A-Infos (en) US, San Francisco, anti-war update

[agit-prop <agit-prop@tao.ca>]

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Monday, March 24, 1 pm-So, what follows is obviously an anarchist 
perspective on recent events, i'm sure others with different 
perspectives would describe things differently.

I was hoping that on the night the war broke out, based on past marches 
when up to 250,000 had come out, thousands of San Franciscans would hit 
the streets. This did not happen, only several thousand came out. 
Thursday, however, was a very amazing day, perhaps the most effective 
day of protest in the city's history save for perhaps sometime during 
the General Strike of 1934 in San Francisco. About 30,000 participated 
in that General Strike with approximately 400 were arrested in what was 
called "the first successful general strike in American history." Last 
Thursday over 1400 were arrested in one day, but more importantly, the 
financial district was thoroughly shut down and a very empowering, 
autonomous street presence was created.

The cop in charge of the demonstrations said "Today we saw a 
ratcheting-up from legal protest to absolute anarchy." Well, compared 
to events in Athens, Madrid, Cairo, or Yemen, it wasn't really 
"absolute anarchy" at all, but for Amerika, it was definitely a 
remarkable affair.

However, since then, things have not gone so well. The police have done 
a very effective job of stopping protests since then with the following 
strategy: "Our success will come when we arrest so many of them we have 
depleted their ranks." On friday, groups of people and even individuals 
were constantly harrassed, attacked, rounded-up and arrested. Even 
people standing around on the sidewalks or legally bicycling down the 
street have been subject to intimidation, beating, and jail.

Meanwhile, the media and politicians have also been attacking the 
protesters and cutting off public support for the demonstrations. The 
cop inside the head is often just as effective than the cop on the 
street, and the media has done an effective job of making people think 
that any kind of protest aside from the ritualized permitted marches on 
the weekends is counter-productive.
So, while there have been sporadic and inspiring outbursts of action 
since thursday, and while approx. 75,000 marched on saturday, i'd say 
anarchist types are feeling kind of bummed and unclear about how to 
proceed. any time any group of people takes to the street (aside from 
the ritual march on saturday), the police respond rapidly. and when 
people try and do stuff like graffitti or chucking newstands out on the 
streets as barricades, the pacifist peace police types often start 
yelling and causing trouble.

This morning, hundreds blockaded Transamerica Pyramid building, 
targetting the Carlyle Group (a bunch of former military thugs and 
intelligence spooks who are now working in private industry as part of 
the Bush gang, involved in oil, guns and drugs) resulting in several 
dozen arrests. There are calls to meet at 5 pm in the financial 
district every day this week, but the feeling is people are just making 
the announcement without much hope of anything really happening, 
because whenever people have gathered downtown since thursday, there 
has been a massive police response that is very disempowering.

So, this is a big of an overall pessimistic report, but i felt it is 
more important to be honest than falsely reporting the state of affairs 
here. Things may change as well, especially as it appears that things 
are not going as smoothly in Iraq as the military promised. Also, the 
anarchist book fair is coming to SF next weekend, so an influx of 
comrades from out of the area may liven things up a bit.

Below are a few suggestions posted on SF Indymedia.

to the rest of the insurgent world from here in the belly of the 
beast...rock on, y'all!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Need to work in the morning? Keep fighting even at work (aside from the 
normal workplace sabotage which is being stepped up now):
Tuesday: Board of Supervisors Meeting : The police in this city are 
clearly acting outside of the law at protests, in day-to-day life, and 
everyone is called to pack their meeting and make public comment 
testimony. Tuesday, 2 - 4pm (longer if a lot people show up to speak), 
City  Hall.
Call Terrence Hallinan, SF's District Attorney, at (415) 553-1752 to 
demand that all jailed/detained protesters be released immediately.
Tune in to 93.7FM and organize a mobile listening station in your 
neighborhood
Keep opposing the new SFPD Political Police "Red Squad"

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