Two Thousand Anarchists go on Rampage in San Francisco

by Blake McGreevy

Thousands of protestors marched, danced and sprinted through the streets of San Francisco today,shouting slogans against war, racism and capitalism. The protestors were part of a breakaway march from the larger permitted rally organized by A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) which brought out approximately 200,000 demonstrators.

After the permitted march got to its destination, about two thousand demonstrators broke off and proceded on a militant and well-planned march through the streets of the city. Throughout the march, they targetted a number of symbols of the current capitalist war. They stopped at the building that holds the San Francisco Chronicle, a major newspaper, notorious for its right-wing slant. Masked speakers on a megaphone pointed out how the coverage from this newpaper, and from the capitalist media in general serve to bolster the US war effort at the same time as other masked protestors conveyed this message by graffittiing the building with "weapon of mass destruction," among other messages. Next, the building that houses the British consulate was grafittied, with protestors stressing the international nature of the struggle against war and capitalism, and calling for similar actions by the people of britain against the capitalists there. Protestors are well aware that Tony Blair is, as one person at the event put it, "Bush's Poodle." Protestors punctuated their message by smashing a number of windows. One spray-painted slogan read "UK out of Iraq! Burn the State!"

The breakaway march wound its way through the city, using a number of sophisticated tactics to out-manoeuver the police. At times they stopped quickly and reversed direction. At others, they stopped, shouted a countdown from 10 and then the entire demonstration ran for a block. As they moved along, more and more newspaper boxes were knocked into the street, and through the windows of a Starbucks and a Victoria's Secret. The energy built up as protestors chanted "What do we want? CLASS WAR! When do we want it? NOW!" and "What do we want? PEACE! How we gonna get it? REVOLUTION!"

The high point of the demonstration was in attacks on the building that houses the Federal government's Immigration and Naturalization Service. Numerous windows were broken and a cement pylon and a newspaper box were thrown through the INS building's glass front doors. As the call for the breakaway march, put out by a group called Anti-War Action stated, "The thousands of Arab and South Asian desaparecidos in the US since September 11th recall the US-supported fascist regimes of Latin America."

Apparently angry at being consistently outfoxed, police became more aggressive. An undercover officer grabbed one demonstrator, a number of police on motorcycles rode directly into the crowd and a group of mounted police in riot gear began to chase the protestors. The demonstration walked quickly through the streets for some minutes, leaving garbage cans in the streets to slow the pursuing police, and ended by going down into a BART station (Bay Area Rapid Transit). As protestors dispersed on San Francisco's busy Market Street, a number of police in riot gear rushed down into the BART station, and are reported to have arrested two protestors.

After September 11 of last year, media, critics and politicians gloated about what they saw as the death

of radical street protests in the United States. The more conservative elements of the anti-globalization

movement were frightened by a possible confrontation or worse, saw it as a time to stick together and offer

"critical support" to the United States government. At the same time the radicals were targetted with

stronger and more aggressive policing, and international financial institutions such as the World Trade Organization held their meetings in countries with repressive regimes that do not allow protest. But the radicals in the anti-globalization movement were never just protesting "globalization", they were opposed to capitalist globalization. This analysis has transferred easily into anti-war organizing.

The callout for today's breakaway march read "This is not a war between the people of the US and the people of the world. It is capitalism--a war on the poor. Investors in US oil companies will get a new pipeline through Afghanistan and increased access to the Iraq’s oil reserves (second only to Saudi Arabia). The weapons manufacturers will get new contracts and the US politicians will have an excuse to increase their power. Meanwhile, the poor and working people of America will definitely not be better off. We continue to live in a world of unemployment and minimum wage jobs, of racism and harassment, of surveillance and prisons, of impossible rents and evictions--a world not built for us, but on top of us."

Maybe smug critics and politicians were wrong. We are witnessing a rebirth of the radical street demonstrations in the US. As one black-clad and masked protestor said today, "The anti-globalization movement is dead, but the anti-capitalist movement is alive and well."

Today's protest are only a small taste of things to come if the war on Iraq happens.

First of all just because you are so far to the left that Stalin and Castro look conservative that does not make The San Francisco Chronicle any where near to a right wing slant It is in fact one of the most left leaning media outlets in the country.

The way you report this you seem to agree with the tactics used by this band of hoods and support their call for revolution. I would to inform you that you need to prepare your self for a life of disappointment the vast majority of the American people see this country as a high performance luxury car that may need a tune up now and again not some clunker that needs to be junked. Some would like to move the country a little to the left some would like to move the country a little to the right. Almost all look at your group the same way they see the Communist, KKK and the Neo Nazis. Nut groups on the fringe that never learned to work and play well with others in Kindergarten

Good job on whoever was in the black bloc, especially the targetting of the INS bastards.

To the previous poster: Stalin and Castro _are_ conservative and authoritarian. Anyone who cares at all about Freedom and Democracy has no time for those dictators any more than for Milosevic, Hussein, G.W.Bush or Al Gore.

"Oh!", you whimper, "how can you compare G.W.Bush to a dictator?"

1. The INS building that you defend is one of the headquarters of a system that is designed to deny the hardest working people in our country their right to vote and live here legally. It works to keep a slave class of desperate people that help to polish the windows of your "Luxury American Sedan"

2. The PATRIOT Act and its attendant gathering of information on political activists is a fundamental infringement of the rights of citizens of a non-dictatorial society

3. The secret and illegal detentions of (who knows how many!) people on (who knows what) charges are dictatorial and unaccountable.

4. The stealing of the election (in a system already rigged to represent the interests of the rich which is far away from true Democracy) is a hallmark of a dictator.

5. The flouting of international conventions and laws with regard to "enemy combatants" is another hallmark of someone with no respect for justice.

6. The daily bombardment of Iraq since 1991 in contravention of international law and simple humanity is another act which draws ready similarites to dictators.

Good job the Black bloc.

Only thing is it looks like some practice with "unarresting" would be good.

What nonsense!

Capitalism is mankind's greatest single invention.

It's not the wheel, the airplane, the computer, or the internal combustion engine.

It's Capitalism that has given us our high standard of living, technology, jobs, food, clothing, automobiles, the internet, etc.

Government hasn't given us jack shit. Communists and Socialists haven't given us diddly squat. Ralph Nader gave us a headache. Bill Clinton gave Monica the opportunity to perform orally. Janet Reno gave Elian Gonzalez an exit route from freedom. Amy Goodman and Pacifica Radio give us bullshit.

Rampaging youth have a symbolic value. They should not be mistaken for a revolutionary force. Revolution is a democratic thing, a slow thing that happens with hard work. It should be done by person to person organizing and conversation, like how I imagine the collapse of the soviet empire occured

As with the black block of Seattle, the attempts to repeat of this sort of event is a bore. Its a fluke, a breath of air through a closed door. Organizing your neighborhood along more democratic goals is a much more productive then pining for these symbolic moments of "radicality."

PS, food, clothes, and the automobile are not brought to us by capitalism. They were around before it.

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