American anarchists meaninglessly devour themselves at Portland Conference

[8ball]

His name is Robert Paulson.

 

[butchersapron]

We don't need no stinking' protest permits.

 

[seventh bullet]

Is this kind of thing a major problem in the US, or just a visible, university-centred and bullying middle class minority? I assume anarchists here have links and contacts with US anarchists who give this weird, scary shit short shrift in their activity as, well, 'normal' people?

 

[DotCommunist]

Is this kind of thing a major problem in the US, or just a visible, university-centred and bullying middle class minority? I assume anarchists here have links and contacts with US anarchists who give this weird, scary shit short shrift in their activity as, well, 'normal' people?

i've no idea really, but its the country that gave us the weather underground, so all bets are off

 

[DaveCinzano]

words fail me.

Whereas for the jokers in the video, the problem seems to lie with ideas.

 

[Nylock]

The American left seems to be eating itself alive... Has this always been the case or has it gotten worse of late?

 

[Miss Caphat]

Thread is messed up because the subject matter is messed up. I just don't think you've grasped what is going on, which is fine but disappointing that you don't want to bother.

this thread is messed up all on its own. I haven't watched the video, but the gist I get is that some college students got something wrong about how to effectively protest , which is hardly surprising given that young privileged kids often do things like that um...everywhere...yet everyone here seems to want to read all kinds of nonsense into it about how different and wrong the whole left movement is over here.
the thing equating call and response to church..well, hey, guess what, there is probably some truth to that which is actually a positive thing stemming from Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders having their start in African American churches.
And then calling Americans uninformed on the thread.
I don't know...just, what is the point here? For the millionth time, that you're so much better than us?
awesome. you win.

 

[kebabking]

...that you're so much better than us?...

well obviously, but having manners we allow you to come to that conclusion on your own, rather than being blunt about it.

if it was just a bunch of overly excited middle-class students who, despite their cries of 'smash the patricarchy!', will all in 3 years be found working in Corporate Law firms and as assistants in the offices of Politicians - with nice BMW's and an appartment in the better part of town - then you'd be correct. buts its not, its a phenomenon that appears to be almost dominant in the American Left.

go to any number of US left political websites and you'll see people being 'called out' by the witchfinder generals and a baying mob screaming at them - all for the most minor political/doctrinal disagreements, or indeed just personal ego.

 

[Idris2002]

Exactly, no platform those fuckers.

I got the feeling they were deliberately trying to provoke a violent response from the conference organisers, so they could go around screaming 'come and see the violence inherent in the system'.

 

[likesfish]

Seems to be a lot of lets bully close associates because they will get upset and and feel bad and understand what the fuck your going on about

While in the real world you can be jailed for being black trans and walking
Because obviously your a whore

But dealing with that is potentially dangerous and difficult while screaming at a rad fem might get a pot of homespun vegan museli chucked at you

 

[Idris2002]

a pot of homespun vegan museli chucked at you

Yeah, those crazy 'stand your ground' laws, eh?

 

[DotCommunist]

still, at least nobody got pied

 

[Idris2002]

still, at least nobody got pied

To their lies, we respond with pies.

 

[rekil]

We will not be silenced in the face of your pie-lence

 

[DaveCinzano]

We will not be silenced in the face of your pie-lence

Every political movement needs a revolutionary flanguard

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

this thread is messed up all on its own. I haven't watched the video, but the gist I get is that some college students got something wrong about how to effectively protest

Look I'm checking my video watching privilige and feel that if there is some way we can facilitate you to watch the video it might help you understand how it made us feel...

Or in other words if you actually watched the video it might make you realise what a waste your post is!

And for what it's worth this video shows why the UK anarcho scene is actually worse than the US scene, as it shows an event that will almost certainly happen in exactly the same way for exactly the same reason at this years London Anarchist Bookfair, despite people seeing how cringe worthy and embarrassing it is when it happens in the US.

The UK scene is currently about a year behind the US one in fashion trends.

 

[DaveCinzano]

And for what it's worth this video shows why the UK anarcho scene is actually worse than the US scene, as it shows an event that will almost certainly happen in exactly the same way for exactly the same reason at this years London Anarchist Bookfair, despite people seeing how cringe worthy and embarrassing it is when it happens in the US.

I'm calling you out for your Wetherspoons privilege

 

[Teaboy]

this thread is messed up all on its own. I haven't watched the video, but the gist I get is that some college students got something wrong about how to effectively protest , which is hardly surprising given that young privileged kids often do things like that um...everywhere...yet everyone here seems to want to read all kinds of nonsense into it about how different and wrong the whole left movement is over here.
the thing equating call and response to church..well, hey, guess what, there is probably some truth to that which is actually a positive thing stemming from Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders having their start in African American churches.
And then calling Americans uninformed on the thread.
I don't know...just, what is the point here? For the millionth time, that you're so much better than us?
awesome. you win.

Fuck sake, not again. Why are you rushing to the defence of something that you can't be bothered to read up on? The protest style is in itself annoying but its not as important as the story behind it.

So when it comes to death threats, threats of violence and rape against people are supposed to be on the same side in a safe place then yes I do think I'm better then that, and so should you.

 

[Das Uberdog]

just to repeat, the guy (Kristian Williams) is subject to a blacklisting campaign within the groups he's spent his entire life in because of the article he wrote (posted at the beginning of this thread).

this has got him tarred with the brush of 'victim blaming', and the hysterical position that was chanted at him during the conference was 'we will not be silenced in the face of your violence' (intellectual violence presumably).

so no, not just the cringeworthy protesting style but the entire orientation of a movement which will now blacklist and ban at the drop of a hat to satiate the blood-lust of a roving mob of goons. the fact they protest in a stupid way just goes to further display the quality of person involved in their campaign.

 

[DaveCinzano]

just to repeat, the guy (Kristian Williams) is subject to a blacklisting campaign within the groups he's spent his entire life in because of the article he wrote (posted at the beginning of this thread).

And just what patriarchal filth was this hatemonger in town to peddle?

Informants: Types, Cases & Warning Signs
Kristian Williams, Jenny Esquivel, and scott crow

Based on their research and personal experience, the panelists will describe the effect of infiltrators on current social movements. Kristian Williams will begin by presenting a basic taxonomy of informant types (e.g., infiltrator, cooperating witness, agent provocateur), explain how their operations differ, and the dangers they present to movements pursuing social change. Jenny Esquivel will then present a synopsis of the work of “Anna,” an FBI plant who infiltrated the anarchist movement and entrapped environmentalists in a bombing conspiracy; she will also explain the role of cooperating witnesses in the case. After which, Scott Crow will outline the career of Brandon Darby, an activist who became an FBI informant, disrupting relief work in New Orleans and entrapping young anarchists protesting the 2008 Republican National Convention. Public discussion to follow.

More on those quislings alongside him on the panel:

Jenny Esquivel:

...has worked with Sacramento Prisoner Support since 2006. She has gone on tour multiple times speaking about Eric McDavid’s case, entrapment, and political prisoners. She is a co-author of the book Government Repression, Prisoner Support

Scott Crow:

Crow has been associated with many regional and national political campaigns and movements since 1985 including animal liberation, radical environmentalism, anti-globalization and worker cooperatives. Beginning in the late 1990s he came under broad investigations for political activities by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I) and the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in nine states which continued for almost a decade and included being targeted by controversial F.B.I. informant Brandon Darby.[3] To date Crow has never been charged with any crimes.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Utter filth

 

[rekil]

Given the type of work the panel has been engaged in, it's not completely daft to suspect that the idiots might've been egged on by coppers is it?

 

[ViolentPanda]

From the article linked to in the OP:

I've seen this kind of thing happening; the shoutiest, rantiest people effectively deciding what can and cannot be discussed, and controlling the parameters of debate. It doesn't matter what your actual position is, if you're defending that position by simply sabotaging any attempts people make to express different opinions then you're not being a very good anarchist, or a very good anything really.

Then you've got stuff like this:

...which, while effectively meaningless in terms of its actual content, seems like a pretty clear attempt to label those who disagree on some semantic point or other as somehow supporting or defending abuse. Using the kind of dense jargon beloved of politics undergrads also serves to exclude people from the debate, and yet I bet the people who wrote this will happily talk for hours about how beastly it is not to exclude people who are different from you.

This is effectively the same "heirarchy of oppression"-type identity politics that pretty much fractured the extra-parliamentary left as a force in the 1980s. The exclusionary forces inherent to identity politics used in this manner militates toward fracture and ineffectiveness.
What such a politics does do, however, is make the people deploying it feel good about themselves, otherwise it's an empty vessel that detracts from political work, and destroys bonds and solidarities.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

this thread is messed up all on its own. I haven't watched the video, but the gist I get is that some college students got something wrong about how to effectively protest , which is hardly surprising given that young privileged kids often do things like that um...everywhere...yet everyone here seems to want to read all kinds of nonsense into it about how different and wrong the whole left movement is over here.
the thing equating call and response to church..well, hey, guess what, there is probably some truth to that which is actually a positive thing stemming from Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders having their start in African American churches.
And then calling Americans uninformed on the thread.
I don't know...just, what is the point here? For the millionth time, that you're so much better than us?
awesome. you win.

sorry, I haven't read any of your post, but why you always gotta be hatin'?

 

[Idris2002]

sorry, I haven't read any of your post, but why you always gotta be hatin'?

 

[Rimbaud]

Statement by the event organisers about what happened if anyone is interested:

http://www.kristianwilliams.com/

At “Law and Disorder” (May 2014)

Published on May 11, 2014 in Uncategorized. Closed
At "Law and Disorder"
by Jenny Esquivel, Kristian Williams, and scott crow

On May 10, 2014, we attempted to speak on a panel at Law and Disorder
entitled, “Informants: Types, Cases & Warning Signs.” This is a subject
with which all three of us are only too-well acquainted. It is a subject
of utmost importance to us -- both personally and politically. One of us
has a partner spending almost 20 years in prison because of an informant.
We believe that sharing our experiences with the movements and struggles
we are a part of and that we care about deeply can go a long way towards
protecting those movements and the people involved in them.

And so it was with great dismay that we realized two weeks before our talk
was to happen that people were planning on disrupting the event. The
series of events that has unfolded has been disheartening and upsetting to
us as long-time anarchists and organizers.

As our first presenter began to speak, several people from the crowd stood
up and started chanting over him (“We will not be silenced by your
violence”) while the panelists sat silently, waiting to speak. The people
who were chanting have accused him of silencing survivors of domestic
abuse by writing a critique of call-out culture in his essay, “The
Politics of Denunciation.” Despite the efforts of the moderator, some
conflict-resolution peacekeepers, and event staff hired by the conference
organizers, it became impossible to proceed with the panel. When we were
notified that the police were preparing to intervene, we decided it was
best to end the event and leave.

To be clear -- no one on the panel called the cops. And we also didn’t
tell anyone else to call the cops. This should be obvious to anyone who
was present at our panel, as none of us used our phones or in any way
communicated with anyone else who used a phone during this time. We did
everything within our control to prevent this from happening and were
assured prior to the event that no one would call the cops and that no one
would be arrested. We would not have agreed to speak if not for these
assurances.

As speakers, we have had two security priorities throughout this entire
experience: 1) ensuring that the cops did not get involved, and 2)
ensuring our ability to speak about an issue we believe is critically
important to our struggles. In the end, we resigned ourselves to
sacrificing our second priority (our ability to speak) to ensure that the
first was achieved. Our exit from the room was the only way we knew of to
ensure the safety of others who were present -- including those who were
being disruptive.

We believe that the damage caused by patriarchy and intimate violence in
our movements is a real and terrible force. These are problems that need
to be discussed, addressed and confronted head on. The way we do that as
a community has real implications for how we move forward together -- our
process around these issues has the potential to make us stronger. To
forge relationships based on solidarity, mutual aid and support that can
carry us through as we struggle against the state, patriarchy, capitalism
and all forms of oppression requires a level of willingness to treat each
other with respect and care -- even when we disagree.

We also believe that our communities and movements are strongest when we
can disagree without branding each other as enemies. Dialogue around
critical issues is sometimes painful and complicated -- but it doesn’t have
to mean that we destroy each other in the process, or that we sabotage
other important work. There are so many other places we need to be
focusing our energy and outrage -- but instead people seem insistent on
internal destruction. This pattern is not unique to this particular
instance, unfortunately, but seems to be happening in many other places
across the country. We hope that someday very soon we can learn to
disagree in ways that are constructive, rather than destructive.

That is, in part, why we opened the panel by promising time afterwards to
talk about the issues about which people are upset. We wanted to provide
space for people to engage in a more productive dialogue about how to
resolve our disagreements and frustrations. It is unfortunate that this
did not happen because people shut down the entire talk.

We would like to thank the organizers of this event for standing on
principle. It would have been much easier for them to cave under the
pressure of coercive threats than to move forward with the presentation.
Their willingness to foster a dialogue, rather than run from politically
complicated issues was heartening and reassuring during an otherwise sad
and stressful time.

I realise this is pure conspiracy theory and I don't have a shred of evidence to back this up, but part of me wonders whether intersectionality/privilege theory and that whole subculture is somehow being promoted by intelligence agencies in order to stop the left from organising effectively at a time when there was some potential to resonate with the general public. It does seem to have had that effect, but it is probably more symptom than cause of failure.

Interestingly enough, it sprung to dominance on the UK far left precisely at the moment that the tuition fees protests burned out. At the University I was at back then, while large demonstrations were still taking place, there was one occupation which was had a fairly practical function - it served as a centre for organising the necessary legwork involved in publicising the next demo, reaching out to trade unions, picketing lib dems, raising funds for transport, discussions and talks and so on. After the last major demo ended, momentum had wound down and the bulk of students lost interest, there was then a second occupation, now based on "safe space" principles (first time I heard the word) and was far smaller, more exclusive, inward looking and didn't seem to serve any particular function as such, with an emphasis on form over content. This then preceded a series of lefty fall outs and the scene went from solidarity to toxicity soon after.

My point is it seems like this sort of thing is what happens when you have people wanting to engage in radical politics but without any particular mass movement or groundswell of unrest to attach on to. I can't imagine this sort of thing being big in Spain or Greece for example where there are actually things happening outside for the radical milieu to focus their attention on.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Am I imagining things, or is the nomenclature actually getting even more complicated?

‘LGBTIQQAA’ - now 50% better than ‘people’.

What always amuses me when reading such statements is that while the statement projects inclusivity, it's actually constructing exclusivity at the same time, something I'm sure thatisn't actually appreciated by some of those who go along with this dreck.

 

[Teaboy]

What always amuses me when reading such statements is that while the statement projects inclusivity, it's actually constructing exclusivity at the same time, something I'm sure thatisn't actually appreciated by some of those who go along with this dreck.

Saying this sort of thing is exactly why people are getting shouted down and threatened. Pure bonkers.

 

[cesare]

Given the type of work the panel has been engaged in, it's not completely daft to suspect that the idiots might've been egged on by coppers is it?

Occupy

 

[likesfish]

Given the type of work the panel has been engaged in, it's not completely daft to suspect that the idiots might've been egged on by coppers is it?

No doubt pooks would love to support these loons in making sure any mass movement is still born
The only problem is nobody outside there special snowflake group has a real clue what they are on about or cares
They do this shit cause it makes them feel good and supports them in being the radical true belivers.
Because confronting "real" problems and people who havnt read the appopiate bloggs texts is hard and may not go so well.