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Violence at the summit

  
  

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Axel Lambert
21:22 / 20.06.01
The police was badly prepared. This much I agree to. They were badly prepared and they panicked when the rioting started. Of course they should have aimed for the legs. Of course they shouldn't have fired at all. Of course they should have had water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Of course they should have been better prepared.

Hm. Just read the new description of the Swithboard forum: For ==> Politics and activism: resistance in the streets, anti-capitalism, echelon, adbusting - global resistance.

Gave me a really bad feeling in light of the riots.
 
 
Christopher Pressler
07:32 / 22.06.01
Hi everyone,
Sorry to have left the thread dangling for a couple of days. I suppose what I was getting at in my last message re: violence not being a form of speech is directly related to where and when I was born.
I was born and brought up in Belfast during the '70s and I can assure everyone that violence gets people nowhere. It is always counter-productive, and always harms the innocent (should you agree such a category of person exists). Even Sinn Fein and Protestant paramilitary groups now work, to an extent within what might be called the structures of Classical Argument, rather than from behind a gun.
I saw footage from Gothenberg on the BBC of an ordinary Swedish shop-owner standing between his shop and a group of protestors. They beat him to the ground before destroying his shop regardless.
This to my mind is not valid protest. I happen to agree that the EU as it stands now is a politically unaccountable monolith, but the way to bring about change, even when it is as nerve-wracking as it is in Northern Ireland, is through debate. Never violence.
 
 
deletia
07:56 / 22.06.01
quote:Originally posted by Christopher Pressler:
[QB]I was born and brought up in Belfast during the '70s and I can assure everyone that violence gets people nowhere. [QB]

No. Sorry. This is like saying "as a mother, I am better able than you to understand the Bulger/Payne/etc murders, and better able to formulate a response". It's bad thinking.

Wherever and whenever you grew up, you cannot assure people of this. You can propose it to people, but that's a different matter.
 
 
Christopher Pressler
08:08 / 22.06.01
Of course, you are quite right. I propose that violence gets people nowhere. I would also urge that it is not the first choice of action and hope that it should not be necessary.
 
 
reidcourchie
08:53 / 26.06.01
Unlike Haus (who's point I can see) I'm not so quick to dismiss the opinions of people who live in the kind of situations that we often discuss from afar.

That said my (admittedly limited) knowledge of recent Irish History all the major decisions have been effected by the climate of violence.

Would Southern Ireland be an independant country without violence?
 
 
deletia
12:16 / 26.06.01
So living in an area where there is...um...some violence makes one better qualified to talk about violence? Right.

I lived in Oxford for four years, and now live in London. What I don't know about Christopher Wren isn't fucking knowledge.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
12:30 / 26.06.01
OK then, you're on. Where was the enormous palace that Wren built for Charles II, only to have the money run out just before it was completed - so that it stood empty and roofless for half a century before the locals pillaged all the building materials, including the great porphyry pillars?
 
 
deletia
13:06 / 26.06.01
How dare you question me? I have lived in not one but two places where Sir Christoper Wren's architecture is plainly visible. I know all.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
13:50 / 26.06.01
A ha! That answers that question. Parody is not dead.
 
 
reidcourchie
13:53 / 26.06.01
It may howver be possible that you know a bit more about that kind of architecture than someone who has never seen the buildings though and that your experience of them would be different that anyone who only got their's through some kind of second hand medium.

I'm assuming your the new Tannhauser suit.
 
 
deletia
14:02 / 26.06.01
This is heading towards threadrot, but just quickly.

Living in Oxford gave me no understanding of the architecture in Gothenburg. Quite simply.

I may be able to look at a building and hazard a gues that it was designed by Wren, or one of his followers, or in approximately the same period. Likewise, if I have seen somebody being shot in the back and I see someone else being shot in the back, I may be able to tender some information about the nature of the shot, the likely severity of the injury &c. It gives me no greater insight on the act's origins or desirability beyond that. My viewpoint is as valid as the next person's, that is it should be considered on its merits, without privilege.

Some things in life do transcend the first person narrative, reid. It's a concept that Barbelith in general seems to have trouble with.

And Tannhauser is dead. Fucking dead.
 
 
redtara
15:37 / 02.07.01
Not much has been said on the violent nature of the wto and the mechanism it employs to keep profits in rich countries at the expense of the poorer majority world. If you don't think that the intelectual property legislation imposed by the wto on member states that currently prevents south africans from making their own much cheaper aids drugs, an act of international economic terrorism then what the fuck is?

Before everyone goes 'they don't have to be members if they think that this is unfair', NO!

The way it works is that the wto is commited to opening up markets. They do this by providing limited tarrifs on trade between member countries so that nonmember countries wishing to trade within that market operate at a cost disadvantage.

So everyone wants to be a member right. Wrong! Plenty of countries don't want to join because to become a member you have to incorporate into your domestic legislation a raft of measures that protect corporate interests and intelectual property. That ensure the rights of companies like Monsanto have a place in your agricultural markets, you can't make your own AZT and you must respect the right of the super rich to tout their shabby wares in all of your markets 'cos guess what else. you have to commit to privatizing all your markets, So your schools, trains, hospitals all are potentially open to foreign investment and corporate control.

So there is your choice. Your an 'emerging market'. Do you stand alone, independant and proud and suffer tarrifs on all your exports that make them uncompetative in any of the rich makets of the world OR do you get the right to buy into any market in any of the wto member states at the risk of loosing any autonomy in your own domestic markets.

The wto is a violent organisation. IT KILLS PEOPLE IN THEIR HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. Just cos these guys wear suits and have chaufers does nopt mean that they are not responsible for many, many deaths.

Violence, what's the point? In seattle There was a notion that countries who make up the emerging markets 'sat naked at the negotiating table' They were caught between two equally unapealing alternatives, with zero bargaining power. And then from inside the conference rooms could be heard the voice of thousands of people saying "no we do not want this, you do not do this in our mame. Now fuck off"
 
 
Jackie Susann
20:45 / 02.07.01
Yeah, yeah, I agree with what Redtara said but since s/he's resurrected the thread, I'm going to post what I've been meaning to for ages, I'm sorry if it's not clear, I'm sleepy and if I wait till I can express it perfectly I'll never get it out.

It seems that critics of so-called antiglobalisation protests are basing their opposition on the idea that the movement's goal is or should be to grow by recruiting more and more people. Violence at protests alienates potential recruits, and hence is counter-productive. But this has never been the goal of anti-corporate-globalisation protests (not to say individuals and groups within the movement don't have that goal).

The goal has been and is to increase the administrative costs of global capitalism, primarily by making it more difficult for delegates to enter the forums (either forcing cancellations or wasting valuable time) and by increasing the costs to local governments and businesses through wide-ranging and sometimes violent protests.

That is, the goal isn't to symbolically oppose the workings of capital through a show of passive resistance - in which case, objecting that violence alienates potential converts would be valid. Rather, the goal is actual, practical opposition. Given this, violence is one of the most effective tools in the anti-corporate-globalisation arsenal, and what's most surprising is how rarely it's used. And for anybody who hasn't been paying attention, it is rare - apart from tiny minorities and drunken idiots, violence at these major mobilisations has been almost exclusively initiated and monopolised by police. Genoa may be the first time a large group has approached one of these forums with specifically violent intentions; the vast majority have been governed by the twin rhetorics of "nonviolent direct action" and "tactical diversity". Given the obviously enormous sums of money the Italian state is devoting to policing the protests (including basically shutting off Genoa to keep anybody getting in or out), this tactic has been extremely effective.

[DELIBERATELY PROVOCATIVE]Everything the movement has achieved, it has achieved through violence. [/DELIBERATELY PROVOCATIVE]
 
 
Frances Farmer
23:21 / 02.07.01
Jackie, if I had a BarbeCrush list, you would've just been added to the top.
 
 
deletia
07:32 / 03.07.01
In which case, logically, the anti-globalisation movement should be looking at assassination, bombing - real campaigns the effects of which involve far greater costs to manage than the likely costs in men and materials to the movement.

I'd like to make it clear than I am not advocating such an approach, merely pointing out its possibility.
 
 
ynh
07:50 / 03.07.01
That makes a lot of sense. After all, cops, capitalists, and politicians make their own moral choices to follow orders, exploit, pollute, and support said. There are no innocent bystanders.
 
 
Not Here Still
16:12 / 03.07.01
No-one is innocent in politics? I presume this means voters as well. And non-voters, because they allow those who do vote to get the fuckers in. Hell, kill us all and let the God none of us believe in sort us out.

Anyway, I just thought that today's Menwith Hill protest made a fucking great point in a non-violent way.
One of the most high-security military bases in Britain and how do the activists get in? They walk through the front door. I liked the quote from Greenpeace that basically said some of the activists were now 'hiding around the base.'
Playing hide-and-seek with the military-industrial complex - and getting it covered in the media?
Class piece of non-violent direct action if you ask me.
Humour - getting people to laugh about and then talk about things - often works better than violence at getting your point across, both in mainstream and underground media.

[off-topic (but discussed in the thread] - does anyone else not believe that, until technology becomes cheaper, the internet is actually excluding a lot of the people with the most to say about anti-capitalism? Wouldn't you say that the medium is weighted towards those with the cash to get a computer, as well as the spare time to use it?
 
 
Thrasher
19:01 / 03.07.01
quote: Playing hide-and-seek with the military-industrial complex - and getting it covered in the media?

oh this is fun, but what happens next, someone trys to do this kind of thing and gets shot? Don't get me wrong i'm all for peaceful protest but unfortunately the powers that be often seem to confuse peaceful
protest with agressive antagonism.
 
 
Frances Farmer
19:22 / 03.07.01
Sometimes, the price of making a point is unbalanced in compare to the progress promised by the point itself. This does not invalidate the efforts of individuals willing to make sacrifices to get things done - in fact, it will eventually serve to give weight to a movement generally perceived to be stragglers and ill-informed troublemakers.
 
 
Thrasher
19:44 / 03.07.01
Do you mean people have to die?
If so there has to be a better alternative.
 
 
deletia
06:53 / 04.07.01
...as I believe Neville Chamberlain once said.
 
 
Jackie Susann
07:18 / 04.07.01
from decoding nonviolent rhetoric by dean spade:

Pacifists "often make the argument that we must resist any opportunity to start violence, because once we “bring it to that level” there is no turning back and we justify violent response from the state. These arguments rely on an assumption that violence isn’t already present and integral the global situation, that it isn’t already at “that level.” They are forgetting or missing the fact that people are already dying in this struggle: starving, being made homeless, having their lands and cultures stolen and stripped, being raped, killed, enslaved, tortured and imprisoned, being denied healthcare, etc. When people who do not directly experience, and may in fact benefit from, the US government’s war on the poor and people of color domestically and worldwide suggest that activists taking up arms initiates violence, they rely on an unacceptable denial of how violence permeates life in this country."
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
07:18 / 04.07.01
At which point one might observe that advocates of reasonable violence often advocate it in the knowledge that, as cadres, they are unlikely to be the ones who get dead.
 
 
deletia
07:54 / 05.07.01
Works for me. I plan to be in the Man's house, preparing his bath and watching the starshell mortars explode in the distance.
 
 
Thrasher
15:31 / 05.07.01
quote: forgetting or missing the fact that people are already dying in this struggle: starving, being made homeless, having their lands and cultures stolen and stripped, being raped, killed, enslaved, tortured and imprisoned, being denied healthcare, etc.
I don't belive in unnesacery violence,
but I can't forget that this sort of stuff happens every day, it is a constant point of argument in my life.
Why can't this shit be solved through education? Insted of people even considering the use of weapons. Loads of people have died and are suffering, more of the same is not going to make a difference, It's only going to add to the injustices of the soul of humanity

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Thrasher ]
 
 
ynh
15:34 / 05.07.01
Um, because the folks doling out the education like to remind you that solving problems via violence is 1)viable and 2) the preferred method.

Re: shooting a rockthrower in the fucking back, shooting Palestinian rock throwers, and the list quoted above.

I'd love to watch non-violent tactics work; to see the structure change as a result. But I don't see it happening. I haven't heard of it happening.

Nick, I assume you're saying that folks who choose nonviolence get killed in the crossfire? I have no counter for that. It sucks. Otherwise, as a member of a violent cadre, isn't an individual accepting, even embracing, the possibility of hir own injury or death?

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: [Your Name Here] ]
 
 
Thrasher
15:39 / 05.07.01
yea, well start educating people yourself then. Insted of relying on the system to whipe all your fucking arses!!!!!!!!!!!
 
 
ynh
15:43 / 05.07.01
Right, and I deserved that response cause I posted by accident without finishing. Nonetheless, how much good am I gonna do talking to a bunch of Americans when people are dying elsewhere. Being an educator I can influence a few people, but in no way redress the wrongs of institutionalized violence.
 
 
Thrasher
15:50 / 05.07.01
yea, but if you influence a few people and maby make thaie lives a little better then they may think "i could influence a few people", and so on, and so on untill everybody gets educated!
It may well seem optamistic, but if one person does it then 2 people can ect..
 
 
Not Here Still
17:04 / 05.07.01
Originally posted by YNH:

Nonetheless, how much good am I gonna do talking to a bunch of Americans when people are dying elsewhere.

And how much good are you going to do by fighting them and getting shot at for your trouble?

and by Jackie:
It seems that critics of so-called antiglobalisation protests are basing their opposition on the idea that the movement's goal is or should be to grow by recruiting more and more people. Violence at protests alienates potential recruits, and hence is counter-productive. But this has never been the goal of anti-corporate-globalisation protests (not to say individuals and groups within the movement don't have that goal).
The goal has been and is to increase the administrative costs of global capitalism

Says who?
And fighting capitalists by making 'em spend more money? Great idea.
I'm off to stop masturbating by locking myself in a shed full of porn....

Cue angry posts.....
 
 
Frances Farmer
18:50 / 05.07.01
quote:
And how much good are you going to do by fighting them and getting shot at for your trouble?


It seems when defining the 'violence' responsible for what progress the anti-globalisation movement has made so far, more specific description is required.

First of all, I can't speak for what Jackie's advocating - so whatever spews forth from my maw from this point onward represents only my opinion. It just so happens that I'm responding to you, and you were responding to Jackie.

However, I have to say that the police and the media have the same loose definition of violence, and that definition includes organized resistance in any form.

In other words, when protestors gather and stand about in the middle of metropolis in order to make a statement about something, that's called protesting. When the police ask them to move, and they don't, the police call that violence, and so does the media. When protestors distribute water soaked hankerchiefs to help others resist the effects of tear gas, that's called violence (by the authorities). When protestors deliberately and strategically design their actions to precipitate capital expenditure, they call that violence, too.

In my mind, it seems that a lot of the 'anti-violence' rhetoric I hear is in fact more closely associated with opposing the very concept of civil disobedience. Most people include the destruction of Starbuck's property on the list of qualifications defining 'violence'.

How do you define 'violence'?

...And as far as getting shot at for your trouble goes .. I won't even approach that 'point'. Not wanting to deal with the inconvenience of it is not a valid reason for opposing the participation of others, who may feel differently.

quote:
Says who?
And fighting capitalists by making 'em spend more money? Great idea.
I'm off to stop masturbating by locking myself in a shed full of porn....


The Seattle WTO protest was explicitly designed to prevent delegates from reaching the appointed meeting place - and, for a period of time, was quite successful to this end.

One more point.

The effect of these protests (particurally, the ones that are successful in disrupting WTO meetings) is the conversion of a 'profit' or 'revenue' activity (the induction of new member countries, the construction of new agreements) into a 'cost' activity (the hotel is booked, the plane tickets have been purchased, but no one can reach the meeting location - therefore, capital expenditure with zero potential profit margin).

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Frances ]
 
 
Not Here Still
15:13 / 06.07.01
First of all, I'd like to apologise if that last post just appeared to be me being a sarcastic little bastard. I don't mean to be, and I know that often, my tone of voice (or style of writing, if you prefer) can antagonise folks without much constructive dialogue following.
(Not that I'll stop taking the piss, like.)

It's a good point that more specific description is needed when talking about violence here, and I am as bad as anyone when it comes to assuming that people can understand what I mean when I am really leaving a wide margin of misinterpretation.

It probably doesn't help that, as you say, the media is misrepresenting protestors left, right and centre.

But where you say 'the police and the media have the same loose definition of violence, and that definition includes organized resistance in any form'
I'd add: as long as they disagree with it.

And my definition? Violence is a premeditated attack on another person with the intention to do them harm.
Not defending yourself; not gathering somewhere; not not moving on; and not destruction of property (which can make me uneasy, but I'll leave that til another time.) I don't define people dying in Africa - and Asia, and South America, and anywhere else - as a result of globalism as violence. It's far worse than that, far worse.

You also point out: Not wanting to deal with the inconvenience of it (getting shot at) is not a valid reason for opposing the participation of others, who may feel differently.

I totally agree; I think there is a space for a wide range of different forms of protest.
I'm not necessarily against violent protest per se, though I wouldn't describe dying as an inconvenience.

I was more making a point about the way YNH seemed to be saying that educating people wouldn't do much good, but violence towards them could.

I'm not dismissing violence as a legitimate means of protest; I wouldn't even necessarily dismiss some of the things Haus was talking about as forms of protest.
I just didn't think there was much of a reasoned argument being put forward for other forms of protest - non-violent direct action, economic protest, legal protest (as in trhough the law, rather than as opposed to illegal) and so on. I don't know if I should start another thread (probably) to do this instead. But to tell you the truth, I didn't really think this one did much good for debate, which is why I was taking the piss in the first place.

One last point - if violent protest alone does smash capitalism, what replaces it?
 
 
ynh
10:25 / 07.07.01
JB, exactly what I was hoping for by posting that drivel was a reasoned argument for education, not a pyramid scheme for changing the world. Nobody's been willing or able to do that in any of these discussions; perhaps owing to fuzzy definitions of education. Activists, by operating websites, publishing alternative media, and actually being there, are educating.

Narrowing the definition of of violence to immediate physical harm first limits what we consider abhorrent and ultimately accepts the institutional definition.

(for Alternatives, see the thread by that name)
 
 
Not Here Still
12:43 / 07.07.01
Righty-ho YNH, sorry and all that chief.

Could you point me towards the thread? I've looked but there seems to be No Alternatives.
(Then again, I'm still a bit wet behind the ears and all that on this board stuff)

I'm willing to put up another thread if needed, but I don't really want to go over old ground if others have already done so...
 
 
ynh
14:06 / 07.07.01
Alternatives

It's in the Head Shop. The, what, fourth Violence thread was apparently consumed when Lothar's profile collapsed in on itself.

I'm interested in what some of the people who didn't participate in any of those have to say about it...
 
  

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