Anonymous comrade writes:
"Anarchists Object: We Are No Excuse for Terror-Baiting"

Recent statements by New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, reported in the New York Daily News ("Anarchy Threat to City: Cops fear hard-core lunatics plotting convention chaos", July 12), give us a taste of the kind of hysteria New Yorkers can expect in the weeks leading up to the Republican Convention in August. Time after time, before summits and conventions, police make bizarre, hysterical predictions about anarchists plotting terror and mass destruction — predictions which have never, once come true. But the fact that they invariably prove false never stops the police from doing it again, or the local media from taking them seriously.

Therefore, some of us feel it might be helpful to issue a small reality check.

1) Who are anarchists?

Anarchists are people who believe that rather than being controlled by governments, it would be better for human beings to manage their own affairs on the basis of self-organization, voluntary association and mutual aid. We look forward to a society in which people are brought up to be reasonable and respectful of one another and therefore, in which police will not have to exist. This might be one reason police have never liked us very much.

In America, anarchists have long campaigned for greater freedom and democracy. Anarchists were crucial, for instance, in the creation of groups like Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union; anarchist labor unions were the main force pushing for the 8-hour-day.

2) What are New York anarchists really doing about the Republican National Convention?

There are hundreds of anarchists in New York who, like so many New Yorkers, feel that the Republicans' decision to hold their convention in our city is a cynical ploy to exploit the memory of our suffering on September 11th that should not go unanswered. There will, certainly, be protests, and probably very large protests. Anarchists are involved in every aspect of the planning and preparations, from United for Peace and Justice, which is planning a mass march and rallies, the Still We Rise coalition of community-based groups, the RNC Clearinghouse, which is trying to coordinate housing, transportation, artistic and theatrical events, among many other things, the People's Law Collective, that will be providing legal support to protesters or other New Yorkers arrested during the protests, teams of medics to provide care and assistance for protesters or other New Yorkers injured during the protests, and so on. So far, one of the main concerns of the anarchists involved in planning the protests has been to insist that everything is done openly and democratically; that in our organizing, we should provide an example of real democracy to contrast to the phony, sham "democracy" the Republican Convention represents.

3) But what about all those police claims of violent or terroristic behavior?

Time after time police have made similar claims. Time after time they have been proven to be lying.

Just look at the hard facts, compare police predictions before and during protests with what actually ends up happening. Again and again, police spokesmen predict terrible violence. They predict goons with molotov cocktails, anarchists setting off bombs, protesters throwing acid or slabs of concrete at policemen, or even more bizarre fantasies — during the last Republican Convention, for instance, Philadelphia police claimed anarchists were preparing to release poisonous snakes and reptiles all over the city. During the protests, they often claim such things are actually happening. But every time, when it's all over, police are either forced to grudgingly admit they were "mistaken" (the molotovs turned out to be paint thinner used in making puppets, the van full of reptiles turned out to be owned by a pet store), or they just stop talking about it and hope nobody notices that none of these things ever actually occurred.

Real terrorists try to create terror. They threaten to do terrible things, to kill and maim innocent people, if governments do not agree to their demands. Then they go out and do it. Afterwards, they boast about it and threaten more. Here we have the exact opposite. The anarchists who help organize protests in America have never threatened to hurt anyone, never claimed to have hurt anyone, and in fact, in four years of protests, never have harmed members of the public in any way. Despite that, every time there's a major protest, the police keep trying to terrify the public by predicting mayhem, and the anarchists keep desperately trying to reassure the public that there's nothing to be frightened of, that the last thing we'd ever want to do is to harm them.

In other words, it's the police spokesmen who keep trying to create a climate of terror. We keep trying to diffuse it.

So who's the terrorist?

4) But why would the police want to terrify the public?

Allow us to suggest one very simple reason.

Rich people don't like it if you try to ruin their parties.

If you think about it, this is pretty obvious. There was once a time when the richest and most powerful men on earth?bankers, politicians, Enron-style executives?could meet wherever they wanted, sip their martinis, go to their lavish balls, and hold fancy summits where they discuss what economic policies to impose on the rest of the world. Ever since Seattle, almost every time they try to meet, they find themselves faced with thousands of indignant citizens determined to practice non-violent civil disobedience to try to spoil the party. Protesters blockade streets. They chain themselves to doorways. They lie down in front of traffic. Some of them even place trash cans and dumpsters in the middle of the street or sing rude songs outside posh hotels. How could the people attending these summits not find this annoying?

Obviously, the party-goers feel it is the job of the police to do whatever it takes to make the protesters cut it out.

The police, in turn, have to do what they're told. After all, even when the party-goers do not actually include heads of government like George Bush, we are talking about the richest and most powerful men on earth. During several protests in Washington, for example, it was publicly announced that units of the DC police had been put under the direct command of the IMF (an international banking organization).

The problem is, as the police discovered in Selma Alabama and other places many years ago, you can't stop such forms of civil disobedience without being very violent towards a large number of American citizens. Especially if you're trying to so traumatize them that they will be reluctant to come out and try it again. You have to hit people, beat them with sticks, teargas them, shoot them with tazers and plastic bullets, sweep up hundreds in mass arrests (where they can then be treated in a style not unreminiscent of some of what we've recently seen at Abu Ghraib). All this is now regularly done, but it puts the police in a delicate situation. After all, they are being asked to attack some of the very American citizens they are supposed to be protecting. What's more, when you start using teargas and mass arrests and opening fire on crowds of people with tazers and rubber bullets, it's impossible to ensure that you only hurt the protesters. Inevitably, you will be injuring ordinary citizens who just happen to be standing around.

So the question becomes: how can you possibly justify police tactics that you know endanger the public against a group which does not endanger the public in any way?

If you want the answer, just look at what people like Commissioner Raymond Kelly say and do.

5) Could the police really be intentionally endangering the public?

Well, that depends on what you mean by "intentionally". Most police officers are decent human beings doing their jobs like anybody else, trying their best to serve and protect a public that doesn't pay them very well or fully appreciate the risks they have to take. Certainly they are not going to intentionally try to hurt innocent bystanders.

The people who run the police however are basically politicians and like most politicians, they tend to lie. Probably, one of the main targets for all these tall tales about protester violence are their own subordinates, street cops who might otherwise feel uncomfortable about attacking the very citizens they are sworn to protect.

Once again, if you don't believe us, check the facts. Look at what really happens. Count the numbers of people who end up injured after a major protest. Usually, there are hundreds of injuries among the protesters. Sometimes there are a handful of injured policemen, too, though it usually turns out they were mainly injured by things that other policemen did. We are not aware of a single report of an innocent bystander having been injured by a protester at a big summit or convention. But every time there is a major protest, there are dozens, often hundreds, of reports of bystanders shackled, hogtied and thrown in jail, clubbed, kicked, hit by "non-lethal" weapons like rubber or plastic or wooden bullets. There have been endless horror stories: pregnant women who abort because of CS gas, American citizens losing teeth, eyes, ending up with permanent disabilities, dying prematurely of conditions caused by police use of force. If foreigners did this to American citizens the press would certainly be calling them terrorists. And they'd be right.

So, to Commissioner Kelly and all the other politicians who control our nation's police, we say this. Stop trying to terrify the public about non-existent threats. There are plenty of real threats to spend your time worrying about. Stop attacking American citizens who are trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Stop using tactics that endanger the public. And if that means some rich people or foreign bankers or Republican delegates have a hard time getting to their party sometimes: is this really such a big deal? They're rich. They can handle it. Maybe it will encourage them to think a little bit about what they're doing. Anyway, it's not like anybody's clubbing them or dragging them off in shackles or shooting them with poison gas, like you're doing to prevent them from being inconvenienced.

Maybe you should think about what side you're really on.