is this not a lovely bunch of white middle class brats? you all wouldn't know anything about wage slavery since none of your crimethinc bible thumping asses work. you are nothing but a bunch of protesters, not revolutionaries. don't get me wrong. i support the black bloc when it's used correctly and when the people who are suffering are involved. we don't need a fucking vanguard. you want to be revolutionary, organize your communities to take them back, have them confident in themselves, and fuck shit up the right way!

Yup definitely black. Or is that brown. Let's compromise. I do agree with you though. Only Taco Bell workers (they're the ones with the blue collars - at least I always find that to be a good way of deciding who's working class) should protest Taco Bell.

Of course there are those that say that a vanguard is when a group of political activists tries to take over a protest and explicitly tries to steer and lead the movement. But we'll ignore that because that wouldn't fit in with this situation.

Furthermore only black people should protest racism. Also women should protest sexism.

But we agree on all that.

Let's attack them for doing something instead!

Um, yah. For someone who wasn't in the bloc it sure seems funny to me that you know what color they were (Mixture of middle eastern, latino, white, and black). You also seem to have not only figured out what color and culture we all come from, but what class we are. Wow. And you know what books we read. I don't even like that book! I think it's sad people waste posts on attacking people trying to make change, instead of attacking the enemy itself. These kind of posts are divisive. If you have any constructive critique I would like to hear it. But don't toss me your liberal shit. No one wants to listen to your whining garbage anymore liberals. I think we have heard enough about it.

-Rampage

I just have questions for the anarchists, you want to wage class war but most of you do not work. You talk about organizing communities, but yet everytime I see an anarchist they are mostly young people, of all color, but still young. I know that the system that we have is fucked and yes revolution must happen, but I am not going to listen to someone who does not work for a living and has this time to wage class war. The way to wage class war is to infiltrate the factories, service sector stores. Get in there and organize from within. You all believe that everyone is middle-class liberal scum that is against you but yet I do not see you in my workplace but out on the street. The system is to big to fight only from the outside, revolution cannot happen effectively by only outside forces. To organize you must go in the system and become the virus that destroys it. We can yell and shout and break shit all we want. We can cause a ruckus and pandemonium and march in solidarity in observance of May Day but yet we do not pay attention to the people that are working two jobs for $10/hr to help support themselves as well as their families. We do not pay attention to our crumbling schools and the fallen communities. We shout about police brutality and experience it first hand but yet we still do not get to the root cause of the system because it seems you are acting from outside of the system we all so despise. We must get into the system and use the same methods get workers excited to feel the rush and power of becoming empowered. It seems that you use the working-class, people of color as a tool for your own destruction and yet you do not experience the pain of waking up and working 10 hours a day to try and support yourslef. Some responses I have had are , well I do not want to participate in the system that I do not believe in. Fine but it would be better to wage the "class-war" on more than just the outside. We must come to realize the reality we live in, it is not 1936, nor 1967. It is 2002 and the revolution must take on many forms in order for a real revolution to work. So let us all keep fighting for the change that we want but let us not dismiss everyone as liberal because they do not have the same agenda or privelage that you have to yell about class war all the time.

anarcho syndicalists are doing just that buddy!

organizing anti-aurthoritarian worker groups!

but we need people from all walks of life and getting people to go on generals strike and non workers to help take down the bosses is not bad....

To those of you who have the monetary privilege to read this site because you can afford to own a computer and have the leisure to criticize the black bloc:

Try spending one fucking month in my shoes, asshole elitist scum! Try being homeless for years like I was, or working each month to borrow enough money to pay rent on an overpriced delapidated apartment, or lining up outside food banks to get food just to stay alive. Try living with a terminal illness that is so debilitating that it is impossible to hold down a job. Try having the government tell you you can work, while you can't even drive or barely get to a bus stop. Try having to take expensive prescriptions that cost several hundred dollars a month just to stay alive when you're too sick to work to earn the money to pay for them. Then you will understand what is behind the black bloc. True, maybe not everyone is poor, but everyone in the black bloc is a great aid to those who are.

I'm sick of you middle class scum criticizing something you can't even relate to or haven't even lived through. Fuck off!

Just to let you know poor person, I am not middle class. If you believe middle class is someone who makes $11,000 a year and is in $20,000 debt becaue I am trying to finance my own education then sure I will be middle class, but I do not think that is middle class. If you think working 40-60 hours a week and still going to school and still particpating in organizing then sure I am middle class. I am not knocking anything that anyone does, except for the fact that who are you organizing? I have not seen anyone come to my work, or any other places around where I work. Yes I work for an evil corporation, but they offer me health insurance, something that I have needed since I have had surgery in the past couple of months. Who is the working-class then? How do you define the working class? Are the people who work in the Wal-MArt stores working class? Are the people who work in all the department stores working class? Are the people who work in the restaraunts working class? Who is the working class? I know making 10,000 to fifteen thousand a year is not middle-class. I know I do not own a computer at all, but I am sitting in library using there computers. SO let us not assume everything and think the world only works in your way. Let us not think that just because we do not agree with you that we are "middle-class", whatever your definition maybe. And isn't this all counterproductive to what we are trying to achieve. It seems that everytime someone tries to bring some criticism to any anarchist they get mad, and start saying things like counter-revolutionary and liberal bourgeiose scum. But isn't that the same thing that the government does to people who are trying to create a change. Shouldn't constructive criticism be a good thing so that movement does not go in just one direction, because that would be a dictatorship in itself. You can call me middle class and you can call me a liberal, I will be thinking of that as I take my old piece of shit car to my piece of shit job and laugh at the thought that I am privelaged to be making 11,000 a year. That I am privelaged to be working 40 hours a week and struggling to stay afloat and that I am privelaged to have the power to criticize other people. You can try to take away my voice but there are a lot of people who identify with what your saying but we do not see you in our work environments, this is post industrial America and organizing factories is great but the largest employers of the "working-class" are no longer in the factories but are in the service sectors. So you can come and swear an yell and say whatever you want about me but I want to know what working-class you are helping because it sure ain't me.

COnfused,

you ask "who is working class"? If you do not own (either directly outright or through enough _voting_ stocks to make a difference in shareholder's votes) the business that you work at then you are a worker.

If you are dependent on renting your body for a wage, whether you're working with your brain or your hands or both then you are a worker.

Yes, there are some workers that do better than others. But they still don't OWN the means of production. Their lifestyle depends on hiring out their bodies for a certain number of hours a week.

With regard to your question about who is organizing YOUR workplace....well, it should be YOU. Nobody else can do it for you, unless you want an unaccountable, non-recallable union delegate that will negotiate for you with your boss in all your best interests.

If you want help and support organizing your workplace and face a struggle where you and your colleagues welcome outside help to assist your struggle then I'm sure that you'll find a warm response from the anarchist community.

Best wishes,

Phuq Hed (who's going to get fired soon if I don't stop posting so much here).

Oh YEAH!?! Well, I only make A DOLLAR a YEAR cleaning dumpsters with my tongue, I have foot rot and herpes, so I can't get laid for the life of me, I eat rat shit and drink battery acid... look, speaking of divisive... personally, I don't think it particularly matters which class the Black Bloc (or the people posting, for that matter) are from. If they're poor, fan-fucking-tastic. Middle-class? GREAT! They saw the injustices and became class traitors. Rich? Well, goddamn them (hehe) but I'd rather have a dedicated rich person than a wishy-washy poor person in my bloc any damn day.

However, what I CAN'T stomach is badly-thought-out criticsm of the bloc. In case you haven't heard, my friends, the Taco Bell farmworkers are trying to raise families and stay alive, and they WILL be out to protest just as soon as they are able. In the meantime, they have given anti-TB activists free reign to protest as they see fit.

You call it a vanguard, I'll call it solidarity. Whatever it is, I guarantee you'd want it if you were placed in their shoes.

Fuck you GB Star!

No matter how much you organize in your community people will sale out left and right due to capitalism.

Just organizing community is not the answer thats a cop-out to attack big corporation!

Young people in my community want to fuck shit up not organize. I live by Luna SOl Cafe and I will fight you anywhere just email me. You fucker dont hide behind the computer and talk shit!

I am not white! I am a fucking PUNK ROCKER and I will Fight YOU UP anytime! My email address is computersucks@hotmail.com

Dear Confused fuck you and your organizing.

The young people will be the future to lead!

During the L.A. Riots the young people were on the front line burning things down and they were not organied. And when shit goes down becareful for the young people from L.A.

You'll find out when the dooms day comes to L.A>

Dear Black Bloc from TACO BELL you are all disgrace to the Block. Howcome no windows got broken and why wasn't TACO hell on fire///??]

What the fuck????

From-L.A. Block

um, i was just wondering if anyone minded if the point was gotten back to. maybe a page exclusivly for arguing people can be made, or maybe we could stop arguing over things so viciously and start putting our energy towards, ACTUALLY HELPING THE CIW! ok, even though i do support almost of all of the actions that the black bloc takes, i think that any direct action done towards taco bell should be done by the tomato pickers themselves. not saying that no one should take action against taco bell, but saying that there are right people to take direct action (blockaids and such) , and maybe in this case, the black bloc should simply be there for support and protection. please dont take this as criticism, but merely as a suggestion. yeah, so, when protesting taco bell for tomato pickers, and with CIW affiliation, maybe the black bloc should be there for support. now protesting taco bell because they are corporate assholes, slaughter millions of animals, and are jerk capitalist, the black bloc should be in full force. we have to understand that these CIW protests typicaly do not hold the same agenda as most of the anarchist black bloc. i dont know, just something i was thinking. =)

I have been an anti-authoritarian (or at least, i have labeled myself one) of youth/color for over 3 or 4 years now. My memories of my "revolutionary-ism" over the past few years always consisted of, almost exclusively, direct action (or more so: "let's fuck shit up"). As of right now, my politics are changing, and I just wanted to put fourth some of my expieriences within this scene, and base some of my opinions off those expieriences. I am not free of mistakes, and I welcome criticisms....

E.G. Smith seemed to have posted a sarcastic, yet, frustrated critique of the Black Bloc. Abstract as his/her criticisms may have been, they still touch on a very important base. One being that, if you subscribe to Crimethinc religon or not, there is an ample amount of egoism and lifestylism that penetrates and suffocates the anarchist "movement".

The Black Bloc has been reduced to scenery.

"Are you brave enough to provoke something with the pigs?"

And it is truly disheartening how the Black Bloc tactic has almost become an obligation (unwritten of course) ...what I mean is that a lot of us have no longer started to look at it only as a means, but more so, it has becomes our end. Let us not forget, this is only a tactic.

Whoever may participate in the Block, (especially if you are an ethical and principled anti-authoritarian) you should be welcoming criticisms. Learn to distinguish destructive and constructive. Even if you get harshly attacked by the words of others, you do not have to be destructive in your responses.

I am a male. I still exploit my privileges as a male in this mono-culture. My intentions may be different, as far as my soul goes, but I still have to accept the fact that calling oneself an Anarchist or an anti-sexist does not clean you of your inheritance. One of the manifestations of Male Privilege is largely a selfish pattern of denial and defensiveness. The Bloc, The Anarchist movement, and this whole world, is largely controlled by men. This is called Patriarchy.

I know that SKAA has recieved criticisms in the past and present for being heterosexist, and it is just like clockwork that we all wait for the assumed, rhetorical type of response from one of it's "anonymous" SKAAers. I am almost definite that I will see the words "liberal" "counter revolutionary" and "Boursiegoe (spelled that wrong) scum."

(ok, i do not want to stray from the point here)

Just because you might have people of color or women in your organization or Bloc, does not mean that this alone proves that you are free of heterosexism, machoism, vangaurdist tendencies, male supremacy, white supremacy/racism whatsoever. What does leadership mean to you? What does influence mean to you?

Men naturally exploit their roles and there even exists (believe it or not) large power imbalances amongst and within the "anarchy movement".

Throwing around words like "middle class" and "liberal" doesn't impress anyone. It might spark interest amongst youth who are looking for something to belong to that seems romantic and brave and tough, but a lot of defensive comebacks that i see here are sloppy.

Assumptions can be dangerous. And, of course, I have even made some already, and if I am proven otherwise, than I will be able to learn a little bit more about the people involved. I just see it important to not only question everything and everyone else, but to also question ourselves and listen to others as well.

Self-Righteousness is a trap. You screw good people over, while abandoning who you want to be in the process.

And I have to set it straight. Most of the people that criticised you at the Biodev demos in San Diego were WOMEN!

A lot of people that seem to be criticising you here, are in fact working class.

The A-occassions infoshop has great potential. The Long Beach Anarchist scene as well. But there is a lot of "fuck work, lets squat and couch surf" mentalities going on. Dumpster diving and stealing does not hurt nor support capitalism. It is nuetral, and non-revolutionary!

And we talk about middle class. It is almost impossible, at times, to avoid it's huge influences on our politics and our lifestyles. A lot of Anarchist youth come from privileged backrounds, at least, those whom i know. Myself included.

We need to look for middle class tendencies within ourselves. It is not just some higher salary wage that fits into a particular bracket, it has become an ideology of - fuck people over to survive. We bare middle class ideas and practices, and it is important that we challenge them and fight against them.

How is it rebellion to stop washing your hair, cease taking showers, living off of waste, and calling anyone who criticizes us a liberal?

I am not saying that someone is bad for being a part of a subculture and dressing the part, but again, it becomes the thing that must be done in order to be an Anarchist. We alienate so many people, and it is largely because we do not listen!

Drop-out

Escapism

Drugs

Alcoholism

Sexual Assualt

Frustration

Misanthropy

Individualism

Lifestyle over Politics

Racism

Sexism

Peter Pan Armies

I have been involved in perpetuating and practicing all of these horrible things. Somehow, they are overlooked in our own little, exclusive communities.

If ever we have children, would we like them to go thru these same mistakes? Would we like to see our children acting in the same ways that we do? Ignoring each other in grave times of need?

We put too much emphasis on fucking shit up. Everything is fucked up already. I find it hard to believe that we are going to be percieved as a threat to white supremacy, patriarchy, the state, capitalism, etc.... by just destroying and not building. Building is the most important aspect of anti-authoritarianism?

Where are the women's spaces? Sexual Assualt support networks? Childcare? Breakfast programs? Safe spaces? Substance abuse centers? Don't let the state do this for you!

I do not want to perpetuate division. I want to better understand it. Criticisms are not made to conquer you or me. I would think that we maintain such a tradition because we love each other. We want to see a Social revolution take place. Violence and battle will be inevitable, but that should be avoided as much as possible. Preparation is important, but we have a weak ass community.

Who is going to back you up? We can party and have fun and drink with each other, but that is only a tiny part of what solidarity and comradery really is. Sticking with each other through the toughest of times is real friendship. Dealing with the "un-fun" is an obligation we have to each other.

I hope that this year no longer fetishizes failure.

For those of you who are not aware, at the front line of the protest were the imigrant workers from Florida who are the wage enslaved tomatoe pickers. Taco Bell is a global buisness, making it impossible to protest effectively if they were to remain within the area the tomatoe pickers are from. Of course the question arises, "why did the protesters not simply boycott the tomatoe company?"

The answer is that it would not ceatch the broader attettion of America, and would not be as effective. Taco Bell can not exlude itself from the unfairness of the tomatoe company towards its workers, because it is companies like Taco Bell who demand the cheapest prices, forcing tomatoe companies-and all food suppliers- into vicious competition with eachother. From the tomatoe picker, to the tomatoe supplier, to the fast-food coorporation, to the consumer, we are all involved in and responsible for the conditions of the workers. We, the people, are responsible, and will fight together until we see justice.

Wage-slavery is slavery & never should have been legal because employees are slaves, but so are the masters. It forces mothers to work or starve. Colleges are still teaching slavery & should be eliminated so all people can have free computer learning. Debt is slavery, renting is slavery, taxation is slavery & all only exist becaues capitalism is slavery, which gave birth to communism, so it was capitalists who caused all the communist purges, & world wars & crimes & terrorism. Most companies never should have existed because we should have built live/work towers connected to trains & had nearby farms where all people could have worked part-time, & we should have built more fun things for all people to do. My websites explain lots of this history, including child slavery until 1941 & today. It's a very long story so please read it here: http://www.geocities.com/sundiii