Re: eyewitness account of genoa (fwd)

On Sat, 28 Jul 2001 17:42:25 -0400 (EDT), colin s. cavell wrote:
>The provocateur tactic of infiltration of
>peaceful demonstrators by
>members of the so-called "black bloc" and
>their alliance with the
>Italian police indicates the preference for
>violence to enforce adherence
>to the new global superbarons of capitalist
>globalization.  

The broad left will have to come to terms with this 'black bloc' 
phenomenon. I use the term in quotes because there is some question 
about who it is and whether or not it was involved in the Genoa 
debacle directly. The real question is not "who did it" but "why". 

For the answer to this question, it is useful to look at the Vietnam 
antiwar movement for analogies. I was 23 years old in 1968 and an 
activist in the Trotskyist movement, which was to the antiwar 
movement as the NGO's and trade unions are to the 
'anti-globalization' movement today. By our insistence on peaceful, 
legal mass demonstrations, we earned the reputation of being 
'reformists' by the SDS'ers, the yippies, et al. My own mailing 
list--interestingly enough--has been the arena of an intense 
ideological struggle over the past week or so between old-school 
Marxists like myself and younger (and those who admire the young) 
supporters of the black bloc.

I found this passage from a book by a Trotskyist leader of the 
antiwar movement useful. I hope you do also.

Fred Halstead, "Out Now: a Participant's Account of the American 
Movement Against the Vietnam War" (Pathfinder Press):

Chicago, 1968

On Wednesday, August 28, the day of the nomination, some 10,000 
demonstrators gathered at a National Mobe rally in the bandshell area 
of Grant Park, a mile or so south of the center of the Loop. The 
rally was orderly until a young man lowered the American flag from a 
flagpole. Some cops moved to arrest him and were heckled by members 
of the crowd seated in that area. Seizing on this incident, a phalanx 
of about forty cops waded into that part of the crowd, clubbing 
freely. People scrambled out of the way, desperately climbing over 
overturned benches. Some were hurt. Another part of the crowd began 
to face off at the police.

Rennie Davis, who unlike [Jerry] Rubin was inclined to be in the 
thick of things even after they got sticky, moved with a line of 
marshals between the crowd and the cops, facing the crowd and trying 
to get people back in their seats. Some of the cops charged again and 
Davis was clubbed from behind and knocked unconscious.

At this point it is necessary to set the geographical scene, Grant 
Park lies between Lake Michigan on the east and Michigan Avenue on 
the west. Across Michigan Avenue from the park are hotels where many 
delegates were staying and where convention caucusing was going on. 
The strip of park directly on Michigan Avenue is separated from the 
rest--including the bandshell area--by a deep railroad channel which 
must be crossed by bridges. 

Dellinger wanted to lead a nonviolent march from the rally across the 
nearest bridges, then south on Michigan Avenue toward the 
Amphitheatre. This route would not have taken the marchers directly 
in front of the convention hotels, since they would have emerged onto 
Michigan Avenue somewhat south of the hotel area.

"He proposed that the crowd divide into two parts: those who were 
willing to face arrest would march to the Amphitheatre, and those who 
did not could either go north through the park or disperse. As the 
march to the Amphitheatre moved west it found the bridges blocked by 
police and National Guard units, including military vehicles with 
racks of barbed wire attached to their fronts. Dellinger then started 
a sit-down.

Tom Hayden, however, had delivered an impassioned speech to the rally 
after Davis was knocked out, which was not entirely in line with 
Dellinger's plan. According to the Chicago Daily News, Hayden said:

"This city and the military machinery it has aimed at us won't permit 
us to protest in an organized fashion.

"Therefore we must move out of this park in groups throughout this 
city, and turn this excited, overheated military machine against 
itself.

"Let us make sure that if blood flows, it flows all over the city; if 
they use gas against us, let's make sure they use gas against their 
own citizens. If the police run wild, let them run wild all over 
Chicago--not just over us sitting in the park. If they are going to 
disrupt us and our march, let them disrupt the whole city."

Part of the crowd following Dellinger did not sit down. Some of them 
simply dispersed, especially after tear gas was used. But part of 
them swung around and joined the group moving north, making about 
3,000.

They found each bridge blocked until they reached Monroe Drive, about 
a mile north, where they swarmed across. By coincidence at just that 
time a parade of about a hundred Blacks and a mule wagon, led by the 
Rev. Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 
was coming south on Michigan Avenue. This group had a parade permit 
and a police escort. The crowd from Grant Park joined in a move south 
along with the mule wagon toward the hotels on Michigan Avenue.

Then the police made what would appear later as a first-class 
blunder. Instead of letting the march continue south on Michigan 
Avenue, at least as far as some more isolated spot, they halted it in 
front of the Conrad Hilton, one of the main convention hotels, where 
a lot of McCarthy delegates were staying. Meanwhile another couple of 
thousand people, not all of them demonstrators, had gathered in the 
general area of the Hilton. Speakers in the crowd shouted to move on 
with the march. While TV cameras rolled, the cops waded in with clubs 
swinging. Some of the action was later described in the Walker 
report:

"A part of the crowd was trapped in front of the Conrad Hilton and 
pressed hard against a big plate-glass window of the Haymarket 
Lounge. A reporter who was sitting inside said, 'Frightened men and 
women banged . . . against the window, that it might get knocked in. 
As I hacked away a few feet I could see a smudge of blood on the 
glass outside."

"With a sickening crack, the window shattered, and screaming men and 
women tumbled through, some cut badly by jagged glass. The police 
came after them.

"'I was pushed through by the force of large numbers of people,' one 
victim said. 'I got a deep cut on my right leg, diagnosed later as a 
severed artery. ... I fell to the floor of the bar. There were 10 to 
20 people who had come through. ... I could not stand on the leg. It 
was bleeding profusely,' A squad of policemen burst into the bar, 
clubbing all those who looked to them like demonstrators."

The report described the beating by police outside the Hilton of a 
youth who looked about fifteen years old, and then continued:

"A well-dressed woman saw this incident and spoke angrily to a nearby 
police captain. As she spoke, another policeman came up from behind 
her and sprayed something in her face with an aerosol can. He then 
clubbed her to the ground. He and two other policemen then dragged 
her along the ground to the same paddy wagon and threw her in."

Meanwhile Dellinger and the group he was with had finally made it to 
the street in front of the Hilton. He remembers the scene as follows:

"As I approached, several vans came up a side street and unloaded 
police reinforcements. The new arrivals jumped out of the vans and 
charged into the crowd, swinging their clubs and chanting, 'Kill, 
kill, kill'; We had no sound system capable of rebelling the crowd, 
no plan of action, no training of marshals (most of whom were 
scattered, arrested, or bleeding from previous assaults) adequate for 
the occasion. All day long I had felt betrayed by the absence of most 
of the movement's pacifist leadership, some of whom had stayed away 
from Chicago altogether, some of whom had engaged in a small, 
separatist 'pacifist action' the day before, aloof from the major 
dynamics of the week's struggle. Meanwhile a number of the more 
vocal, visible leaders had been arguing for several hours that 'This 
is the end of nonviolence in America. It simply won't work anymore.' 
I felt completely defeated by the situation, incapable of doing 
anything useful.

"I shall never forget the spontaneous actions of the demonstrators. 
Of course, some rocks flew and some fists went into action in 
attempts to ward off the attackers--desperate acts of angry 
self-defense. But mainly the protestors parried the blow while 
retreating slowly and in remarkably good order, then surged forward 
again as each police attack momentarily spent itself. ... It took a 
long time to push us back, to clear the streets for a couple of 
blocks. And when the streets were finally cleared and lined with 
police, the demonstrators were still there, massed on the grass 
across from the hotels, chanting antiwar slogans, singing movement 
songs, shouting to the delegates."

Meanwhile, back at the convention, Humphrey had been nominated, 
McCarthy defeated, and a number of the delegates had returned to 
their hotels, only to become swept up in the melee around the Hilton.

Mayor Daley would later complain that his administration and the 
Chicago police did not get sympathetic press and TV coverage from 
their actions of Wednesday night.

On Thursday, August 29, a crowd of some 5,000 gathered in the strip 
of park opposite the Hilton for another rally sponsored by National 
Mobe. According to the original schedule this was to have been a 
"massive People's Assembly to project the directions and tasks which 
were supposed to have developed out of the workshops and activities 
of the week. But McCarthy turned out to be the principal speaker.

Formally, the National Mobe rally was adjourned before McCarthy was 
introduced, but neither the major media nor the bulk of the crowd 
drew the fine distinction. The crowd gave McCarthy a standing 
ovation, and he emerged as the martyr of the hour.

After McCarthy spoke, another attempt was made to march to the 
Amphitheatre. This time some 2,000 people led by Dick Gregory and 
Eric Weinberger, as well as a number of accredited delegates to the 
convention, made it as far as Michigan Avenue and Eighteenth Street 
where they were stopped by police and National Guard units. Only 
delegates would be allowed beyond this point, they were told.

About twenty-five of the delegates, including columnist Murray 
Kempton, removed their badges, moved forward with Gregory and some 
fifty others, and submitted to arrest. Then police and guardsmen 
tear-gassed the rest of the crowd and chased it north, back toward 
the Hilton and Grant Park, where sporadic demonstrating and attacks 
by the police and National Guard continued until early morning.

About 5:00 a.m. Friday, police raided a suite on an upper floor of 
the Hilton rented by John Kenneth Galbraith and others and used as a 
McCarthy headquarters. (The cops claimed that ever since Wednesday 
night people in the hotel had been throwing ashtrays, beer cans, and 
other things out the windows at them, and that they had pinpointed 
this suite as a source of such missiles. The last of the 
demonstrators were leaving the street by 8:30 in the morning. The 
Chicago Democratic Party demonstrations were over.

Some 660 people had been arrested in connection with the actions, 
probably over 1,000 injured, and one killed. He was Dean Johnson, a 
seventeen-year-old Native American from South Dakota who was in Old 
Town when the police made a sweep. He allegedly drew a gun on them 
and was shot down.

There was enormous publicity around these demonstrations, both in the 
United States and worldwide. Millions of people watched the police 
attack at the Hilton Wednesday night on TV. Some twenty-two newsmen, 
including reporters from such prestigious media as Associated Press, 
United Press International, the Washington Past, and Business Week, 
accused the police of assaulting them, and in the early reports at 
least, the Daly administration did not get a good press. Daly himself 
played an important role in the convention, and the controlling 
machine within the Democratic Party came off with a black eye. An 
article in the Chicago Daily News declared:

"The antiwar 'movement' came to Chicago, hoping to establish in the 
public's mind, that the nation's ruling party is plagued by a 
militaristic over-reaction-at home and abroad.

"And while their heads are bloodied, they may have succeeded--with an 
unexpected boost from Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Chicago police.

"The 'medium became the message' as their threats of massive 
demonstrations against militarism elicited the largest display of 
military force in the history of political conventions. Even the TV 
commentators and liberal delegates have dubbed this convention city a 
'police state.'"

In that sense the leadership of the action counted it a victory, and 
were at first euphoric. Not for nothing did Rubin have a reputation 
for exploiting the publicity media. But the antiwar movement itself 
was in something of a shambles, badly divided, and that part of it 
which had organized this action soon entered a prolonged crisis.

Years later Dellinger would write:

"Despite the small turnout for the convention protests, the 
government partially saved us when it decided to withhold permits and 
to turn loose the Chicago police. . . .

"There was a limit, however, to how far a repressive government and 
rampaging police could save a movement that was as divided and 
confused as we were. They could save us from immediate public 
embarrassment, even cause a temporary outpouring of sympathy in our 
behalf, but they could not heal our internal wounds. In practice they 
exacerbated them. They helped create a movement mystique of 
revolutionary derring-do and heroic street encounters as goals in 
themselves. This polarized the movement around the question of street 
violence and gradually led to a tragic separation between the 
organized movement and large sections the antiwar public. Although 
the immediate result of the Chicago police riots was to increase 
antiwar sentiment, the long-run effect was to make more difficult for 
that sentiment to express itself in an organized, effective fashion."

When Dellinger speaks here of "a tragic separation between Organized 
movement and large sections of the antiwar public," he 
is--consciously or not--referring to only a part of the "organized 
movement," the part that at the time of Chicago he considered most 
important. This included the de facto current leadership of National 
Mobe, a group of graduate SDSers, and the current SDS leadership and 
milieu. All these were deeply involved in the Chicago actions.

When Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden set up the Chicago operation they 
enlisted the efforts of a number of graduate SDSers, including Kathy 
Boudin, John Froines, Carol Classman, Vernon Grizzard, Paul Potter, 
Jeff Shero, and Lee. Webb. Much of the work involved in the Chicago 
actions was done by this force. Carl Oglesby also played a certain 
role through the SDS national office, for which he still worked.

The new SDS leadership, elected at the East Lansing convention in 
June, included Mike Klonsky as national secretary and Bernardine 
Dohrn as inter-organizational secretary. Both had recently announced 
themselves as "revolutionaries."

The SDS national office at first opposed the Chicago actions, in part 
because it rejected antiwar demonstrations and in part because it 
rejected McCarthy and electoral politics in general. But as the 
demonstrations approached, the SDS leadership became attracted, 
precisely because the publicity of confrontation was building. They 
decided to mobilize several hundred SDSers to come to Chicago as 
organizers to try to recruit among the large number of McCarthy youth 
expected to attend. They set up several workshops, the largest in the 
Old Town area, and found themselves in the thick of the 
confrontations when they occurred. They were enraptured by the whole 
experience, particularly by the fact that a certain number of 
ordinary Black and white Chicago youth, looking for adventure or 
angered at the police riot in their haunts, became involved in the 
street fighting.

The SDS leaders exaggerated this and drew the most romanticized 
conclusions from it. At the Grant Park rallies both Mike Klonsky and 
Jeff Jones, a leader of the New York regional office, declared that a 
new revolutionary force had been tapped and the way to organize it 
was to get into more such street action. The September 9 issue of New 
Left Notes carried a wall poster which made the same point, along 
with an outline of street fighting techniques, and even suggested 
that it might be possible to expose the national election the way 
they felt they had succeeded in exposing the Democratic Party 
convention. At the time, Dellinger himself considered the Chicago 
demonstrations to be a victory, though he noted and warned against a 
tendency among some of the leading participants to draw conclusions 
that were deeply disturbing to him.

"We came off well in Chicago [he wrote shortly after the events]. It 
was a clear-cut victory because the police acted abominably and our 
people showed courage, aggressiveness and a proper sense of values. 
But if street fighting breaks out when the police are restrained and 
if we act contemptuously of other peopled rights, the sentiments of 
those who should be our allies could turn against us. More important, 
we will begin to lose sight of our objectives and develop a Movement 
style that attracts lovers of violence rather than lovers of justice 
and brotherhood. . .

"There is of course a delicate line to be drawn here. The war makers 
would like nothing better than to carry on 'business as usual,' 
challenged only by token dissent and static demonstrations. . . . But 
to be effective, disruption and disorder must be discriminating and 
purposeful."

Once again we come to the problem that Dellinger had wrestled with in 
the Pentagon march and which still occupied much of his attention. He 
rejected the mass action approach of the SMC as "token" and "static." 
Perhaps he did not agree that under the given circumstances 
demonstrations had to be orderly to be massive. But in any case he 
considered the mass aspect to be less important than the disruption, 
and tended to sacrifice the one for the other. He viewed the SDS 
milieu, which was attracted to disruption, as very important.

But to that milieu the ''delicate line" essential to Dellinger's 
disruptive nonviolence was becoming more and more difficult to draw. 
What was involved here on the movement side was not real violence. 
There was very little of that during or even after Chicago. What was 
involved was provocative rhetoric and romantic fantasies about 
reliving in the modern United States the guerrilla warfare 
experiences of some colonial revolutions. Thus removed from reality, 
a "movement style" of escalating rhetoric developed which fed on 
itself, contributing to a more and more sectarian syndrome.

Dellinger tried to counter this after his fashion, but in my view he 
had a fantasy of his own. In his October 1968 article analyzing the 
Chicago events he said: "Our aim is to destroy power, dissipate it, 
decentralize democratize it if you will. This process must begin here 
and now in the organizations and institutions which we set up as 
training centers and pilot projects for the new society." As if the 
time had come for pure anarchy. Unfortunately this approach was far 
more effective in dissolving the authority of the National 
Mobilization Committee than that of the government. Dellinger's 
concept of democracy did not include the formalities, and his concept 
of struggle did not include organizational discipline. What 
materialized in life was the transformation of the National 
Mobilization Committee from a broad coalition into a name used by a 
self-appointed group of prominent figures with an organizational norm 
of do-your-own-thing.

Dellinger attempted to influence the SDS milieu by accommodating to 
its mood, and by having National Mobe call actions designed to 
attract SDS toward nonviolent resistance. It didn't work. The 
denouement would unwind in the course of the next year and would not 
be without its element of tragedy. But all this concerned only a part 
of the organized movement.

Other parts of the antiwar movement drew different conclusions from 
the Chicago actions. Lew Jones commented in a report to a joint 
SWP-YSA meeting:

"It's important to see this demonstration [Chicago] in the context of 
the history of the struggle within the antiwar movement for a line. . 
. . There are essentially two alternative lines before the antiwar 
movement. Our line says that around two or three simple themes, such 
as end the war, bring the GIs home now, the movement should go out 
and mobilize people into mass actions in the streets. The other line, 
which Dellinger has more and more deepened and tried to organise 
around, is the idea that what is necessary is get small brigades of 
youth, confront armed authority, by doing that expose the real nature 
of the system, and by doing that masses of people are influenced. 
It's the so-called spark theory. That's what was really involved in 
this demonstration . . . .

"Now, what do we say to people about this demonstration? First, we 
condemn the Daley machine up and down for being brutal, suppressing 
every notion of civil liberties with the most brutal police methods. 
Secondly, we solidarize with those youth there on their civil 
liberties.

"But . . . more of these kinds of demonstrations are not going to 
radicalize people. On the contrary, it will have a demoralizing 
effect and it will turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy about 
repression in this country."

-- 
Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 07/28/2001
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