THE MARGINALIZATION OF  STREET FIGHTERS BEGINS (this page will be updated frequently) Links to Street Fighter Pages - Updated August 2006

        "Here we are  protecting Nike, McDonald's, the Gap and all the while I'm thinking, 'Where are the police?
These anarchists should have been arrested." Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange, reported in the N.Y. Times, 12/2/99.
        After much criticism from well-connected street fighters and their apologists, Benjamin denies one comment and explains her meaning in an article called "Window-Smashing Hurt Our Cause", published widely January, 2000. ...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 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... 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.... a small number of protesters who had boycotted those meetings took it upon themselves to break that solidarity. In the most sectarian way, they put their small numbers up against a mass movement.

Annex to Statement of Lori Wallach, Director,  Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Trade of the House Committee on Ways and Means February 8, 2000
    ....Then, mid-morning Tuesday, several dozen young people dressed in identical black garb and wearing face masks appeared and started marching in formation down one of Seattle's main streets, near the Convention Center. Despite their highly-regimented paramilitary appearance, they identified themselves as anarchists. They had popped up, disrupted a peaceful protest and then melted into the crowd the day at a peaceful protest in front of a McDonalds....Hundreds of Seattle police officers dressed in full riot gear stood by and watched, actively refusing to arrest the masked window-smashers even when peaceful protesters asked for assistance. Indeed, in one instance, a person restraining a black-masked vandal armed with a brick and poised before a store window was told by police to release the vandal or risk arrest for assault. The police then stood by as the released vandal smashed a row of store windows in front of them....This ugliness could have been entirely avoided had the police arrested the few vandals early-on and implemented their agreed plan for civil disobedience arrests of the sit down protesters.

        ...I also have some strong opinions on the property destruction issue, the overriding one being, "How is it that a group of people who knowingly and wilfully violated the clear agreements we had set out for the action, who endangered other people without their consent by their actions and did their best to avoid the consequences, who in some cases acted violently against nonviolent demonstrators, who in other cases have allowed innocent people to be prosecuted for the actions they committed, how is it that these people are presenting themselves as the injured parties here?  What gives them the right to complain about people attempting to uphold agreements that we made as a community through our spokescouncil process?  Why are they not apologizing for disrespecting those agreements?"  Author and nonviolence trainer "Starhawk" A16 e-mail list, February, 2000 (Note: As we shall see below she later changed her tune.)

    And in response to the question that has been raised, there is no way that those of us who live in Washington, D.C. would condone any destruction of the properties in Washington, D.C.  And I think that the organizers of this are very committed to an agenda of nonviolence.... And clearly we are saying that this is not necessary for one of things that you do when you stand up and you take moral leadership is to declare what is condoned and that which is not condoned, that which is outside the guidelines of what you have gathered for....
       One of the things that again I don’t need to reiterate this again, but I will:  That simply we are going to be engaged in nonviolent direct action.   And in that regard we will not condone the destruction of property, the hurting of individuals by other individuals and by law enforcement. Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler of Washington, DC at the March 14, 2000 at Mobilization for Global Justice. (See whole statement.)

        The success of any grassroots, activist movement depends in great part on the support of the general public. And property destruction will not gain us public support. It gives the police an excuse for violence, it gives the government an excuse to say radicals "can't be trusted" (so they restrict our freedoms), it gives the media an excuse to focus on the VIOLENCE rather than the ISSUES, it gives the public an excuse to ignore what we have to say because some of us let hatred and aggression cloud our thoughts.
        The biggest opposition to activist movements is that we are fighting against the ideology of a violent culture: a government that solves problems by bombing, or executing people, or corporations that feel they can run the poor into the ground essentially using violence against them in the form of taxes and sanctions.
        We will never defeat a violent culture with more violence. Will Potter submission to "Guidelines" sections of "A16" web page, March, 2000

        The property damage in seattle was a wake-up call; the street fighting in dc was in support of the lock downs; To continue with these same tactics at every action makes us thugs.  "Tom" on an anarchist list, June, 2000.

         ...the Black Block (really a tiny minority of about 60), pushed their way to the front of the march, trampling people as they went... They elbowed shoved aside the march marshals who were linking arms in front to keep the march evenly paced and orderly....
        What was the Black Block's purpose? They yelled, "Don't police yourselves. You are acting like cops!" Then they ran ahead a little ways and waved their flag. They yelled all sorts of things about "resisting the f**king police state, etc", but the only people they actually physically confronted were the marchers. When an African American marshal whose brother was murdered by the cops in the Twin Towers took the bullhorn to appeal to Black Block not to break up the solidarity of the march, they called him a dictator.
        Later, after we successfully negociated our departure from the rally in front of the jail, the Black Block sat down in front of the sound truck. This forced several hundred of us to stay behind for several minutes while we re-routed the truck, putting us all in danger in the presence of 3,000 angry cops (when most of the march had already left.)  They Black Block called us cowards and cops and all sorts of other names, but at the end of the day, they didn't put their money where their (actually quite filthy) mouths were and stick it out at the jail....
 If they believe that they have the right as a tiny minority to decide that they will put undocumented workers and the rest of us at unnecessary increased danger so they can wave their flag and pose in front of the cameras in their masks, then I say we have the right to prevent them from doing so.
        Let's be clear. This is a debate in the movement. When the press tries to sew divisions so that the cops get off the hook, we should all say, "The violence comes from the police. They have guns. We are peaceful."  Report on the Los Angeles Demonstrations against the Democratic Convention, August, 2000 by Todd Chretien

        What makes Ward's [Churchill] argument in this book so disempowering to activists  is that he discounts people power, which is the main power we have access to! Grassroots activists can't match the government's money, and we can't match the government's violence. What we have potential access to is people power, and discounting people power is an invitation to despair. March, 2001 George Lakey in article, "The 'Sword That Heals': Challenging Ward Churchill's ‘Pacifism As Pathology’".

        ....After our huge march arrived at the Wall of Shame close to the FTAA meeting site, and after portions of the fence were torn down and teargas began to be used, I watched as young men on the front lines threw snowballs, bottles, sticks and stones at heavily padded police guarding the now-open area. As the battle went on, it turned uglier, and not just on the police side. Our front-line warriors picked up foot square paving stones, broke them in half and threw these chunks at the cops. I saw none do any observable damage; the cops' clear plastic shields, and their helmets and padding, seemed to frustrate any direct hits. But what if there had been direct hits?
    ....Throwing dangerous stones, glass and sand-filled bottles, molotov cocktails, using sling shots-these are tactics our enemy welcomes. Indeed, it is an established fact that historically, agent provocateurs have infiltrated movements like ours and done whatever they could to get the rest of us to use violent tactics. This allows them to more easily obscure our message, come across as anti-violence themselves.....Ted Glick, National Coordinator of the Independent Progressive Politics Network (www.ippn.org), in column “On Winning Hearts and Minds,” April, 2001

        ...I'm hearing more and more loose talk about dangerous things: someone saying there should be "lots more violence" in the movement; others talking up the idea of armed struggle; jokes about explosives that leave a sense of unease. And I wonder if all the folks who are moving toward greater militancy have really thought through the possible consequences. Given the government's posture to date toward the global justice movement, and the Black Bloc in particular, I think it we could soon see people doing serious jail time for things that happen during demonstrations.
        .....A call is already circulating for a "diversity of tactics" Black Bloc at the next big summit action, outside the Washington, D.C. meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in early October. It reads, in part, "We will not be content with reforming, or even abolishing the IMF/World Bank. We will not rest until every
last bank has been burned, till the last memory of banks has been erased from our world." (http://www.infoshop.org/news6/racb_fall.html) [Note: at some point after this this link was removed and a more ambiguous statement issued from the group.]  From widely circulated column "Turning Point" issued by "Free Radical: a chronicle of the new unrest" by L.A. Kaufman #16 May, 2001

        I'm glad that there is a lot of activities about to happen in response to globalization.  However, as a "dogmatic pacifist" I will not feel comfortable taking part in these [upcoming] actions or actions in 2002.  Accepting diversity of tactics in protest has come to be close to identical to accepting the use of violence against people and the use force against property in ways not conscensed to in an informed fashion by the participants. Brian Burch of Toronto Action for Social Change in a forwarded e-mail, July 2001

        I blame most of the chaos of GBG [Gothenburg Protests] on the cops/state, whose tactic was geared towards escalation and that's what they got. I blame the so called black bloc for much of the political fallout from GBG, as their stone-throwing and rioting allowed the cops/state to justify their repression against us..... The questions are: will state-repression increase? Certainly. Will we able to (re)create some legitimacy in the eyes of the public? Uncertain. I can only say that rather than organise more big, confrontational demos, we have to seek the dialogue with organisations and groups that might potentially share our anti-capitalist attitudes, for if we do not, then we will have no defence against heightened repression. Because on the street "They" can always beat us. It is the PR-battle that we can maybe attempt to win. And only if we do that can we grow to a sufficient size to actually threaten the power structures we fight against.  A personal account and analysis of the debacle in Gothenburg by "No Name" on IMF/WB Discussion list, July, 2001

          ....Are you happy, protestors? Not the huge majority that backed the Genoa Social Forum--I know you're devastated and some of you bloodied--nor those many "members" of the Black Bloc who were in fact police infiltrators; but you, the genuine Black Blockers, who never participated in any of the preparatory meetings that went on for months, who don't belong to any of the 700 responsible Italian organizations that had decided democratically to practice creative and active non-violence. Are you happy with your unilateral actions, to have willfully infiltrated groups of peaceful demonstrators so that they too got gassed and clubbed; happy to have responded to police provocations which were both foreseeable and foreseen? Are you happy we've finally got our martyr?
        His name was Carlo Giuliani. He was 23 years old and he went to the demonstration with his own convictions, that's enough, they weren't ours, but we protest his execution, peace be with him.
        The fact remains that this movement for a different kind of globalization is in danger. Either we'll be capable of exposing what the police are actually up to and manage to contain and prevent the violent methods of the few, or we risk shattering the greatest political hope in the last several decades. ... A man has died.
        If we can't guarantee peaceful, creative demonstrations, workers and official trade unions won't join us; our base will slip away, the present unity--both trans-sectoral and trans-generational--will crumble. We, the immense majority with serious proposals to make; we who believe that another world is possible, have got to act responsibly. Faced with the escalation of State-sponsored terror, we must figure out how to continue our demonstrations and direct action without endangering our people; how to avoid abandoning the terrain of the public space to the explosive ultra-minority... Susan George, author and Vice-President of ATTAC-France (Association for Taxation of Financial Transaction to Aid Citizens) in opinion piece on Corpwatch.org, July, 2001

        Having just read "G8: Are You Happy?" by Susan George and seen the photos of the death of Carlo Giuliani earlier this evening, I conclude from her characterization of his death as an execution that she has not seen those photos. They clearly show that Mr. Giuliani was attacking police officers who posed no threat to anyone at that time, and to suggest that those policemen were wrong to defend themselves and Mr. Giuliani should be elevated to martyrdom is clearly wrong.  E-mail letter to CorpWatch from William Wilgus, The Public Cause Network, July, 2001

        Personally I see young macho males prepared to ride roughshod over everybody else, whatever the majority decisions. I will fight such actions including with my own comrades who say we have to be "tolerant" of all behaviour so long as the people are basically on our side. I disagree: we want to show what a democratic society taking democratic decisions might look like and it wouldn't look like the BB, which represents perhaps 1-2%of the movement and wants to make the decisions for us all. I call this usurpation or tyranny or whatever word you want; I am willing to dialogue with anyone but I am not at all sure this willingness exists on the otherside. Part of reply to Mr. Wilgus from Ms. George.

        You'll never see us breaking a window or hitting a policeman. We think it's absurd and provides a means of criminalizing the movement. We're doing everything we can to marginalize the violence.  Bernard Cassen, founder of ATTAC, quoted in Time Magazine, June, 2001.

         Black Bloc = Achilles' Heal...I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: the "Anarchist Black Bloc" is the Achilles' Heal of the anti-globalization-et-al. movement because
        a) they themselves have proven themselves, time and time again, to be especially prone to violence, and to a curious inability to keep their word regarding consensed "rules of engagement." But, far more importantly,
        b) THEY ARE ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE TO INFILTRATION AND IMITATION BY "AGENTS PROVOCATEURS." After all, all that one merely need do apparently to qualify as a "Black Bloc"-er is to don black pants and a black top, ¿No?
        The introduction of agents provocateurs into reform movements of whatever ilk has a long and storied history that I won't go into here; suffice it to say that it goes back at least to medieval Europe.  Activist "Bat" on an anarchist list, July, 2001.

        Activists quoted in Sarah Ferguson's article, "Activists Weigh the Cost of Confrontation; First Tear Gas, Now Bullets," Village Voice, July 18-24, 2001
    The militant fringe of the movement that's willing to engage in public acts of vandalism or scrap in the streets has done an amazing PR job.  It's one of the most dynamic in growth because it's so emotionally charged. But since Seattle, we still have to slow down and talk about what we're fighting for, and what does our victory look like. That vision has to inform what we do. Do we want to build a movement that's about throwing chunks of cement and then celebrating when we take a cop out? Or a movement that has respect for life, and that represents a moral and ethical high ground to the violence perpetrated by the state?" John Sellers of the Ruckus Society
    If a movement is going to win over a majority of the population, it's got to show that it has responsibility. These global collisions are vague because there are no precise goals. There's hardly a framework for even thinking about long-term strategy and building allies amid all the focus on tactics and police violence. George Lakey of Training for Change.
        All this whiz-bang of tear gas and rubber bullets diverts the public's mind from what's at stake. We're losing the substance of our critique. If anything, we need to be superdisciplined. The movement is still trying to work out how we police ourselves.  Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange

        Kevin Danaher comments to reporter about walking "past block after block of burned cars and gutted buildings in Genoa." I've never seen anything like this...The violence by police and by a minority of protesters have managed to wipe our issues off the table....We've advanced to the point where we have to show people that (reform) can be done without disorder.  We have to figure out ways of disciplining the movement. If we don't police ourselves, the police will do it for us.  From story by Robert Collier in July San Francisco Chronicle, July, 2001

        E-mail Exchange on IMF-WB-Protest email list, July, 2001
        ChuckO wrote:.... And another thing that has pissed off many activists are other activists who get permits from the police and negotiate with them, further disempowering us.
        Organizer Jay Marx replied:...Hmmm.
        Another thing that pisses off many activists are other activists who get pissed off because some progressive activists are not quite as radical as other progressive activists.
        And another thing that pisses off many activists are activists who are so terminally pissed off that all they want is everyone to know how pissed off they are.
        And another thing that pisses off many activists are other activists who, because they are pissed off, break shit, set shit on fire and are aggressively belligerent toward police even though they know the consequences will be escalation of state violence and, a-gain, concentration by the boss media on our METHOD instead of our MESSAGE, further disempowering us and marginalizing us when we are trying to build a growing movement.
        And another thing that pisses off many activists is activists who condemn the tactics of other activists.  This REALLY pisses off a lot of activists. If activists who embrace property destruction and deliberate police provocation as valid tactics do not want to be condemned for practices that many in the movement find questionable, then they should refrain from condemning those others who acknowledge police forces and anti-constitutional free speech regulations as unpleasant REALITIES and are willing to look for ways to keep the heat off us all while we do our thing.

        Two Letters to Editor of War Resisters League "Nonviolent Activist" July-August 2001
        In her article “Microcosm of a Changing Movement” on the National Conference on Organized Resistance (May-June NVA), Lelia Spears admiringly compares the activist “interactions” she has seen in recent demonstrations to the stories, wounds, atrocities and victories of war. She notes that the conference’s organizing collective “felt a need to validate more tactics, including but not limited to civil disobedience.” And she reveals, “there is now a move towards acceptance of nonviolence as a tactic among other tactics.”
        What tactics is Ms. Spears talking about? As I know from attending the conference, and anyone knows who has watched news and activist video of recent demonstrations in Seattle, DC, Philadelphia, Prague and Quebec City, she means tactics such as smashing store windows, setting dumpsters on fire, throwing up debris barricades, rushing police lines, pulling down fences and assaulting police with rocks, bottles, sticks, pipes, fencing and even Molotov cocktails (as in Prague and Quebec City). These tactics are commonly called “street fighting.”
        A publication calling itself Nonviolent Activist should be speaking out against such violent mayhem. It should not seem to condone or even support it by printing this article without even a dissenting commentary.
        I am writing this letter on the day of Timothy McVeigh’s execution. Like the activists Ms. Spears describes, McVeigh took the attitude that he was at war against an evil enemy and that war excused his killing 168 people.
        It is time for those of us who do not condone riotous property destruction and assaults on police to speak out against it. We must criticize not only the street fighters, but those “nonviolent” activists who condone “diverse tactics” and support them by dividing protest areas into nonviolent and violent zones. The new activist violence is just a microcosm of the violence that may yet destroy humanity.   Carol Moore, Washington, D.C.
         It is quite interesting to observe how more and more people seem to be swayed by the spurious arguments of Ward Churchill’s 1986  essay, “Pathology of Pacifism,” on the usefulness of violence. The  article by Lelia Spears in your latest publication is yet another sign of this growing interest.
         The trend to violence is reflective of a thoroughgoing lack of  understanding on the part of its advocates of the underlying principle  of nonviolent direct action, or, as in the case of Churchill, a deliberate  oversight...Alan Koontz Rockville, MD

        Quote from response from Ms. Spears to these letters, printed in above issue of the "Nonviolent Activist":
        At last September’s protests in Prague against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails at the police. I know that this is not a new tactic or topic of conversation, but many of my fellow activists found this violence amusing and exciting. I was not amused. I agree that police function as tools of the ruling class. But police are not the same as a missile—they’re not destructive property deserving harm. If the next step from property destruction is violence against people, then I do not want even to start. Just as I would not harm the attack dogs at protests, I have no interest in harming fellow human beings—even those who have shown their own abusive tendencies.

        David McReynolds comments in the same issue:
        What bothers me about property destruction is partly just the destruction—I’d rather be on the side of creating. I can understand being so angry that I’d pick up a brick and throw it through a window. But I can’t understand coming to a demonstration with a brick in my shoulder bag just in case I get so angry.
       The other thing is what’s called accountability: The Plowshares folks have been very clear that, while they don’t notify the authorities in advance, they will wait for arrest after their symbolic smashing is done. If someone says in
advance, “I’m going to smash a MacDonald’s window and then stand there and be arrested,” that’s very different from putting on a black mask, breaking the general rules the organizers have worked out and running up to smash the window and then running away. Not only is that a very poor approach to abolishing capitalism, which is much more complex, and will take weeks and weeks, and even months of months of hard work, but it alienates the public, which is, I think, our real target.
      It also divides the movement itself, if it breaks an agreement on what the limits of the action are going to be. If folks are going to engage in window-smashing, they ought to set their own time and place for it, and not mix it up with a demonstration in which most of the people aren’t into that.
      In the end, when I watch masked demonstrators smashing windows and thinking that that is nonviolent action, it seems to me there is a thin line between deep conviction and murderous fanaticism. Nonviolence is an effort to stay on the loving side of that line.

    All parties are responsible for the violence - the need for nonviolence has become evident
        Widely distributed statement by The Non-violence Network of Gothenburg 6 Aug 2001
    It is not possible to blame a single party for the violence during the EU summit in Gothenburg. We are all responsible for what happened. The course of events in Gothenburg, in which violence bred violence, clearly show that nonviolence cannot be taken for granted but demands hard work and careful preparations. The Nonviolence Network of Gothenburg's six months of preparations had some positive effects, but we were too few to make a big difference.
        ...It is a big disappointment that both the AFA (Anti-fascist Action) and the police blame each other for the violence. The lack of self-criticism is also symptomatic of an escalating conflict. This conflict is intensified by the stereotypic images that the parties have of each other; the police view all demonstrators as "hooligans" and activists consider all cops to be fascists. The results are that fear and panic govern people's actions instead of sense and calm.
        We believe that there are several factors that contributed to the violence in Gothenburg.
        * The AFA and a few other autonomous groups that believe in violence as a strategy did not participate in the dialog meetings that were held on a regular basis during the months before the EU summit. The purpose of these meetings was to prevent violence.  The AFA only blames the police and is not willing to acknowledge the fact that their threats and spreading of violence propaganda, as well as their use of violence, are all important factors in the escalating violence. Fascist methods such as violence and threatening to use violence do not tally with organizations that work against fascism and Nazism.
        * The Gothenburg Action, to which the Nonviolence Network belongs, wanted to integrate all the groups that are critical of the EU in a common network. The intentions were good, but unfortunately the violent groups had too much influence on the Gothenburg Action. It is not enough to unite around a common goal, it is also important to problematize the methods. The Gothenburg Action should have demanded from the participating groups and organizations to respect the nonviolence principle throughout the EU summit - not only during the arranged activities. Through the participation in the Gothenburg Action, violent groups had access to an infrastructure, like community schools, which facilitated their work. This also resulted in peaceful demonstrators getting in the way when the police went searching for weapons. However, the Gothenburg Action supported the nonviolence strategy by encouraging all its organizations to make sure that their members had the opportunity to participate in nonviolence training, which many of the organizations did.....
         * {Criticisms of police and media deleted for this page.}
        "The violence problem" within the left is not solved by simply renouncing violence in the media - we need first to enforce the nonviolence strategy in political coalitions, and then to be present at the scene of the resistance to actively stop the violence.
        The Nonviolence Network of Gothenburg took several steps to prevent violence at the EU summit. We arranged seminars about nonviolence and held nonviolence training courses for over three hundred activists all over Sweden. We took part in a dialog with the police and the local authorities. We carried out nonviolent civil disobedience actions as an alternative to violent protests. During the summit, many activists in the network intervened in violent situations, by calming activists, discussing with policemen, making blockades between the police and the violent activists. Our two actions, the base camp and the getting-in-action, were completely nonviolent, as were all the demonstrations. The Nonviolence Network would wish for the future that the organizations and movements that organize demonstrations and other kinds of political manifestations use nonviolence tactics and organize an international network with this purpose.

        ....This game of torturing logic for the writer's own purpose has a long history; it is totalitarian, used by regimes hating freedom and justice throughout the century and satirised by Koestler, Orwell and many others....
        ....This writer, their logic, their motivations and their action, reveal them to be an enemy of freedom, an arrogator of power, and a denier of others' right not only to self-determination, but to self-justification. The article attempts to draw a picture of justification around a set of actions that it nonetheless reveals as self indulgent, reckless to the wellbeing and opinions of others, driven by vainglory and self-aggrandisement. The writer shares the need for   self-gratification and personal status of the modern consumer, and the disregard for logic and the basic humanity of others of the totalitarian.   Steve Crossan commenting on a defense of "Black Bloc" actions in Quebec City, 2001, on Opendemocracy.com July 2001

http://mojones.com/web_exclusives/commentary/opinion/newshole15.html

      "Anarchism does not mean bloodshed; it does not mean robbery, arson, etc.
             These monstrosities are, on the contrary, the characteristic features of capitalism.
             Anarchism means peace and tranquility to all."  -- August Spies, Haymarket protester
       "Anarchism emerged out of the socialist movement as a distinct politics in the nineteenth century," says the Institute for Anarchist Studies, a New York-based nonprofit. "It asserted that it is necessary and possible to overthrow coercive and exploitative social relationships, and replace them with egalitarian, self-managed, and cooperative social  forms."
        So perhaps there is good reason why the term is so rarely used properly: A nuanced debate about anarchism would lend credence to a set of ideas that challenge the status quo. From "Fighting Word It's time for the left to reclaim the term 'anarchy.' by Brooke Shelby Biggs July 27, 2001 in Mother Jones

        One of the post-modern tenets of some social movements today, the politically correct notion that everyone should be free to do their own thing at demonstrations, not only serves to  undercut the effectiveness of today's nonviolent social movements, but can lead to the undercutting of the amount of freedom and democracy that we do have in the U.S. and some other nations.  That is to say, that one of the key strategies of institutional powerholders is to infiltrate APs [agents provocateur] into social activism to make it look violent to the general public so as to confuse the issue (take the focus off the true issue and on to violence) and scare the public into supporting the fascist violence of the state against dissent, and to turn the public's support from the movement to the police and the institutional powerholders.   Moreover, a violent movement then opens itself up to violent fascist elements who can than feel free to attack nonviolent activists and the government institutions.  The right wing and the state is much more capable of violence than the progressive left which depends on the conversion, involvement and support of the general public. My point here is that "everyone can do their own thing" is a recipe for disaster for social movements and democracy.
         This past Monday, for example, I attended a rally demonstration of about 100-150 people in front of the Italian embassy in San Francisco.   One of the speakers spoke passionately that in the anti-corporate globalization movement everyone should be allowed to participate as they saw fit. The movement wouldn't oppress the behavior of any individual or group. The crowd enthusiastically supported this view by responded with loud cheers and clapping.
        A short time later, a man in his 40's or 50's took the microphone and condemned the establishment and the corporations and governments and said that President Bush and many other leaders of corporate capitalism should be assassinated.  There was NO objection to this statement by either the organizers or the participants. In fact, it would have been quite difficult to object to the man's idea of assassinating the President and others, because the whole group a few minutes earlier had just pre-validated this and every other view of people in the movement. Fortunately, there were no TV news cameras present or that is surely what would have been put on the news, because it is news when the anti-corporate globalization movement can be shown that it advocates assassinating the president.  It was also fortunate that there seemed to be no ordinary citizens there from the general public, for most of the demonstrators seemed to be self-defined radicals. Long-time nonviolence writer and trainer Bill Moyer in widely distributed July 31, 2001 e-mail.

        [T]he descent of out blockades and other creative nonviolent acitons into cat-and-mouse face-offs with the police - occasionally dipping to near hand-to-hand combat - increases the movement's isolaton from both mainstream and, more importantly, marginalized communities by facilitating our portrayal in the media as self-centered violent hooligans...When the marginalized whose rights we are allegedly trying to defend don't see the relevance of our actions, it is time to re-think our strategy...Connecting with and learning from the poor to build a movement of global empowerment and justice seems "radical" in the truest sense, i.e. going to the root of the question.  This is humble back-breaking work, but it will help us build a movement that can truly transform our city, country and world.  Will we be there to do that work - or will be too busy playing "street fighting man." Mark Andersen of Emmaus Services for the Aging in September 2001 Washington Peace Center newsletter

Press Release: RUCKUS SOCIETY CANCELS ACTION CAMP CONDEMNS TERRORIST ATTACKS; CALLS FOR END TO VIOLENCE September 12, 2001
      "I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence" His Holiness the Dalai Lama, September 12, 2001
        WASHINGTON DC -- Like people everywhere, we are shocked and appalled by the horrific acts of terrorism that occurred on September 11. We unequivocally condemn these abominable attacks. Out of respect for the victims of this tragedy, their families, and our country, we are canceling the Global Justice Action Camp....
        We vow to redouble our collective efforts towards social, racial, economic and environmental justice, civil liberties for all, and nonviolent conflict resolution. Our hearts and thoughts are with the victims and their families. We join people around the world in praying for peace.

"There's widespread recognition that the talk about 'diversity of tactics' and actual employment of a diversity of tactics" -- which has included some property destruction or physical clashes with police by a small minority in past protests -- "is going to have to be severely moderated in the near future. We're entering an era when all of our civil liberties are in greater danger. The patience of politicians, the courts and the public will be much less than before."  Steve Kretzmann of Mobilization for Global Justice quoted in Salon article "No More Street Fighting Man." 9-21-2001

     Even protesters who favor tactics of anonymity and direct confrontation said in one of the meetings in recent days that they are encouraging people, as [Mobilization for Global Justice publicist Adam] Eidinger put it, ''not to wear masks, not to dress up, not to use militant tactics, even not to burn American flags."   Quote from Boston Globe article, 9/30/01
     (Note: Adam quickly returned to condoning street violence.  In June 2002 he sent out a press release announcing the Anti-Capitalist Convergence "Principles of Unity" for the September, 2002, protests which included the "point of unity": "Respecting a diversity of tactics, we support the use of a variety of creative initiatives, ranging between popular education to direct action.")

Minutes of the Mobilization for Global Justice Meeting 15 November, 2001: Nadine Bloch spoke about the implications of Bush2's new executive order establishing Military tribunals, followed by a debrief on the Dragon, and the meeting closed with announcements. One implication pointed out by Ms Bloch was that unnecessary use of inflamatory rhetoric at meetings may be inappropriate in light of the continuing crisis.

(Note: Under construction. )

Ewoks in Kananaskis Report on June 2002 protests: "Watch in mild amusement as the black-bloc searches in vain for a McDonald's to smash."

Looking back on the actions I participated in, I feel that red zones [violent action] and green zones [nonviolent action] should be defined much more by time rather than space.  Both tactics deserve "Front Line" opportunities.  But, why should green actions be relegated to background sideshows (and even further back coverage in newspapers)?  While red zone tactics receive most police attention and assume all of the risk? Yori Jamin, Sierra Youth Coalition regarding the July 2002 Calgary, Alberta "G" Protests, on alberta.indymedia.org/

The upswing of anarchist sentiment within the anti-corporate-globalization movement has nonviolent religious activists uneasy. While supporting the aims of the movement—whose concerns range from animal rights to corporate reform and environmentally responsible trade—persons of faith are questioning the assumption of the new anarchists that peaceful ends justify violent means. Some feel the movement has been "hijacked by street tactics," says Robert Collier, who has covered international trade policy for the San Francisco Chronicle.  See the whole Sojo.Net article Swinging Back:Violence in the anti-corporate-globalization movement by Stacia M. Brown.

Links to Major Groups Which Actively Promote/Engage in Street Fighting

Utopian Anarchists http://www.overthrow.com/  (earliest DC street fighters who still don't get respect)
Ward Churchill  http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/churchill.html
Michael Albert, Editor, Zmag, Znet  http://www.Zmag.org
Infoshop.Org http://www.infoshop.org/blackbloc.html
Independent Media Center (link to all from here) http://www.indymedia.org
Continental Direct Action Network http://cdan.org/
Mobilization Global Justice DC globalizethis.org
Toronto Mobilization for Global Justice http://www.mob4glob.ca/
Global Action  http://flag.blackened.net/global/
Committee for Global Justice   nycftaa-subscribe@topica.com
Anticapitalist Convergence (DC)  http://www.abolishthebank.org
Anti-Capitalist Convergence Montreal http://bapd.org/ganval-1.html
Anti-Capitalist Convergence Quebec http://www.quebec2001.net/introen.html
Industrial Workers of the World http://www.iww.org
Northeast Confederation of Anarco-Communists nefac
Mintwood Media Collective  http://www.mintwood.com
Washington Action Group  nbloch@igc.org
Homes Not Jails  http://www.homesnotjails.org/
Critical Mass http://www.infoshop.org/bike_kiosk.html
Yabasta http://free.freespeech.org/yabasta/
(Dozens of small and/or temporary affinity groups are not listed; anarchist organizations in general not listed because many remain nonviolent)

Links to Groups Whose Leading Members/Employees Actively and Publicly Promote or Condone Street Fighting and May Discourage Members of Their Organizations from Speaking Out Against It
Workers World Party  http://www.workers.org
International Action Center http://www.iacenter.org/  http://beatbackbush.org/
Partnership for Civil Justice  http://www.justiceonline.org
American Lands Alliance  http://www.americanlands.org
Rain Forest Action Network  http://www.ran.org
Essential Action  http://www.essential.org
Center for Economic and Policy Research  http://www.cepr.org
Ruckus Society  http://www.ruckus.org
Alliance for Global Justice http://www.afgj.org/
R2K Philly Legal Support/Philadelphia Direct Actionhttp://r2kphilly.org/
American Friends Service Committee D.C. Peace & Economic Justice Program
        http://www.afsc.org/mar/dctoc.htm

Groups Which Belong to Coalitions That Refuse to Condemn Activist Violence and Thereby Passively Condone Street Fighting (though individuals within the groups may speak out against violence)
50 Years Is Enough http://www.50years.org  (and dozens of member groups)
Jubilee USA Network  http://www.j2000usa.org (and dozens of member groups)
Jobs with Justice http://www.jwj.org
National Mobilization on Colombia  http://www.columbiamobilization.org
Alliance for Democracy http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org
CorpWatch  http://www.corpwatch.org
Free Burma Coalition http://www.freeburmacoalition.org/
Independent Progressive Politics Network  http://www.ippn.org
American Friend Service Committee, DC
International Scocialist Organization http://www.socialistworker.org/ DC
Mexico Solidarity Network  http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/
Nuclear Information and Resource Service  Http://www.nirs.org
Solidarity  http://www.solidarity-us.org
Student Peace Action Network http://www.gospan.org/
Students For Social Change
Washington Peace Center http://washingtonpeacecenter.org/
AFL-CIO http://www.aflcio.org/globaleconomy/global_justice.htm
See Mobilization for Global Justice's endorsement list: http://globalizethis.org/s30/endorsers.cfm
See S29 Latin American Solidarity March endorsers http://soaw.org/Articles/current%2520info/new/IMF_WBSep01.htm
Friends of the Earth  http:/www.foe.org