Why Riot? By Phil A.
Neel / Ultra Two years ago in Seattle, on May 1st, 2012, roughly four to five hundred people engaged in the largest riot the city had seen in more than a decade. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of property were destroyed[i], a minor state of emergency was declared, and the next day’s headlines were filled with horror stories of crazy, “out-of-town” anarchists run amok. This event, occurring on the tail end of the Occupy movement, also quickly became the post-facto excuse for extensive federal, state and municipal investigation, surveillance and ongoing repression of political dissent. Several anarchists in the Pacific Northwest were put in prison without charge in the fall of that year, only to be released months later, still with no charges filed.
I was one of the five people originally charged for crimes on May Day 2012[ii]. This puts me in a unique position. I aim, nonetheless, to defend and explain the riot, because we live in a new era of riots. Who am I? Denounce & Destroy! ...understanding and respecting the reformist/revolutionary spectrum. May 22, 2012 marked the 100th day of student protests in Quebec, initiated around increases in tuition but adapting an overall anti-capitalist thrust, protests have escalated and gained momentum as the Quebec government installed draconian new laws --Loi78, basically banning public demonstrations and criminalizing the student movement.
With such popular and diverse participation, this is a grave opportunity for the age old game Denounce & Destroy played by activists the world over. Through a brief media scan and my terrible French, I think I have a vague picture of a specific incident of this around a series of events at the end of April, that actually seems to have worked out well in the end. Around the end of April, 2012, tensions had risen in negotiations between student groups and government as protests escalated in numbers and action. Contrary to the above misleading statements, Global Montreal quoted Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesperson for the CLASSE: Malcom X: “To Our Friends, We Are Here. To Our Enemies – We Are Coming!” As someone wrote in the online essay, We Laugh at the Waves as they Crash on Us!
What we found comical about this whole event was that the liberal pacifists themselves destroyed the myth of ideological pacifism, although from their position they are not able to see this. In the process of smashing bank windows, there were a couple protestors that took more hardline stances on pacifism, with a couple individuals going as far as grabbing, hitting, and tackling the people smashing windows. There was also talk from some of the “peaceful protestors” of forcefully removing peoples masks.
Of course the sweet sweet irony in all of this is that while property was being destroyed (and it should be made clear here that it was only banks and union busting businesses that got destroyed – not that we, the authors, have any problem with small businesses being attacked. Perhaps this goes without saying, but, fuck the police. The Property of the ‘1%’ “We’re not hurting anyone man, we’re setting em’ free!” Behind the Black Mask and Shattered Glass: Pre-sentencing interview with G20 arrestee Kelly Pflug-Back. This post has been reviewed by the Vancouver Media Co-op editorial committee.
STORY about SolidarityPovertyPolice/PrisonsHealthDirect Action posted on May 21, 2012 by Comrade Black by Comrade Black Kelly Rose Pflug-Back Kelly Pflug-Back Also posted by Comrade Black: Origionally posted on: Profane ExistenceOn May 28, Kelly Pflug-Back will stand in front of a Toronto courtroom to be sentenced. I first met Kelly when she was a 16 yr old traveler kid who had just arrived in Victoria. This interview was conducted by email. PE: You have been active in community organizing for many years preceding this arrest? KELLY: I’ve always been most interested in long-term, sustained efforts to build networks of social support so that people don’t have to rely on the state.
PE: What were the charges you are about to be sentenced for and what are they supposedly in relation to? PE: You were also charged initially with a few other charges; can you speak about those and how/why they were dropped? KELLY: Definitely. Noam Chomsky, A Rebellious World or a New Dark Age?