Are you guys like the street art splashers cousin cuz u got a lot in common.

I know all you artistes thing your mac is so fucking cool but the rest of the world has moved on from the shitty ass quicktime format. Put the shit on youtube if you actually want people to see it...

You know, this reminds me of the time when Luca Cassarini got pied at Bluestockings.

Same deal. A semi-well known activist makes an appearance at a public event. No velvet rope. Not at all. A fair exchange of ideas.

A small band of self-appointed guardians takes the opportunity to assault the speaker instead of engaging them, even though that's the whole point of the event.

An anti-authoritarian movement that for literally years has been lying dormant lets a couple of individuals ANONYMOUSLY attack and slander someone without saying "hold up".

In this case, the allegations against Medea Benjamin are totally and completely unsubstantiated. Though Benjamin has video footage of her own identifying the assailant, she has some principles and refused to press charges against the person who did it. A person who hides their own face while using Photoshop distorts Medea's face, slanders her name and then literally ran away!

If I looked across the world, or the recent Social Forum in Atlanta, and actually identified my enemy as Global Exchange and the Women in Pink, I'm sure I'd go home and hang myself.

To just give one example, regarding the Israeli incursion into Lebanon, Medea Benjamin personally visited Lebanon and demanded an unilateral Israeli withdrawl. She did this while the country was being bombed and the Americans who were there (including many Lebanese) were clamoring to get out.

It's interesting that the anonymous cowards who attacked her have "updated" their complaint to her refusing to sign some statement (not linked) supposedly signed by "hundreds of Lebanese" as if that was a crime. Maybe it was a good statement, but thankfully she made her own.

Here's the word guys: at the USSF, hundreds of groups made presentations – it was a free speech space, more or less. Instead of engaging the thousands of people who traveled to actually dialogue and debate, these anonymous cowards literally attacked her (twice, by the way) and then have the nerve to distort the positions of Global Exchange, Women in Pink and Medea Benjamin herself.

She was wrong those years ago in Seattle, but not only is there a lot of water under the bridge – we live in a completely different political landscape.

If you nutjobs want to engage in personal attacks, then sign your name.

If you want to argue politics, then at least get the facts right.

But don't think for a fucking minute that you can make totally baseless allegations, or act like Global Exchange is the problem with activism. They actually do good work, they support an internationalist perspective and stand up for human rights which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for the legions of "too cool for school, I'll just get high again tonight" motherfuckers who sit in judgement of anyone with the nerve to actually stand up.

So boo.

And one other thing – nobody is impressed. This is low crap, and Medea Benjamin just roasted you all with her response.

Share some recipes or get the hell out of the kitchen.

The word for this kind of attack is "sectarian", just in case you're wondering. No ideas, no concern for the truth – just vicious personal attacks and political slander. It's really low.

Here's the link to Medea Benjamin's response posted on Indybay: To Those Who Threw a Pie in My Face, Let’s Swap Recipes

You succeeded in making Medea Benjamin look good by comparison.

Now maybe next year when you start junior high you'll learn how to talk to girls without dipping their pig tails in ink or hitting them with snowballs.

It's really easy when you grow up. Oh well. You have plenty of time. I only was I was 12 years old again :)

This is awesome! Poor Medea Benjamin finally gets a pie in the face. Why? Because she can be annoying famous activist. Contrary to the blather written here by JB, Medea is not an ordinary activist. She is an attention whore. To some extent it is admirable that she risks arrest with her disruptions, but at the end of the day, it's Medea Benjamin's Code Pink, not OUR Code Pink.

And Medea, what you said in Seattle in 1999 is unforgivable. You shouldn't be surprised that many of us on the front lines in this movement have long memories. What you said doesn't make you a snitch, but your words put you in the service of the ruling class.

As one who's tried to challenge this person in a public forum, and then had to weather her condescending, simplistic arguments, I for one am very envious of whoever had a hand in that pie. Those who make respectable discource impossible, make slap-stick comedy inevitable!

I think the pieing phenomenon is an excellent litmus test for movement leaders. They should all get pied at one point or another. If they file charges, then they're probably somebody like, I dunno, Kucinich or some other Republicrat. That gets an F grade. With Benjamin, she scored a D-. She comes out with this self-righteous response without actually addressing any of the issues. She just gives the party line (you'd know a thing about that, wouldn't you Jed?) A good victim would've realized he or she had clearly done something to win some enemies, as she acknowledges, within her own ranks. Things like this don't happen everyday, afterall.

Then of course she calls the pie thrower violent. Violent? A fucking pie? How about a squirt gun? Would you call that a shooting? Get the fuck over yourself. And then in the same breath, she's all nastolgic over the pieing of OTHER people. Imagine that!

And of course, the icing on the cake, she says, "May I suggest humble pie?" Wow, did you say a mouth full!

Bukharin: Hey. Zinoviev. Don't you think that Trotsky's getting a bit too big for his brinches?

Zinoviev: Yeah. He's kind of a prima donna.

Bukharin: I've got just the thing to jumpstart this revolution.

Zinoviev: What?

Bukharin: Get this. I'm planning to throw a pie in Trotsky's face.

Zinoviev: Dude. That is like so awesome. Sure there are millions of Russian peasants dying in the trenches against the Germans and maybe, just maybe we should be thinking about that, but a pie, fucking sweet.

Bukharin: And after that we're going to pie Lenin. If takes it with a smile, then I say hell yeah. Let's follow him right up to the gates of the winter palace. But if he acts all snooty, then let's find a new chairman of the central committee.

Zinoviev: Excellent. How about Dzerzhinsky?

Bukharian: No way dude. That guy scares me. Besides, we'll never get close enough to him.

Zinoviev: Stalin?

Bukharin: He'd have us killed.

Zinoviev: He's going to have us killed anyway.

Bukharin: OK. OK. After we pie Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin, we'll brainstorm about how to get those troops back home and end the war.

Zinoviev: Awesome dude. Going to see rage this Summer at Burning Man?

Bukharin: Nah man. Can't afford it. Parents won't let me use the car either.

Zinoviev: Bummer.

JB's seeming outrage at those rude anarchists for lampooning Benjamin is particuarly amusing, considering his enthusiastic support for all things Maoist, including the Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution in China - replete with pointy dunce caps and public crit/self crit sessions for those capitalist roaders unwilling to acknowlege the searing wisdom of the Great Helmsman.

A little pie phobic himself, perhaps?

This will be an interesting thread to revisit next year when Medea reluctantly announces her critical support for the the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008 - whoever that may be. No doubt, followed by another apology in the Nation.

BTW, rumor has it, Benjamin and Danaher require "confidentiality" agreements from their Global Exchange employees. Just like major corporations. Wonder why? If GE supports transparency and accountability, it shouldn't be a problem to make public their major donor/grantmaker list, the details of contracts with local producers they work with in the global South.

"Al Pieda"

You missed when you tried to pie Ann Coulter.

 http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fv9xa-VxchM

She sidestepped you like Michael Jordan sidestepping a defender in the paint. Sad. Sad. Sad.

Dear jerks:

While in Atlanta, you guys had your choice of any number of ACTUAL reactionaries to hit. You had the following targets, including any number of that crew of xenophobes who lined up to razz the march, as well as any of the Christian-right nutters who had their own convention at the same time as the USSF (they were in fact staying at some of the very hotels where the USSF was being held).

You didn't pie them. As such you are cowardly idiots. You should sue your local law enforcement for having stiffed you of the money they owe you for your service as provocateurs.

And Flugenock, stop acting as if you represent some pure activism. You had your own moments of absolute stupidity, including your sectarian and racist "Gandhi Is Dead" poster. Gee, that offended some people. Maybe they're entitled to pie you, too?

Lordy, I don't know what's funnier -- Medea's facial expression above, the torrent of outrage erupting from those liberals whose feathers were ruffled by seeing a media icon of symbolic dissent taken down a peg, Medea's posturing as a latter day Evita Peron in pink, benefactor of the toiling masses .. or JB's rant about the lack of civility inherent in the process of taste testing a Bavarian Creme, all the while pining away for Chairman Gonzalo.

Let me understand this. Out of the four reasons stated for attacking Medea B., three of them are total horseshit.

Saying sorry?

Being an anarchist means never having to say sorry.

Doesn't that shit get boring? It sure did to me.

It's like identity politics for scenesters.

In the meantime, MB laughed it off and roasted ya'll fools something sweet.

Maybe people should start throwing pies at anarchists, spreading false rumors about their supposed non-leaders and then insulting them when they object.

Call me crazy, but I already imagine the cries of "authoritarian" for even questioning your much ballyhoo'd autonomy. "I'm a victim, I've been called silly!"

Can we start a list of anarcist loudmouths in need of a good creaming?

Here's the link to Medea's response that is much more eloquent and thoughtful than the pie people.

 http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/02/18432132.php

These pie throwers are the equivalent of what they accuse Medea of being. Self appointed, self elected spokespersons of the Left. Who empowered them to pie an activist at the first U.S. Social Forum? When was the workshop where consensus was reached on that scheme? When did we go through a flip chart choosing Benjamin as a target of the pie throw and were other targets suggested, such as, I don't know, any number of right wing targets within the Atlanta metro area?

But you choose to pie Medea Benjamin, a progressive activist, at the very first U.S. Social Forum. I would wager that if you lived up to the same criteria you judged Benjamin, nobody at the forum would have given consensus or signed off on your ill-thought and sectarian action.

I challenge the person who pied Benjamin to step forward and make him/herself accountable as they did to Benjamin.

Cowards.

Personally, I would have eaten the pie and not wasted it on Medea Benjamin but the target is the right one. Many activists see well funded NGO's like Global Exchange as having defanged the international Social Forum movement. NGO's need to take a step back from convergences like the US Social Forum and let new voices and organizations step to the front. The only problem with the action is it's unclear what the demands of those new voices and organizations are but the target of the pie speaks volumes.

Spare us the liberal outrage 'Indypendent contributor". Benjamin and her partner Kevin Danaher are no saints, as any of a number of former Global Exchange employees and volunteers will attest. And her screwup in Seattle can't be spun away. Nor her endorsement of Kerry and embrace of the Anybody But Bush strategy that led to the the demobilization of the antiwar movement in the last Presidential election cycle. Nor can the regressive role that well heeled NGOS have had in subordinating and coopting dissent in favor of the interests of their donor base and the political elites they curry favor with -- a criticism that has plagued Social Forums since Porto Alegre, and boiled over in subsequent World Social Forums.


BTW, Wonder why Cindy Sheehan hasn't raced to her defense?

If the antiwar movemment were a movement worthy of the name it would not have to rely on smarmy celebrity/activists. If you think throwing a pie in this woman's face did anything to change that you are mistaken.
What's the argument for the utility of this action? Is it that if people get a pie in the face and are cool about it then they are good activists?
Out of a random sample how many people do you think would react favorably to a pie in the face? O.K. seltzer down the pants maybe, but pie in the face as some sort of political litmus test is as dumb-ass an excuse for a fresh idea as I've ever encountered.

"Can we start a list of anarcist loudmouths in need of a good creaming?" Asked "mining slag."

From all anonymous courage that indymedia affords a poster, I nominate such disparate candidates as Chuck Munson*, Jello Biafra, Warcry*, David Graeber, "Darrell" (smelly participant in Critical Mass), Bob Avakian, the mormons in my neighborhood, "Mr. Kim" the mean hardware store owner also in my neighborhood (note: this man is vicious and has many construction materials at his disposal, use caution), the tall mop haircut bartender at Grass Roots Tavern, the owner of Grass Roots Tavern (he should be sued for false advertising!), a random Bill-burg hipster and finally Chomsky and Zinn for being total fakes and sell-outs!!!

First thing i want to say is that this action is not a violent assault. Its a pie, for christ's sake, not a bomb. Its also not an action that means to say medea is an unforgivable enemy. Rather, its a godd-humoured, but serious call for attention to someone who needs her ego checked and needs to understand there are a lot of people who have a problem with her speaking questionable politics on behalf of a lot of people.

Medea has denied almost all of the charges against her. I can't speak to all of them, so I will defer to others to clarify some issues. But I can speak to the charge regarding Lebanon. I was there too, watching Medea standing in front of the cameras waving her pink flags while dozens of cars packed with aid drove toward Southern Lebanon, flagrantly giving the finger to israel's no driving rule. These are the same people who issued a call for an immediate ceasefire and an unconditional Israeli withdrawal. Its not some random group of people. Most of the solidarity organizing was happening though one coalition of Lebanese and International activists. It had thousands of volunteers, and was the main party resposnible for distributing a lot of the aid to the displaced in Beirut.

Anyway, it was a call from this group that Medea half-heartedly supported. Medea said she would support a ceasefire, but couldn't endorse an unconditional israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon because it is something the American Left wouldn't swallow.

This was discussed among many of us in Lebanon, and we had to explain to our Lebanese friends that this Woman in Pink represented maybe the Democratic perspective, but certainly not the American Left as a whole. It is this experience, along with MANY other stories I have heard that makes me think a little sweet banana cream pie in the face might help Medea take her ego down a few notches, and try not to push such bad politics on the rest of us who are trying to hard to forge real alliances and networks of solidarity.

As for Medea's kind heartedness in not pressing charges, truth is the pier was chased and the cops were called. There must have been a dozen cop cars out looking for the pier. Luckily, the pier got away otherwise he/she too would be doing jail time. Medea doesnt know the pier's name. That is why she cant press charges. See how it all gets a little twisted...?

Spare us this holier than thou bullshit, @-person.

The rush to defend an idiotic and puerile stunt, as well as to propagandize it, just really shows how much of a circle jerk this millieu has caught itself in.

As the asinine lifestyle anarchists sip their yerba matte and whine about being called asinine on the internets, the Panther 8, Daniel McGowan, et al. are ACTUALLY BEING PERSECUTED. For actually standing up against the state, mind you, and not for some petty nonsense like tossing pies at NGO types. If they received as much defense as the anonymous jerkwad behind the black spot, they'd be free by now. But nooooo, gotta defend the "right" of some asshole to not only pie someone, but pie them based on bullshit.

This all would not be so infuriating were it one of run of the mill excesses of a vibrant movement. But this doesn't flow from political excess; it flows from political lack. Anarchist-led discussion on what to do with strategy of the anti-war movement got locked once again into the lifestylist cycle of depoliticized talk about bitchin' means -- that led to some godawful shit about how we should derail trains and starve the U.S., and some garbage about the poetry of jumping around doing padded blocs where we get busted.

As much as they were jerks about it in 1999, anarchists back then were tossing bricks at corporations back then, when it was the booj who were throwing the party. Now it's frat pranks at leftist events. When the lifestylists start turning on one another, I suspect the next step is whoopie cushions at CrimethInc's little conclave.

Folks, it's your movement. . .

How about if instead of calling the cops a pie victim just beats the fucking shit out of you...then we'll see if YOU call the cops.

Media Benjamin violated a basic principle of revolutionary activism in Seattle back in 1999. She called the cops on the Black Bloc anarchists.

That alone should mark her as one of our enemies.

Say what you will about the Black Bloc, and I for one am no fan of the whole "heroic guerilla" individual acts of "propaganda of the deed" violence (it was a tragedy when Che Guevara did it in the 1960's - it's a farce today), we shouldn't be in the business of snitching out our comrades to the cops EVER...

Benjamin crossed that class line 8 years ago - and has never apologized for it.

Beyond that, she is the poster girl for a type of grant financed corporate friendly activism that is the deadly enemy of any serious fight for social change.

So, in that light, it's about damned time that some of my anarchist comrades have seen fit to break with her in such a public and dramtic way.

Now, all they have to do is throw a pie in Soros' face, and we'll be good.

GREGORY A. BUTLER, local 608 carpenter
for GANGBOX: CONSTRUCTION WORKERS NEWS SERVICE
 http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/gangboxnews/
 http://groups.google.com/group/gangbox/
 http://gangbox.wordpress.com
 http://www.clnews.org
"UNION NOW, UNION FOREVER"

Perhaps the prank may have been somewhat childish, but the issues at hand are very real. Like when a kid corrects a lie, embarrassing the parent, Medea and you, her many minions have to own up to the lie.

While big name NGOs like Global Exchanges push for a green economy can be a positive thing, we have to also look at the imperialist implications of the continued reliance and imposition of a capitalist political economy. Today, more than ever, these green capitalists and laissez fair-weather liberals perpetuate and legitimize the violent imposition of the neoliberal economy around the world more so than even the right wing fascists. Allow me to elaborate. While in the global north "sustainability" or "sustainable" development has come to be defined merely as an energy efficient car, an organic bar of soap, a composting bucket, a solar panel, or a rain water catcher, the global south continues to define sustainability as one simple thing: SURVIVAL. While the greening of America, is absolutely a step in the right direction, stopping at that has increasingly become a grave threat to the self determined survival of indigenous people and people of color around the world.

These green products and life styles are every day less and less accessible or appropriate for the communities throughout the global south and to poor communities in the global north. In seeking the commodification of sustainability as the only solution to global economic, environmental and human disparity, in essence what is achieved is the commodification of survival. If you can afford to survive greenly, then great for you, but if you can't afford to survive at all, then too bad, because the greening of the American political economy is not happening fast enough to address your need for survival. This supposedly "green" world-view imposed by the non-profit industrial complex, is indeed excluding the vast majority of the planet, by creating a guilt free lifestyle for John Q. Liberal, along with the bells and whistles of peace, love, tranquility and comfort. You see, it has become a lot more about "guilt free" and "comfortable" than about, appropriate, accessible and truly liberating. The truth is, that this guilt free peace, love, tranquility and comfort, which is purchased and neither earned nor struggled for in the global context, is actually terror. The reliance on capitalist greening as the only solution is the legitimization of the neoliberal political economy in a much bigger way that even the neoliberals themselves. Again, greening is a decent step in the right direction, but to purport it as revolutionary or worse yet, the only step, is actually quite counter revolutionary and even racist at its core. Green-washing.

How many people have been to a Global Exchange Green Festival? I have. How many brown or black people do you see at the Green Festival? How many indigenous people did you see? How many products did you see at the Green Festival that were a) Appropriate for b) Accessible to and c) Affordable for communities of color in this country, immigrant communities, or indigenous communities around the world? How many of these products available at the Green Festival are available in brown and black groceries stories? How many are only available at predominantly white and bourgeois communities? Does the type of Fair Trade that Global Exchange engages in really contribute to the autonomy and ultimate liberation and self determination of the producing communities, or does it just further permeate codependencies on foreign intermediaries, which fill their pockets with the bulk of the loot and the clout of a supposed socially responsible capitalism? There is no dignity in NEEDING a foreigner to help you survive, but sharing and learning from one another towards an actual collective yet self determined liberation is something that we can work towards, without the help of the funding and media rat race of the NGO mafia.

More questions linger....
Why doesn't Global Exchange publish the profit break down of their organization on the web site, showing how much exactly they are keeping from the production of arts, crafts, and goods in indigenous communities throughout the global south?
Why doesn't Global Exchange publish the salaries of all their employees, in particular the founding members?
How about publishing the entire budget so we can see how much is spent on expensive hotels, meals, car rentals, office space etc, so that we can assess the sustainability of the organizations business practices?
While they're at it, why don't they publish photos of their meek homes and automobiles?
and
Why don't they show us where their kids are going to school, and how much that costs?

I think that these are the real questions that need to be answered, not the political orientation of the BWB, not the flaws of liberals and anarchists, and certainly not the flavor of the pie....
but rumor says it was banana cream.


Check out this video for further incrimination of Global Trade-Off. If this doesn't clear up the why of this pie, then you may be part of the problem.

It's not like the unions were some bastion of radical power in Seattle. Come on now.

The best way of undermining leaders is to stop letting them represent you. Do what you want and ignore them. As long as there is capitalism, there will always be those who want to control it through representation and mediation with the enemy. Thats just the way this society works. But the question is if you, in your practice, will let them control you or not.

...then you might want to actually TALK with someone (or even shout at them) rather than being a dickhead who comes from behind them and then sprints away. Duh.

Wow, your analysis is so advanced! Capitalism causes leaders! Yeah, that makes total sense especially when you look at precapitalist societies all the way back the neolithic, yeah, I don't see any leaders...and places like the soviet union were capitalism was banned, nope, no leaders there either. I guess you're right, leaders are a byproduct of capitalism!

"dont give them the recognision, just ignore the fuckers"

That's my policy regarding anarchists. Considering no one outside of the "scene" is even aware of anarchists it works pretty good. It's like they don't even exist. Anarchists are as of much influence and relevance to the average American as the KKK. Some wacky fringe group that when people are reminded of them they ask "Those guys are still around?! Wankers!".

Did i say that it was my only analysis of capitalism? Ofcourse not. It was just a short note about the struggle, our struggle, against capitalism.

Also, capitalism still existed in the sovietunion as much as in the rest of the world. It just took a slightly diffrent form there. You would know that if you had any analysis of what capitalism actually is.

Yes, ignore the anarchists if you want, and they will ignore you.

it's great wat ya did.

my longer original post spelled that out but mods killed it (MAYBE tech mistake but bull i bet). i was dumb enuf to use my real name and/or slap the sqaures and leftoids on the list around.
banned as usual...

As long as there is capitalism, there will always be those who want to control the struggle or movement through representation and mediation with the enemy. Thats just the way this society works.

The fact that you let them is a sign of the sad state of the so called struggle.

More questions linger....
"Why doesn't Global Exchange publish the profit break down of their organization on the web site, showing how much exactly they are keeping from the production of arts, crafts, and goods in indigenous communities throughout the global south?
Why doesn't Global Exchange publish the salaries of all their employees, in particular the founding members?
How about publishing the entire budget so we can see how much is spent on expensive hotels, meals, car rentals, office space etc, so that we can assess the sustainability of the organizations business practices?
While they're at it, why don't they publish photos of their meek homes and automobiles?
and
Why don't they show us where their kids are going to school, and how much that costs?"

If you are so hot and bothered to find this stuff out my suggestion would be to (if you haven't already) check out Global Exchange's 990s and other documents on Guidestar.org.

The pie thing is kind of played.

Is why Medea Benjamin? More importantly, why now?

It's not as if there's a grassroots left Benjamin's trying to coopt. I've actually never seen so little dissent in all of my life. There are no major anti-war actions. No protests against the Patriot Act. There was in fact a demonstration against the occupation in Palestine and nobody showed.

So what's Medea Benjamin trying to coopt? The deathly silence?

"Yes, ignore the anarchists if you want, and they will ignore you."

You need me a lot more than I need you.

Anarchism only works if everyone agrees to be an anarchist.

If you ignore everyone who's not an anarchist all that does is make you irrelevant...which is fine by most folks.

Haha, hate to break it to you, but we dont need you at all. The class struggle is not about converting people to this or that ideology, you fool!

Yeah, people dont know anarchists. And they dont know or like communists. And they fucking hate liberals so much that they would rather turn to the christian right than have to deal with you fuckers. So dont even try to pretend that anarchists are any diffrent than the rest of the so called movement.

The people who defends her seems to tho. And believe me, the workingclass can tell.

most anonymous here, even disparaging the anon. pie person

can't forget 1999, ever, we were there, in the moment, think about it, this is small small small return of krma for that alone

fyi below
guidestar is not all comprehenzive either, by

ORGANIZATION NAME
STATE


Global Exchange CA 2005 $1,561,689 990
the way

FORM 990 PART V - LIST OF OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, STATEMENT 10
TRUSTEES AND KEY EMPLOYEES
NAME AND ADDRESS
BAMA ATHREYA
SAN FRANCISCO CA 94110
MEDEA BENJAMIN

KIRSTEN IRGENS-MOLLER


DIRECTOR
40.00 44,891. 0. 0.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
40.00 49,771. 0. 0.

So just under 45 and 50K respectively. Well it's more than I make, but unless I'm mistaken Global Exchange is headquartered in San Francisco, where rent is not cheap. I think that if this is your criteria for a pie in the face you are going to have to make a lot of pies. You could save some money and still get the same effect with seltzer.

I'm shocked. Medea Benjamin makes less money than a schoolteacher.

Wow.

What corruption.

Fucking idiots.

Anarchists like getting picked on about as much as Christians, always bearing their cross. Typical. Somebody attacks an active opponent of the war, who has helped bring thousands of people into action – and the best you can do is hurl epitaphs.

Lame-O

Read her rebuttal.

More and more, the anarchist movement/scene is where the dull kids complain about everybody else. They are so stupid. They are so eating meat. They are so not wearing hoodies. They so shower. They don't riot. They make us fight. They want organization. They have leaders. They they they they they they.

Then you realize how stupid that whole way of thinking is and turn into the very liberal you always trashed. I've seen it about a thousands times.

Get some real politics, and then they'll call you an authoritarian.

It's not anarchists, it's their lame ass freelance PR department.

Since Medea's role in the Seattle protests (from way back in 1999) is still being thrown around by the justiers of this distorted attack... maybe we should shed a little light by quoting Medea's thinking at the time in more detail. I think she was wrong to personally block property destruction, but her actual quote is worth adding to the record here:

"Here is her statement from Z Magazine: "There has been some controversy about a quote from me that appeared in the New York Times Dec. 2. The quotation implied that I was calling for the arrest of those people who destroyed property in downtown Seattle during the WTO protest. I want to make it clear that the quote was distorted, taken out of context, and not reflective my true feelings. I did not call for the arrest of anyone, though I did point out the irony that the police were attacking nonviolent protesters while ignoring those destroying property. Do I wish the people causing the damage had been arrested? No. Would I have helped to get them out of jail if they had been? Yes. And I certainly apologize if the statement attributed to me has caused any harm to the anarchist community in general. Do I approve of the tactics that this particular group of self-described anarchists used in Seattle Nov. 30? Definitely not. That, not the distorted quote, is the real issue here. There are certainly occasions in which the destruction of property furthers the cause of social justice and helps garner public support, but this was not one of them. The Boston Tea Party is an example of the destruction of property a shipment of tea. When the Zapatistas rose up in 1994, they destroyed army posts and other symbols of a repressive state. Members of the religious community in the United States have destroyed weapons of mass destruction to express their profound moral opposition to war. And forest activists have destroyed the engines of bulldozers to prevent the clear-cutting of old-growth forests. "The list of tactically thoughtful and politically principled property destruction goes on and on. What these acts have in common is that they were the result of a long process of working with and gaining the support of the affected community. This was not the case in Seattle."

If that's liberal non-profitism... we could do worse.

"Since Medea's role in the Seattle protests (from way back in 1999) is still being thrown around by the justiers of this distorted attack... maybe we should shed a little light by quoting Medea's thinking at the time in more detail. I think she was wrong to personally block property destruction, but her actual quote is worth adding to the record here:"

I don't know if you're allowed to post videos by Alex Jones here but he actually accuses most of the anarchists as working for the police.

 http://youtube.com/watch?search=wto%2F&v=rhFvSRWYusc

I haven't seen him pied yet.

I would ofcourse reply to "not impressed", but i dont know what the fuck he is talking about. Why dont you just lay off the drugs, man.

As best as I can figure from the above and elsewhere, Medea and Global Exchange are guilty of:

1. Being good organizers. Code Pink is spreading, new chapters all the time, and GE is growing in strength and scope.

2. Being good at PR. They know how to get a positive antiwar message out a lot more than any anarchists, and most others, too.

3. Being successful fund raisers, at least compared to the rest of the radical left and anarchists, which, I'll admit, isn't saying much.

4. Helping third world people directly, both economically and politically.

5. Expanding the scope of the Greens far more than even the Greens do, especially by giving Green enterprises a venue to thrive, if they can.

6. Connecting mainstream feminism to the women of Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world, whether the liberals like it or not.

7. Giving Hillary a hard time over the war, along with all the other candidates

8. Being underpaid for what they do and how hard they work -- yes, an average schoolteacher makes more, and probably has better benefits.

9. Writing out her views and plans, signing them, and taking both praise and criticism well.

10. Putting up with being called a 'whore' by 'anti-authoritarian', 'anti-patriarchy' jerks who don't even know what a sexist insult is. I'll take that back, since I doubt if they'd call their mothers that if they got in an argument at home.


I could go on, but you get the idea. They don't like Medea because she shows up how pitiful their own efforts are, and how they haven't done anything very useful for anyone for several years now.

And, yes, she roasted them

Ok, so she is a fluffy liberal with a talent to rally people behind her soft, fluffy liberalism. Big deal.

Regardless of the merit of your claims against Medea Benjamin, your pie antic was stupid. Don’t you think most of us “on the left” aren’t aware of the pitfalls that you mention? Why didn’t you all stick around to vent after the pie was thrown rather than run? Is this your example of true democracy and solidarity?

Channel your anger, lest you become one of the many who’ve left “the left” because the right welcomed their self-righteous destructiveness. There have been many, usually happens around age 36. Immature lost souls that they are.

Why did your pie smasher run off? Your disrespect for a human being committedly doing what she believes best is what smug spoiled brats do. Probably never worked a day in the fields for your food, have never gone hungry and have always had running water. Go back to pre-school and learn some basic social skills. Then you can start to persuade the rest of us. Or are the many activist groups that come and go just for kids who opt-out once they burn off their defiance and parental antagonism?

Yes! Be creative, but persuasive and respectful. Your outrage, if well-founded, is more than wonderful, use it wisely. If you spend your time throwing dirt (or pies), thinking this will solve our planet’s miseries, you’re just losing ground and deepening the fault lines for the left to falter completely yet once more, including you. Criticism is essential to significant results. When it builds, not when it bullies. Why not confront Medea at this world forum and film it for us all to see her response? Instead, you chose to hit and run.

By the way, do any of the banana cream bakers know any history at all? Or said another way, how irresponsible to compare Code Pink to Pinkerton thugs.

(All text in quotes is from Wikipedia’s article on Emma Goldman).
“In New York City, Goldman met and lived with Alexander Berkman, who was an important figure of the anarchist movement in the United States at the time. The two became lovers, and remained close friends until his death in 1936. With the influence of anarchist writers such as Johann Most, Berkman and Goldman became convinced that direct action, including the use of violence, was necessary to effect revolutionary change (see propaganda of the deed).
Goldman and Berkman were consumed by the Homestead strike, where the strikers had seized the Homestead plant and locked out management. After Pinkerton detectives attempted to take back the factory and expel the strikers, a riot broke out, causing the deaths of several men. Berkman, with the support of Goldman, decided to take violent action in support of the strikers by assassinating the factory manager, Henry Clay Frick, in retaliation for his role in hiring Pinkerton detectives to retake the factory.”

See any analogies below?

“While Berkman and Goldman had believed they were following Johann Most's precepts for revolutionary change, they were soon disillusioned by their former mentor. One of Berkman's most outspoken critics after the assassination attempt was none other than Johann Most, who had always, noted Goldman, "proclaimed acts of violence from the housetops." Yet in Freiheit, Most attacked both Goldman and Berkman, implying Berkman's act was designed to arouse sympathy for Frick. According to the historian Alice Wexler, Most's motivations, may have been inspired by jealousy of Berkman, or possibly by his changing attitudes towards the effectiveness of political assassination as tool to force revolutionary change.
Goldman was enraged by Most's accusations. She was not angered by his implication of her complicity in the assassination plot, but by Most's criticism of the utility of the assassination, as well as the suggestion Berkman was attempting to arouse sympathy for Frick. Goldman promptly demanded that Most retract his criticism or prove his insinuation that she and Berkman were insincere in their revolutionary motivation. When he refused to reply, she carried a horsewhip to his next lecture. After he refused to speak to her, she lashed him across the face, then broke the whip over her knee and threw the pieces at him. She later regretted her assault, confiding to a friend, "At the age of twenty-three, one does not reason."

She later regretted it, but do you think Emma would have smashed a pie in someone’s face and run off? Everyone knew it was Emma, and she chose a whip, not whipped cream.

“After two years, Goldman and Berkman left Russia, having witnessed the full results of the Bolshevik rise to power. Her time there led her to reassess her earlier belief that the end justifies the means. Goldman accepted violence as a necessary evil in the process of social transformation. However, her experience in Russia forced a distinction. She wrote: "I know that in the past every great political and social change, necessitated violence.... Yet it is one thing to employ violence in combat as a means of defense. It is quite another thing to make a principle of terrorism, to institutionalize it to assign it the most vital place in the social struggle. Such terrorism begets counter-revolution and in turn itself becomes counter-revolutionary."

I’m not saying pie throwing equates to an act of terrorism, but no matter how much attention they call to an issue, violent acts of any degree, and particularly assaults on the person, are ultimately harmful to our hopes for a world with peace and human dignity. Plain and simple. Need examples of solidarity that have brought permanent changes to the power structure?: Ghandi, MLK, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. In Emma's time it was shortening the work day to 8 hours. Maybe just promoting a 35 hour work week might not seem revolutionary today, but think of how that would contribute to children, education, health, love and to organizing efforts. We just might have the time to bring about some radical changes with lasting and peaceful solidarity. Now that's revolutionary. Anger is a legitimate emotion that teaches us, but violence needs to become so stigmatized, that all humans, everywhere, show it no tolerance in any form, by whatever means. If not, we'll just keep going in ever-widening circles of poverty, militarization and de-evolution, destroying our species and our habitat, until one day the planet goes on its merry rotating way without any naked apes, because they chose hostility and attack on each other rather than solidarity and cooperation. Remember the Amazon native at the first Environmental Summit in Brazil who shamed the "advanced" society attendees with his sable-machete dance? His powerful message was more than any Wall Street Ad agency could have dreamed up, yet he didn't physically assault anyone. This is more creative than pie smashing, and isn't physically invasive: Next time do a mesmerizing "Shamen you" dance in which you energize the person to see things your way. Give them the opportunity to respond. Like it or not, we're all related, and all evolving or self-destructing together. Engage people creatively, and instead of whining about the pieces of the media and funds pie, let's dance and cooperate, not co-optate, so we can create and collectively enjoy the Whole Damn Pie Shop. Then and only then, those who want to celebrate in a free-for-all pie slapping World dance will have earned the right to use food to pie and be pied. And Bakers without Borders will likely, by popular demand, have the funds, the people, and the privilege of baking ALL the pies for this worldwide ego leveling experience!

Looks like I'm going to have to take Carl Davidson down a notch. I've found that he gets his panties in a knot whenever some prominent movement leader or group is being openly criticized. Carl's hostility towards anarchists is well known, especially in the Chicago area. What's really funny is when Carl plays the "let's get together for leftist unity" game, in conjunction with Burningman. This is funny because these two clowns are such obvious hypocrites. If people like Carl were truly in favor of left unity, they wouldn't attack other activists and would see the pieing of Medea as just another aspect of left culture.

Carl writes:

"As best as I can figure from the above and elsewhere, Medea and Global Exchange are guilty of:"

"1. Being good organizers. Code Pink is spreading, new chapters all the time, and GE is growing in strength and scope."

Carl here is changing the terms of this discussion. He is re-framing the discussion as one of pissy, do-nothing critics who are bellyaching about an activist and organizations who are "good organizers." This is disingenuous, because many of the people who are criticizing Medea Benjamin and Global Exchange are good organizers. We criticize them because we have experience working with them. I actually agree that Medea Benjamin is a good organizer, but she is also a grandstanding attention whore. I admire Medea for starting and organizing Code Pink. I admire that she engages in civil disobedience on a regular basis, something that other wannabe leaders of the anti-war movement will never do. But Medea is a public figure. She has said shitty things about other activists. She's in bed with the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. The fact that she gets paid very little is beside the point. Her NGOs cover her expenses and put her in a position of *power* where she can influence activism on behalf of the interests of her NGO supporters.

"2. Being good at PR. They know how to get a positive antiwar message out a lot more than any anarchists, and most others, too."

If getting publicity for disrupting Congressional hearings is "being good at PR", then Medea is good a PR. I'm not sure what disrupting Congressional hearings accomplishes, other than getting your face on the Daily Show and Fox News.

Anarchists are pretty good at PR, even though we don't put much effort into it. It's always amused me how good anarchists are at getting a wide range of media attention, while leftists like Davidson squirm off camera.

"3. Being successful fund raisers, at least compared to the rest of the radical left and anarchists, which, I'll admit, isn't saying much."

I'm sorry that we anarchists don't have much money. I guess when your movement is made up of real working class people, you don't have access to resources like the NGOs have. But guess what? I've seen anarchists do more with nothing when it would have cost NGOs thousands to accomplish the same thing.

Remember, people refer to NGOs as "checkbook activism" for good reasons.

"4. Helping third world people directly, both economically and politically."

Given that anarchists are found all around the Third World, I'm wondering what you are criticizing here. Anarchists are involved with all kinds of projects that aid the third world, or, Global South. I seem to remember hearing about this anarchist-dominated U.S. anti-globalization movement that made waves a few years back.

"5. Expanding the scope of the Greens far more than even the Greens do, especially by giving Green enterprises a venue to thrive, if they can."

The Greens? Are they still around?

"6. Connecting mainstream feminism to the women of Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world, whether the liberals like it or not."

I'm amazed that Medea Benjamin is single-handedly responsible for this! When does the poor woman ever sleep?

"7. Giving Hillary a hard time over the war, along with all the other candidates"

And Hillary reversed her position and stopped the...wait.. that didn't happen. From what I understand, there are certain anti-war groups who stopped protesting after being asked by the Democrats to stop.

"8. Being underpaid for what they do and how hard they work -- yes, an average schoolteacher makes more, and probably has better benefits."

Woo hoo! I win this round! I make far less than Medea and I'm a full time activist.

Where's my prize?

"9. Writing out her views and plans, signing them, and taking both praise and criticism well."

Give her credit, we anarchists haven't figured out how to write anything or pen an opinion. But then, this really isn't about anarchists vs. Medea, it's about people criticizing Medea and other NGO activists.

"10. Putting up with being called a 'whore' by 'anti-authoritarian', 'anti-patriarchy' jerks who don't even know what a sexist insult is. I'll take that back, since I doubt if they'd call their mothers that if they got in an argument at home."

Do you understand what an insult is? Do you honestly expect people to post insults using some kind of political correctness filter? No wonder working people don't take Carl Davidson seriously. You don't like us.

I think that "attention whore" is an appropriate criticism of Medea, at least when it comes to her disrupting events by herself. But I think this may be too strong a criticism, because I think Medea has her heart in the right place. But Medea is the one making the news.

"I could go on, but you get the idea. They don't like Medea because she shows up how pitiful their own efforts are, and how they haven't done anything very useful for anyone for several years now."

Carl, you really aren't very good at this flame war stuff. The people who criticize Medea aren't saying things because they aren't doing anything. If these critics weren't doing anything, why would they give a shit about Medea Benjamin? The fact, which is uncomfortable for you as an authoritarian, is that these people, which include some anarchists, are serious activists who feel a need to be critical of a prominent activist who may need to be cut down a notch.

Carl, you don't have to jump in and defend every movement leader and organization from us "do nothing" anarchists. People have a right to engage in public criticism. Deal with it.

"And, yes, she roasted them"

You last comment is called "wishful thinking," Carl.

What the hell does Emma Goldman got to do with anything? Oh my god, liberals can be so annoying sometimes.

Who the fuck cares if they pied her or not. If she sold out the anarchists in Seattle, i say good for them. They didnt like her so they pied her, so what? If they thought that she was worth debating they wouldnt have pied her in the first place!

They pied someone who wanted to be a spokesperson for "the movement". Ok. It doesnt make that much of a diffrence but they felt that it was important for them. Fine. Lets just move on now, ok?

What the hell does Emma Goldman got to do with anything? Oh my god, liberals can be so annoying sometimes.

Who the fuck cares if they pied her or not. If she sold out the anarchists in Seattle, i say good for them. They didnt like her so they pied her, so what? If they thought that she was worth debating they wouldnt have pied her in the first place!

They pied someone who wanted to be a spokesperson for "the movement". Ok. It doesnt make that much of a diffrence but they felt that it was important for them. Fine. Lets just move on now, ok?

You make my case on almost every point, 'anarchist.'

'Nonprofit-industrial complex'? My, my, such big words for groups who can get a grant or two or even more. Do I sense a little envy here?

NGO? Non-governmental Organization. Isn't that what we all are at the moment? Some are successful and productive, like Global Exchange. Some never get off the ground, like more than a few anarchist endeavors I've known.

I'm guilty as charged, 'anarchist.' I think our movement against the current order and its overlords needs both leadership and organization--and theory to boot. And Medea and GE, whatever their faults, have come up with both, and a little of the latter as well.

So when a few anarchist jerks try to tear them down and pull things in the opposite direction of less leadership and more primitive organization, I'm not the least intimidated by what goes for your 'left culture' these days. I call it a bunch of silly, juvenile, reactionary crap.

Your emperor has no clothes.

"So when a few anarchist jerks try to tear them down and pull things in the opposite direction of less leadership and more primitive organization, I'm not the least intimidated by what goes for your 'left culture' these days. I call it a bunch of silly, juvenile, reactionary crap. "

I don't think "anarchists" are trying to intimidate you, Carl. The action above is about NGO's, Medea Benjamin, and Social Forums. You're welcome to continue doing the same job you've been doing for the past four years advocating for a unified left coalition to combat the Iraq war. There's been a lot of sectarianism coming from you in defense of non-sectarianism and meanwhile a real unified anti-war coalition has appeared made up mostly of mainstream Democrats and more and more Republicanas who think the war has been a costly mistake. The left's caterwalling never reached them but they were able to make up their minds on their own. However, this mainstream coalition will just vote in the next bunch of whores. So where, Carl, has the left failed and why does it continue to fail? While you're thinking about it, a little nakedness might do you some good.

As an anonymous attack on an activist who's had some success at reaching people in the mainstream of American life, this action has the aroma of Cointelpro. The classic provocateur technique is to attack such activists, ostensibly from the left, in an attempt to discredit them within the movement and make them feel backstabbed.

But I've been on the left long enough to think it's more likely just stupid sectarian shit, from the kind of people who hate liberals more than they hate right-wingers. Like militant vegans who get all hyped up and nasty talking to a vegetarian who puts milk in their coffee but couldn't be bothered to organize a protest at a union-busting slaughterhouse.

Yeah, there are problems with the foundation model of funding activism, and a lot of people who work at nonprofits would be the first to tell you that. But this action isn't going to start any serious discussion of alternatives. It was either stupid "I'm purer than you" nonsense or a provocation from the far right's "defund the left" campaign.

I'm with 'ink-stained wretch' above, although Cointelpro was much more clever--and deadly--in their numbers on us. SSS is a better summary.

As for why the left is in such difficulties, despite large numbers at the USSF and the like, that answer would take a book.

But here's a few notes.

1. It doesn't know what it wants in today's world. All the definitions of the future in its pamphlets were written 50 years ago, save for throwing in references to feminism and gay liberation. They ignore the fact that Second Wave anti-market socialism is over, an evolutionary dead-end, despite the worship-the-dead cults around the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Earl Browder and endless variations on the 1930's Trotskyist Transitional Program. As for the poor anarchists, ever since sub-Commandante Marcos took a very wise right turn, IMHO, the best they can do is go back to arguing about the syndicates in the Spanish Civil War. There's been a revolution in the productive forces launching globalization and transforming the world, more often for the worse ecologically, and the best they can do is attack fledgling businesses that want to build solar, wind and wave turbines as NGO or social market economy sellouts. I actually had an anarchist in my workshop on strategy at the USSF calling for the total abolition of electricity as the first step in getting rid of civilization. I kid you not.

2. Even those who have an idea of where they might like to go, have few practical ideas on how to get there. They're all strategy, usually class against class, and no tactics, or all tactics, usually breaking windows and things, and no strategy. The same stupid debate over voting for reform Dems vs voting third party vs going fishing on election day has been going on for at least since I got involved in 1960--but hardly anyone seems interested in changing the electoral laws that make those boring arguments inevitable.

3. Finally, even if they have a notion of where to go and how, they hate the very notions of organization and leadership that can increase their strength and 'win friends and influence people' (btw, Dale Carnegie is a cousin of mine!) Instead, they form circular firing squads and try to tear down those who do make some progress, as in the pie-ing of Medea that started all this.


That's enough to chew on for a while.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but the group I work with does have a few decent working hypotheses on all of the above. Check out the web sites recommended below, if you're interested

Some ink-stained wretch wrote:

"As an anonymous attack on an activist who's had some success at reaching people in the mainstream of American life, this action has the aroma of Cointelpro. The classic provocateur technique is to attack such activists, ostensibly from the left, in an attempt to discredit them within the movement and make them feel backstabbed."

Oh please! Can you take your head out of your ass long enough to understand that criticism is part of daily life? What is up with leftists like yourself who scream "COINTELPRO" every time somebody raises a criticism of an activist or group. The movement has humans in it and as humans, we have opinions and criticism. Dismissing our opinions as being the work of the government is just asinine.

"But I've been on the left long enough to think it's more likely just stupid sectarian shit, from the kind of people who hate liberals more than they hate right-wingers. Like militant vegans who get all hyped up and nasty talking to a vegetarian who puts milk in their coffee but couldn't be bothered to organize a protest at a union-busting slaughterhouse."

And then we get sectarians who post to threads like this complaining about people being sectarian. Priceless.

"Yeah, there are problems with the foundation model of funding activism, and a lot of people who work at nonprofits would be the first to tell you that. But this action isn't going to start any serious discussion of alternatives. It was either stupid "I'm purer than you" nonsense or a provocation from the far right's "defund the left" campaign."

When and where is this discussion supposed to take place? Why not here, now?

Or do we have to travel all the way to Atlanta to talk to the NGOs on their own turf?

I happen to appreciate NGOs and the many good activists who work with them. But I think that people should have the right to bring up criticisms, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF US WHO WORK FOR NGOS OR HAVE EXPERIENCE WORKING FOR THEM. The criticism that people are reading here about Benjamin and the NGOs are probably written mostly by people with NGO experience. We know what goes on inside NGOs and how they work as a brake on social justice activism. We know how much resources they have acces to and how this compares with the scarcity of resources non-NGO grassroots groups have to deal with.

We're not going to have an open discussion until people drop the COINTELPRO-baiting and sectarianism.

Seriously.

Nobody.

Have people gone on record criticizing liberalism, ABB, and the role of NGOs?

You bet, lots of us including those involved in such institutions.

But the plain fact is that the projects Medea Benjamin has helped shepard are playing a great role in this country and when we look to see who the bad guys are... we have to see that it's not the people opposing imperialism, doing people-to-people projects and trying to inspire action far beyond their confines.

Global Exchange doesn't stop the anarchists from doing anything.

They do a fine job of that themselves.

"What is up with leftists like yourself who scream "COINTELPRO" every time somebody raises a criticism of an activist or group. The movement has humans in it and as humans, we have opinions and criticism. Dismissing our opinions as being the work of the government is just asinine."

It sure would be if that's what anybody said.

The issue is anonymous actions that target high-profile activists that spread disinformation and distrust.

I'm sorry, but the people who did this could be anybody, including (frankly) cops trying to stoke fires that have long since smoldered out.

"Anarchists" aren't attacking Global Exchange, the only employee I ever met from GE was an anarchist.

Nor did the people who attacked Benjamin claim the mantle of Anarchy (inc.).

Like Ink Stained Wretch, I imagine this was just a dumb sectarian assault that displayed a stunning lack of imagination. By refusing to take responsibility for the critique, it comes off as deeply sectarian.

Take instead the criticism put out by Incite. That was a reasoned, smart and to the point critique that was all over the USSF. They sold out their books, to the very target audience for the criticism.

Instead of turning people into objects to make a point, Incite engaged the people manning and developing these NGOs, as well as activists who float through that ether to deal with the structural inadequacies of such an approach.

Smart cookies.

But this? It throws mud, it isn't sweet – and if anything takes away from the real problems we have to overcome.

The use of anonymous, unsiged and sectarian attacks meant to inspire distrust between groups with genuine conflict was IN FACT one of the most effective means that Cointelpro brought havoc to groups. They'd through sparks into tinder and then watch people consume themselves who knew no better.

That's why it's good to mention, so we don't repeat the same mistakes.

Those who hate the left, like the people claiming to be anarchists who spam Indymedia anonymously – why don't you just take it elsewhere? If you hate it so much, that does nothing to explain your inadequacies. You aren't defined by who you hate, it just makes you another hater.

"I would ofcourse reply to "not impressed", but i dont know what the fuck he is talking about. Why dont you just lay off the drugs, man."

Like at the upcoming Crimethinc jamboree where you are such puritans you forbid beer drinking and smoking because they are supposedly afraid of gang rape or something? You guys are so puritanical you can't handle normal socializing and feel this deep need to govern everyone else's diet, behavior and drinking habits.

It's not Medea Benjanmin's fault your scene mainly consists in complaining about other people, talking about individuality while wearing a uniform.

In other words, it's nobody else's fault that anarchists can't dance. You talk about love, then hate people for not living up to your insane puritanical demands.

What a stupid "action".

If anarchists want to do something constructive, why don't you print up your critique at hand it out at the USSF? I was there and didn't hear anything about this prank. If you'd handed out a few thousand cards explaining the issue you might have made an impression about more than how juvenile you are. Oh. I forgot, anarchists hate sharing information. They think it's authoritarian "paper-pushing".

Right. Attacking people = good. Explaining why = authoritarian.

I guess anarchists are like Deadheads. They'll always be over there on the fringe playing out their glory years.

– former-@ from like 8 years ago, still anti-authoritarian and proud

Anarchists are always victims.

It's not fair to hold us accountable because unlike everyone else, we are individuals. We believe in freedom, which means we can assault people, spread rumors, do whatever we want, but other people are always trying to control us because they are to blame for even our mistakes.

So lay off!

Being an anarchist means never having to say you're sorry. Don't you authoritarians get hat yet?

If someone wants to have a discussion about the role of NGOs, by all means, go ahead.

But there's a BIG difference between criticism and destructive attack, and that's what I have a problem with.

If someone says "I have a problem with the NGO model of activism," that's valid. But if someone throws a pie in a well-known activist's face while calling her names and making dubious allegations about her, that's either stupid sectarianism or deliberate disruption.

It's not about never questioning "leaders." It's about that people who are in more or less the same movement should treat each other with some degree of respect.

We are not in the same movement as her.

But I'll have to quote Marx on this:

""As an anonymous attack on an activist who's had some success at reaching people in the mainstream of American life, this action has the aroma of Cointelpro. The classic provocateur technique is to attack such activists, ostensibly from the left, in an attempt to discredit them within the movement and make them feel backstabbed."

THE FIRST TIME AS TRAGEDY. THE SECOND TIME AS FARCE.

If this were Cointelpro (and I'm not saying it is) how silly Cointelpro has become. The FBI/NYPD is getting soft. In the 60s, they arranged fights between various panther sects where people actually got killed.

Here all they managed was a pie in Medea Benjamin's face and a lot of publicity for said Ms. Benjamin.

In fact, the cops reading this site are probably laughing their asses off (or just reading porn on company time). Doing cointelpro must be the easiest job on earth right now since there's not much of an opposition to disrupt and they all do it so well themselves.

What it all really is is a sing of weakness on the "left". No wonder Ron Paul and the right is getting all the coverage on the anti-war front right now. At least he managed to piss of Giuliani.

...so "we" know how to avoid you.

That's hilarious. I love when right-wing dopes come here to play @sshole.

If you actually believed in anarchism, which some folks do in these here parts, you'd know that means more than being a jerk. Unfortunately for the right-wing keyboard kommandos, they don't just not know the difference – they don't know any other way to be.

At this point, I'm writing up the "@" comments as trolls. My guess: male and unsexed.

"At this point, I'm writing up the "@" comments as trolls. My guess: male and unsexed."

What could be more patriarchal than judging a person by how many women they fuck?

I swear every time anarchists say anything they just get more and more ridiculous. Right now anarchists are pretty much on the same level as 9/11 conspiracy kooks as far as I'm concerned.

Oh ya and judging by Dick Cheney's escort service exploits I would say he is highly sexed. I guess we should all bow before the mighty cock of Dick Cheney! What an upstanding man!

"What could be more patriarchal than judging a person by how many women they fuck?"

When an "anarchist" has the same obsession with Medea Benjamin and Code Pink that a lot of right-wingers do it makes you think...

The whole turnabout/gotcha "oh look how sexist you leftists are" is also pretty standard for right-wingers.

"Oh ya and judging by Dick Cheney's escort service exploits I would say he is highly sexed. I guess we should all bow before the mighty cock of Dick Cheney! What an upstanding man!"

Never heard anything about Dick Cheney's exploits with escort services. Is that something going around in Protest Warrior/Gathering of Eagle circles?

Honestly, I wouldn't have pegged you for a right-winger until you started with the turnabout/gotcha bullshit. The idea that "leftists" have to be pure to the point of never talking about sex is something no leftist believes.

You mustn't have been around for the Bill Clinton years when every feminist was speculating about Kenn Starr and what exactly his motives were.

"Honestly, I wouldn't have pegged you for a right-winger until you started with the turnabout/gotcha bullshit. The idea that "leftists" have to be pure to the point of never talking about sex is something no leftist believes."

So calling out people on sexist bullshit is now considered a "gotcha"?

What's next? Insulting people by insinuating they're gay?

"What's next? Insulting people by insinuating they're gay?"

You used this same script here a few months ago. You showed up exactly at the same time as the guy who wanted to get rid of the "Assata Shakur Center" sign at City Collge.

Busted :)

What's ironic about this is that those who are so quick to condemn Medea for an eight-year-old accusation about sticking with the cops are also the first to police the struggle. I don't know who did the pieing, but for those of us serious about this shit, the enemy is capitalism, its fangs of war and poverty, and its poisonous stenches of racism, sexism, homophobia, and the rest of it. Not Medea. If she doesn't organize in the style that you like or meet your purity tests, then out-organize her. Otherwise, you're just another variation of the trots haranguing us all about not following their correct line: maybe a pie is not a newspaper, but it is more of the same old shit getting fed to us.

Personally, I think she does some good work, but this shouldn't be about the personal.

Yeah thats right, im a troll, coninteprol, yadda yadda yadda cuz i think she is a fluffy liberal. Whatever dudes. United fronts uber alles!

There is a near infinite number of non-sequitir acts a person could perform involving food. So why the pie in the face? The perpetrators of this prank are relying on the dead labor of thousands of performers. Who came up with the idea of throwing a pie in someone's face for laughs? Max Senate, Charlie Chaplin? Some performer who died in obscurity? I think it’s likely that the pie in the face gag began some time in the silent film era. It works great in the absence of sound and populations arriving from Europe getting their first taste of the privilege in the United States could get a good laugh out of the relative abundance they
experienced. So several decades, thousands of pies and thousands of hours of the dead labor of comic performers later what did the perpetrators of this recent prank introduce into the equation? Seems like not much. If the intent was to start a dialogue it looks as though they were relying upon others to do that for them. That the dialogue they wanted to see did not happen is a failure that is entirely theirs. I suppose that if activism radicalizes and transcends the non-profit model they'll want to claim some of the credit. I think we've gotten out of it what they put into it which is not very much.

(excuse any repeat postings, having a little computer trouble)

and the "pie people" = @ssholes.

Get over ourselves?

Sorry bud, but I'm not going around shitting on people and then complaining about the smell.

Thank god you goofballs are only a pain when you manage to get out of bed, which doesn't seem all that often.

Direct Action cannot be Televised!

Since Seattle, global financial and trade organizations have been honing up their media image. To get us to bargain with them they have tried to look sympathetic and concerned. The meeting in Prague was full of talk about poverty. During the meeting in Prague a World Bank ad said “the purpose of the World Bank has always been fighting poverty.” Another mentions “justice for all”. The World Bank seems to have learned from the media master—Bill Clinton--how to create a compassionate image. In Seattle Clinton said, “I sympathize with the protestors.” Then Tony Blair (a man famous for copying Clinton’s tricks) made a similar statement during the oil price/tax road blockades in September. He expressed sympathy but said in his public-school accent that he disagrees with their methods and that “they’re not going through the proper channels”. As if he would have conceded to their demands if they’d been more polite. A week later in Prague we hear the same Clintonesque bullshit, a World Bank representative said: “We sympathize with the questions the protestors are proposing but we disagree with their methods. We think they’re going about this in the wrong way. We want dialogue not force.” Then, another World Bank representative said: “These are important meetings, about ending AIDS and poverty; what we want is dialogue not diatribes….We want a globalization that will benefit everybody.” And to top it off, James Wolfenson, President of the World Bank said: “Poverty is in our neighborhood wherever we live.” I’d love to be the poor person that lives in his neighborhood.

The fact that the World Bank wants dialogue is a measure of our success in the streets. They are desperate for us to choose dialogue over direct action because they know that dialogue with them would be ineffective, that they could never really concede to our demands. They can listen to us, politely respond, even make minor adjustments, but they all eventually go home to a gated community of oblivion and have a martini. This is why they want to channel the force of our direct action into appeals, petitions and attempts to manipulate the mainstream media. The first step in this process is sorting out who should be represented; to let us fight amongst ourselves for who gets the best media representation. Even the BBC recognized the recent rise of Direct Action as a tactic in an article about Prague and the September road blockades; of course, they think this is a bad thing. Our enemies recognize the power of our direct action and are taking counter measures. The fact that they beg for dialogue exposes their fear and thus our power. The scraps handed down to us in order to appease us and divert us must be refused. Compromise with any transcendent institution (the State, WTO, WB, IMF, the Party etc.) is always the alienation of our power to the very institutions we supposedly wish to destroy; this sort of compromise results in the forfeiture of our power to act decisively, to make decisions and actions in the time we choose. As such, compromise only makes the state and capital stronger.

These image games are smoke signals sent to lure us into the media den, a place where ideas become opinion that is endlessly produced and reproduced and nothing is actually done. The media den is a place where thought becomes inept; thought is divorced from action when it becomes merely choice of position. To defer action in hope that such representation will lead to a change in WB or IMF policy for example is to give up our own capacity to act when and where action is necessary: to leave the decision to others and resign one's own power. If one opposes capitalism as a whole then such a tactic is especially absurd: the WB or IMF would never dismantle itself. The media den is the master of manipulation, it intoxicates us until we are satisfied to leave matters in other hands. Meanwhile, we lose our most effective weapon, our capacity to act. In acting we create social relations; in practice the struggling multitude self-organizes. But organization always poses the danger of limiting our active power.

On the internet and in several publications some people have begun to call on the ‘direct action’ milieu to move away from confrontation. This points to what is perhaps the biggest danger to the continuing struggle against capitalism, the danger posed by those within ‘the movement’ who are waiting for a chance to represent the movement in a dialogue with the institutions of capital and with the state, those willing to compromise, to end the “deadlock”, to petition for a scrap. Such compromisers usually work within various permanent organizations that have grown up within the movement whose prime focus is the media. But the work of these organizations aims at effecting ‘public opinion’ and getting a back seat at the table of power, and involves a complex process of managing the image of the multitude that rises up against the institutions of capital. Within their heads, these organizers chant the mantra “only that which appears in the media exists,” as they frantically go from one interview to the next, for in the end they are more interested in what is on TV than what is going on in the streets, in the woods, in the night. This involves two steps. First, such organizations attempt to organize and discipline the multitude of active individuals involved in the struggle. Second, they attempt to manage the representation of the action in the media.

The first step involves taking a multitude, an undisciplined conglomeration of individuals and groups with different desires, and shaping them as best as possible into a mass of disciplined bodies. Foremost, this means separating decision from the necessity of its moment and setting rules of behavior that stand above all the participants. This has even meant physically stopping people from acting and turning people into police. The organizers are willing to sacrifice the most active in order to get a seat at the table of power. This attempt to contain the action is usually only partially successful and the media organizations mill us down in their image-factories to produce material for constructing a ‘proper’ representation, cutting off the pieces that don’t conform to their bland tastes. They become the spokespeople, eagerly offering themselves up to the media in easily digestible bite size morsels. The spin-doctors speak for the movement, naming it in their image, always hoping for a bigger slice of the evening, half-hour pie. But those who wish to fight on the terrain of image, base their strategic decisions on an idealized notion of political discourse. In fact, this notion of political discourse is no different from the story that the media and democracy tells about itself. Can the organizers be so naïve?

Of course, contrary to the dominant notion of political discourse to which the organizers subscribe, there is no open terrain of political exchange and participation; what we have is a spectacular apparatus of images that produce and regulate ‘public opinion.’ Public opinion is not something that is first found among the public in general and then afterwards replayed through the media, as a simple reporting of the public mood. An opinion is produced by the media itself; it is a flattened, uniformed idea devoid of all life and connection with desire that is reproduced a million fold through the media. Public opinion is offered up to the passive consumer as one more commodity, as a simple choice: are you for globalization or for national protection? Are you for third-world debt relief or should they pay what they owe? No thinking necessary; we fall right into place, or we are supposed to. Opinions are massified ideas, and offer no hope of communicating our desires for a qualitatively different world. Can the organizers be so naïve? The question that the media organizations constantly pose to us is, should we follow Tony Blair and the World Bank’s advice and leadership and join in a dialogue with power? Should we forgo our active powers and move the struggle from direct action and attack into the struggle over image? Our very strength is the creative use of our active powers of attack; their greatest strength is their control over the technologies of image reproduction, the media. If we want to completely destroy the present order, we can’t win by fighting on TV.

Well I don't watch TV. I can't get any reception without cable in my building. So you are going to have to explain to me about this "Media den." Is it a real place where I can make empirical observations and through the persistence of memory understand it from one day to the next, or is it some shit you made up and can redefine as you see fit whenever it's convenient for you to change the subject.

Running around playing tag with the cops outside various summits is a lot more fun than it is effective. Legal permitted actions a few blocks away share the goal of getting on TV or in the paper. That is what all the running around is about, yes? I hope you realize that it's as symbolic as any cardboard costume. I suppose the difference is that you're giving the cops some overtime and some practice for containing organic urban rebellion. Oh and then there's making paperwork for insurance clerks. What else? That one time when the limos had to go the other way?

Stopping a meeting about global capitalism is much different than stopping global capitalism.

The point of the article was to criticise representation and "affecting public opinion", and so on and so forth (i.e the things we have been talking about in this thread). Im sorry if you are not intelligent enough to understand that. Obviously, summit protest is besides the point.

So let me understand this, you don't want to affect public opinion?
Was the pie theatre? If so for who? If not why not?
All that brain power and the best you could come up with is a joke that predates talkies. A joke that probably got laughs the very first time because people felt relieved that food or lack thereof was no longer the immediate concern it had been in the past. Did you even consider seltzer? Another possibility might be dumping a few hundred ping pong balls on the subject. Some might get dented but you could retrieve and re-use those for a long time to come. The ping pong balls I think are the best choice. The seltzer presents the risk of electrocution and you can never be 100% certain that someone isn't allergic to the ingredients of a pie. Did you really not know that 990s are public records? It might have been good to have the information contained in such a document ahead of time for inclusion in some sort of statement. However, that would only work if such information supported your position. Did you intend for any dialogue to be relegated to low priority afterthought comprised of half assed situationist boilerplate?
Are you trying to say that the action speaks for itself? Given what you have to say I suppose it had better.

I wasnt part of the piethrowing people. I would guess tho that they arent too intressting in having a dialoge with her.

My one experience w/ Medea Benjamin was a year or so back at the Community Church in NYC. There was a talk with several women from Iraq, a lawyer, a trade unionist and several Iraqi women physicians. They had barely managed to get into the US for the talk. One of the women was actually detained at Kennedy and turned away, sent back to Iraq. So it took a lot for these women to get here to speak to new yorkers.

The event was organized by several groups including Code Pink. At the event, Cindy Sheehan spoke briefly. Then Medea Benjamin spoke, making a lengthy speech. Afterwards, the Iraqi women were only given about five minutes each to speak. So we listened to two white american women for almost a half hour (most of it Medea shooting her mouth off about nothing) and then we got to hear a whole fifteen minutes of the concerns of Iraqi women direct from the war zone.

I found the event to be disappointing and distastefully racist. I would have much preferred a VERY short intro from Medea and Cindy Sheehan followed by an expanded talk from the Iraqi women. But I got the sense that day that Medea was more interested in enjoying her media whore status at the expense of the Iraqi women present. She used the event to do further self promotion and promotion for Code Pink.

So, yeah, I'm glad the b***h got pied. She deserves it!!

"I found the event to be disappointing and distastefully racist. I would have much preferred a VERY short intro from Medea and Cindy Sheehan followed by an expanded talk from the Iraqi women. But I got the sense that day that Medea was more interested in enjoying her media whore status at the expense of the Iraqi women present. She used the event to do further self promotion and promotion for Code Pink."

1.) You need to tell us who you are. You could be right. But, then again, attacks on Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink, Gotcha/Turnarounds accusing peace activists of "racism" are a common right wing tactic. But who knows, you could be right.

2.) How much did the Iraqi women have prepared for the event? Did they want to give long presentations or had they only prepared short speeches? We don't know this.

Remember, Edward Everett spoke for two hours at Gettysburg and Lincoln only for 5 minutes. I don't think Everett was "racist" against Lincoln.

So you might be right. You might be full of shit. We just don't know.

"So let me understand this, you don't want to affect public opinion?
Was the pie theatre? If so for who? If not why not?"

It didn't come out of some heated discussion about organizing a particular event, wasn't tied to a particular group, didn't really have a point.

I could have seen the point had she been on the steering committee of a major demonstration and they were keeping some people (Palestinians, Libertarians, Michael Lerner, who the fuck ever) off the speakers list in some kind of heavy handed way.

(and UFPJ and the mainstream peace movement certainly do this)

But this came out of nowhere. Just an attack on Code Pink (a favorite target of the extreme right) and some vague accusations from an event that took place 7 years ago.

Who are you people?

Media whore?

Yeah, I hate when people put on programs and panels. I just hate that. I really hate when they get on TV, especially with a message I agree with more or less. The more they are like me, but not my "friend", the more I disdain them.

Is Medea a liberal? Well, no shit.

But the pretense that what she does stops any of you from doing anything.. that there is some magical "cooptation" machine that larger (mostly non-foundation funded) projects exert over your "true" resistance is pretty funny.

What has GX stopped any of you from doing? The first time I met them they were bringing scores of everyday people down to the autonomous areas of Chiapas to meet people and learn about the fight there. Nothing wrong with that.

Instead of doing something your own damn self, these inbred scenesters have lost all bearings.

What makes this even better is that the exact same type who attacked Medea also disdain all political organizations organized around a socialist program. Because that's "authoritarian". So what we end up with is anarchists angry at the people who aren't as paralyzed as them.

This whole dynamic got old a few years ago. But it's all over. At the last Left Forum, lo' and behold, an anarchist had to be removed for threatening to kill someone on a panel and then attacking one of the event organizers.

How low can you go? Apparently even lower as you don't even believe in accountability beyond personal shaming and cannibalistic attacks.

Its always the same. Somone gets criticised for her politics (the article fucking destroys Medea and everything she stands for. Good job!) and all you can answer is "yeah? Well....well....do something yourself! Oh....and you smell! So there!" It really says something about you. Not to mention how pathetic it is.

And the whole united front shit is so lame. I mean, it failed as early as 36! It is crap!

But noooo united front uber alles! Everybody else are fascists, rightwingers and cointelpro. Why else would anybody wanna destroy this mighty movement wich is just about to overthrow capitalism! Oh wait....no they are not. They cant even stop a shitty war.

Get over yourselves.

"At the last Left Forum, lo' and behold, an anarchist had to be removed for threatening to kill someone on a panel and then attacking one of the event organizers."

I wish I could have seen that! Anything to break the mind numbing monotony of boring speakers blabbing on about academic bullshit that is Left Forum.

@ opened bowels and said:

>>Somone gets criticised for her politics (the article fucking destroys Medea and everything she stands for. Good job!) and all you can answer is "yeah? Well....well....do something yourself! Oh....and you smell! So there!"<<

That's because
1) Anarchists still don't do anything. And
2) They still smell.

"Its always the same. Somone gets criticised for her politics (the article fucking destroys Medea and everything she stands for. Good job!) and all you can answer is "yeah? Well....well....do something yourself!"

I'm not totally against negative criticism. Sometimes you just don't have an alternative. And I'm not totally against agitprop like throwing a pie in someone's face.

The problem was that the event where Benjamin got attacked was an open forum designed to showcase the various alternatives people have.

There was no security. Throwing a pie in someone's face at an event like this is a bit like deleting all someone's e-mail after he gives you his password than walking around and talking about what a great hax0r you are.

Save the pies for the Dick Cheneys and Don Rumsfelds of the world. Sure you may do a bit of jail time but at least you'd be making a tangible protest (against the security of the event) and not just being an infant.

Now if Benjamin or Lesie Cagan or anybody else was preventing you from speaking, then by all means fire up the cream pies and throw to your hearts content.

And in the past they've done that. But it seems strange that the pie throwers mentioned Israel's invasion of Lebanon only a month after UFPJ and the mainstream anti-war movement actually held a march against the Israeli occupation of Palestine (one which very few people showed up at but which Medea Benjamin did).

Add to that the use of the classic Rush Limbaugh/Protest Warrior Turnaround/Gotcha accusations from anonymous "anarchists" and of course people are going to make accusations of trolling.

That's just reality.

Obviously anarchists do plenty of things and dont smell bad. Its just a ridicilous charge by people who cant handle criticism.

Oh well, this thread is dead anyway. Its just ad hoc now. Typical of indymedia.

What about Nation of Islam? They have done a lot to "set back" and "coopt" the "movement" in "people of color" areas. I guarantee none of you fuckers are gonna run up and try to put pie in the face of someone from NOI. Wow, throw a pie in the face of some middle waged white broad. You're fucking bad.

“That's my policy regarding anarchists. Considering no one outside of the "scene" is even aware of anarchists it works pretty good. It's like they don't even exist.”

Dude, that’s the way I deal with the entire radical milieu, right and left. Your politics and programs have no appeal and no chance of ever being implemented in the U.S. so nobody pays any attention to you over here. Or, more properly put, radical politics represent the fringes of society and appeal to fringe elements. That’s why these intense arguments are so silly to those of us on the outside. We don’t understand why you nuts can’t work together but we’re glad that you can’t.

Yes Ms. Benjamin is a media whore but the “pie thing” is definitely played out, at least for adults. For an activist organization or even an individual activist to do this to make a political point is pretty sad and I doubt it changed anyone’s opinion about her or Global Exchange. Her detractors are stoked for scoring a hit, her supporters view her even more positively than before, and the rest of us could care less.

Grow up and out of your fantasy ideologies and political role-playing. The real world is an exciting and interesting place.

"Her detractors are stoked for scoring a hit, her supporters view her even more positively than before, and the rest of us could care less"

Since you hang out here an awful lot and took the time to write a long post talking about how you couldn't care less about those damned fanatics.

"Dude, that’s the way I deal with the entire radical milieu, right and left. Your politics and programs have no appeal and no chance of ever being implemented in the U.S"

You mean like the right-wing extremist politics that have been running the US government for the past 6 years. Not so bright are you there Nestor?

Both Davidson and Burningman participate and post on Indymedia for one primary reason. Which is, albeit behind gritted teeth, they recognize that anarchist ideas and anti-authoritarian politics that embrace the principles of direct action and revolutionary direct democracy have far more appeal with young people in this period than either recycled Maoist platitudes (Burningman) or warmed over formulas for "market socialism", compromised NGOs and liberal pop fronts. (Davidson). Their desire to engage here and wage 'ideological struggle" is a tacit acknowlegement that these ideas are spreading, despite their misgivings, and the politics they embrace have no momentum.

Perhaps Davidson and Burningman take part in the discussion here because they can actually express themselves through language rather than through vulgar displays of pie throwing.

Really? That was news to me. I have only ever seen them throw secterian dirt on anarchists.

Uh, pardon me, but "sectarian dirt?" Both literally and metaphorically speaking, anarchism is filthy because its adherents refuse to wash not because people point out that they smell.

Violence, contrary to popular belief, is not part of the anarchist philosophy. It has repeatedly been pointed out by anarchist thinkers that the revolution can neither be won, nor the anarchist society established and maintained, by armed violence. Recourse to violence then is an indication of weakness, not of strength, and the revolution with the greatest possibilities of a successful outcome will undoubtedly be the one in which there is no violence, or in which violence is reduced to a minimum, for such a revolution would indicate the near unanimity of the population in the objectives of the revolution. ... Violence as a means breeds violence; the cult of personalities as a means breeds dictators--big and small--and servile masses; government--even with the collaboration of socialists and anarchists--breeds more government. Surely then, freedom as a means breeds more freedom, possibly even the Free Society! To Those who say this condemns one to political sterility and the Ivory Tower our reply is that 'realism' and their 'circumstantialism' invariably lead to disaster. We believe there is something more real, more positive and more revolutionary to resisting war than in participation in it; that it is more civilised and more revolutionary to defend the right of a fascist to live than to support the Tribunals which have the legal power to shoot him; that it is more realistic to talk to the people from the gutter than from government benches; that in the long run it is more rewarding to influence minds by discussion than to mould them by coercion.

Source: Vernon Richards, "Anarchism and violence" in What Is Anarchism?: An Introduction by Donald Rooum, ed. (London: Freedom Press, 1992, 1995) pp. 50-51.

... violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism.

Source: Errico Malatesta, "Anarchism, Authoritarian Socialism and Communism" in What Is Anarchism?: An Introduction by Donald Rooum, ed. (London: Freedom Press, 1992, 1995) p. 59.

A second hazard facing mass movements is the NGO-isation of resistance. It will be easy to twist what I'm about to say into an indictment of all NGOs. That would be a falsehood. In the murky waters of fake NGOs set up to siphon off grant money or as tax dodges (in States like Bihar, they are given as dowry), of course there are NGOs doing valuable work. But it's important to turn our attention away from the positive work being done by some individual NGOs, and consider the NGO phenomenon in a broader political context.

In India, for instance, the funded NGO boom began in the late 1980s and 1990s. It coincided with the opening of India's markets to neoliberalism. At the time, the Indian state, in keeping with the requirements of structural adjustment, was withdrawing funding from rural development, agriculture, energy, transport, and public health. As the state abdicated its traditional role, NGOs moved in to work in these very areas. The difference, of course, is that the funds available to them are a minuscule fraction of the actual cut in public spending. Most large well-funded NGOs are financed and patronised by aid and development agencies, which are in turn funded by Western governments, the World Bank, the U.N., and some multinational corporations. Though they may not be the very same agencies, they are certainly part of the same loose, political formation that oversees the neoliberal project and demands the slash in government spending in the first place.

Why should these agencies fund NGOs? Could it be just old-fashioned missionary zeal? Guilt? It's a little more than that.

NGOs give the impression that they are filling the vacuum created by a retreating state. And they are, but in a materially inconsequential way. Their real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right. They alter the public psyche. They turn people into dependent victims and blunt the edges of political resistance. NGOs form a sort of buffer between the sarkar and public. Between Empire and its subjects. They have become the arbitrators, the interpreters, the facilitators of the discourse. They play out the role of the "reasonable man" in an unfair, unreasonable war.

In the long run, NGOs are accountable to their funders, not to the people they work among. They're what botanists would call an indicator species. It's almost as though the greater the devastation caused by neoliberalism, the greater the outbreak of NGOs. Nothing illustrates this more poignantly than the phenomenon of the U.S. preparing to invade a country and simultaneously readying NGOs to go in and clean up the devastation.

In order to make sure their funding is not jeopardised and that the governments of the countries they work in will allow them to function, NGOs have to present their work - whether it's in a country devastated by war, poverty or an epidemic of disease - within a shallow framework more or less shorn of a political or historical context. At any rate, an inconvenient historical or political context. It's not for nothing that the "NGO perspective" is becoming increasingly respected.

Apolitical (and therefore, actually, extremely political) distress reports from poor countries and war zones eventually make the (dark) people of those (dark) countries seem like pathological victims. Another malnourished Indian, another starving Ethiopian, another Afghan refugee camp, another maimed Sudanese... in need of the white man's help. They unwittingly reinforce racist stereotypes and re-affirm the achievements, the comforts, and the compassion (the tough love) of Western civilisation, minus the guilt of the history of genocide, colonialism, and slavery. They're the secular missionaries of the modern world.

Eventually - on a smaller scale, but more insidiously - the capital available to NGOs plays the same role in alternative politics as the speculative capital that flows in and out of the economies of poor countries. It begins to dictate the agenda.

It turns confrontation into negotiation. It depoliticises resistance. It interferes with local people's movements that have traditionally been self-reliant. NGOs have funds that can employ local people who might otherwise be activists in resistance movements, but now can feel they are doing some immediate, creative good (and earning a living while they're at it). Charity offers instant gratification to the giver, as well as the receiver, but its side effects can be dangerous. Real political resistance offers no such short cuts.

The NGO-isation of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in.

Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.

Source: "Public Power in the Age of Empire" by Arundhati Roy. Online at  http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2121/stories/20041022008300400.htm

Yeah, like i said; you are only capable of throwing dirt. You dont contribute anything to any discussion except for secterianism and namecalling. Its so god damn pathetic.

Am I namecalling? Yes. Because when you're a dick, you get called a dick.

1) Anarchists do stink, literally. Ask anyone who's had to be in proximity of them for any extended period of time. It's a part of the whole anti-social anarchist mindset that adopts the most grating practices for the purposes of keeping the movement as lily white and male as possible.

2) Anarchists do stink, metaphorically and it's because due to their inability to purge their own filth. Anarchists who advocate for pedophilia don't get pied or even particularly picked on; they instead get feature status in anarchist magazines and are actually taken seriously. The primitivists who suggest worldwide genocide aren't condemned, they're exalted. There were even pleas for mercy toward actual, proven snitches who helped get fellow anarchists in jail.

I guess the truth hurts, and in this case it's got a lot more force than a pie to the face.

Hehe, you keep calling everybody else "a dick" so much that you dont even realise that YOU are the only dick around here. How very sad.

Wow, 96+ comments! For this?

Not for the entire USSF?

That would be funny if it wasn't so deeply telling.

CodePink and Global Exchange, two projects bottom-lined by Medea Benjamin have been among the most effective, radical and participatory NGOs in the country. Aside from the fact that they aren't primarily foundation-funded, worth noting, they have in different ways worked to build both infrastructure and in-their-face protest through years when many groups just put their head in the sand about what's going on.

Look around, for Christ's sake!

Maybe I'm missing it, but the anarchists seemed very much victims of their own hype. They'd show up at much larger events, get into a rumble with the cops after wearing their arrest-me uniforms... then claim credit for the entire protest because they provided confrontation images for the TV.

Then, when the dust settled, they were still the same endemic subculture they were before it all began. Except this time they had a sense of deep entitlement regarding their own relative importance. So a few jerks in the freelance anarchy-inc. PR department started picking fights on behalf of this inchoate movement.

They denounced ANSWER (mostly), but UFPJ as well. They constitutionally hate the RCP, and its various initiatives. They disdain liberals (except when folks like Chomsky endorsed John Kerry just like the CP and Medea Benjamin).

When other activists, who don't think some boogyman called "authority" or "power" is itself the problem, get fed up with the entitled, judgemental and profoundly moralistic black hole that is contemporary anarchy incorporated – then the anarchists cry victim. Always "betrayed", even if the betrayal consists of nothing more than refusing to get dumped on.

Everyone who once identified as an anarchst raise your hand. That's easy to do. It's a way of saying "I hate capitalism, and fear the people as anything besides victims in permanent rebellion against permanent subordination". So those who identify as anarchists are a carosel, with a few long-timers who are so immersed in their scene that they've lost all touch with the rest of our common, shared reality. They think we are in Barcelona 70 years ago just like the Trots carry around their 1917 magazines. Others look to May/June '68, or a few Ukranian partisans and forget that their list of heros is also a litany of defeat. For reasons they appear all too ready to repeat in true second-time-farce theatrics.

Nobody ever disrupts anarchist events. Except, of course, other anarchists. Yet these so-called anti-authoritarians have become the censors of note among activists. It is anarchists who push for ideological exclusion clauses. It is anarchists who denounce open projects, even those open to anarchy for not being narrow enough. They say which books may be displayed, who has the right to speak. Because in any room where there's an open discussion, strangely enough, people aren't actually gravitating to anarchism.

That doesn't mean everyone agrees with me, or where I'm coming from. Hardly. But it is worth noting that anarchists become the exact opposite of what they intend. They talk about dancing, but can't keep a beat. They talk of passion, but disdain people for their own oppression. They demand ecstasy, but can only dream of the impossible.

What promises a clean break becomes a playground of resentment, dispair and judgement while the same faces that spoke for anarchy before Seattle, now EIGHT YEARS AGO, are still standing as the unelected, self-appointed non-navigators. It ends up a movement that is less democratic than even the Marxist-Leninist groups who at least elect and admit their own leadership or the liberals who front-load the pragmatic compromises they demand of the rest of us.

So let's just remember: it was an anarchist attack that started this discussion. It was a sectarian intervention in an open forum, that arrived with a flyer that distorted the record of the person attacked, which inspired this flood of disdain.

People are over anarchy, inc's belief that they can anonymously attack, ridicule and shit-talk anyone who doesn't wear their uniform with no sense of accountability, truth or decency. Not one person has gone on record to uphold this action, not one organization or anybody beyond the same anonymous cowards who launched the attack.

Can you all even think about that?

Excellent post Trace. I am an unaffiliated leftist who is a fellow traveler of for lack of a better word, "the movement." The movement includes anarchists, commies and even some liberals. We work together when possible and unfortunately, fight like mad dogs too much of the time.

I've heard people defend the pieing of Benjamin - that in Lebanon she was jumping in front of cameras as the spokesperson of the American Left and brokering deals that undercutted a group that sought to deliver direct aid to where the Israeli Air Force was bombing.

I've heard people defend the work Benjamin does - she came to my college some years back to talk about global sweatshop issues to a packed crowd where she put administrators in the crowd on notice to clean up the university's act. It worked! Global Exchange and Code Pink do real organizing work and make connections with global south organizers.

Benjamin works hard and earns a whopping $50,000 for her work. Less than a teacher, most nurses and undoubtedly less than the nation's top union officials.

But no where have I seen any group step up and defend the pieing with anything close to hard facts and reasoned arguing as to why at the social forum, Benjamin deserved pieing. What did it accomplish? What dialogue came forth? What follow up will the anarchists take? What actions do they want Benjamin to do differently?

They claimed Benjamin is a self-appointed spokesperson for the Left, but is it not true Benjamin DOES represent some people on the Left? I doubt Benjamin ever said she represented the anarco-left, but she was pied by anarchists. Who empowered the anarchists to pie her? Who do they represent? From the aftermath of this all it doesn't appear those folks represent many, save a couple pockets of the black bloc-ever ready to rumble over anything.

I mean, "Trace," sorry ... Just one point, though I am (as always) in agreement with much of what you say.

"Everyone who once identified as an anarchist raise your hand. That's easy to do. It's a way of saying 'I hate capitalism, and fear the people as anything besides victims in permanent rebellion against permanent subordination.'"

Maybe try: I hate capitalism and fear the despotic murderers who for the last century have garbed their own drive for absolute power in the robes of a revolutionary people.

Or in other words:

"Their list of heros (sic) is also a litany of defeat."

There are obvious defeats, and then their are word-historical defeats: the Soviet experience, the Chinese experience, the gulag, the famine in the Ukraine ... well, shall I go on?

This isn't to say that modern anarchism (whatever that means) is the answer. It isn't, at least in its current hyper-juvenile construction. But the reason why the ideological tendency it represents has been so popular has as much to do with the abject and total failure of Trace's political models as they do with anarchism itself. And the behavior of folks like Bobby A and his ilk don't give much reason to think that lessons have been learned.

fz

Jesus H. Christ, how many anti-anarchist posts has Burningman penned for this discussion?

This guy needs to get a life and get over his jealousy of anarchists.

Wow, long post from burningman. But we are on to you: writing long posts doesnt mean you got any good arguments. You are just repeating the same tired old lies and namecalling that people got tired of several years ago. You dont contribute anything but lies and shittalking. like always. Anarchists doesnt live in reality? Thats rich coming from a stalinist/maoists! Celebrating defeat? Yeah, lets list all those commie successes shall we? Oh wait, there are none! Only, you guys are so far up your own arse that you cant even recognise them as failures! What does that say ?

And by the way, just because you guys keep repeating that "people are over anarchy", doesnt make it true! You know jack-shit about anarchy, anarchism or the anarchist movement. And you dont want to, cuz you just want to repeat lies to win some idealistic "struggle of ideas".

Also, people change their believes all the time; they go from anarchist to liberal, commie to liberal, and from liberal to rightwinger. I would guess the turnover is about the same all around, so it is ofcourse just bullshit to single out anarchists. It has more to do with simple material conditions overall.

Whatever man, this thread is just the same tired old shit as always. Im out.

Well, what after all is a model but something to learn from?

In science, models are constructed to test hypotheses. Following that line, I don't view Newton as a failure even if he didn't take into account relativity. Or Darwin because he hadn't shed ideas of anthropocentrism in evolution, etc.

Would the people who choose to represent contemporary anti-authoritarianism had 1/10th the knowledge regarding the socialisms of the 20th Century that brother FZ has, it might be a more interesting discussion. What will we understand about the daily life of worker in the 1920s from looking at the Soviet Union in 1989? Not much.

It is exactly in the flattening out of revolutionary history into the (official American) party line that it was nothing save repression (with little thought to whom) and failure (with zero note of what was lost).

FZ and I have had a few lengthy discussions about where communists are at these days, and it is funny to me that no matter where communists are going (Nepal being the highest profile example), they continue to be reduced to cariactures of 60 years ago. As if refusing to surrender means they learned nothing else.

Some "lessons" are best unlearned, like getting comfortable with failure. Like defining ourselves by what we are not. Like treating history as nothing more than narrative. Or recycling the worst of it (think the basic line on the Soviets that Goebbels developed by way of Cold War apologetics for US imperialism) as if it were insightful.

The narratives aside, we aren't going to reproduce the Soviet Union circa 1936. Aside from the undesirability of such a thing, the historical processes which gave rise to that society no longer exist. We face different necessities, which is why it's really worth looking at how communists near power are currently acting and conducting themselves instead of shadow-boxing history.

That's the problem with political identity politics. It treats everything as what (some) people think about it, with little concern about what any given politics actually are.

So I'm not a liberal, and I'm even "anti-Liberal". But I'm also not expending all that much energy on the radical edge of liberalism except insofar as we can win people over. You don't do that by treating them like objects of scorn.

Anarchism, on the other hand, has some built-in problems which should be more obvious to those who adhere to it than they have been. Such as the deep-seated tendency to sectarian moralism, "propaganda of the deed" and other substitutions for people in their millions. Anti-mass politics is intrinsically misanthropic under a suffocating blanket of humanism. It's radical liberalism, without understanding how "liberty" is the license of property... old discussion.

Anyway, if people want to beat up on me instead of Medea, knock yourselves out. There's my email. Flail away.

Haha, yeah communist failures are something to learn from, while anarchist failures are not. Why? Because anarchism has some inherent problems that communism (stalinism) does not. I love that logic!

The stalinist suceeded in 1917, but failed in 1989? Well, thats actually true, you did exactly what your "model" has always been about; you brought capitalism to Russia. In 1989 your model of capitalism failed because it needed to develop into marketcapitalism to survive. Ofcource, if you really want to move beyond this world of capitalism, you wont turn to the recycled dustbintheories of maoism/stalinism. You never did. That is the inherent trouble with stalinism, its great for recuperating revolutionary movements and bringing third world countries into capitalism, not so good at moving beyond that, and then after a while when the stiff and undynamics of your capitalist economics has intergrated the country and the workingclass into the world economy, the real benefiters of maoism/stalinism come forward - the bourgoise! That is the dirty little secret that you dont want people to know and which are no diffrent now in 2007, than in 1917, or whatever. You guys are idealistic capitalists, you have no real undertsanding of what capitalism, communism or the movement against it is really about. You are middleclass wankers with a bourgoise and militaristic view of the class struggle where a "sucess" is taking over the state. What a joke!

Also, you complain about turning communists into cartoons or "shadow-boxing" with historical failures, when that is exactly what you do with the anarchist movement all the time. You also talk about how we like to play the victim, and then you turn around and whine about how we are red-baiting you. Waaa, waaaa. Turn around and look at yoursdelves instead, you jackasses.

Haha, you guys are so pathetic.

There's a way to make those points without being so childishly insulting.

In response the HAR, my guess is that anarchism has been in decline among youth since a year or two after 9/11. Their Glory Days were Seattle and a few battles after.

In decline, but not to be ignored or engaged. It's a natural condition of youth movements. One old saw asks what's the difference between and anarchists and socialists. Answer: about 20 years.

I engage it because of the weird politics hold us back, both ultraleftism and right reformism, the main problem in our ranks is ultraleftism of which anarchism is one variety.

I'm sure JB has different ideas, but he can speak for himself. Nor am I into stale old 2nd wave dogma. I'm a futurist and above-board cyber-revisionist, even as much as I appreciate the old guys--Lenin, Mao, Marx, Gramsci, etc.

But I think the rejection of NGOs and those who try to make them successful here borders on the bizarre. That seem to be the main gripe with Medea.

Aren't we all nongovernmental organizations? Now some raise money by dumpster diving, and others write grants or even start businesses. Some grant writers are good at it, some not. And some managers of nonprofits, with or without 501C3 status, are good, some bad. That's natural and another matter. And Global Exchange is pretty much on the plus side, however you want to measure it and whatever mistakes they may have made. Haven't we all?

You don't have to convince me of the police snare in a 501C3 grant. 'Yes, you can have this money, but you just promise not to use it to support or oppose any particular candidate or piece of legislation.' How's that for the feds giving a back-handed subsidy to the anarcho-syndicalist camp? And trying to prevent the emergence of independent electoral politics?

But we all know there are ways around this, even legal ones. And whoever said NGOs are responsible to their funders is not quite right. They have to account for the money and show that it was spend for what they claimed it would be spent for. That's no big deal. But if they really want to thrive, first, they must fulfill their mission and the grassroots people it serves with some degree of success, and second, they have to diversify their support among several funders, their own businesses and fees for service, and direct donations from the base community. Relying one one funder or grant means your life as an NGO will be very short.

I'm an NGO, although quite small, a Community Tech Teaching and Recycling Center serving ex-offenders and gang kids. I teach computer repair skills by rebuilding old units and setting up inner city homework and afterschool centers. I had a hand in geting about 25 going in Chicago. But I served on the board and founded a very big one, CTCNet, the national voice of thousands of these centers, even though I retired from it after three years. (I was never paid a penny for the work, by the way). So I plead guilty to being in the NGO social economy 'enemy' camp to some of its critics here.

Early on, before CTCs were well known, MacArthur Foundation dumped $12,500 on me just to keep up the good work. I didn't even apply for it. So I paid some bills and dumped it all into the work. A year later, I reported back. Should have I refused it, even though they didn't control me one bit?

Later, partnering with the Prison Action Committee, we got all sorts of grants to work with ex-offenders, getting them computer-related job skills. After 9/11 though, a lot were cut back, but we kept it up as best as we could anyway.

We're still at it. I guess that makes us part of the dreaded 'nonprofit industrial complex,' even though we're combating a much more real prison industrial complex. We don't let any grant stop us for speaking in defense of the incarcerated, campaigning again the death penalty, and denouncing police torture or working elections. But those of you who are down on our kind of NGO, or all NGOs, or our getting grants from corporate America, I'll invite you to a meeting where you can make your case to the the ex-offender guys, community residents, and teachers in the programs and running them.

But I guarantee you, you won't need Charlie Chaplin or pies to start any laughter.

You dont have to worry, carl, we are not part of the same movement.

fz; they started it! ;)

I was not able to go to the USSF due to poverty and single mothering. So be it. But my best friend was able to go along with other Indigenous people i am very honored to know. As a nonIndian supporter of traditional Dineh and Hopi struggling to maintain thier ancient way of life, i find this whole bait and switch thing with Medea and the pie really depressing.

My friend told me that during the final plenary session, the Ecuadoran Indigenous man reading the statement of the Indigenous peoples was silenced by an ignorant time keeper who grabbed the microphone away from him cause he went over the alloted 2 minute limit. Has it ever occurred to anyone that perhaps English was his third language? It is dispicable beyond belief that this issue that angered the Native American people to the point of them walking out is not addressed anywhere that i can find. Instead, it is all about famous Medea getting famously pied.

I have issues with Medea's elitism and the lack of anti oppression training given to delegates on Global Exchange excursions, but to take focus away from much more important issues is really what the fascists ordered. Disgusting.

Native American are murdered more than any other target group in the US. The suicide rate among Native American youth is the highest in the nation. Young girls are being mutilated, raped and murdered Juarez style in border towns such as Tuba City, Farmington and Gallup. There are hundreds of unsolved murders of Native Americans all over the US, Canada and Alaska. The fate of Indigenous peoples of Mexico, Central and South America is even worse as far as massive numbers go. 3,200 women have been mutilated, raped and murdered just in Guatemala alone in the past 7 years. In 2006 600 women were brutally murdered by current and former US trained "Intelligence" officers. It just makes me so sick that stopping genocide in the amerikkkas is simply not prioritized at all

I guess that we simply have spineless, nearly useless peace movement that cannot prioritize at all, that fails to unify around ANYTHING and ignores those who suffer the most here and fails to see how it all ties in to corporate ecocide, femicide and genocide all over the world.

While you all are focused on this dang pie game, people are dying in the desert of Arizona due to the hateful fascistic policies of the US as well as white supremacist hate mongers who execute migrants and get away with it.

I feel tremendously disheartened by this whole lame situation. It is a true take on how useless activism of white folks can be. Try forming some deep alliances with the frontlines of reality here in racist amerikkka for a change. Let's really put a stop to the coporate killing along the border, on the reservations and in the inner cities. The most marginalized, voiceless peoples are already being eliminated. WAKE UP!

In peaceful struggle, swaneagle