be ready with orgs that can funnel energy at useful targets -- don't get in the way of the anger, just direct it where it will do real damage. build relationships with the people who show up and get as many of them as possible into these orgs, where their passion won't be blunted by brief setbacks. connect impacted communities with real avenues for change -- don't talk down to people. tell them exactly what it will take to make their visions a reality and lay out real paths to achieve their aims. set aside terminally online visions of ideological purity and find ways to meet the demands of the actual people in front of you and allow the continued failure of the system to drive home the necessity for revolution.
that is, build a real coalition for the end of capitalism, and stop larping online, endlessly telling others what they ought to do.
They got into some twitter sectarian bs but my friends in the area were impressed with what the PNW YLF was able to do on the ground in 2020.
Coopted a lot of the liberals into marching as useful cover for direct action, that sort of thing.
Remember CHAZ? We need to do that but feed kids instead of shooting them.
That and actually directly confronting and fighting the cops. Don't just stand around filming until we get shot with pepper balls or rubber slugs. Ideally build some barricades and take an important building or two. Maybe fry some bacon.
Of course this all requires significant organization, planning, and maybe some weapons, but if we can get to the level of the Paris Commune we're doing pretty good.
Please note, all of this is hypothetical and will never actually happen since President Biden solved racism so there will be no need for protests. I am in no way advocating armed insurrection and am a proud patriotic American who loves my country.
That's what George Floyd Square was.
And I think what happened to it was very illuminating. Pigs waited like a year, then enlisted a local bootlickers group to tear all the barricades down alongside city workers in the early early morning, while the cops held back several blocks away. Then the local media reported all of it as "local citizens decide that GFS has gone on too long" or whatever. People tried to rebuild the barricades in the week or so after, but it was no use.
They've gone to significant lengths to make it seem like they didn't actually change much- kept up all the artwork and "just" allow traffic to move through it. But GFS is dead, and they killed it in a way that was a PR masterstroke
Yeah the commune idea has it's limits but I bet GFS was insightful to the people who were a part of it. As long as the pigs are on the other side, they'll beat you, so eventually you've got to go over and take them out too. Either that or you've got to take up guerilla war and put them on the defensive. Even though it's repeating the mistakes of the past, I think to some extent it's useful to rehearse these things in this century.
A significant number of the people involved with CHOP now believe it was bait that they fell for, fwiw. SPD went out of their way to create fake reports of chud attacks, they used the distraction of the folks involved with CHOP to run sweeps away from CHOP, increasing the density of people living in Cal Anderson to the point where problems were inevitable. All of that led to the shootings there. Rather than forcing the news to talk about police violence, the news was able to talk about nasty, gross CHAZ with its violence and unsanitary conditions.
i don't think any growing communist party would agree with your 2nd point to be honest. doing shit like that without any type of organization behind it is adventurism and serves no purpose other than being an escape valve for the anger that people feel but which achieves very little. besides, shit like this spooks people who are 'outsiders' but sympathetic to the movement and are afraid of getting hurt and/or arrested. it's also probably bad optics.
in my little experience organizing you do everything possible to keep newer people safe so that they don't feel scared, unprotected or anything of the sort. if they feel that way they won't come back.
- Don't fall for traps like cops retreating from a precinct. When they give up a position, move like water. Do not try to occupy a location - they'll just drive as many sources of disruption into that location as possible.
- Stay in contact with the residential communities around your protest. You depend on their support and if you lose them, you lose a lot of your ability to persuade.
- Medics need to have an active plan for how to get a critically injured individual to the nearest hospital with the assumption that the cops will do everything in their power to prevent EMS from approaching.
- Medic and mutual-aid setups should be done in such a way that they can be moved quickly. Cops will attack them. Keep things in closed, airtight containers.
- Maintain a bike line around the main body of the protest at the distance of roughly one block - try to redirect cars before they get close enough to be in conflict with the crowd in the first place.
- The media will turn on you within a week. Prepare for that.
Just be ready to try to counter whatever shit that lib media tries to smear it with, I highly recommend sharing this with anyone you can.
I think the biggest failure of the western left was white leftists myself included just being totally blindsided by how huge that movement got so quickly, and while it was an unprecedented show of international solidarity we really should have had our shit together and been ready to fight against the liberal coopting that inevitably occurs in those situations without a strong revolutionary organizational spirit growing alongside and inside it.
Bring a big permanent marker and give them the option to fix it or fuck off. Any lib willing to revise their sign to say "fuck" or "abolish" instead of "defund" will be radicalized the rest of the way once the the batons come out
Have a non-lib organization running protests. BLM turned out to not be up to the task.
The radical ones did, you're right.
I wonder if it's even possible to get a radical organization with useful reach up and running while the FBI/CIA still exist.
I heard an interview with an old organizer whose advice was never to get rid of the cop, because they'll just send another. Sideline them and weigh them down with all the shitty low level tasks nobody else wants to do because they're the only one getting paid to do it.
the fed
Like there would only be a single agent in a radical organization of any size and you could simply get rid of them, lol
They were but then their leaders were assassinated
They were? I only know of Sasha Johnson, the British BLM-leader. It happened in the US as well?
At least these 6 come to mind, although it’s obviously unclear to what extent pigs were involved in each case
We could write a 50 book compendium on just what to do different when it comes to megaphones.
no goddamn megaphones, break each and every one. if it's a unitary statement, it'll be expressed through the crowd.
Have a leader
Denounce the co-opters (Those literally walking hand in hand with the police for "unity")
Burn more things
Occupy more things
More pallets of bricks
Some sort of unforgettable luncheon
Car & Truck convoys that block major arteries would be funny. Especially in DC and NYC
The next wave may need to be more openly militant.
Shouldn't need to soften the language or demands the next time, the soft approach was already tried, it is justifiable to escalate.
Probably view all NGO's with suspicion, if its recognized by the government because of paperwork, its probably not gonna be your friend for long.
Organize with your party. Grow the party through the protests.
All of these big tent lib-laden attempts lack coherent principled organization and leadership. Easy for libs to co-opt. Easy for people to dismiss and ignore because there are 10 different messages and the media can choose from the ones easiest to attack. Organization means a unified message, it means stronger actions. It means an entirely new type of action is possible (pooling resources, putting together legal fights, communities defense). It means capacity to keep pressure up for months because everyone always knows when to get out there, just listen for a call from the party
The next similar wave of protests will be even bigger, so new strategies should take advantage of that.
I'm not an expert on tactics so I could be completely wrong about the rest, but maybe spread out more? Once you have enough protesters to completely shut down a street, start filling another. Shut down more of the city so your demands are harder to ignore. Plus it's harder to kettle you or shell you with tear gas. Though you'll also need to make sure there are still enough protesters in any given space that the police can't just overrun you.
Makes sense.
Police tactics tend to work towards having a block of them trying to control choke points to manage/turn/kettle large groups. If they cannot maintain a large enough group to keep a riot line, its likely they will abandon any attempt to push back people in those areas.
The next similar wave of protests will be even bigger
I wonder when it will come. This summer? 2024? In the 2030's?
An unorganized spur-of-the-moment movement (even over something good like :acab:) is basically shooting clay pigeons for libs to undermine and assimilate. Without organization and central messaging/demands all the marches and riots in the world won't do anything except give some of us catharsis for a bit.
To expand - broad tent movements (because let's be honest, libs did join) have unfocused messaging that lets libs signal boost the ones that they want, such as 'defund the police'. If the protests were to be repeated, there has to be a direct central message that does not get compromised, something only realistically achievable with a central organisation in charge - say, a vanguard party or something. 'Abolish the Police' doesn't get watered down to 'Defund the Police' if nobody is waving a 'Defund the Police' sign around in the first place. in minecraft
