Anonymous Comrade writes:

"(Not Your Usual) Notes on Miami"
PK and Friends

We did not get arrested and we are not naïve enough to believe Miami was the greatest day of modern-day revolutionary activity. However, in light of the wave of dejected accounts from the streets and the jails and the ensuing reflections, we feel a gaping whole has been left in the analyses of the events in Miami. Enough material has already been generated in the past two weeks concerning both the nasty, deliberate consequences of the FTAA and the police repression during the ministerial. This article will not attempt to analyze, nor undermine, the importance of the former and the existence of the latter. Nor do we encourage the dwelling on or fetishization of mass demonstrations. We feel that in spite of all the negativity, fear, and outrage surrounding the ministerial and its aftermath, there was an exciting, fundamental shift in resistance strategy (and its popular acceptance) that, once realized, cannot be lost. That is what this article will discuss; and that is what needs to be addressed, applauded, and further developed without hesitation.Nine months of training and $10 million: they were prepared. Arguably, as the morning-time actions showed, we weren’t. Morning-time delivered us with a good ass-kicking broadcast live and direct to every living room and hotel lobby in Miami. Thus, many of the afternoon rally-goers, having themselves been harassed on their way to the amphitheater (if they made it at all), viewed, over breakfast, images of brutal police repression unleashed on those folks confronting the same institution they had come to challenge. As the crackdown continued up until the noon rally and on to 2pm, the 10,000+ people now in attendance in and around the amphitheater had developed a high-degree of distrust and resentment toward the police. Numerous steelworkers complained of hotel lobby searches by riot cops, the difficulty navigating the militarized streets to even arrive at the rally, and the refusal of the police to let many fellow steelworkers into the amphitheater after noon. All this, compounded with the reasons that drove them to be in Miami initially, set the stage for an electric afternoon.

3:30 rolled around and a couple dozen drummers started toward the police line guarding the fence. Upon hearing the drums, we looked around at others who looked around at others, and with fire in our eyes and very few words, 2-3,000 people suddenly surged behind the drummers. Nine months of training and $10 million could not prepare the authorities for this surge of energy. Some baton blows and a teargas canister later, a people, sick of being pushed around in the morning and traversing a police state to get to a legal rally, reacted. No… we were not just going to sit back and take it. We were not, and could not, going to fight back Seattle-style (surprise guerilla, smash and dash). They were ready. So we simply accepted the head on challenge. They could not harness our spirit with their $8.5 million.

They let loose their chemical and projectile weapons. And in scenes reminiscent of Europe, Latin America, and Asia, a fierce street battle was fought: Canadian Auto Worker flags, held high, flying in the wind of the teargas, steelworkers facing down cops, students and workers returning gas canisters, the street torn up and a barrage of concrete raining on the cops. The inevitable police advance came. We held our ground and built barricades. Even the scattered union marshals did not flee. Few people ran away. Medics appeared from everywhere to help the wounded. Those that did not stay and hold their ground threw down barricades, lit small trash fires, or smashed large cobblestones for others to use, as they streamed away from the frontline. Indeed, eyes were shot and ears were bloodied. It was not pretty, but it was beautiful. Not the trash fires or the palm trees, but the collective imagination and awakening of, “Yes, we can take on these monsters and get away.”

There was no strong bourgeois liberal contingent urging “calm,” and what little liberal presence there was just stayed and watched, thus beefing up the numbers. Union labor watched, but many got in on the fray.

What happened in Miami was unprecedented. No, not the police repression, but the people’s response. We have seen a move away from the mainstream self-sacrificial protests of the past 5 years towards a brilliant, collective awakening that we will not submit without a good fight. Perhaps the absence of a strong liberal or faith-based organization allowed this, but we cannot overstress the importance of organized labor in Miami. This is not to say AFL-CIO union bureaucrats deserve a pat on the back. We have no such illusions. But the rank-and-file came out and were mad as hell. Even the rank-and-file marshals, refusing their roles as police, stepped aside to allow the confrontation develop. Perhaps Naomi Klein is right when she says the war was brought home.

This is why we are amazed that most of the reports from Miami decry, “We got our heads smashed in!” Of course we did. We do every time we challenge one of these neoliberal orgies of destruction. It was different this time. We fought back – head-on – and we did not get caught. Only 50 or so arrests had occurred at the time of the battle on Biscayne. The bulk of the other 150+ arrests occurred several hours later and during the following day: a police crackdown after a police fuck-up. Six pigs in the hospital, someone’s got to be to blame.

If anything needs to be reevaluated other than the general futility of the morning-time actions, it is how to enjoy the aftermath of successful resistance. In Miami, we pushed the limits of those in power and in ourselves. And for those 45 minutes, it felt like we were in a different country. Indeed, it can safely be said, with a collapsing economy, growing unemployment, declining military morale, a degenerating faith in the ruling class, and a no longer taboo street-fighting strategy, we are in a different country.

This spring and summer (2004), the East Coast will be besieged by summits and conventions. Perhaps the Group of Eight (G8) is the next logical focal point in organized anti-capitalist resistance. Folks in the South are already buzzing over what the hell the uproar in Miami was about. The rank-and-file of organized labor should very well be seen again in coastal Georgia, as trade policies are one of the chief topics on the summit agenda. The popular hatred of George Bush far exceeds that of the FTAA. And a war still rages on as soldier unrest builds. The June 2004 G8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia should very well serve as a fertile staging ground not only for militant, popular resistance, but also for the large-scale linking of struggles necessary to forge our way out of this neoliberal, capitalist mess.