Maybe it's because last year, October 22 was on a Sunday. Before we get too caught up in what today's turnout says about the state of The Movement in general, we should consider the practical reality that a lot more people work on Monday than on Sunday. Me, for example. If the march had gone yesterday, I'd be there. If the march were tonight ... I'd probably be there. But it's at 3:00 pm on a Monday, and I am at work. So are many others.

Even if it were on a Sunday, it is probably true that the turnout would have been lower this year. Last year's number got bolstered by a large number of people who had just experienced police brutality firsthand outside the DNC convention. We don't have that kind of event in the background now, even though it is true that the behavior of LA's finest has shown no signs of improving. The context of the police's image and visibility is bound to affect the level of support for actions like this. And in this case, it would seem that the cops have found a top-notch PR firm.

Good luck, to those who either don't work today, or ditched work, to be there. I hope they make their point without becoming the subject of further police abuse.

Obviously the O22 organizers weren't hoping for a big working-class turnout. 'Cuz we're all working today!

Plus lots of activists are forsaking the street battles in this time of increased fascism for some more subtle but effective types of organizing, such as talking to people face-to-face. Now's just not the time to provoke an already hypertense LAPD, especially when we could be organizing against police brutality in other ways.

It's not about "backing down" or "giving in", but changing tactics when the circumstances show us that some methods of organizing might be better than others.

Good luck to y'all out there right now. I just got a call from a buddy downtown saying that there are lots of cops and undercovers headed over there, ready to beat heads in and take names.

Last year, when it started, there weren't more than 1000 people at the start. There were probably 1500 toward the end. It grows.

I just came from the O22 march and it is fucking beautiful! Mad props go to all of those who came out and those who are supporting in spirit. It is a real victory for the people that in this time where the powers are telling people that this is not time to protest such things as police brutality, repression and the criminalization of a whole generation. Well the hundreds if not a thousand, of folks from Anarchists to Chicano Nationalists to Black Nationalists to Revolutionary Communists to Punk Rockers to Hip Hop Heads to Student Organizations to Arab sisters and brothers - To Ozomatli to Soul by the Pound to Youngsters banging on drums from Watts and everyone else I forgot - Yall are brave and beautiful for standing up for the people - THIS DAY IS A SUCCESS AND THE PEOPLE MADE IT HAPPEN!AIN'T NO POWER LIKE THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE CAUSE THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE DON'T STOP!

It was looking like a police state out there. I counted 180 cops, and that was mostly along First Street and up in front of Parker Center. There were certainly more on Temple and Broadway.

Undoubtedly, this was in response to last year's demonstration, where dozens were beaten and shot with rubber pellets. This time around, they came heavily armed, with new rifles, colored green; who knows what they shoot? Several police were girded with belts full of silver canisters, again containing unknown product, but I'm guessing they're rubber pellets.

But the people were *peaceful*. Angry, but peaceful. And they only thing the cops got to shoot was surveillance photos for their databases. I'm sure they were angry too, but for different, related reasons. Riot officers don't volunteer for riot duty as community service :-)

The plan was to walk around Parker Center, and the permit planned for a march down First, up Alameda, left on Temple, and back to the police station. It went off without a hitch. Getting back to the stage, the radical crowd was rocked into a pit by a soundsystem blasting Rage Against the Machine and KRS-One, with Jerry Quickly on the mic rapping poetry.

This is a request to everyone. Please post your observations. Also, next time (or at the next event) don't hesitate to call in a quick report to the IMC with information about what's going on. The IMC has volunteers who can keep the website updated with breaking news. This is good for out-of-town people and people at work to stay updated on the events.

O22 was fun! I appreciated the event and will be back next year, good to see the amazing diversity out there. I just had one question: are the cops nicer under a maoist dictatorship of the proletariat?

Just so folks know, we found out that at least one brother has been arrested. The police picked him up from a bus bench after the event was over and he and his friends were leaving. They saying they are charging him with "assult on an officer" and saying that his bail is ,000. While there is a NLG lawyer at Parker Center dealing with this right now - help is needed. Clearly the police picked off this youth as a form of harassment and we must get him free! Please call 213-485-5253 Central Jail/ 213-485-3266 Parker Center. Please call and demand that these bogus charges be dropped!!!!

the turnout was so low because the 9/11 attacks showed the complete idiocy of your movement's basic assumptions and beliefs about the world.

Whether its 1,500 or 1,000 people, your still just a bunch of misguided fools.

But that's just my opinion.

to e plurbus unum.

Your post might make a little bit more sense if you actually made an argument. You call us fools and yet you give no reasoning for that name calling. Why does 9/11 prove we're misguided? It seems to me we were some of the few people which were saying that something like this was inevitable given the current state of politics in the world. Now we are trying our best to stop anymore civilians from being killed. I'm not getting how this makes us misguided fools.

What are your movement's basic principles and beliefs?

Whatever you just said, know this: They're bogus.

That's why no one shows up at O22 events.

e pluribus unum makes no logical connection between Oct 22 and Sept 11 discrediting it. It doesn't.

In fact, the attempts to somehow connect the Sept 11 events to O22 were made at the rally, and they fell flat or left people confused. That's because they're not related.

O22 is about domestic exercise of police power. 9-11 was an act of terrorism by a faction that cannot wage war against the US, so it used terrorism.

The most tenuous connection would be to equate victims of police brutality with terrorists. That's absurd.

Perhaps there's a connection if you're into supporting the "underdog" at all costs, whether the underdog was shot by the cops, or is a terrorist. That's a stretch, though I could imagine some people who'd think like that. There are some people for whom it's more important to support the "oppressed" than it is to have a standard of right and wrong.

That kind of thinking is stupid. It's just the exact opposite of people who support the USA because it's often the "winner". "Hey, they won, so, they must be right. They must be good." It's mindless groupthink.

wow e plurbus unum. Now you have convinced me and contributed to the public debate. "Whatever you just said is bogus." I'm glad to see how willing you are to engage in thoughtful political debate. I will now quit everything I do because you told me anything that I say is bogus.

You raise a good question. You sound like you lack a basic understanding of what Maoism is. This is not surprising since we live under a Dictatorship now except it's the bourgeoisie and the dominant ideas of any period will be the ideas of the ruling class. Marx teaches us that and it is born out to be true. In school the first thing (or second!) is how bad communism is. And especially that Mao. We could learn alot from the Black Panthers and one of those things is the quote on of the Panthers made when asked why they were promoting the red book. The brother said, "Mao Tse Tung is a bad mother fucker." What did he mean? Well, shit the chinese communists (the real communists obviously not those capitalists in power now-don't care what they call themselves) applied the living science of revolution-Marxism-Leninism. As Mao later said, "Communists are makers of revolution." They kicked out the imperialists (the US and all the other imperialists dominating China), they brought down the parasites serving the interests of imperialism while living off the back of the Chinese people and they uniting the people to overturn feudalism in the countryside.

Included in all of this is of course the applying of the communists line of doing away with all traditions chains including the oppression of women. Women's feet were literally unbound where possible,they were allowed to join the army, abortion was made available and so was the right to divorse, collective kitchens were established to free women from the burden of housework, theater plays like the Red Detachment of Women were produced for stage--in general the question of the full emancipation of women was taken up in every sphere of society. Of course this is just one aspect of the application of Marxism Leninism under Mao. Of course, the revolution in China was overthrown by the "Capitalist Roaders" in China. What does this mean? Well, any cursory look at history, nature or any other phenomenon that exists in material reality will show you that nothing proceeds in a straight line. Things evolve through jumps and leaps. There is backward motion and forward motion. Capitalism did not just spring onto the earth. It arose through violent struggle. First one place, then another. It was thrown back and reinstated. For revolutionary china that fact that the world was dominated by imperialism is a HUGE factor. This in no way negates the amazing achievements of revolutionary China lead by Mao. The brief sketch above on the struggle to emancipate women is but one aspect.

I ask you, then, how do you forsee liberating women from thousands of years of oppression? How do you see bringing forward the people to carryout this process? What kinds of institutions would be needed. How would the people be educated to a level to lead this and criticize it in order to maintain it on the path to full emancipation? We're talking about a billion people. Maosists believe and fight for getting rid of all class relations and traditional ideas. This is a tall order. Shit just feeding the 1 billion people of China will required a huge amount of organization. Have you considered how to feel people after making a revolution? Have you considered how to build up the most oppressed areas first and further how to do away with all national oppression. Black people constitute an entire nation within the confines of the US. How would you transform hundreds of years of oppression? And native peoples. Oppressed nationalities like Chicanos? What are your ideas. Do you just see dividing all oppressed people up into separate nations? Is this the highest acheivement you see for mankind-divided up into separate nations? Lets not forget that nations arise with the brith of capitalism-they developed as a means to enable the bourgeoisie of any nation to be able to control in order to exploit its peoples and markets. Mao did not seek to stop there. While the revolution did throw out the foreigh occupiers, the imperialists, communists in China fought to maintain China on a full course towards a new epoch- where all ideas were liberated, where people interacted on the basis of mutual respect and love, where contradictions were dealt with non-antagonistically. "From each according to his ability. To each according to his need."

Well, shit, how do you get from here to communism. Not just socialism but communism where there is NO STATE, people need no belief in supernatural beings, where art and culrure flourish in ways unknown to currect societies, where the world actual reflects the vision of the world from outer space-where there are no borders. HOW DO YOU GET THERE?

Societies don't revolutionize by themselves. People must help them. How do you decide if ideas are revolutionary? Since I don't know how you envision changing the world--I wonder if you think just coming to consensus is revolutionary. While this is a form that could be used among the people--what are you basing decisions on? What people happen to think is popular? Shit, people thought the world was flat and could have come to consensus on that no problem.

My point is that if you are going to truly revolutionize things that you have to know what you are fighting for and challenge ideas, practices based on that. If you haven't noticed, everyone out here isn't fighting for the same thing. That's fine. The more the merrier. And even if everyone is fighting for classless society, the emancipation of women, the liberation of all oppressed nationalities, a relation with the environement that promotes reparing destruction and preserving what still exists and further the liberation of all humanity all over the world -- there is of course MAJOR differences on how to get there. And frankly we can want alot of things but if we don't have a plan to get there that can actually acheive our goals then people will of course continue to fight and die but for what. People have been fighting and dying for thousands of years under banners purporting to liberate humanity. This don't make it so. This aint about getting some consession in the long run. This aint about some band-aid attention to quesitons like the oppression of women or international struggles--I am talking about an ideology, plan and organization that can actually achieve that.

What about the rest of the world. Communists revolution isn't about just groups of people surviving here. We are talking about the whole world and as communists we are internationalists which means the internation struggle comes first. We aim first and foremost to liberate all of the world. This gives communists internationalists responsabilities beyond just this country. Because even if it were possible to redestriubute stuff here and live fairly well,which is not revolutionary necessarily. We don't have some social worker line of just handing out stuff to the people. It is a Maoist law that the people must liberate themselves. Again, we are talking about doing away with all tradition ideas, class relations, social relations, etc. But even if that were possible alone without revolutionary organization on the level I am talking about-what would that be. You would just end up collectivizing the spoils of imperialism. Where do you think all the wealth of this country comes from? Oh, you wouldn't relate to oppressive governments. That's good but who would you relate to and how would you relate. What is the plan for the revolutionary united states(or whatever) to serve the interests of making revolution world wide. What?

My point finally is this. The dictatorship of the proletariat is in no way like this dictatorship of the Brougeoisie. In the same way that real democracy for the people is in no way like this democracy for the bourgeoisie. The dictatorship of the proletariat means that the masses of people (the proletariat is the class at the bottom of society that lives only so long as it works and works only so long as it can sell its labor) --it means the masses of people come first. It is a state completely different from this capitalist state. It is a state that exists to unleash the people themsleves to carry the transformation of society on a revolutionary road. It exists to build institutions based on these goals to serve these interests. It also exists to defeat and hold down the bourgeoisie and the re-emergence of the bourgoisie. How do you propose preventing the restoration of the former ruling class after revolution? New bourgois forces are continually regenerated by the contradictions that still exist in society.

The great division of labor still exists. Did laborers become doctors onvernite? Did the backward, undeveloped country areas become developed overnite, did women become equals of men just because you made a revolution. Marx said, all new societies are stamped with the birthmarks of the old. What does that mean. It means the ideas and existence of capitalism doesn not disapear overnite. Do you think invidualism will just fade into the distance. Nope. Not a chance. These ideas and the forces that represent and concentrate them must be continually challenged. Who is going to challenge them? The people. How are the people going to be able to recognize what is revolutionary and serves the interests of the emancipation of the people and propeling society along a revolutionary path vs what is really seeking to restore capitalism. Aint so obvious. Anyways, how do you propose people learn to do this? Or do you think this is necessary at all. Perhaps we should let the chips fall where they may and let the lives of potentially millions of people fighting and dying for a better world be for shit because there is no leadership and organization capable of leading the people to figure these things out.

Revolutionaries don't have all the answers. That's ridiculous. Marxist-Leninst-Maoists do have the science of revolution-dialectical and historical materialism to find out the answers. All of this must be done with the masses but there must be a revolutionary line and organization guiding it. The whole point in a sense of communist organization, the dictatorship of the proletariat or in other words a revolutionary state completely opposite from a capitalist state-is to move humanity forward to a place where there is no party or state or classes or nations. None of it. We are going up against a formidable enemy. The people demand leadership. You yourself have leadership. You follow and carry out a line. You are being lead. You just don't know or care by who. The question is--is the line and leaderhip you are following revolutionary.

To answer your question at the begining about cops. What do you think? Do you think a society that is seeking to revolutionize all social relations among people, do away with all oppressive divisions of labor, emanicipate women, do away with all national oppression, unleash the people to challenge ideas and leaders (including the party. read mao! what do you think the whole cultural revolution was about!), etc -- do you think there would be cops under that kind of society? For what? To direct traffic?

I guess all the families of vicitims of police murder, mechistas, youth from watts, activists, black students, clergy, immigrants, muslims, the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, people against the execution of mumia and for the freedom of all political prisoners, anarchists, communists, democrats, taggers and lovers of justice in general including groups like Ozomatli and Soul by the Pound, poets like Jerry Quickly are all nobodies. HAHAHAHAHA! What a joke. O22 this year was deep. If you were there you'd know. People came out despite that police rampage of last year. Despite all the threats and intimidation against the movement from George Bush himself-promising to go after all those who challenge injustice. Despite the promoting of a flag waving, immigrant attacking, be silent atmosphere. People came out full of courage and determination to make a powerful statement against the whole program of police brutality, repression and the criminalizaiton of a generation.

Nobodies? Fuck that. People at O22 got heart and courage. Heroes. The pigs got stung and the people won a real victory for a better world.

the cops are nicest under syndicialism becuase there would be NO COPS!!

The state will never represent the interest of the workers and the masses. No matter what they tell you a vanguard party or a dictatorship of the proletariat will never work.

We must have a decentralized revolution with federations of unions and workers! Example: the syndicalist unions of the spanish civil war. I will not be a part of any revolution to replace the state with a state!

March with the black block. wave the black flag. Smash authoritarianism and capitalism in all of its forms!