true Anarchist comrades.

From A-Day

Southern Kalifornia Anarchist Alliance

A-Day,

I didn't agree with your assessment of the border action, but I do have a ton of respect for anarchist groups.There were many behind the scenes decisions and negotiations that determined the planning of the border action. I believe the main concern was that undocumented workers would be particularly harmed if mass arrests were made.

I don't participate in anarchist disobedience (too old and weak), but I am certain the movement would be dead without it. The movement needs an anarchist presense, that is obvious to me. Others may disagree with me but without anarchists, we loose the driving force (and bravery) behind the movement.

In solidarity,

AW

hey, we're going to have a debrief next week, so if you guys wanna write a letter to the san diego coalition, i'd be way into reading it to them... i'm going to be saying a lot of the same things that you and AW posted, but the more letters we have from other people backing us up, the better.... email me if you'd be willing to write something...

love&revolution,

tiger