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Interview By Mike Saunders |
As the corporate media is consumed with Obama’s pig, Palin’s pit-bull and their choice of lipstick or just admiring Joe Biden’s million-dollar smile, little attention has been paid to the protests at the Republican National Convention and their aftermath. Different groups using different tactics organized the protests. There was one very large permitted march attended by over ten thousand people. There were also smaller groups who had planned direct action to shut down the convention, active all week long. These protesters were working from an anarchist model of non-hierarchical affinity groups that had autonomy in their tactics but support from a highly organized collective community. The converse of this was the Republican National Committee, which also is highly organized but also extremely well funded and hierarchical. The ten million dollar insurance policy that they bought was to guarantee the city protection from “damages and unlimited legal costs for law enforcement officials accused of brutality, violating civil rights and other misconduct.” This gave local authorities license to use brutal tactics of suppression, unconstitutional bans on free assembly turning Minneapolis into a police state: funny how our legal system can be bought and paid for. Police also intimidated and arrested members of the independent media, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman. Her arrest was captured on video and can be seen on YouTube. Members of the RNC Welcoming Committee (an organization to support anarchist groups) are now being held on terrorism charges.
I found it strange when the corporate media described the direct action protests, using the word anarchist could easily dismiss protesters, as if anarchism is a completely discredited ideology. The anarchist labor movement was quintessential in gaining the eight-hour workday in the United States. The Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) are currently using non-hierarchical, anarchist tactics in unionizing Starbucks. While we watch the AFL-CIO fade in relevance to our increasingly service based economy, the I.W.W. is growing and working internationally. Anarchists have a history of being at the forefront of meaningful social change and should not be so easily written off as irrelevant or immature.
I was able to speak with two Midwestern anarchists, Jesse Sparkles from Michigan and another who we will call Zack Morris, about the protests and their involvement.
Wide-Eyed: Why didn’t you choose to focus your energy on the permitted, “peaceful” march?
Jesse Sparkles: Historically speaking, “permitted” dissent has not typically led to social change because it relies on a strategy that is weak from the start—asking for permission to make a demand. Instead, the un-permitted actions aimed at “crashing the convention” on September 1 never asked for permission and it was those actions—at times wild and always unpredictable—that made those in power tremble. And indeed the actions—whether they were people locking themselves together to block highway off-ramps or unannounced marches of a few hundred that refused to obey the police—provided inspiration to those on the streets. Every time a bus was blocked, the energy in the crowd would escalate and people could—for at least a short moment—feel that their efforts were contributing to a collective “crashing” of the convention. I also made the decision to engage in the un-permitted actions because at the RNC in 2004 over 200,000 people marched and nobody cared—not the media and certainly not the Republican delegates who never saw the protest. The un-permitted actions allowed protestors to take their message straight to the delegates whether it was by blocking their buses on the opening day or disrupting their fundraising parties on subsequent days.
Zach Morris: I was part of an affinity group that came to Minn/St. Paul with the intention of “shutting down the RNC”. The permitted march was just designed to make a political statement but in a sense gave a free pass to the GOP to continue to meet. We felt that since the gang that has been mostly responsible for the direction of the country over the past 8 years has lied about war, profited off war, furthered policy to benefit the rich while stomping on working people, escalated environmental destruction, allowed the people of New Orleans to suffer and violated the civil rights and civil liberties of millions of people should not be allowed to meet and plan more of the same. If you knew that a company was dumping toxic waste in your back yard would you rather physically try to stop them or just write them a letter asking them to stop?
WE: What was the police presence like on the ground?
ZM:The police presence was omnipresent but largely avoided the brutal force that characterized the last major anarchist mobilization at the protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in 2003. To be sure, there were instances of brutality, but for the most part, law enforcement focused on a more subtle strategy of using plainclothes officers to survey crowds and informants to infiltrate groups. During the week of the convention, it came out that law enforcement—including the FBI—had widely infiltrated protest groups. This infiltration led to preemptive raids on the convergence center (a space where protestors were holding meetings and trainings) and homes in the Twin Cities. The raids—complete with outlandish search warrants that authorized the police to look for bomb making materials—were used in an attempt to portray the protestors in the media as being “terrorists.” This effort culminated in charges against members of the Twin Cities based RNC Welcoming Committee for “Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism.”
ZM: I have said to many people over the past week that the police presence reminded me of military occupations in southern Mexico and Guatemala that I have witnessed there. Not only were the police numbers around 3500, there were squads of cops in full riot gear armed with pepper spray, tear gas, tasers, rubber bullets and concussion grenades.
There were also police squads on bike, on horse and on motorcycles. In addition the police used dump trucks and snow ploughs to block protestors in. Lastly, it should be mentioned that the police were using dozens and dozens of undercover cops who were trying to spy on and in some cases grab protestor while they tried to blend in with us.
WE: Who was more violent, police or protesters?
ZM:The police—as would be expected with their everyday function as an agency designed to maintain control and order—were more violent than the protestors. The police used a variety of weapons—tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion grenades, and batons—to attack protestors and journalists.
ZM: First it should be said that I am not aware of any of the protestors who acted violently. Destroying property in my opinion is not violence, particularly when that property belongs to corporate America or the State. The police were the only ones who were violent. Only they used tear gas and pepper spray on the public, only they used concussion grenades on the public, only they shot people with rubber bullets and only they beat protestors and inflicted pain on them during arrests. Many protestors went to detention facilities or were jailed bloody and received no medical attention.
WE: How has the media’s reaction compared to the reality of the situation?
ZM:The corporate media focused primarily on the sensational aspects of the protests—police allegations of violent anarchist plots, damage to property, and the trumped up terrorism charges against organizers—while ignoring the reasons people were out in the streets. The anarchist mobilization—noteworthy as the first major mobilization by a movement that has in the past greatly shaped the discourse over trade policy (for example, scrutiny of institutions such as the World Trade Organization after the Seattle protests in 1999)—was treated only as a source of violence. There was no exploration of what anarchism is or why people took such great risks to participate in disruptive street protests. The anarchist critique of representative democracy and capitalism was completely absent from the media’s focus on violence.
ZM: The media reacted as we expected to either frame those of us as protestors as violent and miss the violence of the police or to completly ignore our reasons for trying to shut down the RNC. Fortunately there were numerous independent journalists, indy media writers and videographers who reported on what was really happening on the streets, quite often at great risk.
WE: What was successful about the protests and what was a failure?
ZM:The protestors were largely successful in the stated goal of “crashing the convention.” On the convention’s first day, it was the protests—and not the abbreviated session of the RNC—that dominated the headlines in the major media. Moreover, throughout the week protestors not only repeatedly took to the streets, but they also organized housing, food, legal support, childcare, and a host of other necessary logistical tasks on a non-hierarchical basis. As far as failures…it was unfortunate that anarchists were fairly isolated in their efforts to disrupt the convention. With all of the frustration over the two party system and anger at the Republican administration, had anarchists worked to organize a more easily accessible action aimed at disrupting the convention, numbers probably could have been increased.
ZM: I think that what was successful was the ability to disrupt the RNC at some level and to send them a very clear message that some of us will not tolerate their wars abroad or their war against working people in this country. I think the jail solidarity was a great success and the indy media that was generated was a success. I think where we failed was to not engage the people of the Twin Cities enough to generate more local solidarity. We also didn’t have the numbers we had hope to have for the blockades and I think we underestimated the level of police/FBI infiltration of our networks and the police brutality on the streets.
WE: Is there anything else that you want people to know about the protests, protesters and the tactics used?
ZM:I want to say that the way the whole week was organized spoke volumes to how anarchist politics can work. The meeting space was great, with internet access, a med station, workshops, and bicycles were made available for transportation. Seeds of Peace provided food to hundreds of people daily and the process for meetings was very inclusive. The way the blockades worked was that affinity groups were allowed to choose autonomous actions that fit within a larger framework and that framework allowed for flexibility in what people could do. It was a stark contrast to other action I have been part of where a small group of people make decisions or not all tactics were supported. At the RNC a diversity of tactics were used and all were supported and I think that is important for people to understand. We all don’t have to agree on what tactics to use, but we should respect each group’s choices.
