Those of you who condemn the Black Bloc for acting too aggesively should learn the history of your imperialist culture and then decide if change should come sooner or later. The world does not have the luxury of peaceful protest, for they need change and they need it now!

In the condemnation of violence that so many comrades within the anti-globalisation movement rush to take, i can only respond with scorn. There are those who still think that this movement started in Seattle, and it is of express ownership to those within the West. You Westerners have the luxury of time on your side, parading through your cities with puppets and banners, forgeting that every minute that goes by, another person is a fatal victim of this capitalist, imperialist system. You ostracize those who move from protest to resistence because you have not yet fully appreciated what this struggle means to those who you claim to act in solidarity with. Peaceful protest is not a luxury available to most people in this world, through laws or by virtue of need for change.

Protesting with banners and puppers is but an appeal to the authority of the very institutions that we are calling into question. By asking for their attention and begging for a change in their policy, we are but reinforcing their sovereignty over us. Furthermore, protests earn little but the lowest common denominator. Very well, the people are protesting, so Bush will concede and start offering grants from the World Bank interest free. Still unacceptable, for strings are attached, such as structual adjustment policies. We need profound change in this world, and that means revolution.

Those of you who condemn the Black Bloc for acting too aggesively should learn the history of your imperialist culture and then decide if change should come sooner or later. If you do not agree with such aggresive tactics, then abide by the 'diversity of tactics', and no one will condemn you. But by condemning resisters, it is you who are the cowards. You desecrate the memory of Carlo Guiliani, as well as the many more poeople throughout the world who have died in the struggle.

It took me 12 minutes to write this article, and in those minutes, untold numbers of people have died for fighting for a better way of life. Move from protest to resistence.

A//E

www.infoshop.org/news6/genoa.html

Nella condanna di violenza che cosí molti compagni entro la fretta di movimento di anti-globalizzazione di portare, posso rispondere soltanto con lo scorn. Ci sono quelli che tuttavia pensa che questo movimento cominciato in Seattle, e sia di esprimere proprietà a quelli entro l'Ovest. la la. Lei Westerners ha la lussuria di tempo sul suo lato, sfilare attraverso le sue città con i burattini e gli stendardi, dimenticare che ogni minuto che va da, un'altra persona è una vittima fatale di questo capitalista, questo sistema di imperialist. Lei l'ostracize quelli che muovono dalla protesta al resistence perché lei completamente non hanno apprezzato ancora che questa lotta significa a quelli che lei reclama per agire nella solidarietà con. La protesta pacifica non è una lussuria disponibile alla maggior parte delle persone in questo mondo, attraverso le leggi o in virtù del bisogno per il cambiamento. Protestare con gli stendardi ed il puppers è ma un appello all'autorità delle molto istituzioni che chiamiamo nella domanda. Chiedere la loro attenzione e supplicare per cambiare nella loro linea di condotta, siamo ma rinforzare la loro sovranità sopra noi. Inoltre, proteste guadagna piccolo ma il minimo comune denominatore. Molto bene, le persone protestano, dunque il Cespuglio concederà e comincia che offrindo le concessioni dalla Banca di Mondo senza interesse. Tuttavia inaccettabile, per le cordicelle sono allegato, come le linee di condotta di regolazione di structual. Abbiamo bisogno del cambiamento profondo in questo mondo, e ciò significa la rivoluzione. Quelli di lei che condanna il Bloc Nero per agire troppo l'aggesively dovrebbe imparare la storia della sua cultura di imperialist e decide poi se cambia dovrebbe venire prima o poi. Se lei non è d'accordo con tale tattiche di aggresive, si conforma a poi il 'la diversità di tattiche', e nessuno lo condannerà. Ma condannare il resisters, è lei che sono i vigliacchi. Lei il desecrate la memoria di Carlo Guiliani, come pure il molto più poeople in ogni parte il mondo che è morto nella lotta. Me ha portato 12 minuti a scrivere quest'articolo, ed in quei minuti, quei numeri di untold di persone sono morti per lottare per una maniera migliore di vita. Muovere dalla protesta al resistence.

A//E

The resistense to the imperialism in this new reinforced globalized version must be violent. Even if it only was a respons to a much greater violence that kills 12 miljon children every year. Violence is, I´m afraid, the only lenguage they understand and 20.000 mercenary troopers shows only that they know that behind us there are biljons of people joining this global Intifada

Sure, I'll concede to you that imperialist culture has run amok and countless people throughout history have died as a result. So what are your puny stones and petrol bombs going to do about it. You can sneer all you want at the puppet parade in Seattle or anywhere else, but the fact is peaceful protest is effective. Ask the masses of people who drove Milosevic out in mostly peaceful action. Ask the Czech's who drove the Communists out with 300,000 rattling keys. Ask the Indian's who with Ghandi ... etc. Sure, peaceful action doesn't always work. Look at Tiannamen Square in China. The point is, if the powers that be want to bring out the big guns it doesn't matter if you're sitting down in meditation or cocking your arm with a stone, you're gonna get hit. And you're more likely to get hit if you come armed. And if you attack a car full of armed police, what do you think is going to happen? I am sorry that a life was lost. And I'm sorry that it was lost in such a stupid action.

No, I don't think peaceful protesters are cowards as you say. I've given you enough examples of the contrary above. How dare you say such a thing. And I'm sure if you called any of those people cowards to their face they might be inclined to show you how non-peaceful they were by kicking your elitist, ignorant ass. Yes, I mean, ignorant, because if you really think you and any group of petrol bomb throwing resisters are going to really make a change, you are clearly ignorant of the state of things. That's not to say that I don't think things need to change, because they do. But your methods are clearly doomed to fail against any modern day police or military arsenal. If you want to throw rocks, go to a football match instead.

I hear your view and have seen and experienced the repression that you speak of . In certain cases and instances force is necessary to make the world a better place , but his must be equated with its outcomes for all involoved, directly and indirectly .
These institutions and instruments of mass capitalism which excise their power through non-violentmeans ( for the most part ) can only be countered in the same way by those of us who look to a better tommorow .
Revolution always has casulaties - more often than not the mothers , children and the innocent bystanders who are played and manipulated in the struggle for power .History is our witness to that . In any event a violent front will only be met with massive and uncompromising force and does not in any way add to the credibility of a movement .
In case you have not noticed the revolution is well and underway , it just is not represented by the bombs and bullets that you wish for , but in the hearts and minds of the people who are starting to take notice of protest, participate in it and ultimatly try to work with it in whatever way possible . Boycott of goods made by unethical MNC , demand for reforms locally and not globally planned and tyring to be informed all add to this .
The best weapon in this revolution is not a molotov cocktail or AK47's but your wallet . Money talks and it the only thing that these people understand .Vote with your cash .
It changed my country ( Bankrupt and unable to trade the Apartheid govmt could no longer sustain its bent and sick regime) maybe it could change the world .

be cool , calm and collected ..........

The present Body Politic, and their industrialist handlers ARE guilty of untold numbers of crimes against humanity. They do cheat and lie and use the people. Many have died a the hands of the appartus of this power structure, and many more die every minute. I support your struggle against these structures.

But have you forgotten something perhaps?

Order is needed to support the people. The black bloc, the anarchists, who are fighting even the concept of order, now can see what no order means. No order means the strong flourish at the expense of the weak. No order means that the thugs who work as the appartus of both state and industry would be free to cut a swath with bullets through the ranks of our brave and heroic protesting brothers and sisters, just as happens in these other places it is you speak of. The west is fortunate, it is true, but what is the option we have to change order of things?

Violence begetts violence, and even if a major change could be wrought, what next? Have you not seen the varied beliefs that make up the body of our protesters? Enviromentalist, Vegans, Anti-Capitalists, Anarchists, Anti-Globalisation activists, Labour union representatives, and so on. Our Solidarity is based on our wish to see things change for the better. Violence will not bring that about. The views and beiefs of all must be taken into account.

If you wish to comment on my comment, than I ask you to explain to me how anarchy will improve the world. I don't wish to speak against those I stand in solidarity with, but in all honesty, I do not understand.

Just a few points :)

Although the situation in the most exploited countries in the world is that of direct mass violence on violence in many ways, in countries like Italy, the US, etc the situation isn't yet at that point of conflict, though it is rapidly approaching it. The reason for this difference is, basically, Imperialism - the North can provide 'some' degree of social peace through its screwing over of the South. The result of this is that direct massacres of protestors are unacceptable amongst other things, and as 'Westerners' have more democratic rights that cannot be taken away all at once without prompting a huge backlash.

Due to these differences there is still some possibility to use non-violent means of protest in the North, a TACTIC (ie, it will change when the situation does) that has the best possibility of building this movement. By using violence when there is no need to (yes, sometimes there is a need), the possibility that the radical wing of the movement could be marginalised is huge - which none of us want. If this happens we might as well just hand the leadership of these campaigns to the conservative wing, as we will be isolated (read as 'crushed by the state'). We should use the best tactics are available, sometimes the black bloc does this (i loved the bloc's work in Quebec) and sometimes it doesn't. Hopefully, if we can take a leaf out what really is needed from places like South Korea (if faced with a baton charge) or Colombia (if faced by bullets), we can win this movement. If not, then we have lost a historic chance.

But never raise a tactic into a strategy, or a position into a principle - reality is something that needs to be taken into account.

- socialistica.
- Resistance, socialist youth organisation.
- S11, M1 and CHOGM Alliances.

I think you all right but the risk of very violent protest
is that secret services can infiltrate agent to guide towards capitalistic hidden directions.
So we can do non violent resistence but protected from our security in case of police attack and call in the street milions of people not in one place only but all over the world.We have to spread our protest against capitalism.
Also I think italians they miss understood this meaning but they think that this movement is only to have better conditions for the third world.
This is against the capitalism no one said this in italy, we don't want capitalism anymore.
Also the behavior of the italian white overall and mr agnoletto that pretend to guide the international movement is unacceptable.
We are individuals,groups,souls,brains,multitude,mass and sorry but we can't be rappresent all in the white overall.
Not uniform but soul.Also Carlo Giuliani was attacking the police with violence and killed from the police not from the black block so please don't make confusion on this point.
Respect and love for Carlo.
peace

um, theres a time and a place for everything.

but you would have to agree that the situation is different from place to place and you cannot simply apply one tactic to everywhere (like one of the IMF's 'recipes').

we should never raises tactics to the point of being strategies, nor positions into principles - to ignore reality so much would be to miss this chance at changing the world.

if we simply say, lets be violent regardless of whats best, we might as well hand over this movement to the conservatives who will fall at the first challenge.

example:
blac block was violent at Quebec - this was a good and necessary thing.
blac block was violent at Seattle - this was not a good thing.

The difference is clear if you look at the different situations of the protests and the different tactics of each bloc.

as i said there is a time and a place...

- socialistica
- Resistance, socialist youth organisation
- S11, M1 and CHOGM Alliances

Diversity of approaches, yes. Uniformity of uniform no.
put failing approaches to rest and lets use the power of our mind to create new offshoots in liberation, organization and democracy.

peacefully yours...
forever undefined
know thyself for mental health..

http://www.bfi.org/grunch_of_giants.htm
http://www.dnai.com/~figgins/generalstrike/

G. Grey, the protests you refer to -- "driving out" Milosevic, "communists" and english invaders, these protests were "violent" enough for today's media to give them all the "violent riot"-attributes the anticapitalistic protests are getting this time. Just learn history. It's all about the perception. Even if I doubt that the "violence" in today's protests is that effective against things Agnus Durant speaks about, this mass-condemning of "violent riots" smells of massive hypocrisy. (I'm using the quotes to emphasize that I'm talking about modern day media-contructs)
sorry for bad english and solidarity for those in Genova.

We can't beat the state like this. They have a monopoly on violence and if we allow violence to be increased they will crush us and hardly break into a sweat doing it.

The only way we can beat them is through numbers and arguments. They continue to argue that globalisation helps the poor, but people are starting to see that for the fallacy it is. The recent riots in Britain show capitalism can't even solve the problems in the fourth largest economy in the world and if it can't do that how is it going to help other much weaker countries.

We must also make our movement as large as possible in the past there were small protests at G7/G8 summits, but these were ignore, now there are 100,000 of us they have to listen, but this is only a start. We need a mass movement to achieve victory, a movement of millions.

Also to the person who asked about anarchism check out: http://www.anarchistfaq.org I hope that's helpful and I would like to stress that not all anarchists are violent.

Keep on building the revolution.

-- Gandhi

-- King

-- Thoreau

Well said - we all have a place in this movement and it is the mainstream pro-capitalist NGOs who have pulled out of today's march who are damaging our cause.

QUOTE: "The best weapon in this revolution is not a molotov cocktail or AK47's but your wallet . Money talks and it the only thing that these people understand .Vote with your cash".

That's provided you have the cash in the first place. That's a sheer capitalist point of view.



QUOTE: "Ask the masses of people who drove Milosevic out in mostly peaceful action. Ask the Czech's who drove the Communists out with 300,000 rattling keys. Ask the Indian's who with Ghandi ..."

Do you really believe most changes in this world has gone peacefully? Are you so naive, really? Starting with the French Revolution (not to mention the millions that died fighting the Roman Empire, etc) up to the revolutionary struggles in Latin America, they all *had* to be violent no matter what. When you are fighting a violent enemy (and capitalism is violent in itself, because starving people to death is violence, believe it or not) you have to do something in return. Not retaliation, but revolution.

Yes, it's true Gandhi (sp) *helped* drive the British out, but he or his cohorts did not. Period. British were going to leave India anyway, so please read some History books before making such bold assumptions and statements.

Same goes for the rest of the examples provided: "peaceful" protests (and I'm quoting the word because storming the Yugoslav parliament seems everything but peaceful to me :) may had helped trigger something that was already in the works... Sorry to shake your naive dreams, kids, welcome to reality!!!

We all have been raised to believe we have the means (demoing, writing letters to your rep., boycotting well-known companies for doing what everybody else also does), changing your vote) but please let me laugh at your credulity. The powers that be decided after WWII that liberal "democratic" regimes were the way to go. They provide safety for the capitalist forces, they can be kept under the grip of "The(ir) Law" plus, as an added bonus", they provide people with some harmless (for the Powers That Be) means to vent their anger when needed. That's all about it.

Revolutions MUST be *effective* (I don't mean necessarily ultra-violent but effective, and you all know what that means), period. You need to strike, you strike, you need to demo, you demo, you need to torch, you torch, you need to hang a well-known fascist politian... you get the picture.

Wake up and fight. Peaceful protesters are *NOT* cowards, they think that's the way to go, and so be it. We are striving for a better world, and every means at hand must be used for that, but don't condemn less-peaceful fighters simply because they are the ones that helped us to be here. WIthout them we'd still be at Medieval Age with overlords and priests ruling...

Anarchism isn't about fighting the concept of order itself, it's about breaking up the large concentrations of power in society and divide it roughly equal amongst the citizens, thus preventing abuse of power.

As a matter of fact, most revolutions are non-violent, they are just often followed by a savage war. One example is in Vietnam just after WWII when the Vietminh declared independance. Nobody was shot at that moment since it was the people that went out on the streets and the military and police wouldn't fire at their own people. Then came the French army (with support from US$) and the war started.
I strongly believe revolutions aren't something that just come out of the blue, the require many decades of hard political struggle, and when they happen they are just pushing away the old oppresive debris of the past regime.

To: Angus Durant, Re: In Defense of Black Bloc

While I agree with much of what you write, please consider the folowing criticisms:

Angus: "You Westerners have the luxury of time on your side, parading through your cities with puppets and banners, forgeting that every minute that goes by, another person is a fatal victim of this capitalist, imperialist system."

You are correct in pointing out the urgency of the situation, but your conclusion is wrong. Brutal opression requires that we act now to organize revolution. While militant confrontation is necessary for revolution, it is not the only thing. It also takes mass self-organization, support etc. The group with the most militant tactics is not necessarily the group most threatening to capital. Was Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assasinated President McKinley in 1901 more important than the IWW? Subcommandante Marcos and comrades of the Zapatistas went to Chiapas and secretly organized for 10 years building a guerilla army controlled by indigenous communities. Had he taken your advice in 1983 perhaps they would have started an urban guerilla group instead, because the urgency of the situation doesn't afford the "luxury" of slow grassroots organizing.

Angus: "Protesting with banners and puppets is but an appeal to the authority of the very institutions that we are calling into question."

Explain yourself. Banners and puppets are tactical props used by movements of every political persuasion, including anarchist. It is vital that our movement clearly communicates our politics with other workers outside the demonstrations; banners and puppets are a good way of doing this. Proponents of militant confrontation who condemn banners and puppets are sucumbing to the same dogmatic analysis of tactics that has infected many of our pacifist comrades. There are plenty of reasons for non-violent protesters to wear masks and there are plenty of reasons for militant protesters to hold banners.

Please don't misconstrue anything I've written as criticism of the activists in Genoa. It is solely a criticism of some of the points you seem to be making.

A buddy of mine wrote the following in responce to an IMC article during the protests in Quebec; I believe it applys to the above article as well:

It appears to me that since the protests are of the negative causes (of
>the FTAA), for us to produce negative causes (regardless of who they
>affect) is to drown ourselves in our own hypocracy. If someone were to
>protest the fashion in which FTAA protesters manifested their protests
>using your line of thought, he/she would attempt to negativelly affect
>the protests of the FTAA protesters. Although this is terriblily
>confusing, I'm simply attempting to surface the way this line of
>thinking may defeat its own purposes. In a sense, it's like fighting
>violence with violence, fire with fire, etc... In protesting various
>potential evils in our world, I believe we should avoid inadvertently
>causing other "evils," despite how minor. Our goal is to minimize
>pain, evil, hatred, and strife within our world; thus we must remain
>consistant with that goal, if of course, that is our goal.

Peace y'all.

What is your problem! you wako. What kind of tactics do you think people should take you are fighting against killing and murder of this planet or even other subjects such as abortion or what kind of punishments should be given to criminals. Killing is wrong maybe your mother never actually told you that but it should have been implied. No matter what you try to do some one will always get hurt I know you wouldnt want to be the one to go to that persons family and tell them that there loved one died because some jerk wanted him to die over something that could have been settled peacfully maybe it will take a while but it will be alot more effective.