{"article":{"id":596,"heading":"strret actions-and strategies","author":"George Sempepos","created":"2000-08-12 21:26:13","modified":"2000-08-12 21:39:16","last_modified":"Sun, 13 Aug 2000 04:39:16","article":"

While many may be angered at Edson's comments,

(especially at this moment when brave people

have put themselves on the line

in prison)

the point regarding the effectiveness of street

actions and their inevitable price should be

discussed.

Crucially, although the police

actions were indiscriminate and illegal, --

and as usual, innocent people have

been brutalized,--- and we now

have the appalling and unconstitutional

million-dollar-bail gimmick--

---despite all that,

the cops & DAs can claim the arrests were a response to

someone's civil disobedience-

That is, someone (allegedly) broke a law-- (maybe just an \"order to disperse\")-- after, they will claim,

someone announced a willingness to break laws

(i.e. commit civil disobedience if necessary)

--and so the police get to define the terms of

engagement, in the courts of Opinion- as well as the

actual Courts.

Let's recall the varieties of Civil

Disobedience: There is Civil disobedience directed specifically against an unjust law --

burning your draft card during

the Vietnam war being a famous example,

or African-Americans sitting at a restricted lunch counter.

In those cases, activists deliberately broke a law

that was in itself unjust, or part of an unjust

legal policy, and did so specifically to

call attention to it, both as a personal statement

of conscience, and as a public expression.

I think (and some clarification here would help)

the form of civil disobedience that is called

for by some activists in the events under

discussion is somewhat different, in that

the \"laws\" being [potentially--in the police\/D.A.

rhetoric]\"broken\"-- are more generic,

and not specific to the (primary) cause of the activists.

Civil disobedience in these cases may be seen

as a response to an unjust limitation

being placed on freedoms of speech & assembly-

(e.g. a call to march without a \"permit\" and thus

face arrest). It may be an attention-getting,

solidarity-building tactic. And it just may be

determination to persevere in the

face of an arrogant, unresponsive authority.

But too often, confusion arises--

because the activists' primary cause has

been obfuscated by the issue of the

inevitable arrests, and now activists have to

try to prove that everyone who was arrested was specifically not guilty-- or else instantly

educate their audience on the free-speech rights

that were trampled by the official excuse for arrest.

Either way, we are now, as the politicians say,

off-message.

But shouldn't the goal be to stay \"on-message\"??

The public at-large is still largely unaware

of the substance of much of the anti-corporate,

anti-prison-industrial-complex message-- although

they are ready to hear it. Even after

these topics become so ingrained in the

public consciousness-- that they can be told

in shorthand, (like by 1970 \"Stop the War!\" or

\"Black Power!\" had become household terms),

the first priority must continue to be

to communicate,

to teach, to spread the knowledge.

So does that mean the movement should

avoid any arrest-potential actions?

Probably there's no single rule- every action should be reviewed on a case-by-case

situational basis.

Of course, no one could have predicted that

the cops would start picking out & arresting people

as they walked around at scattered locations. Nor can

we know exactly how the arrogant rulers of society might try to squash any social movement.

But the existence

of a sensation-obsessed commercial

media offers opportunities- and dangers- for

building a movement.

I think you can't afford to squander

the tiny amount of media coverage that street

events generate on the media's twisted perception.

Street events must somehow be \"spin-proof\"

in terms of how they will \"play\" to the public at-large-

the audience.

Like it or not, you are a part of

the Society Of The Spectacle.

The real story of this movement might be:

How To Succeed In(People's) Show Business.

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