october 31st: 'capitalism gives us the creeps' anarchist halloween march

Several dozen crazy costumed anarchists took to the streets at wicker park for the second annual 'capitalism gives us the creeps' march. Food not Bombs served while cops watched with paddy wagons readying for the march to begin. They were clearly more in control than last year's march which drew more participants. The police succeeded for a good part of the march in forcing most people onto the sidewalks. However, we covered the city with a wild and festive march to the Halsted street halloween parade, where radical cheerleaders, existential bucket crews, and other festive crazies danced and made some noise against government and capitalism.

An incident occured when a cop assaulted a march participant by throwing him across the sidewalk in a dispute over being in the street, which provoked an arrest in the ensuing scuffle. Another arrest happened later in the march, but both are out of jail now.


nov 2nd: world can't wait / uic feeder march / anarchist actions

Thousands gathered in Chicago for a series of street marches and actions as part of a national day of actions against the Bush regime. Although the World Cant Wait campaign was initiated and put together by the RCP, it was good that the call was broad enough to encompass a diversity of ideologies and tactics while still maintaining radical calls of 'driving out the bush regime'. There were liberals, anarchists, communists, militant dreamers and other revolutionaries marching side by side to overthrow the Bush regime. Hopefully, other local activist groups will learn to settle differences, gain experience from our mistakes, and learn to work together for future actions.

As one of many seperate feeder marches throughout the city, several students and activists gathered at UIC to hand out flyers and chalk for 'write on everything' day. students from UIC anti-war, guerrilla disturbance theatre, the ISO, and hackbloc were present to stir up some anti-war madness. Cops were following us from the start of the rally and throughout the march. Gave brief rallying statements and marched around campus, north on halsted, and east on jackson to meet up with the larger rally and march at federal plaza.

The rally at federal plaza was surrounded by police on horses and rows of cops decked out in stormtrooper equipment. The police issued a statement saying how they support the right to free speech and assembly while issuing formal warnings of arrest if we broke away from the designated march route they decided upon.

March was rather short, marching up on Dearborn and then back south again to head back to Federal Plaza. People shouted various anti-bush and revolutionary chants. Cops in riot gear surrounded the march on both sides. Much of the route was a sea of black and green signs mass produced by the World Cant Wait organizers, but many people brought out colorful signs and costumes and a gathering of radicals and anarchists had a drum brigade with a banner reading 'world can't wait - smash the state'.

After the march returned to federal plaza and the WCW organizers began to pack bags and disperse, a dozen radicals gathered in a big circle to bust out several US flags for a grand bonfire. The fire had just been lit when police organizers grabbed our flags and warned us that we couldn't do it. After a brief but tense confrontation with anarchists, cops and some friendly NLG advice, they allowed us to burn 'one flag at a time'. Several flags were burned and a dance circle began with chants of 'brick by brick, wall by wall, we'll tear this fucking empire down'. Soon after, cops broke up the event, called in arrest teams, surrounded us and asked us to disperse.

Posted by the guerrilla disturbance theatre
Full report @ www.hackbloc.org/chicago/worldcantwait
Contact: whooka at gmail.com