Frank Cassar : No longer “Australia’s Worst Landlord”

Posted on October 19, 2011 by @ndy

On Tuesday a commenter on my blog claimed that Frank Cassar–dubbed Australia’s Worst Landlord–died last week.

It now appears that the story is correct…

See also : Move over Frank Cassar, here comes George Maatouk! (September 29, 2011).

Posted in !nataS, Broken Windows, Death, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged | 9 Comments

ASIO, fascism and anti-fascism (cont.)

Posted on October 18, 2011 by @ndy

“I find it funny; when our grandfathers fought the Nazis, they were heroes. When we fight the Nazis, they call us hooligans and rioters.”

Last week, ASIO tabled its Annual Report in Parliament. Inter alia, it included some remarks on “racist and nationalist extremists in Australia” and took note of the recent “emergence of an ‘anti-fascist’ movement, led by self-styled anarchists, which aims to confront those it identifies as fascists, including some of the nationalist and racist extremist groups also of interest to ASIO”.

There has been a persistent but small sub-culture of racist and nationalist extremists in Australia, forming groups, fragmenting, re-forming and often fighting amongst themselves. Over the past year, such extremists have been active in protesting against various Muslim interests. Local racist and nationalist extremists maintain links and draw inspiration from like-minded overseas extremists, and much of their rhetoric and activity is derivative, heavily influenced by developments overseas. At present, their main focus is propaganda and engendering support. However, there is always the possibility of a lone actor or autonomous group inspired by a nationalist or racist extremist ideology engaging in violence as a means of provoking a wider response. A recent development is the emergence of an ‘anti-fascist’ movement, led by self-styled anarchists, which aims to confront those it identifies as fascists, including some of the nationalist and racist extremist groups also of interest to ASIO. Where such confrontations have occurred, the ‘anti-fascists’ have outnumbered the nationalist and racist extremists and police intervention has been required…

A few comments.

There haven’t been many public protests organised by the “small sub-culture of racist and nationalist extremists in Australia” over the course of financial year 2010-11. In fact, just one springs to mind, held in Melbourne on May 15. The rally was organised by the ‘Australian Defence League’ under the leadership of the Englishman Martin Brennan (who was deported from the country in August).

The rally in Melbourne attracted maybe 20 or 30 “racist and nationalist extremists” and several times as many opponents, who after an hour (or two) pushed the ADL off their location at Federation Square. There were no arrests by police whose policing of the rally was reinforced by private security employed by the Square’s owners.

Another anti-Muslim rally was held in Sydney on July 30 (thus technically outside the remit of the report), again organised by the ADL and heavily supplemented by members of the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ and patriotik yoof belonging to a splinter from the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’. The rally in Martin Place attracted a slightly larger number of “extremists” (perhaps as many as 40 or even 50), only a handful of opponents, and a relatively large police presence, who ensured that the rally was unmolested by opponents.

More significantly, on January 16 an anti-racist rally was held in the inner-Sydney suburb of Newtown. The rally proceeded to Sergio Redegalli’s notorious mural (Cydonia The Glass Studio, Station Street) where the few score protesters were heavily outnumbered by police who arrested seven (or possibly eight?) people. A report in Mutiny zine (No.58, February/March 2011) provides the following account:

On January 16th, more than 100 people gathered at the Hub in Newtown to protest against racism in the area. Following several community demonstrations against a mural that says, “say no to burqas” at nearby Station Street, the group decided to go to the mural in opposition to this racist statement. Together residents threw paint and pasted anti-racism posters over the mural, made noise and held banners with the statements, “fascists off our streets” and “racists out of Newtown”.

Police acted to protect the mural. As people attempted to leave the area together significant numbers of … police continued arriving [at] the scene. Heavy-handed tactics were used to violently arrest 8 people, and to intimidate and harass everyone present.

Witness reports attest to a high level of police aggression, with punches, grabbing people by the neck and threatening to break bones. Charges are being pressed against those arrested and court solidarity will be essential.

On August 15, all bar one of multiple charges against six defendants were dropped, while a seventh defendant received one conviction for “malicious damage” and an 18-month bond (see : We fought the law and we kinda won…, Mutiny, No.61, October/November 2011).

(A previous rally outside the mural on December 19 resulted in no arrests.)

Note that on August 6, 2011 an “extremist” rally was also held in Brisbane. This rally was organised by the ADL and another, Brisbane-based group called the ‘Australian Patriots Defence Movement’. Perhaps 20 or so attended and confronted a counter-protest several times larger. Again, there were no arrests.

In summary: yes, there is a sub-culture of extreme-right / ultra-nationalist / racist and fascist sentiment in Australia. The politically-organised expression of this sentiment is marginal and frequently sectarian.* Animosity towards Muslims has emerged as a major theme over the last decade. Local members of this milieu are responsive to global developments. There is organised opposition to this sub-culture. Such opposition is sometimes confrontational but is generally reactive, similarly small-scale and diffuse.

Otherwise…

The Norwegian anarchist site anarkisterna.com has some interesting analysis in Oslo and Utøya – of words and mass murder (August 11) and From Meta-Politics To Mass Murder – A New Right-Wing Extremism (August 25), while this weekend, a workshop at the London Anarchist Bookfair will be examining some of the issues surrounding these developments:

From Casa Pound to Anders Behring Breivik: Looking at recent developments in European fascism

From black-bloc autonomist nationalists in Germany to ‘third millennium fascist’ squatters in Italy to suit-wearing Nazis in Sweden, the last twenty years has seen huge developments and shifts in the Neo-fascist scene. No longer can Nazis be simply identified by shaved heads, Swastikas and steel-capped boots. Some are even turning to Gramsci, Lenin and international anti-imperialist struggles for inspiration. Paul Hull, a veteran anti-fascist and trade unionist of over ten years in Sweden will discuss the evolution of Neo-Nazi theories and tactics in Northern Europe and will offer suggestions on how the modern militant anti-fascist movement can adapt to these changes.

Co-organised by: Irish, English and Swedish Anti-Fascists

See also : Open Letter to Friends and Comrades on the Struggle against Racism amongst the Class, Anonymous, August 11, 2011.

On fishing hooks flicked into faces or squirting dangerous or unpleasant liquids

The ASIO report also states:

Australian issue-motivated groups in general use legitimate protest to publicise and further the cause they advocate. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 states that lawful advocacy, protest or dissent shall not be regarded as prejudicial to security, and ASIO’s interest in protest is limited to that which is unlawful or violent. Unfortunately, while most issue-motivated groups act lawfully, there are some who do not. There is also a small minority who seek to use protests around a range of emotive issues to further their own (often unrelated) political agenda by provoking, inciting or engaging in violence. It is this fringe that is of concern to ASIO.

ASIO has seen violent and provocative tactics used deliberately by this fringe at a range of protests in recent years, although the frequency and intensity of such violence tends to wax and wane. Provocative tactics used include attacks on police managing protests using ‘invisible’ weapons such as fishing hooks flicked into faces or squirting dangerous or unpleasant liquids in order to provoke an apparently disproportionate police response. The aim is to gain public support and to escalate the anger of those protesting in order to cause widespread violence in an attempt to de-legitimise the government position and undermine the rule of law. Other unlawful tactics used include property damage and sabotage.

The accusation that “fringe elements” have been using invisible weapons is not new. In 2006, for example, former Treasurer Peter Costello claimed that demonstrators at the G20 forum in Melbourne were “throwing balloons filled with urine at police”. He produced no evidence to substantiate his story. Similar claims were made by police during the S11 protests in 2000 (in fact, the claims were made prior to the event itself). ‘Riot!’, an article by Brett Williams in the April 2010 Police Journal, states:

Public order management trainer Mick Chipperfield knows of the barbed-wire bracelets and fish hooks that rabid protestors have used “in close” against police in Melbourne. He knows that, during clashes at the G20 summit (2006) and World Economic Forum (2000), protestors threw urine-filled balloons and soiled tampons at his interstate counterparts.

According to Jeff Sparrow the story about urine-filled balloons has its origins in the mid-1990s during the course of protests against Pauline Hanson, when water bombs were thrown at some of the boneheads who attended her meetings. Throughout this period, no person, to my knowledge, has been charged or convicted of any such offence.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bride of Occupy(ed) Melbourne

Posted on October 17, 2011 by @ndy

So…

On the one hand, there’s Brendan O’Neill, who reckons that the Occupy protests are really an expression of middle class anger with the working class.

You may remember Brendan from such TV shows as Q&A and his sage advice that if you don’t like what you read in the Murdoch press, you can always set up your own.

On the other hand, Ken Knabb reckons that the “Occupy” movement that has swept across the country over the last four weeks is already the most significant radical breakthrough in America since the 1960s. And it is just beginning.

Oddly enough, Brendan O’Neill writes for Spiked, which got its start courtesy of the now defunct ‘Revolutionary Communist Party’ (another expression of middle class anger with the working class). Their political evolution is a fascinating story of how the chattering class seeks and finds its level.

It is … worth noting the great appeal of Leninist doctrine to the modern intelligentsia in periods of conflict and upheaval. This doctrine affords the ‘radical intellectuals’ the right to hold State power and to impose the harsh rule of the ‘Red Bureaucracy,’ the ‘new class,’ in the terms of Bakunin’s prescient analysis a century ago. As in the Bonapartist State denounced by Marx, they become the ‘State priests,’ and “parasitical excrescence upon civil society” that rules it with an iron hand.

In periods when there is little challenge to State capitalist institutions, the same fundamental commitments lead the ‘new class’ to serve as State managers and ideologists, “beating the people with the people’s stick,” in Bakunin’s words. It is small wonder that intellectuals find the transition from ‘revolutionary Communism’ to ‘celebration of the West’ such an easy one, replaying a script that has evolved from tragedy to farce over the past half century. In essence, all that has changed is the assessment of where power lies. Lenin’s dictum that “socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people,” who must of course trust the benevolence of their leaders, expresses the perversion of ‘socialism’ to the needs of the State priests, and allows us to comprehend the rapid transition between positions that superficially seem diametric opposites, but in fact are quite close.

The question is: do all roads lead to Rome?

Probably not.

Predictably enough, Italian authorities have called for another crackdown on anarchists, and it appears as though the wheels are once again in motion. According to AP (Italy cracks down on anarchists after riot, October 17, 2011), rioting Romans have been training for many months–who knows? perhaps even years–at Camp Loukanikos:

ROME (AP) — An Italian security official says police are conducting a crackdown on suspected anarchists following riots in Rome that marred a march against Wall Street greed.

Interior Ministry Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano told Sky TG24 TV in an interview that the crackdown targeted far-left suspects. He gave no details because the operation, which included house searches, was still being conducted Monday.

Mantovano dismissed criticism Italian police weren’t tough enough against several hundred rioters Saturday. Rioters used clubs and sledgehammers to smash bank ATMs and store windows, torch police and private vehicles and hurl cobblestones and chunks of sidewalk they had ripped out.

Rome daily La Repubblica quoted an unidentified rioter as saying anarchists had trained in Greece in urban guerrilla tactics for a year.

Italy Calling has translated commentary on the monkey business here, while actforfreedomnow! has link and porn.

Also of interest: Three thoughts on #Occupy, piercepenniless, October 13, 2011.

Posted in !nataS, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, Trot Guide | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Anti-Poverty Week 2011

Posted on October 16, 2011 by @ndy

October 16-22 is Anti-Poverty Week. Which means it began, like, today, and by next weekend–if successful–poverty will be no moar.

I guess only time will tell eh.

Still, I have to confess that, at first glance, I thought ‘Anti-Poverty Week’ might refer to an under-publicised project associated with the billion-dollar Building Australia Fund.

Apparently not:

Anti-Poverty Week was established in Australia as an expansion of the UN’s annual International Anti-Poverty Day on October 17.

The main aims of Anti-Poverty Week are to:

strengthen public understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and hardship around the world and in Australia;
encourage research, discussion and action to address these problems, including action by individuals, communities, organisations and governments.

Everyone who is interested in helping to reduce poverty and hardship here or overseas is encouraged to organise their own activities during the Week or join in some being organised by other people. The activities can be large or small, and events at the local level are especially welcome.

Future dates for Anti-Poverty Week: 14-20 October 2012.

Unfortunately, while the website established to promote the Weak provides numerous links to Facts About Poverty, it provides little information about its Causes. There are exceptions, however, and one fact sheet (PDF), titled ‘Poverty and its causes’ and authored by some thing called ‘Australian Collaboration’ (the site dates the doc as being May 2008; the vers linkedto is actually a revised vers dated December 2010) states:

Poverty is not caused only by individual circumstances but also by major inequalities built into the structure of Australian society. Some of the main causes of this inequality and poverty are access to work and income, education, housing, health and community services.

So. There are major inequalities in Australian society, and these are some how, and in some way, built into its structure.

By whom and for what purpose, I wonder?

A beggar dreamt of a millionaire. As he awoke he met a psychoanalyst. The latter explained to him the millionaire was a symbol for his father. “Curious”, remarked the beggar.

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Return of the Son of Occupy Melbourne

Posted on October 16, 2011 by @ndy

*Some nice Storytelling photos here too.

At least 200 people, including children, gathered today at City Square in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, carrying banners and calling for an end to “greed.” Nick Carson, a spokesman for Occupy Melbourne, had predicted “at least a couple thousand” participants. A dozen mounted police and other officers were on hand as members of the Producers’ Free Association distributed pamphlets denouncing capitalism and urging the abolishment of “all forms of authority.”

Melbourne Indymedia reckons “The Occupy Melbourne day in Melbourne’s City Square kicked off with approximately 750 people and a large number of police.” Jeff Sparrow pretty much hits the nail on the head: Occupy Melbourne: some initial thoughts, Overland blog, October 15, 2011 | See also : Rally occupies itself in most polite company, Jill Stark, The Age, October 16, 2011.

Posted in State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism! | Tagged | 7 Comments

Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei Are Terrorists. And That’s Official!

Posted on October 14, 2011 by @ndy

The US Department of State has issued a statement declaring that the Greek pyromaniacs belonging to the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei are now terrorists.

And That’s Official!

(Unlike, say, the United Islamic Front/Northern Alliance, who are not. Or…)

Actually, it could be argued that the members of the Conspiracy are pretty amateurish when compared to the many professionals who’ve graduated from the School of the Americas. Not that the State Department would agree, of course. According to it, “the training provided by the School is intended to be a long-term investment in a positive relationship with Latin America”. By the same token, one might argue that the illumination provided by the Conspiracy is intended to be a long-term investment in a positive relationship with PASOK…

Anyway.

Terrorist Designation of Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei
Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
October 13, 2011

The Department of State has designated the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei (SPF), also known as Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Synomosia Pyrinon Tis Fotias, and Thessaloniki-Athens Fire Nuclei Conspiracy, under section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224. SPF is a Greece-based extremist group. It has targeted civilians and government officials, both Greek and foreign, in an attempt to spread its violent anarchist ideology. The group first emerged in January 2008 with a wave of fire-bombings against car dealerships and banks in Athens and Thessaloniki. Four members of the group were arrested in 2009 following the evolution of the group’s tactics to employ more sophisticated bombs.

In November 2010, SPF attempted to mail parcel bombs to EU government offices in Germany and Italy, as well as foreign embassies in Greece. The Government of Greece has made important strides in countering the threat posed by SPF and other terrorist organizations based in Greece. Earlier this year, for instance, Greek authorities arrested two SPF members for their involvement in the 2010 mail parcel bombings. Today’s designation complements the efforts of Greek authorities dealing with the threat posed by anarchists. SPF is the third anarchist group designated by the Department of State since 2009.

The consequences of this designation include a prohibition against U.S. persons providing material support or resources to, or engaging in other transactions with SPF, and the freezing of all property and interests in property of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States, or the control of U.S. persons. The Department of State took this action in consultation with the Departments of Justice and Treasury.

PRN: 2011/1712

Note that the police investigation into the parcel bomb campaign of November (and other activities) has resulted in waves of arrests of suspected members of Synomosia Pyrinon (Tis) Fotias, the first such arrests taking place in September 2009. In July 2011, the first trials of real or alleged members ended with the imposition of severe prison sentences.

Precisely what importance the State Department designation has for social struggles in Greece (let alone US citizens providing material support or resources to, or communicating with, the Conspiracy) is an open question, but if nothing else it would seem to provide further public confirmation, if any were needed, of the US state’s support for whatever additional repressive measures are required in order to ensure the country remains solvent. “Member States adopting IMF/EU programmes have to remain firmly committed to very specific measures, which need to be acted upon from the outset. Monitoring has to be strengthened” as they say in the classics.

See also : Left-wing and anarchist terrorism in the EU (2010) (April 21, 2011) | From the Greek Streets.

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, Broken Windows, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Moaron Occupy(ed) Melbourne: Land & Labour

Posted on October 13, 2011 by @ndy

Unions show support for ‘OccupyOz’ movement writes Chris Zappone (October 13, 2011), “unions” in this instance meaning the National Union of Workers and the Communication Workers Union of Victoria and “support” meaning (seemingly) the probability that some union officials and members will wander down to City Square on Saturday.

Oddly, “BusinessDay understands that local unions, while supportive of the criticism of capitalist excess, are wary of a repeat of the protests in 2000 against the World Economic Forum that resulted in violence”.

Why the absence of unions will prevent police from rioting again is something of a mystery, the riot itself having for many (apart, perhaps, from those unionists who had their limbs broken, their bodies bruised or their teeth knocked out by police) seemingly having disappeared down The Memory Hole.

The protesters were noisy, disruptive and obstructive, yet they were overwhelmingly peaceful. The protests did not constitute a riot and one must question whether the protests justified such violent intervention by the baton-wielding “riot police”, the Force Response Unit.

No doubt, many of the “ordinary” police manning the gateways tried to behave with a reasonable degree of professionalism while acting under orders. The violence at the Crown Casino came overwhelmingly from the free-ranging Force Response Unit, anonymous and unaccountable in their helmets and mostly with their name tags removed. Judging by the TV footage, each of the baton-attacks of Tuesday 12 September looks like a riot by the Force Response Unit, aided by the mounted police and others, not a riot by civilians.

See also : S11: $1.3 million for lawyers (March 5, 2007).

Otherwise, the call to Occupy This and That bit of the globe has–perhaps not unexpectedly–brought to mind a series of earlier occupations. But while Occupy(ed) Canada can refer to “treaties that were misrepresented and illegitimately undertaken”, treaty is still very much a foreign concept for locals, tho’ inre Occupy(ed) Melbourne, some are working on it. (See also : Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples, Occupy(ed) Boston, October 8, 2011.)

See also : Joined Protest on the Brooklyn Bridge, Got Trapped, But Didn’t Get Arrested / And some thoughts about all this, Never Got Used To It, October 2, 2011.


[h/t : Carlos]

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Down with Zeitgeist! Long Live Juche!

Posted on October 12, 2011 by @ndy

NB. Implementing the Juche ideology within the framework of the Victorian Parliament or the Government of Victoria is something that can be achieved in a surprisingly short period of time.

The first step is to share awareness of the cause: and to do so, people must be well-informed of the outcomes that will be attributed to such a fundamental political change (See: The Movement in Victoria). Once the movement has gained popular support; the implementation stage will begin.

U.S. Swept by Waves of Protest Demos
October 8. 2011 Juch 100

Pyongyang, October 8 (KCNA) — Unprecedented demos are taking place in the United States these days in protest against exploitation and oppression by capital, shaking all fabrics of society.

The first demo kicked off in Wall Street on Sept. 17. It has been going on for three consecutive weeks.

The demonstrators put up slogan “Let’s Occupy Wall Street”.

Young Americans formed a mainstream of the ranks of demonstrators at first. But they were joined by people from all walks of life who varied in their ages including day laborers, poor and unemployed Americans as well as employees of companies and housewives.

Their actions included marches, sit-in strikes, occupation of bridges and various other forms of protests and non-stop protests at night.

These actions spilled over to different parts of the U.S. including Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco all of a sudden.

It was reported that organizations were inaugurated in 146 cities of 46 states and the capital city as of Tuesday to supervise demos.

The waves of demo which swept the U.S. recently is an expression of the grievances against the mounting social contradiction resulting from the worsening unemployment and the widening gap between the poor and the rich due to the serious economic crisis.

It also reflects the public opinion critical of the authorities and the exploiting classes who drove the country into such serious phase.

Foreign media predict that demos will go on and spill over to large-scale protests and create something unprecedented in the future.

Such protests as what is happening in the U.S. are expected to take place in other capitalist countries.

It was reported that slogan “Let’s Occupy Melbourne!” has already appeared in Australia and “Let’s Occupy Toronto Stock Market!” in Canada and organizations were formed in Japan, Germany and other countries to stage demos under the slogan “Let’s Occupy!”

Posted in Poetry, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

ASIO, fascism and anti-fascism

Posted on October 12, 2011 by @ndy

They said it would rain tomorrow.
My garden is full of weeds this year, the herbicide isn’t working.
The Moles snuck into The Garden last night.
The… spotted cuckoo is flying backwards?

Threat of fascist attacks revealed
Dylan Welch
The Sydney Morning Herald
October 12, 2011

FASCIST and nationalist extremist groups are active in and pose a threat to Australia, with the country’s security agency saying there are legitimate concerns they may spawn a terrorist in the style of Norway’s Anders Breivik.

The assessment, in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s annual report to Parliament, also reveals Australia’s right-wing extremists, much like the Islamic fundamentalists they loathe, draw inspiration from overseas via the internet.

”There has been a persistent but small subculture of racist and nationalist extremists in Australia, forming groups, fragmenting, re-forming and often fighting amongst themselves,” the report states.

The appraisal also states there has been a recent rise in anarchist or ”anti-fascist” groups, with the ideologically-opposed groups coming into conflict.

”Where such confrontations have occurred, the ‘anti-fascists’ have outnumbered the nationalist and racist extremists and police intervention has been required,” the report states in its ”Australia’s Security Environment” section.

…

As the recent case of Anders Breivik shows, the dangers posed by right-wing extremists have not abated, despite most intelligence agencies focusing on the threats posed by Islamic terrorism.

A Christian who described himself as a ”modern-day crusader”, Breivik killed 77 people during a bombing in Oslo and a shooting rampage at a teen camp at an island outside the Norwegian capital in July.

While the assessment does not suggest ASIO has uncovered right-extremists in Australia that mirror Breivik’s murderous intentions, it reveals they rely on overseas connections and events to inform and motivate them.

”[They] maintain links and draw inspiration from like-minded overseas extremists, and much of their rhetoric and activity is derivative, heavily influenced by developments overseas,” it states. Websites such as stormfront.org – the web’s most famous and ubiquitous white supremacist and neo-Nazi website – have numerous Australian members.

However, the threat posed by Australian right-wing extremists seems to be limited, with such groups appearing to be interested only in ”propaganda and engendering support”.

”However, there is always the possibility of a lone actor or autonomous group inspired by a nationalist or racist extremist ideology engaging in violence as a means of provoking a wider response,” the report says.

It states the continued existence of such groups has directly led to the resurgence of an ”anti-fascist” movement.

”[The anti-fascist movement] aims to confront those it identifies as fascists, including some of the nationalist and racist extremist groups also of interest to ASIO,” it states.

The security assessment also discusses its monitoring of ”issue-motivated groups” – organisations ranging from community-based forestry groups to neo-Nazi parties.

”There is … a small minority who seek to use protests around a range of emotive issues to further their own (often unrelated) political agenda by provoking, inciting or engaging in violence. It is this fringe that is of concern to ASIO.”

…

Note that The Australian (by way of its Defence Editor Brendan Nicholson) spins the report rather differently. Thus ASIO “warns that as well as Islamist extremism, fuelled in part by wars in Afghanistan and tensions over Palestine, an anti-fascist movement had recently emerged led by self-styled anarchists determined to confront other interest groups.”

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged | 10 Comments

Dear Occupiers: A Letter from Anarchists

Posted on October 11, 2011 by @ndy

On the one hand, there’s Chris Berg and Sophie Mirabella. On the other, CrimethInc. “A two-sided flier intended to be folded down the middle, longways” is available from the conspirators’ website.

Dear Occupiers: A Letter from Anarchists
CrimethInc
October 7, 2011

Starting with the occupation of a park next to Wall Street on September 17, a new movement is spreading across the country in which people gather in public spaces in protest against social inequalities. We’ll present a full analysis of this phenomenon here shortly; in the meantime, here’s an open letter to the occupation movement, engaging with some of the issues that have arisen thus far. Please forward this widely and print out versions to distribute at the “Occupy” events!

Support and solidarity! We’re inspired by the occupations on Wall Street and elsewhere around the country. Finally, people are taking to the streets again! The momentum around these actions has the potential to reinvigorate protest and resistance in this country. We hope these occupations will increase both in numbers and in substance, and we’ll do our best to contribute to that.

Why should you listen to us? In short, because we’ve been at this a long time already. We’ve spent decades struggling against capitalism, organizing occupations, and making decisions by consensus. If this new movement doesn’t learn from the mistakes of previous ones, we run the risk of repeating them. We’ve summarized some of our hard-won lessons here.

Occupation is nothing new. The land we stand on is already occupied territory. The United States was founded upon the extermination of indigenous peoples and the colonization of their land, not to mention centuries of slavery and exploitation. For a counter-occupation to be meaningful, it has to begin from this history. Better yet, it should embrace the history of resistance extending from indigenous self-defense and slave revolts through the various workers’ and anti-war movements right up to the recent anti-globalization movement.

The “99%” is not one social body, but many. Some occupiers have presented a narrative in which the “99%” is characterized as a homogenous mass. The faces intended to represent “ordinary people” often look suspiciously like the predominantly white, law-abiding middle-class citizens we’re used to seeing on television programs, even though such people make up a minority of the general population.

It’s a mistake to whitewash over our diversity. Not everyone is waking up to the injustices of capitalism for the first time now; some populations have been targeted by the power structure for years or generations. Middle-class workers who are just now losing their social standing can learn a lot from those who have been on the receiving end of injustice for much longer.

The problem isn’t just a few “bad apples.” The crisis is not the result of the selfishness of a few investment bankers; it is the inevitable consequence of an economic system that rewards cutthroat competition at every level of society. Capitalism is not a static way of life but a dynamic process that consumes everything, transforming the world into profit and wreckage. Now that everything has been fed into the fire, the system is collapsing, leaving even its former beneficiaries out in the cold. The answer is not to revert to some earlier stage of capitalism—to go back to the gold standard, for example; not only is that impossible, those earlier stages didn’t benefit the “99%” either. To get out of this mess, we’ll have to rediscover other ways of relating to each other and the world around us.

Police can’t be trusted. They may be “ordinary workers,” but their job is to protect the interests of the ruling class. As long as they remain employed as police, we can’t count on them, however friendly they might act. Occupiers who don’t know this already will learn it firsthand as soon as they threaten the imbalances of wealth and power our society is based on. Anyone who insists that the police exist to protect and serve the common people has probably lived a privileged life, and an obedient one.

Don’t fetishize obedience to the law. Laws serve to protect the privileges of the wealthy and powerful; obeying them is not necessarily morally right—it may even be immoral. Slavery was legal. The Nazis had laws too. We have to develop the strength of conscience to do what we know is best, regardless of the laws.

To have a diversity of participants, a movement must make space for a diversity of tactics. It’s controlling and self-important to think you know how everyone should act in pursuit of a better world. Denouncing others only equips the authorities to delegitimize, divide, and destroy the movement as a whole. Criticism and debate propel a movement forward, but power grabs cripple it. The goal should not be to compel everyone to adopt one set of tactics, but to discover how different approaches can be mutually beneficial.

Don’t assume those who break the law or confront police are agents provocateurs. A lot of people have good reason to be angry. Not everyone is resigned to legalistic pacifism; some people still remember how to stand up for themselves. Police violence isn’t just meant to provoke us, it’s meant to hurt and scare us into inaction. In this context, self-defense is essential.

Assuming that those at the front of clashes with the authorities are somehow in league with the authorities is not only illogical—it delegitimizes the spirit it takes to challenge the status quo, and dismisses the courage of those who are prepared to do so. This allegation is typical of privileged people who have been taught to trust the authorities and fear everyone who disobeys them.

No government—that is to say, no centralized power—will ever willingly put the needs of common people before the needs of the powerful. It’s naïve to hope for this. The center of gravity in this movement has to be our freedom and autonomy, and the mutual aid that can sustain those—not the desire for an “accountable” centralized power. No such thing has ever existed; even in 1789, the revolutionaries presided over a “democracy” with slaves, not to mention rich and poor.

That means the important thing is not just to make demands upon our rulers, but to build up the power to realize our demands ourselves. If we do this effectively, the powerful will have to take our demands seriously, if only in order to try to keep our attention and allegiance. We attain leverage by developing our own strength.

Likewise, countless past movements learned the hard way that establishing their own bureaucracy, however “democratic,” only undermined their original goals. We shouldn’t invest new leaders with authority, nor even new decision-making structures; we should find ways to defend and extend our freedom, while abolishing the inequalities that have been forced on us.

The occupations will thrive on the actions we take. We’re not just here to “speak truth to power”—when we only speak, the powerful turn a deaf ear to us. Let’s make space for autonomous initiatives and organize direct action that confronts the source of social inequalities and injustices.

Thanks for reading and scheming and acting. May your every dream come true.

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