by Liovushka
Sunday, Jun. 29, 2003 at 1:01 PM
ANSWER and the crowd should reach consensus - separate consensus if necessary, on what to do after the cops charged the crowd and violated our rights.
I saw the entire police attack from the time the first bike cop ran after the flag-burner to the full-scale riot gear deal and was one of the people shoved aside by the police.
ANSWER should not have unilaterally decided for the crowd to disperse. And the group of (understandably) angry people who witnessed this whole thing should not have attacked ANSWER reflexively. As a democratic people we must try to reach consensus... representatives of both groups should create an impromptu council and figure this out. This is totally do-able... the masses did this hundreds of times a day on the streets of Seattle. Those who wish to stay and risk arrest should DECIDE to stay and those who are at-risk immigrants or have no intention of being arrested should DECIDE to leave. The unequal thing yesterday was that the ANSWER organizers had the microphone and the loud speakers and they got to decide everything. Is this what democracy looks like?
ANSWER and the restless crowd: we're in it for the long haul and we'll be seeing a lot of each other... Let us not compete on the subject of which of us is more sensible or bad-ass. That's ego and dogma eating away at our souls. The Management of this country is COUNTING on the Labor to fight amongst ourselves - remember the steel baron who said a hundred years ago about how they're going to run America: "Let the poor kill each other." Let us NOT build ANOTHER OLD WORLD on the ashes of the old world!!