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[Fwd: CAGE: A16 'Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Bloc']

by christopher chase-dunn

10 March 2000 13:15 UTC







REVOLUTIONARY   ANTI-CAPITALIST BLOC
Washington DC, April 9-16

Due to differences in politics, tactics, and organizing principles with
the current direct action networks that are springing up throughout the
world, we are calling for an organized bloc of all stripes of
anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, revolutionaries at the upcoming
demonstrations against the IMF/World Bank.  We are not, however, calling
for a strictly anarchist black bloc. We want to open the call to those
"outside of anarchism", comrades who struggle for much the same truly
revolutionary anti-capitalist goals that we do: the abolition of
capitalism, the state, and all forms of hierarchy and oppression.  Our
intent is not to be divisive of the larger protest but to more
effectively support it by organizing autonomously.  We feel that it is
necessary to organize separately as autonomists, anarchists, anti-state
libertarian marxists, wobblies, council communists, etc., for a number
of reasons: 

The reformist message of "fair trade, not free trade", and all of the
talk about "pruning" and "fixing" that was in the streets in Seattle and
has subsequently been pushed in the organizing of the A16 demo as well
as within the larger anti-globalization movement is unacceptable.  While
we realize the need to combat the issues that effect our daily lives and
those of our comrades the world over, this must be done within a larger
anti-capitalist, revolutionary critique that doesn't stop with
single-issue struggles. 

National protectionism and calls for national sovereignty, which pit the
international working class against itself, cannot be tolerated.  One
nation-state is just as bad as any other nation-state, and so we have to
agitate for the abolition of all of them. We are internationalists and
therefore, regardless of political borders, see the need to globalize
resistance to all of capitalism.   

We cannot accept the active participation of cops and/or peacekeepers in
this or any other movement, protest, or demonstration.  Those whose job
it is to protect the ruling class interests cannot be trusted to
simultaneously support us.  While our main goal is to shut down the
IMF/World Bank meeting, it is quite predictable that the cops will
aggressively attack those actions, immediately drawing lines between the
protesters on one hand, and the cops, "police liaisons", and
"peacekeepers" on the other.  We do not support collaboration with the
enemy at large and they should not be invited nor supported at this
demonstration. These and other authoritarian turns that the organizers
have taken are extremely dismaying to us and begin to show hastily
covered fractures among those of us working to make this demonstration
happen.

We can not work with people who dictate what tactics are and are not
appropriate. No one should be pretending to own this movement or this
demo.  Unfortunately, to disallow participation because of opposition to
tactics and actions that aren't solely symbolic betrays a reformist
agenda from the get-go. We are not advocating for any particular tactic;
we are simply defending the individual's right to act autonomously
however they see fit against our real enemies.  If aggressive
self-defense or property destruction is unacceptable to some then they
shouldn't engage in it. 
 
This is a call for more active participation of anarchist and other
like-minded revolutionaries in the entire anti-globalization movement to
counter reformist perspectives and goals with revolutionary,
anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian actions and ideas.  At A16 we
envision an active and creative contingent of revolutionaries marching
under black, red & black, and green & black flags, anti-capitalist and
anti-authoritarian banners, and a hail of revolutionary drumbeats.  We
are mobilizing marching bands, radical cheerleaders, and planning a
whole assortment of highly organized creative mayhem!  To all of our
comrades who support this call, we encourage you to get in touch, endorse
it, and take to the streets with your anti-capitalist imaginations and
desires!

Do not let the blows against this capitalist system cease! From the
streets of Seattle, to Washington, DC, may our resistance be as
transnational as capital!

¡SOLIDARITY AND REVOLUTION!

Signed,
Nosotros Group (Baltimore, MD), Group Anarchiste Emile-Henry (Quebec),
Active Transformation (Detroit-East Lansing, MI), Global Action (Eugene,
OR), Mutual Aid Legal Defense (Seattle, WA), We Dare Be Free (Boston,
MA), Sabate (Boston, MA), Lancaster ABC-SG (Lancaster, PA), Flint Jones
- Northeast Regional Delegate of the Workers Solidarity Alliance
(WSA-IWA), Morgantown Anarchist Group (Morgantown, WV), Prole Revolt
(Morgantown, WV), Mid-Atlantic Infoshop (Washington, DC)

For general information about the protest see www.A16.org
To get involved with the revolutionary bloc contact: 

Nosotros Group
PO Box 65341
Baltimore, MD 21209
email: DURRUTI36@aol.com 





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