I know you probably will not print this, but someone needs to tell it like it was. Don’t just write this article off because it’s a response to one of your friend’s stories..
This is a response to an article in the WTO extra edition, by Ronnie Burk. The first thing I should say is that I am from the Seattle area, unlike many who came into town for the WTO. Months were spent planning and organizing, and it all paid off before the black blocs even got out of bed.
Let’s take this moronic article one thing at a time, shall we. First off 500 kids didn’t rock the WTO. 50,000 hard working activists did. After several months of work, and planning we had the Wto delegates locked out of the building several hours before the “black hooded anarachists and animal rights activists” as you so eloquently mislabeled them started breaking shit.
Second, the media started a 12-hour live showing of the event starting at 9:00am on Tuesday morning, not after the property destruction began. The media across the country lost the message of fat Tuesday in the stupidity of a few people who don’t know the difference between revolution and petty vandalism.
Third, the idea of calling these people anarchists is a fuckin joke. Where I come from anarchists are supposed to be accountable for their actions, and have a responsibility to inform themselves as to what the best tactic is. Let’s just get one thing straight, I’m not one of your “knee jerk lefties” and don’t have any problem with sabotage or property destruction, if it does not endanger life.
People from the Cascadia Defense Network, Seattle, and Olympia Earth First were locked down in the intersection of 6th and Pike, oh, since you probably don’t know where that is, it is between the Sheraton hotel, and the Nike town. These brave souls held that intersection through police push and tear gas. When the windows at Nike town started to break, I was there. The first people breaking the windows weren’t even activists, they were local kids stealing clothes. The “anarchists” showed up later, to take credit.
Escalating the tension in the same area that people are involved in civil disobedience is not only stupid, but shows that you, and your friends have no interest in Revolution, but only in having fun. Sabotage is used in the fight to scare companies and slow the destruction of our social and environmental standards, not to show other activists how “hardcore you are”.
Sweet Goddess, with activists like you who needs agent provocateurs!!!
I also noticed that any time the police showed up the “black hooded anarchists” were the first to leave. To talk of revolt and then run away when the cops show up is exactly what I’m talking about. The real anarchists stayed and held their ground until they were beaten back. As a person who has been in a real riot situation, in Tompkins Square, NYC, I can say you folks would have probably shit yourselves the first time a cop put down the tear gas and split your friends skull with a fuckin club.
Don’t get me wrong if there were no C.D. going on I would have supported and helped, but you people endangered strong activist lives, and that is unacceptable. This bandwagon effect that is going on is only because we won. If one of those people got hurt because of these idiotic actions, taken by a select few, there would have been nothing that would have stopped me from kicking your fuckin ass and loving every minute of it.
Fuck you,
Scott from Washington
P.S. Please don’t edit this article: it needs to go out just as it is written!!!!!