\r\nI'll preface my comments by conextualizing my perspective: I'm a\r\n Black \r\n anarchist, born and raised in LA, I'm 29, and I'm male. I've never\r\n been a \r\n punk. I'm an anarchist cuz I'm against all forms of status,\r\n prestige, and \r\n illegitimate authority, and I work to build a society that shows\r\n people \r\n that self-worth, self-realization, and joy in life are not zero-sum \r\n quantities that depend on competition within hierarchies. I grew up\r\n poor \r\n on welfare, but I've attended schools with middle-class and\r\n wealthy folks \r\n on the East coast. As an adult, I've lived a couple of years abroad,\r\n\r\n mostly in Asia and in South America. I work as a community\r\n organizer, and \r\n am damn happy and lucky to get paid to do meaningful work and\r\n not be a \r\n stone-cold corporate slave. I see my long-term work as all about\r\n building \r\n community-based alternative institutions and less about mass\r\n mobes. \r\n<\/p>
\r\n From what I can tell, anarchists that are outright enraged by DAN\r\n are \r\n precisely the ones who had no role in organizing with DAN or D2K\r\n for the \r\n demos...There's a tendency for people, anarchists included, to get\r\n stuck in \r\n an attitude of 'tribalism', where people find it much easier to\r\n categorize \r\n and demonize people they don't know than engage them, dialogue\r\n with them, \r\n get to know them. There's a tendency for people to have this\r\n absolutist \r\n 'US' vs. 'THEM' mentality that really is at the socio-psychological\r\n roots of \r\n nationalism and the herd-mentality. It'd be nice to see more\r\n so-called \r\n anarchists do a little self-analysis on this tip. Without such an \r\n awareness, they really do the goals of anarchism a disservice.\r\n (Yeah, I know \r\n i'm speaking from my own perspecitve of what anarchism means.\r\n But that's \r\n automatic, since I can't speak from anybody else's perspective.) I\r\n was on a \r\n panel at the anarchist conference and one of the panelists had a\r\n very \r\n vehement attitude that dismissed DAN out-of-hand as 'reformist'\r\n and 'full of \r\n paid activists flying around the country from action to action'.\r\n What was \r\n funny is nothing she said seemed grounded in any experience. It\r\n was \r\n straight vitriol and vilification. Although what she said didn't\r\n resonate \r\n with everyone gathered in the crowded session, it resonated with\r\n enough \r\n folks there that it made me feel kinda depressed about the level of \r\n ignorance and the sense of almost apocalyptic isolationism in the\r\n anarchist \r\n scene. (There's an almost religious fervor folks get when they're\r\n caught up \r\n in the idea that everyone who's not exactly like them is out to get\r\n them or \r\n is in cahoots with THE ENEMY...God, the material is rich for\r\n further \r\n analysis of mass-psychology amongst people who see\r\n themselves as \r\n fundamentally alienated from society and yet replicate many of the\r\n same \r\n patterns in terms of herd-mentality and simplistic, reductionist \r\n thinking...) \r\n<\/p>
\r\n Having said this is not to say that there weren't dynamics within\r\n DAN that \r\n were problematic. There were. There was a tendency among\r\n SOME local \r\n organizers to have an almost obsessive worry about things\r\n getting out of \r\n hand 'once all the out-of-town hordes show up'. Some degree of\r\n concern \r\n seems justified: the concern that there'd be a lot of white folks\r\n coming \r\n into town who didn't have any analysis of white-supremacy and\r\n racism as it \r\n affects the activist scene, while a good number of the local DAN\r\n organizers \r\n where people of color and whites used to working in consciously\r\n multiracial \r\n anti-white supremacist settings. DAN organizers wanted to make\r\n a conscious \r\n effort to begin to address the ways in which other recent\r\n mobilizations were \r\n so dominated by white activists. (This is an issue of long-term\r\n concern \r\n that, partially thanks to the efforts of DAN-LA, has begun to be\r\n addressed \r\n on many fronts, e.g. the inclusion for the first time of discussions\r\n at the \r\n Ruckus Camp about white-supremacy and how the movement(s)\r\n can address it, \r\n 'anti-racism for white folks' workshops at the convergence\r\n center...) There \r\n was also a tendency among SOME local organizers to obsess\r\n about making sure \r\n that meetings went off in a way that wasn't derailable. (A not\r\n unheard-of \r\n concern among any organizer dealing with making meetings\r\n happen in settings \r\n where all sorts of folks, from provocateurs to psycho-sectarians\r\n to random \r\n wingnuts may and do appear.) Although I didn't attend later\r\n spokescouncil \r\n meetings (I was too busy doing other logistical work), I did attend\r\n early \r\n (before 8\/14) meetings before a lot of affinity groups had formed.\r\n There \r\n were some occasions where process felt rushed through in order\r\n to get \r\n through an agenda. Another factor in this is that, in LA, we are not\r\n all \r\n anarchist--probably about a fourth. (Nor would I want us to be,\r\n since from \r\n my perspective as an organizer for the long-term movement, the\r\n whole goal is \r\n to draw in and work with people who aren't already just like me. \r\n Transformation happens through working and struggling together\r\n across \r\n differences.) Many of the organizers were new to the\r\n spokescouncil and \r\n affinity group model, and it was an important learning process for\r\n them. \r\n<\/p>
\r\n Another factor in the way the actions played out in LA was that\r\n early on \r\n DAN-LA decided to focus its organizing resources on actions led\r\n by local \r\n community groups and organizers. (The Seattle-WTO strategy of\r\n shutting down \r\n the whole thing was ruled out early on as a goal.) So, when\r\n out-of-town \r\n folks showed up a couple of days before the actions, instead of it\r\n being \r\n like, 'Okay. Here's a map of Downtown LA. Here's a map of the\r\n Staples \r\n Center. Go to it!' it would be: 'Okay, you can do what you want.\r\n But the \r\n actions that DAN-LA has decided to focus the bulk of its\r\n resources \r\n (communications, media, meeting space, etc.) on are the\r\n following...Oh, and \r\n one other thing: if you plan on participating in an action organized\r\n by a \r\n local group, please respect their particlar action plans...' \r\n<\/p>
\r\n Although I originally thought the local groups would come up with\r\n very \r\n elaborate, very confrontational action plans, many settled on more\r\n tame, \r\n more controlled types of actions, without the kind of excitement\r\n one would \r\n see in, say, a reclaim the streets type of action. But hey, that was\r\n their \r\n prerogative. What some local groups planned or didn't plan,\r\n however, didn't \r\n stop some other (mostly local) activists from doing a very\r\n powerful and \r\n creative banner-hang right across the street from the Staples\r\n Center. I'm \r\n tired of activists whining about what others aren't willing to do, and\r\n how \r\n this oppresses them. I say to them: Fuckin' DIY, asshole, and\r\n recognize \r\n that it's different strokes for different folks. \r\n<\/p>
\r\n Now, one of the tendencies amongst SOME DAN organizers was\r\n to assume that \r\n anarchists coming to town would mean a movement that would\r\n be even whiter \r\n than otherwise and that allowing the North American Anarchist\r\n Conference \r\n (NAAC) to share the space with the convergence center would\r\n help precipitate \r\n a police-shutdown of the center. At the critical meeting where the\r\n question \r\n of allowing the NAAC to use the convergence center for\r\n workshops was being \r\n discussed (the NAAC organizers needed to know right away cuz\r\n of time \r\n constraints), one idiotically obstinate and misinformed but\r\n respected local \r\n organizer (white, late 20s, male) said 'If the NAAC uses the\r\n convergence \r\n space, the space will feel even less inviting to local activists of\r\n color \r\n [because of the white crusty-punk feel of it all that was prevalent in\r\n Seattle]'. I informed them all that, of the 7 people of color in that \r\n particular meeting, 4 of us where anarchists. So the idea that the \r\n anarchist scene is whiter than the general activist scene is wrong.\r\n<\/p>
The \r\n non-anarchist then took the tack that the fact that John Zerzan\r\n was on the \r\n list of guest speakers at the NAAC would give the cops an excuse\r\n to shut it \r\n down. (Zerzan's a primitivist who apparently is noted for singing\r\n the \r\n virtues of fucking shit up; he was on the panel with me at the\r\n NAAC and said \r\n some annoying things about 'getting beyond Leftism', but I\r\n personally \r\n haven't read a lick of his work...I hear he says civilization is the\r\n root of \r\n all evil...) Anyway, after some debate, the guy finally decided to\r\n play the \r\n asshole and said that, no matter what, he would move to block a\r\n decision \r\n allowing the NAAC to use the space. Folks in general were miffed\r\n at his \r\n intransigence, and some of us anarchists wanted to continue the\r\n discussion, \r\n but it had been a long meeting and most people were damned\r\n tired and ready \r\n to go home... \r\n<\/p>
\r\n This illustrates how, although so-called anarchists caught-up in\r\n the throes \r\n of tribalistic 'US' vs. 'THEM' herd-thinking may cry out, 'See! DAN\r\n wouldn't \r\n let the NAAC use the space. DAN must be against us!' the\r\n actually reality of \r\n DAN's decision around the NAAC is more complex, and the actual\r\n reality of \r\n DAN is more complex. \r\n<\/p>
\r\n Now, as far as all the other claims of police collaboration or\r\n moving to \r\n quell Black Bloquites on the part of DAN-LA, I say: Bullshit. I don't\r\n have \r\n any simpler way to put it. Although I can't account for what\r\n individuals in \r\n groups like the ISO tried or didn't try to pull at the march to the jail\r\n (I \r\n wasn't there), I know there was no DAN-LA effort to do anything to\r\n stop \r\n Black Bloquites. The most organized thing that happened was a\r\n dialogue, \r\n held the weekend before the DNC, where a bunch of folks from\r\n DAN-LA and the \r\n convergence space, a bunch of folks who were participants at the\r\n NAAC--many \r\n Black Bloquites, and random other activists got together to\r\n discuss the \r\n tactical value of property destruction in the kinds of activities that\r\n had \r\n already been planned by local groups. It was a very interesting\r\n discussion, \r\n with around 80-100 folks present. It was facilitated by a Eugene\r\n anarchist \r\n named Tim who was doing a lot to help out with logistics at the\r\n convergence \r\n center. Although at the outset it was established that no one in the\r\n room \r\n had the position that there was something morally wrong with\r\n property \r\n destruction (and this was always the DAN-LA position), it seemed\r\n that, when \r\n some people would question the tactical value of certain kinds of\r\n property \r\n destruction in the context of, say, permitted marches or rallies, or \r\n question the way certain property-destruction tactics might create \r\n sensationalist media coverage that pulled attention from the\r\n issues locals \r\n were organizing around, the people defending property destruction\r\n wanted to \r\n take it to the level of principle and claim that the opposition was\r\n being \r\n reformist or counter-revolutionary. (I swear, there's a way in which\r\n the \r\n fetishization of or self-identification with certain tactics becomes \r\n tantamount to raising those tactics to the level of unquestionable\r\n religious \r\n rituals or sacraments. More material for further analysis...) \r\n<\/p>
\r\n I do know that, on Monday at the rally organized by D2K (not\r\n DAN), when the \r\n BBites at the fence were involved in escalating tensions with the\r\n police on \r\n the other side (throwing plastic bottles et al., getting\r\n pepper-sprayed, et \r\n al.), the rally security folks (all a bunch of non-sectarian activists \r\n themselves) did go over and try to deesacalate the situation. They\r\n were \r\n worried that things would get out of hand and that thousands of\r\n people who \r\n didn't know what was going on, who just came for the rally or to\r\n hear Rage \r\n Against the Machine or Ozomatli would be put at risk of police\r\n violence for \r\n something they had no say over. What specifically happened, I\r\n don't know. \r\n I'm told the spread-thin security teams were drawn away from the\r\n fence when \r\n the cops stole our puppets on the other side of the rally, and then\r\n the \r\n fence tensions between BBites and police escalated soon after,\r\n justifying \r\n (for the police) the shut-down of the rally...It coulda led to a riot,\r\n and \r\n maybe that woulda been interesting and empowering and\r\n consciosuness-raising \r\n for some folks, and maybe it woulda been great for media\r\n coverage...but then \r\n again, maybe it woulda fucked over a lotta people who weren't\r\n part of any of \r\n the organizing and thought they were just coming to enjoy some\r\n music...Maybe \r\n some of the people woulda been trampled over as folks were\r\n trying to escape \r\n the gas...I think more-militant-than-thou folks should organize their\r\n own \r\n rallies instead of pulling shit at rallies organized by others. Just\r\n make \r\n sure the folks they invite understand that there may be a riot cuz\r\n people \r\n intend to provoke police by throwing bottles at them. \r\n<\/p>
\r\n D-I-fuckin'-Y. \r\n<\/p>
\r\n For Liberation Everyday, \r\n<\/p>
\r\n Shawn McDougal \r\n<\/p>
\r\n SMcdougal@afsc.org.\r\n<\/p>\n","contact":"SMcdougal@afsc.org","link":"http:\/\/www.infoshop.org\/conventions.html","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"This is a message from Shawn McDougal, an anarchist organizer in LA, about some of the dispute about LA DAN, the D2K protests, Black Bloc anarchists being angry about exclusion, and so on.","numcomment":4,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2000\/09\/dan-la__th.html","filesize":"19.2 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2000\/09\/3738.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":3745,"heading":"\"Tribalism\"","article":"Shawn,\r\n\r\nAs a local LA area activist, newly embracing the anarchist movement, I appreciate your perspective and am enthused about joining with others for the liberation of the whole community of life. \r\n\r\nHowever, when reading your article I cringed at your use of the term \"tribalism\", twice, to describe the \"attitude we get stuck in\"... \"where people find it much easier to categorize and demonize people they don't know than engage them, dialogue with them, get to know them.\" It seems to me, from what I know of the history of authentic tribal people, you might rethink your use of that term. The historical records show that the tribal people of the new world did embrace the imperialists... at first. Then of course, they learned to fear them. The 500+ tribal cultures of north America, had extensive trading systems and sharing of cultures, which could not have existed under your definition of \"tribalism\". The tribal people of the world, including the U'wa and the Dineh for whom we marched, are living examples of ancient anarchy attempting to hold onto its freedom, are they not? You may be correct in your use of the term as used by our imperialist educational system, but as an anarchist \"against all forms of status, prestige, and illegitimate authority\", shouldn't you cringe, as I do, when reading or hearing that term used in that manner? I know it's just one word, but I thought I'd try out a bit of my neo-anarchistic fire on it. :-) If I can burn a word, I might find it easier to burn a flag. Here are a few exerpts from a great web site that seem to correlate how anarchism resonates with tribal culture:\r\n\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.geocities.com\/CapitolHill\/1931\/secA1.html\r\n\r\nIn \"Mutual Aid\" (and elsewhere) Kropotkin analysed the libertarian aspects of previous societies and noted those that successfully implemented (to some degree) anarchist organisation or aspects of anarchism. This was particularly the case with indigenous peoples, for example most Native American tribes organised themselves in a very anarchistic manner. \r\n\r\nKropotkin recognised this tendency of actual examples of anarchistic ideas to predate the creation of the \"official\" anarchist movement and argued that: \r\n\r\n\"From the remotest, stone-age antiquity, men [and women] have realised the evils that resulted from letting some of them acquire personal authority. . . Consequently they developed in the primitive clan, the village community, the medieval guild . . . and finally in the free medieval city, such institutions as enabled them to resist the encroachments upon their life and fortunes both of those strangers who conquered them, and those clansmen of their own who endeavoured to establish their personal authority.\" [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, pp. 158-9] \r\nKropotkin placed the struggle of working class people (from which modern anarchism sprung) on par with these older forms of popular organisation. He argued that \"the labour combinations. . . were an outcome of the same popular resistance to the growing power of the few -- the capitalists in this case\" as were the clan, the village community and so on, as were \"the strikingly independent, freely federated activity of the 'Sections' of Paris and all great cities and many small 'Communes' during the French Revolution\" in 1793. [Op. Cit., p. 159] \r\n\r\nThus, while anarchism as a political theory is an expression of working class struggle and self-activity against capitalism and the modern state, the ideas of anarchism have continually expressed themselves in action throughout human existence. Most indigenous peoples in North America and elsewhere, for example, practised anarchism for thousands of years before anarchism as a specific political theory existed. \r\n\r\n\r\n ","author":"Jon Sherman","parent_id":3738,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2000-09-08 22:41:48","modified":"2000-09-08 23:00:01","fileurl":""},{"id":3761,"heading":"tribalism redux","article":"with regard to the use of 'tribe', 'tribal', and 'tribalism' as either god-terms or epithets, i would suggest that those on both sides be more circumspect in their immediate reaction to the term. the case for not immediately using 'tribal' to connote 'narrow-minded groupism' has already been made. but i am equally concerned with this notion that all indigenous groups in the americas were somehow noble, pure, and untainted by greed, power, hierarchy, and groupism. as with all human groups, these 'tribes' practiced many forms of what we might call 'oppression'' (war, imprisonment, execution, division of labor, etc.).\r\n\r\nin 'cortez the killer', neil young sings as if the aztecs were not a strictly hierarchical society often at war with those around them over resources. my point here is not to malign indigenous populations or to make some sort of excuse for the mistreatment suffered at the hands of europeans. rather, it is to remind everyone that 'tribes' and 'tribalism' were (and are), complex, complicated social formations that involved many of the same problems and problematics that we contend with today (though, to be sure, often in much less intensified conditions). just as one can find admirable role models among european, asian, african, and other populations, so too can one find very undesirable traits among the indigenous of the americas (and elsewhere). \r\n\r\nto regard these populations as somehow pure and untainted prior to the arrival of europeans is comparable to infantalizing them and can therefore have unintentionally racist consequences, much in the same way that 'valorizing' womanhood can and historically did have sexist consequences. ","author":"stephen","parent_id":3738,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2000-09-10 16:40:52","modified":"2000-09-10 16:57:12","fileurl":""},{"id":3764,"heading":"re DAN LA, the Black Block and Anarchism","article":"As a newcommer to the wider movement, I really appreciate Shawn's comments. I did not join the Anarchists, but I did join the DAN LA effort, and although I went to as many meetings and trainings at the convergence ctr as I could, I often found my voice not being heard. I think I would have felt even more alienated in some of the meetings that Shawn describes. All of the people I met were very sincere, hardworking, wonderful individuals. But it's hard to take firm stands on critical issues and also be inclusive to the point of hearing and considering all voices, all the while planing actions that are potentially dangerous. As a pastor in a local church, I struggle with this tension all the time. I believe in taking strong stands on critical issues, but I agonize over whom we alienate every time we do it. If anyone has a guiding pricipal that helps to work out this tension, I'd love to hear it.\r\nPeace\r\nBert","author":"Bert Newton","parent_id":3738,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2000-09-10 18:32:19","modified":"2000-09-12 01:15:31","fileurl":""},{"id":3775,"heading":"leave my dog alone","article":"Stephen,\r\n\r\nIf your post was in response to mine, please quote anything I wrote which might have given you the impression I'm a program of the nobel savage myth. Is it not possible to point to the practicality of anarchy, as evidenced by the thousands of years of it's sustainable existence in tribal cultures, without being labeled a romantic? Do some anarchists really think they are inventing something new? Kropotkin didn't. Those that fail to recognise the tribal roots of anarchy may be tossing out what may be the greatest defense of the movement... that it worked for hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution. That it is in fact our instinctive way of living, how we are genetically inclined to live, before this fairly recent experiment in empire took over our culture. As free people. Yes, empire that manifested also in the new world through Aztec and Mayan civilizations. However, the Mayans did walk away from their pyramid scheme, back into the mountain jungle, returning to tribalism, a way of life they are defending today through the Zapatista resistance. Who knows how many walked away from these Mesoamerican ziggurats to re-establish bands (affinity groups?) of egalitarian tribes elsewhere. Hyemeyohsts Storm writes in his book \"Lightningbolt\" that's where the Anasazi came from, as a migration of democracy away from the control and suppression of rulers who played god. But all theories aside, I can assure you I've been an ally of the Native American community long enough to realize they are human beings like me. I'm pretty sure I'm not \"infantalizing them\", although it was rather immature of my very good Navajo buddy to offer to fuck my dog the other night when he was drunk. I told him he couldn't BBQ him either. :-) \r\n\r\n\r\nin dialogue with you,\r\n\r\nJon Sherman","author":"Jon Sherman","parent_id":3738,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2000-09-11 10:08:10","modified":"2000-09-11 11:00:01","fileurl":""}]}