Brothers and Sisters (please post for discussion),

Last night in the streets of Los Angeles our movement won a tremendous victory. 4,000 people took the streets and marched from the DNC about 4 miles to the Twin Towers LA jail, the modern Bastille. We drove a sound truck up to the gates of the prison and sent in a mass message of solidarity with the thousands of ordinary prisoners, as well as the 150 demonstrators being held there on ridiculous, unconstitutional charges.

Why was this march so important? First, because it capped off an incredible week of protests:

Sunday: 3,000 - 4,000 marched for Mumia, 1,000 marched against the GAP

Monday: 2,000 marched for the U'wa, 3,000-4,000 marched on the Tour of Corporate Shame AND 15,000-20,000 marched to demand Human Need NOT Corporate Greed.

Tuesday: 3,000 LA Teachers and 2,500 SEIU city workers marched to demand decent contracts and raised the threats of strikes, 42 campuses met in the Convergence Center and organized to launch a massive fall campaign for Nader and Medea.

Wednesday: 3,000 marched against the criminal justice system

Thursday: 5,000-7,000 marched for an end to sweatshops and to demand amnesty for undocumented workers, 4,000-5,000 participated in the final rally at Staples with Spearhead and Michael Franti, and 4,000 took the streets to march to the prison.

All tolled, 30,000-40,000 people took part in the D2K protests one way or another.

Second, the final march re-affirmed our rights to free speech and freedom to assemble and march, rights that the LAPD did everything it could to destroy by provaction, assault, rubber bullets, batons and pepperspray. Our final march represents a tremendous political blow to the policital power of the LAPD and will inspire the movement against police brutality.

Third, the fact that the final day passed with no arrests means that we did not permit the cops to create the story for our movement. Our message came across loud and clear: Sweatshops, the INS, police brutality, the prison industrial complex, the attacks on unions, the destruction of the envirmonment, etc. are all part of one system. The Democratic Party's job is to defend that system by any means necessary (be it cooptation and taking credit for small reforms or be it by war and mass police repression). We have learned that the sysem must be changed and the Democrats are an obstacle that must be overcome if we are to change it, that's why we were in LA.

Now what are the lessons?

1/ Size matters. Our numbers are growing and the rich and powerful are afraid of that. Cops ten thousand people in the street, but they can deal. They cannot deal with millions.

2/ Class matters. All week long, the demonstrations were overwhelmingly young and working class. While relatively small parts of the AFL-CIO officially endorsed the D2K, tens of thousands of workers marched during the week. From the sweatshop workers to the teachers to the city workers and the thousands more who came as individuals, the movement is making serious inroads to the working class.

Why is this important? First, the working class is the overwhelming majority of the population. Second, the union have tremendous political power which our movement needs. Third, and most important, real power in this society rests in the ability of workers to shut down the economy throught strike action. The fact that workers are marching in the streets means that they can take those lessons to help strengthen their organizations at work.

3/ Politics Matter. Up til now, debates over politics and tactics in our movement have been all too absent. Our great victory in LA means we have to start learning and discussing what works and what doesn't work. We've learned in the streets that some ideas work and some ideas do not work. Here are the key debates:

What's our goal? To remain as a small, militant minority? OR build a movement of millions? I believe it has to be millions. Why? First, we can not win as a minority, the corporations and politicians will not voluntarily give up power, it will have to be taken from them. They have the money, the guns, the media. All we have is our numbers. It has to be our millions against their power, or their power will defeat us (no matter how angry we are).

How do we reach our goal? Their are some who say, "Whatever anyone wants to do is cool. It's all good." I disagree. Last night, at the march to Twin Towers, I helped organize a march marshal team of 80-100 people whose job it was to keep the front of the march together and keep it slow enough that the back didn't lag and get split by the cops. The cops would have loved to turn our final night into a melee and destroy what everyone had worked so hard to accomplish all week. The mass march was peaceful (we took a vote at the mass rally that it would be that way). This was key because if we had suffered arrests, there were many people who may well have been deported or locked away on three strikes charges. We used the same tactics, and many of the same marshals, as we did during the immigrants rights march earlier in the day. Moreover, it was the right thing to do. An orderly marched showed that our movement has a clear political purpose. Millions of people saw it on TV or will read about it and think, "They are serious. The media has lied about them being yahoos. I hate the system too, and I want to get involved."

On the other hand, the Black Block (really a tiny minority of about 60), pushed their way to the front of the march, trampling people as they went; including sweatshop workers - note that Black Block didn't bother to show up to that march - , youths of color, socialists, even some anarchists, and regular people who wanted to have an orderly march. They elbowed shoved aside the march marshals who were linking arms in front to keep the march evenly paced and orderly. When the marshals decided that the only way to confront the violence of the Black Black against the march would have been to fight, we made a tactical decision to let them through because we didn't want to give the cops the excuse they were looking for. Some people joined them, but the vast majority did not.

What was the Black Block's purpose? They yelled, "Don't police yourselves. You are acting like cops!" Then they ran ahead a little ways and waved their flag. They yelled all sorts of things about "resisting the f**king police state, etc", but the only people they actually physically contronted were the marchers. When an African American marshal whose brother was murdered by the cops in the Twin Towers took the bullhorn to appeal to Black Block not to break up the solidarity of the march, they called him a dictator. Later, after we successfully negociated our departure from the rally in front of the jail, the Black Block sat down in front of the sound truck. This forced several hundred of us to stay behind for several minutes while we re-routed the truck, putting us all in danger in the presence of 3,000 angry cops (when most of the march had already left.)

They Black Block called us cowards and cops and all sorts of other names, but at the end of the day, they didn't put their money where their (actually quite filthy) mouths were and stick it out at the jail. They tagged along and went home. No doubt to rail about the "f**king marshals." I say, if they want to fight the cops while our movement is in its infancy, go do it someplace else. If they believe that they have the right as a tiny minority to decide that they will put undocumented workers and the rest of us at unnecessary increased danger so they can wave their flag and pose in front of the cameras in their masks, then I say we have the right to prevent them from doing so.

Let's be clear. This is a debate in the movement. When the press tries to sew divisions so that the cops get off the hook, we should all say, "The violence comes from the police. They have guns. We are peaceful."



Our movement needs to reach millions. Ralph Nader and Medea Benjamin's campaign will help us do that. If Nader gets 5 million votes, that means our movement can have 5 million activists. The campaigns won't be the only thing going on this fall, but they certainly will be the most important in the minds of the the workers and students who hate corporate greed. We as a movement have to get involved in that campaign and build it with all our heart and sole. Not because it's an end in itself, but because its a massive opportunity to reshape the left in the US and give us the experience, numbers, organizations we need to go forward.

The ISO believes that the future of the movement lies with millions of workers and students. Our tactics and strategies have to be designed to build that kind of movement. We are tremendously hopeful that the experiences we're all having in the streets together will help us learn how to do this. We also believe that debate in the movement is necessary and healthy. The D2K week showed that we have the potential to change the world.

I was moved to tears on many occasions as I watched people crossing boundaries put up by the system: between students and workers, activists and new people, people of all races, young and old. As inspired as I am about our chances, I am just as determined to argue for the ideas that can help us win. The movement has to grow up. The "anything goes" attitude we've had up til now was part of our adolescence. It was healthy then, it is an impediment now. Everyone has the responsibility to think about what will work and what will not work, and to create an atmosphere in the movement where political debate is encouraged be you an socialist an evnironmentalist an anarchist or a liberal.

The next step is the Nader/Medea campaign. There are millions of workers and students for us to reach. History does not give the left many opportunities as good as the one we have in the next three months. Carpe Diem!

In Solidarity,

Todd Chretien

International Socialist Organization