peace, love and anarchy

For what exactly? Are we going to walk to DC just for shits or something? I guess I don't understand how walking to DC will necessarily aid in bringing about an anarchist community.

 

Hmm.
What does getting the voice out mean? I take from this that you want a shit ton (500k?) of anarchists anarchists to march on DC. Peacefully. Why? To show Americans that anarchists aren't "violent hateful miscreants". When you say many different groups I assume you still mean anarchists. If not then why would it benefit anarchists any more than any other action does/has. I think you intend that this occurs through the march receiving good press because of its peacefulness. Then everyone will wake up and join with the anarchists. I don't think this is reasonable. America for one isn't secretly anarchist. Even if anarchists got good media, which probably won't happen as the capitalists own the media, the country wouldn't suddenly change its colors. What I'm saying here is that the goal of an anarchist movement should not be to generate good press because then we let the media shape our goals. In general, I think this idea is too broad. Also this deals with questions of what is peaceful march in the eyes of the media? Even closing down an intersection is considered violent by many Americans, liberals included, even if nothing gets damaged.

Also I think this may overlook all the organizing that anarchists already engage in. The Occupy movement for example could not have occurred without significant anarchist contribution. Since then I've seen some (very very few) liberal media sources treating anarchists a little fairer. And relations between groups can be said to have become more positive. Maybe. But there are still witch hunts against anarchists, especially within radical leftism.
So how does this affect anarchist communities? I believe that this is done through strengthening our communities ourselves, relying only on ourselves. I think this ideal march is an appeal to the society that we're at war with. I think that if we are to win over non-anarchists (which is kind of a strange concept as is because what does that even mean?), it should be by integrating ourselves into communities in order to benefit them. For example the street medics collective that went to NYC and Haiti and other places to give out supplies. They were the first ones to enter the more impoverished destroyed communities, places where the Am. Red Cross wouldn't go without a battalion of soldiers. Anyways, its grassroots organizing in oppressed communities in conjunction with large scale anti-capitalist actions (NATO, G8), as opposed to appealing to capitalist media and society, that will further anarchist communities.

Also I wouldn't consider the weatherman movement as an example of "the voice of the people being heard again". They were a fringe sub-group within a larger anti-war, highly patriarchal, movement. They just got a lot of press. And to use them is a really confusing point because you say you want a peaceful march on DC which is totally not what the Weathermen were about. They made bombs. Not peaceful.

 

@ Harrison those are quite a few good questions you got there..

@ Cosmoc Citizen Whats the name of this "March" and whats the "Slogan" you are trying to sell this march as?? Do you have a web site and do you tweet?

 

1. Get shit tons of anarchists
2. Make vague signs
3. March
4. ????
5. REVOLUTION

 

we won`t stop until we have a revolution yum tum yummy tum hey

its not a bad idea, you don`t really need any specific reason to go out and demonstrate. why wait for something shitty to happen? Theres always a reason to demonstrate.

 

well let us know if you set up a twitter account and stuff like that, I`d love to hear how it goes!

 

Understand, my concern is that you're asking anarchists across the country to stop raising their kids and feeding themselves to take part in a march that may or may not reach anyone, and that has goals that can be accomplished locally on just as large a scale with more efficient dedication of resources and time. Asking people to drop their lives to go on a march with a vague message and goals seems presumptuous. Most anarchists are not concerned with anarchist PR on a national scale instead favoring acting out anarchist principles of organizing ourselves every day.

But, if you're going to go for it then please consider changing the rhetoric. "Winning the hearts and minds" of Americans may as well have been plucked from Romney's campaign speeches. I wish you the best of luck.

 

well no one asked anyone to drop their kids and run off.
i think its good that someone is taking initiative to go out and march. i don`t think anyone expects someone that lives far away to show up, but anyone that can and has the means to get there(and wants to, of course) should.

i don`t get the problem with this march. why is it wrong? what would you rather do to get heard?

 

First, I know I have a problem sounding hostile (and the internet's lack of tone doesn't help that), so I'm sorry if I'm sounding over-provocative.

I don't have a problem with this march per se, but I do think there are a number of questions. Who exactly is this march for? How does it serve these people's interests, and what exactly does it aim to accomplish? If anarchism were a homogenous unit or a political party I could see the benefit in a giant PR march to let people know that we're not just angry teenagers. However, I don't think a great deal of the anarchist movement would actually be able to participate in this march, nor would they necessarily benefit.

The people that have the time to commit to such a march will be largely unrestricted by restraints such as work, child rearing, or other such things. While this doesn't necessarily harm anything, if an action is going to be very well advertised it's important to keep in mind the type of people that will be in front of cameras. I don't see such an action attracting a lot of working poor or unprivileged people since it's blatantly ideological and extremely vague. From my position it looks like it will attract only the kinds of people that have the ability to take work off and go to DC to march, which is not a very accurate representation of the folks that share libertarian socialist ideas.

Anarchists can do just as much in the way of making a good name for themselves by setting up a food not bombs, a work reference network, a solidarity network, or any other analogous mutual aid network. Tactics such as these have the benefit of being local, getting something done, and showing a side of anarchism that people don't often see. Whether or not such actions are covered by the media, they make an impact on the communities that benefit from them that is long lasting. I wish I could see as much dedication to actions like these. It does a lot more to do an action that benefits people than to simply tell people your actions benefit them.

 

I believe the point of the march was making people aware of this:

The anarchist movement should stop splitting hairs and work together on the issues they do agree on.

I can see how some think that there might not be enough emphasis on volunteer work, but anarchists do a lot of work and help out lots of people. Its just that that type of thing rarely gets on the news.

 

My point is that it doesn't have to. If you want to have a march because you want to be an anarchist on the news then that's fine. I think reaching people is more important than reaching media, because media will always tell its own story and not yours.

 

this is about reaching people.

 

I'm not sure it is. While I think that may be the intended goal, I think there are things integral to this type of action that makes it unlikely for a diverse array of people to participate or see it. It looks like an attempt to reach the media in hopes that the media will communicate to people. We should be going to people directly rather than having symbolic marches.

Who can participate? Like I said before, only those with the privilege to take off work (or the flat out dedication) will be able to participate. This leaves out a great number of people.

Who will see this? It's unlikely that the media will cover something like this, and when they do they're unlikely to portray it for what it is. Those who are already sympathetic may see it and just have their beliefs reinforced, those who are unaware of anarchism may not. Coupled with the first concern up there, the people that do see any coverage will see a group of people that are not representative of anarchists across the country.

How will the media react? The media always tells its own story. This does not seem like the type of action to develop wide-ranging popular support and its own media (it's explicitly ideological, specifically for anarchists, rather than goal oriented) and basically boils down to a PR march. So essentially it's banking on fair coverage from the media rather than the implementation of alternative media. The news will not do PR for anarchists, nor should anarchists be doing things that are only PR stunts.

Like I said, it's not a bad action, but there are things that need to be addressed, and it seems like these things are largely being over-looked. How can parents participate? How can working people participate? How will this march navigate its way through a controlled media? To shrug off these questions is somewhat alienating to the working, parenting anarchists that don't have the luxury of being able to go on a march. How can any group speak for them without their input? Having a small subset of people speak for anarchists like that is inherently contradictory to the self-representation anarchism support.

 

The whole anarchist movement is never able to participate in marches at all times, so in a way all demonstrations are pointless because the whole movement can`t show up every single time?

Every time there is a demo the media tries to portray anarchists as a violent movement, that doesn`t mean we should stop doing it. Getting heard is better than never being out there.

Anarchists are a threat to society, any threat to society will get bashed in the media. I actually can`t think of any big journalists or news companies that support the movement.

 

Of course, there are always people that can't show up. I'm not saying every single person needs to show up.

What this particular march seems to lack is the methods of organizing that anarchists have developed to ensure that a wide range of people have their voice heard during planning and so that things like work and child-care are not issues. Most conferences have child-care services, for instance. Most good demos are planned by numerous country-wide spokes councils and autonomous groups working together rather than unilaterally planned and simply asking people to show up. Obviously every action can't get every anarchist out. However, they can answer basic questions like who are we representing? Who can participate? How can we make sure people can participate? How will we navigate a controlled media? Sometimes these questions are answered better, sometimes they're answered worse, but they are accounted for. It doesn't seem like the organizers of this action have even thought about things that have, quite frankly, become common practice/common sense since the early days of the anti-globalization movement.

 

Why this specific date?