I suspect that the good residents of Montclair, New Jersey, are not as ignorant as the idiots who wrote this article. Of course, this is a gross distortion of anarchism. Anarchists are not outsiders who come in to "ruin" protests. We are involved in every aspect of the planning of these big protests, doing everything from Indymedia to child care to chopping onions. People in the movements understand that anarchists are the glue that holds everything together.

The Montclair Times may thing that our numbers are insignificant, but our numbers are growing, as more an more people come to realize that the current political and economic system doesn't work. There are probably even anarchists in Montclair, maybe even a few who subscribe to this newspaper.

Anarchists are quite capable of rational debate. I invite the editors of the Montclair Times to learn more about anarchism at the following websites:

 http://www.illegalvoices.org/apoc/
 http://www.akpress.org
 http://www.frac.ws
 http://www.anarchist-studies.org/
 http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/archivehome.html
 http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html
 http://www.infoshop.org/
 http://raforum.apinc.org/

...Anarchists didn't spout off at the mouth so often.

Quick quiz: Who's the anarchist most likely to make absurd statements on their personal webllog about anarchist tactics, then turn around and claim that nobody understands the innocents beneath the mask?

Three guesses and the first two don't count. Before you get touchy, should I drudge up the remarks?

Clean up your act and stop bringing heat down on people who don't agree with your rhetoric. I say "rhetoric" because you talk a lot more shit than you are prepared to back up.

Direct Action means taking responsibility for our own lives, including poitically. It means that politicians will not provide the answer for us. It doesn't mean adolescent angst-fests, even when the authors are far older than that.

Diversity of tactics doesn't mean you get to do anything you want. Clear statements against violence would be great -- except that you're fucking anarchists so none of you have "the right" to speak for the rest. Wow, is THAT what democracy looks like?

No accountability? Then you get no respect.

Don't by the hype. When you focus on the various tactics of protestors as opposed to focusing on the RNC, you are playing right into the hands of the establishment. This is a time-tested divide-and-conquer strategy. The police are going to be out in force and use aggressive tactics no matter how peaceful the demonstrations are. Don't buy into it. Remain focused on the RNC, antiwar issues, and look out for each other on the streets!

Solidarity -- you're right. Message heard.

But still....

Calls for "accountability" coming from anonymous communists are pretty laughable.

Here's a letter to the editor sent to the Montclair Times -- I'm providing it here less b/c I think they'll actually print it, and more to let readers of this thread have more info in counterpoint.

Peace

Dear Montclair Times,

I read your July 22nd editorial about potential violence at the RNC in a few weeks ("Love and pieces"). As a resident of NYC just a few miles from the town your paper serves, I'd like to say I was deeply disturbed by your newspaper's stance. The article painted a colorful picture of black-masked anarchists rampaging through New York smashing things, and stated this activity is commonplace "at many rallies staged worldwide by anti-war and anti-“globalization†groups." I think you've chosen an easy, but inaccurate, image to churn up controversy. The truth is much different than you portrayed -- 180 degrees different.

I would like to send you a copy of "Getting Used", a report compiled by the New York City Independent Media Center which you may want to read. It's also easily available online at  http://nyc.indymedia.org/usermedia/application/2/Getting_Used-_Report.pdf. "Getting Used" pulls together mainstream news reports from all major US demonstrations since 1999, showing that (1) media have often overhyped the violence from protestors before events, often utilizing news fed by police departments, and (2) almost invariably find out afterwards that demonstrators were peaceful. This report contains very little commentary -- all we've done is reprint stories from the NY Times, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and other reputable papers. We hope it can help papers have more balanced coverage of the Republican National Convention.

One example in the report is very close to home: the Feb. 15, 2003 demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq. Your journalistic bretheren at the NY Daily News reported afterwards that, far from rampant property destruction you portrayed, only 250 people were arrested for any violation of the law. A million people attended the demonstrations that day, watched by some 8,000 policemen and women. Yet there were only 250 incidents among 1,000,000 million participants: that's far more peaceful than the average day in New York City.

Instead of violent protestors, however, it was the police themselves that were castigated for using undue force. The NY Times ran a story the very next week describing multiple scenes caught on videotape of "police using pepper spray on penned-in people, backing horses into crowds, going after demonstrators with their nightsticks and forcing people back with metal barricades. "That makes you feel good, doesn't it?" one officer could be heard saying about the pepper spray…." This amounted to a police riot, eventually leading to a lawsuit. As reported by the NY Sun (August 8, 2003), "A Manhattan federal judge yesterday issued a stinging rebuke of the New York City Police Department, accusing the NYPD of "operational ignorance" and lack of "discipline" in the way it dealt with antiwar protesters."

This kind of police violence is far more common than anything like you have described from so-called "anarchists". What's more, there's a clear trackrecord of police over-reaction extending from last year's anti-war demonstration through every major event in recent years. This includes the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia. In that episode, undercover police officers surveiled meetings of peaceful demonstrators, and ordered the mass arrest of over 300 people from a number of welfare rights, pro-peace and justice groups. The move was clearly intended as "preventative detention" which is abolutely illegal and flouts the Bill of Rights. As the Philadelphia Daily News reported much later (July 31, 2001), "when it came time to prove the allegations, the city could not make the cases. Many charges were dropped for lack of evidence; others failed to impress judges or juries (a minuscule number of protesters were found guilty of anything)." In fact, only 12 people were every convicted out of more than 400 arrests at the 2000 RNC.

There's much more in the report, and I urge you to read it. It's short, and like I said, we didn't use the report to ponitificate ourselves: we just reprinted what major newspapers were saying before these major events (major violence from anarchists), and then what the papers reported afterwards when they had all the facts (no violence from demonstrators, overreaction and violence from police).

There's your real story, if you want it... Police using excessive violence against peaceful demonstrators, spying on groups well in advance a la J. Edgar Hoover, using "preventative detention," and otherwise violating the values that both you, me and your readers hold dear. I hope the Montclaire Times will take the initiative to examine its coverage during the convention, and do a balanced, well-informed job of reporting what's actually happening.

-------------------------------------------
The report itself is available online at  http://nyc.indymedia.org/usermedia/application/2/Getting_Used-_Report.pdf

hey, i love ya'll anarchists, and will defend you to the end, but read the above closely. The anarchists "hate governments, hate private investment, hate elections, hate unions, hate companies, hate us and hate you."

Now I hate a number of those things as well, but perhaps some of the more divisive anarchists, on the web and off, should calm down on sectarian attacks on each other and every other ideology. take the "hate us and hate you" part to heart, and try to be a little nicer to your would-be comrades. except the Sparts, fuck the Sparts.

"perhaps some of the more divisive anarchists, on the web and off, should calm down on sectarian attacks on each other and every other ideology."

Why? If you aren't interested in these discussions, nobody is forcing you to read them. As one of those "sectarian anarchists" I work well with other leftists, but I'm also going to pursue the *politics* of anarchism, which like any other political philosophy, requires that we argue and explain our ideas as contrasted against other political flavors. It's called *politics* and it's getting old on Indymedia when the same arguments get trotted out about how "anarchists are sectarian." Shit, the Communists, Republicans, and Democrats are always explaining their philosophy and dissing other ones. That's politics, not sectarianism.

Perhaps you should stop making sectarian attacks on anarchists. ;-)

>?I invite the editors of the Montclair Times to >learn more about anarchism at the following >websites:

Do you honestly think the Montclair Times editors sit on their asses reading Indymedia all day?

As much as the knee-jerk reaction may be to this editorial, the author is correct. Anarchists are a bane to the entire populist movement. At this point in time, at this place on earth, the majority of the American public has been condistioned to view violence and vandalism as illegitimate, criminal, or insane unless it is sanctioned by their government. This is not to be considered a judgment on the merits of violence and vandalism as a means to an end, it is only to serve as a judgment on the time, place, and manner of the means. Assuming that violence and vandalism were legitimate, anarchists offer no solutions to any problems, as opposed to communism's embrace of violence. Anarchists want to "kick it till it breaks"...but then what? The adolescent attitudes to liberate humanity from authority and back into the state of nature, mob rule, perpetual nihilism or whatever they hope to exist in the wake of civilization are contrary to what culture and nature have done for millions of years: they have progressed.

az a green anarchist, i don't rationalize every or any moment of my life. my dezirez are unique and cannot be broken down into "principlez" and "traditionz". our love iz criminal. our livez our wild. too wild for any ideology.

for the destruction of civilization, and the reconnection to life...

>for the destruction of civilization, and the >reconnection to life...

Now I actually know a few primitivist types, and they're generally good folks (in person, in print they can be nasty as anyone else).

I'm as sceptical of notions of "progress" and technology as most, but come on, guys!

When you abolish civilization, what are you all gonna do to treat your STD's?

"Commie" said;-
""hey, i love ya'll anarchists, and will defend you to the end, but read the above closely. The anarchists "hate governments, hate private investment, hate elections, hate unions, hate companies, hate us and hate you."

Now I hate a number of those things as well, but perhaps some of the more divisive anarchists, on the web and off, should calm down on sectarian attacks on each other and every other ideology. take the "hate us and hate you" part to heart, and try to be a little nicer to your would-be comrades. except the Sparts, fuck the Sparts.""

Ok brother. Heres the drill. Anarchists are wary of corporations, government and in generall heirachical organisation. That DOESNT mean said anarchist hates me and hates you.
Au contre!
Anarchism is a movement of responsibility and peace. There are those anarchists, who I refer to as 'scenesters' , who indeed are gnarly little bastards. Hint: There rarely real anarchists, and instead just dig the agro and the black gear.

REAL Anarchists instead understand that if the intended utopia has a hope in hell of working, folks gotta work in mutual aid and respect. Folks gotta accept diference rather than hope for ideological homogeny. Theres room for you in the revolution commie. Heck, might even be room for the cappo's too. Just leave the central heirachy out of it. And cooperate.

Except with the sparts. Fuck those guys.

campbell wrote on 28 Jul 2004:
"Anarchists are a bane to the entire populist movement." "Assuming that violence and vandalism were legitimate, anarchists offer no solutions to any problems, as opposed to communism's embrace of violence. Anarchists want to "kick it till it breaks"...but then what? The adolescent attitudes to liberate humanity from authority and back into the state of nature, mob rule, perpetual nihilism or whatever they hope to exist in the wake of civilization are contrary to what culture and nature have done for millions of years: they have progressed."

I'm sorry, Campbell, that your understanding of anarchism is about as poor as that of Montclair Times' editorialist Mark S. Porter. While of course various anarchists run the gamut from primitivists to syndicalists to communo-anarchists and many veins of thinking flow freely, anarchist thinking does not advocate "mob rule" or "perpetual nihilism".
Many anarchists do not engage in violent acts at all, and none ever do so randomly. Anarchists do work to offer solutions (though we argueably need to work harder) such as food, housing, and other various types of collectives based on the concept of mutual aid and social responsibility. Anarchists are attempting to aid, not contradict, what you refer to as the natural progression of of culture and nature, not by "kicking it 'til it breaks," but rather by building new alternatives for social organization based upon (as previously stated) the concepts of mutual aid and social responsibility. THIS type of positive societal organization is what we "hope to exist in the wake of 'civilization'".
I am completely lost as to what is meant by your comment "anarchists offer no solutions to any problems, as opposed to communism's embrace of violence." Perhaps the syntax is tripping me up...
Perhaps you will actually read this comment, perhaps you will consider that you might not know as much as you seem to think you do about anarchism. Perhaps you can clarify that confusing statement for me. And perhaps not. We'll see.
Respectfully,
Angelfish