The Black Block Papers is dedicated to the revolutionary memory of Carlo Giuliani, who lost his life battling the forces of capital in the streets of Genoa, Italy, in 2001.

His memory lives in our hearts and our fists.

Author’s Note to The Second Edition of The Black Bloc Papers

Since X and myself put together the first edition of this book back in the spring of 2001 much has come to pass. Not least of which were the tragic attacks on the four commercial airliners and the Twin Towers on 9-11. Since then, the anti-globalization movement has made way for a larger, but less comprehensive anti-war movement. While there is much room for optimism in the continuing class struggle, there is also plenty to be concerned about. The scrapping of much of the U.S. Bill of Rights, the neo-con attacks on New Deal programs (including social security), and the ever-escalating war in Iraq are the first things that come to mind. As I put the final touches on this second edition, the U.S. military has suffered over 20,000 casualties in Iraq (including 4,400+ dead), the threat of a draft is looming, as is talk of further imperialist invasions. On the other hand, people across the globe are rising up to meet these challenges. Let us not forget March of 2003 which witnessed the largest anti-war demonstrations in the history or the world.

With that being said, it should be noted that while this volume covers many Black Bloc actions over the last twenty years, it does not cover all of them. Many more recent actions are omitted from this volume for the simple reason that there are not sufficient written accounts, calls to action, and reports about them. The most significant of these little known actions were the anti-WTO demonstrations in Cancun, Mexico in 2003. A Black Bloc at those protests provided militant perimeter security for a contingent of South Korean workers who successfully brought down a large portion of the police fence separating protesters from the capitalists. These actions were, of course, hugely successful and were a factor in the WTO talks utterly breaking down. In addition to Cancun, there have been dozens of other Black Bloc actions, occurring in places like Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Indiana, Columbus, Ohio, Alberta Canada, and Washington, D.C. that are also not discussed in this book for the same reasons. The reader will notice that a number of large and historically significant protests are conspicuously missing from this collection. Four examples include the 100,000 strong 2004 May Day march in Montreal (which was the largest May 1st action in Quebec’s history), the half million strong Republican National Convention (RNC) demonstrations in New York City in 2004 (which were by far the largest ever against a domestic political convention), the Million Worker March in D.C., as well as a number of anti-war demonstrations, which numbered at least 100,000. These protests were omitted because of the simple fact that while they included large anarchist contingents, these contingents were not what we can consider “Black Blocs.”

When the first edition of this book was published in 2002, it was pointed out that the book fails to map out an integrated strategy for social revolution. Here I would like to point out that this is not the purpose of this work. While the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective and myself are deeply involved with rank and file union organizing and building direct democracy in our communities, this is not the place to go into our ideas on comprehensive social change. If readers are interested in what the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective thinks about such larger issues, we suggest you find and read our pamphlet “Neither Washington Nor Stowe.” This book, on the other hand, seeks to impart a better understanding of the Black Bloc, the tactics it employs, and the actions which it has been part of. Those who are seeking social change theories, long term programs of action, and an overarching cultural-historical analysis would do better picking up Marx, Bakunin, or Debord. Our sight here is exclusively fixed upon those brave black clad women and men who dare to challenge the authority of the police baton with fire in their heart and a fist in the air.

Solidarity,

David Van Deusen, founding member of the

Green Mountain Anarchist Collective,

May 1, 2006, Vermont

The Vision of Anarchy We Fight For is One of Direct Participatory Democracy, Equality, and Dignity

Government = Slavery

Anarchy = Freedom



Green Mountain Anarchist Collective

Note: The views expressed in both the following introduction, the essay entitled ‘The Emerging of the Black Bloc and the Movement Towards Anarchism’, the brief commentaries which begin each chapter of this book and the afterward are not intended to be the definitive position of the Black Bloc or of the revolutionary Anarchist left generally. It definitively represents the position of the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective solely. In addition, each document included in this work expresses the views of the individual or collective by which it is signed and/or of those by whom it was composed. While many of these positions are generally shared within the Anarchist community, it must be understood that this (our) community, like any other healthy example, is diverse in opinion and temperament. Our only unchanging commonalities lie in our contention that society should and will be controlled by direct and participatory democratic means by all individuals towards mutually beneficial, equitable, dignified and organically creative ends.

— The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective

About The Authors

David Van Deusen

resides in a log cabin in northern Vermont and is a founding member of the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective. In addition he is a rank and file member of the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981) as well as the Teamsters. He is currently a District Vice President in the Vermont AFL-CIO, and is News Editor of Catamount Tavern News. He is a former member of Anti-Racist Action and the Northeast Federation of Anarcho-Communists. He has marched in numerous Black Blocs, the first being in Chicago in 1996.

Xavier Massot

is originally from Brittany, France. For more then ten years he has resided, off and on, in New England, U.S.A., and Paris, France. In recent years he has labored as a bartender in a working class tavern, as a school teacher, in a warehouse, as an archaeologist, and has occasionally gotten paid for playing rock and roll with the Putnigs. He is currently the obituary writer for Catamount Tavern News where he also serves as shop delegate for the Lithorgaphers Local 1L-Teamsters. Xavier cofounded the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective in December of 2000. Xavier marched in his first Black Bloc in 1999, at the Millions for Mumia demonstration.

Forward

By Xavier Massot

The volume which you are holding is a compilation of communiques from people who stood with and were participants in Black Blocs (be they specifically referred to as “Anti-Capitalist Blocs,” “Red Blocs,” etc.). Each piece contains a different tone, and one hears, in these tones, differences in age, sex, and political maturity. The importance of these texts lies in exhibiting the range of types participating within the Black Bloc. The chapters, except for the first and the last, are dedicated to different protests throughout North America over the years. Reading about the Black Bloc by looking at what participants have had to say is the only way to gain a legitimate insight into this aspect of the movement, short of actively being there. The Black Bloc is an event, a force which congeals and dissipates according to the consensus of those involved. It is important to keep this revolutionary elasticity in mind when approaching this subject. The multiplicity of the people making up the Bloc cannot be understated, even when coupled with their ostensibly singular purpose as a rebel apparatus. It’s not an elite club, it’s an invitation to all and any who wish to participate in the destruction of an unfair and unnecessary world system.

Each chapter in this book (besides the first, second and last) begins with a general overview. The overviews are essentially reflections, summaries, condensations, and/or exclamations pertaining to the specific protest dealt with in the chapter. We deem these important as structural companions to the communiques, since not all of the protests may be familiar to the reader and require basic background information. Overall the summaries vary in tone and concern depending on the protest and the writer. Since there are two writers and numerious protests dealt with it should not be surprising to find differences throughout the book. As with the communiques, the overview section of each chapter should be seen as a primary text from within the Black Bloc. David and I are Black Bloc, and have participated actively in numerous aspects of various protests, the specifics of which cannot be discussed here for obvious security reasons. One will also notice a number of interviews throught the chapters. Unless noted otherwize, these were conducted by David.

As participants of Black Bloc actions, it seems of great importance that texts such as these get cataloged and redistributed. We cannot let capitalism write us out of our immeadiate past.

In addition, we strongly believe that this anthology had to be compiled from within the Bloc. Any external attempt to put together such a work would have necessarily resulted in a certain separateness, not to mention inaccuracy and misperception, and hence would have been suspect at best.

Lastly, the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective, as well as others we are in contact with, believe that the anarchist possibilities for a better humanity inherent in chaotic situations such as these street protests should be read and written about as often as possible. In themselves they represent instances of freedom and signals of the possibility of basic change.

We will see some of you on the front lines. That is inevitable. Read the rest, and fare thee well.

Introduction

Bad Attitudes and Dirty Money

by Xavier Massot of The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective**

It is a strange pill to swallow, the notion that some of your peers, people you don’t know, represent your interests. It is an old tradition, it has given most of us the title of civilians, and it has made others our rulers. Although each life, upon a short and close look, obviously contains its own unfathomable trajectory it has been the way of the modern world to pigeon-hole and harness the energy of each life towards historically questionable ends. This practice, abusing the young in order to eternalize the old, has led us to a point in history in which lives are spent for the sake of the machine’s continuing momentum. Inane, insane, or otherwise, we all go through the hopper from our birth to our determined, predictable, and sometimes socially necessary, death.

This text is an attempt to communicate the reality of a world in which your standard, modern day politician is a buffoon. We all came into this world kicking and screaming. The supposed facilitators of our homes, towns, and countries have no more insight than anybody else. There are people of great capability who outshine others through their efforts and convictions, but these good people will rarely strive to rule. They are usually too intelligent or humble to seek the cult of power and personality that is the reward and goal of modern politics.

Perhaps, rather than buying into this brokered sacrifice of our brothers and sisters in a quibble over the choicest scraps from the table, the old tradition of survival is one to be revered.

My aim is not to lay blame on those before us, but rather to attack the misuse and propagandisation of instincts which have allowed our clawless and furless breed to survive. Dan Quayle, for example, telling us about family values. Families happen, they are not state property, and the overzealous concern of officials towards the expansion of humanity does nothing but undermine any real attempts at human progress.

This book is aimed at humanity’s current trajectory, and in doing so must address the arc of that trajectory, including its root in the past. I personally have no desire to re-write history, and I respect my elders for their time, endurance, and sacrifices This being true, it is still time for a shift in human affairs, a statement made not to belittle those who came before but rather to bring awareness to those whose turn it is to carry human life forward. Technology has brought much to our lives which is admirable, but at this stage it is weakening people rather than helping them. How many people these days can fix the very appliances which give them status?

The inventions of this century are praised as the inventors are forgotten. Right now, the praise goes to human-vultures who circle around the people really producing and inventing things, looking for facsimile prospects to snatch up and feed to overgrown babies. It is a cannibalistic search for a fading profit that yields the pettiest of fruits.

Here in the U.S.A. We’ve got most of the shit. We might be spiritually bereft, but we do manage to keep our bellies full and for a great many of us that is enough. Love it or leave it, or even better, hide in it and try to live through it. Those are the options that many of us feel as our only possibilities. The political sphere is painted as our only multi-social option, but the political life is a drab and merciless trap. It’s a lot of talking, haranguing, backstabbing, and ass kissing. I believe this to be true and that most sane people do right to stay out of it. The problem with this is that political life remains attractive then only to the power hungry mongoloids. The result is a world run by self-serving fools.

There are a great many people on this planet these days and they’re not all that good at being on it. We are not the nicest bunch and I’m personally not sure that anything will ever make us so. I can’t pretend to know why this is, but I think about it from time to time and the daily news does not alleviate my concerns. I’m fairly adapted to most of the bullshit that gets tossed around, but, being one among many and being a reasonable person, I am forced take certain stances against the killing bastards that sit on executive boards and those who make a living upholding this rotten system.

So yes, shit is fucked up, and the bastards are facilitating more shit. However, the question of who is fucking whom, long the topic from Abbie Hoffman to Sixty Minutes, is not as interesting nowadays as maybe it once was. In a word, we’re all getting fucked. Even though we still get to be young, the world is just getting older. This being recognized, we still must face the fact that we have to continue to survive on this aging planet. And in that, we must make survival meaningful, or at least interesting. In this regards the status quo must be judged as a failure and revolution, one way or another, must be understood as the embodiment of hope. So yes, shit is fucked up, and the bastards are facilitating more shit. However, the question of who is fucking whom, long the topic from Abbie Hoffman to Sixty Minutes, is not as interesting nowadays as maybe it once was. In a word, we’re all getting fucked. Even though we still get to be young, the world is just getting older. This being recognized, we still must face the fact that we have to continue to survive on this aging planet. And in that, we must make survival meaningful, or at least interesting. In this regards the status quo must be judged as a failure and revolution, one way or another, must be understood as the embodiment of hope.

Still, with practical caution, if baby heads are to be crushed by our stampede, I guess we better be serious about the dangers of revolution. Legitimacy and integrity are important things after all and although political people through the ages have turned both towards and away from them to get to power, it is certainly rare that they have actually made use of them in their daily diet of action. Most of us, one way or another, want to live good and happy lives without raping the earth or our neighbors. Most want a life both civic and personal. We want our good dreams to become reality, and our nightmares to be overcome.

So I’m having a cup of tea—it’s pretty good and the reason why I’m including it into this sloppy introduction is because it’s concrete; it’s smarter than my literary aims and better than the whiskey I started this rumination with. Well not better, but for the moment calmer. Any which way, it is real, and in that capacity it is better then pure imagination. It is in just such a manner that we must continue to strive for a real, and better world. In this, revolution becomes our tea, and agitation becomes our tea pot-just now beginning to boil. But, before I get ahead of myself and make a habit of ridiculous metaphors, there are some more things that must be said.

My colleague is doing the dirty but necessary job of writing a chapter which will satisfy the socio-political aims of this book, which means I don’t really have to. I have faith that his word is as good if not better than mine, and I get frustrated trying to explain anything in that historical voice, so I won’t try to beat him to the punch on that one. After all, we should all know better than we do; there’s plenty of manuals out there. Besides, most of the supposedly new thoughts are remedial and/or derivative anyway, just rehashing, repetitions, of no use to anyone.

The question starts to become, in the face of all this human noise, a question of territory, space, area, sphere of influence, property, taxation, and paradigms of life and its purpose. In many ways this closing-in of the options, this modern demarcation from oneself to the rest is healthy if not inevitable. It is the pressure which allows you to exist. Life demands some sort of test from its recipients.

There have been, and are, many people on this earth. The hardships have changed many times, but new lives keep on happening, blank slates who catch up and join in the line. This cannot be helped. Arguably, we live in better times than most of those before us, but there is and maybe always will be a malaise, an itch, a problem. Perfection is rare.

The fight of today may be the backwards cause of tomorrow. How? I’m not sure, but I do know that there have been many struggles. There has been no time without a struggle. Is struggle a problem? No. Struggle is as unavoidable as fertilization. Does that mean we should struggle because it is unavoidable? Are we, humans, aspiring to make struggle another final victory against God? Mussolini wanted punctual trains, Hitler wanted a master race, Uncle Sam wants You for the U.S. Army, Sick people want a cure, Everyone wants something.

Is it gonna stop? Whose gonna stop it? Well...

The truth is no one’s gonna stop it, no one can. It’s not that it’s malicious, it’s just not there simply for your sake even though you’re a part of it anyway.

This tangent pertains to a book like this because the book is about struggle, it’s about a timely choice, about what one should do and what side one should be on. It is a call to arms in most respects and at the same time it does not wish to mislead. The call to arms is against the ways of the world, which are unsatisfactory, and is aimed both at those who created the show and at those who may keep it going. These latter are problematic in that they are a part of yourself. You and I cannot destroy each other and ourselves, even in part, to change ourselves and the world we make. You know people who do wrong by your beliefs but you understand their language, their reasons and, then, the fight really becomes a dirty one.

I mentioned blank slates a little while ago in describing new life. It is the tarnished blank slates which we are that need to be cleaned out. A choice must be made as to what side to be on for the betterment of life. One can choose oneself as the ultimate piece of prime property or one can make arrangements to both survive and enrich the larger environment.

The struggle is not to blame, we are creatures that age and die, but the struggle can not become a fakery of itself. Pain will always exist, but should not be robbed of its dignity. I question the dignity of this era. I see little encouragement for true ability. I don’t question its existence but I don’t believe that the positive is encouraged. In fact, I believe that it is being undermined almost totally. Where are the good qualities? I don’t mean that I don’t see them or know about them when they are here or elsewhere, I simply mean that they are usually missing in a way I see as suspect. The efforts of mankind to create a beautiful world seem, to me, suspect. If we can fly people to the moon why can’t we feed the hungry?

There are problems which need solving: pollution, warfare, rape, disease, AIDS, racism, property, taxes, countries, the past, cancer, obesity, drug abuse, drug legalization, famine, housing, electricity, and so on. A bunch of shit needs to be re-done, re-thought, re-applied until humanity gets it through its abused and abusive hide that it does not have to destroy itself through lies and chickenshit proclivities.

Bottom line, this call for a better world is redundant. I don’t like it at all. It has an unrealistic side to it. And here, I don’t believe in it because it implies a desire to take away accidents. I like accidents. Don’t get me wrong, some accidents are better than others, but we’ve got to take some chances don’t we? Aren’t we just a bunch of crazed animals who have pushed sentience too far?

It’s a horrible mindfuck to the soul of humanity, the advertisements, the lies, and these wingnuts at the top of the shitheap: politicians, religious leaders, and fat-assed money makers telling you how to do it, why you should, when you should and why they know better. The truth of it is that life is not as much of a complication, at least not functionally, as these power freaks make it seem, and they’re not that important. What is important is the enforcement of their bullshit system by hapless fools who agree with them and feed off their scraps.

In the past when we humans did not have the powers over nature that we have now it made more sense that we fought amongst each other. Life was tough then, it still is now, however the pressures are different. It’s not like the hungry can’t be fed, it’s just that we can’t stop starving them.

That last line is probably as close to the truth as I’m going to get, and that’s really the crux of the problem we are dealing with, the sickness which makes revolution necessary. ‘Pain must be inflicted on the weak because they are not the strong. The wrong must be punished because they are not the right.’ The problem with all of this is that the wrong, the right, the weak, the strong, the fed and the starved have become artificial. When I say artificial, I don’t mean to say that these things are no longer real, I am saying that they are unnecessary, and solvable. They are only insoluble from the standpoint of the corrupt, bureaucratic, greed-based and inane political bodies which the human mass concedes to.

The physical grievances and the physical bodies which stand in the way of alleviating them are two sides of the same coin. That coin can remain un-flipped, unresolved forever in a vacuum for as long as humanity keeps up its little intrigues and its little worries and its petty hatreds and its petty fears and blah, blah, blah...

So what am I saying? That I want world peace, that all the orphans should find good parents, that all the sick should heal, that all the hungry should be fed, and that all the bad things should disappear forever? Sure, but any hard-bodied beauty pageant gal could tell you the same. In fact, a lot of people have probably told you the same, and I’m sure they all meant it and I know it hasn’t happened and so do you. So are we all wasting our time, good-natured people that we are?

Well, often times I think so but I can’t know what most people are doing. In fact I don’t want to know what most people are doing. A friend of mine is fond of saying that “there is no justification without representation.” I agree with him, which is what has led me to get involved in this book about the Black Bloc—these protesters who face off with riot cops in cities to express their desire for an end to the lies and the greed which make all the world peace seekers so sad. Yes, they are correct. I believe that they are right, these brave men and women who aren’t afraid to get beaten and tossed in jail to make a point.

A lot of people object to Black Bloc on both sides of the protest fence and in the homes where news is heard, watched, and read. I understand a lot of the grievances and I disagree with all of them. I’m not saying that the Bloc will end the world’s problems. I don’t know if anything will end the world’s problems. I am, however, certain that physically confronting authorities which physically uphold a rotten system and reminding the rest of the populace that such things can be done is healthy.

I don’t think it does any harm—it’s a pure act. I don’t care if the tactics are not always sound, or if you consider violence in all its forms immature and evil, or if you think that they give anarchists a bad name, or if some of them are middle or upper class, or if there aren’t enough minorities, women, and gays taking part, or anything else really. Bottom line is that they are here and there trying harder than most of the douche-bags that complain about them.

The landscape of the world will alter, is already changing, that’s what it does-some times are better than others and some worse, and nothing will change that. Stick to the good, try to take away the rotten, and have a few laugh while you’re at it Fuck, let’s start having more musicians, artists, brewers, cooks, jugglers, bull fighters, dancers, old storytellers, mystics, comedians, boxers, all that good shit.

Okay, it does sound idealistic to demand a society that does not gorge itself on the failures of its absurd program. However, I see the possibility of it all the time. People can help each other, especially in the U.S. where the amount of wasted food and property, if re-directed, could make kings and queens out of its homeless population. Are some of us regulating the suffering of others for the sake of a tradition which even they don’t want to understand? Yes, that’s what’s happening!

Getting away from the instinctive fear of not having enough is the next real bridge to cross for humanity. Our ancestors had to find ways to survive. The world today knows how to live, yet refuses to do so in an equitable matter. A work ethic is a great thing, that is undeniable, but to work for the sake of working is nothing but a slow cop-out suicide...

So yes, it’s time to re-learn what is important and throw away the superfluous bullcrap in the process. Anarchism may not be Plato’s idea of perfection, joy, function, or any of it, but then again we’ve tried it according to shithead elitist philosophers for long enough and all they have ultimately given us is nihilism mixed with a $12 Butterball turkey and bad Friday night T.V. I say lets re-do it according to OUR inclinations and in the process come up with a reality which is categorically anti-boredom and genuinely interesting, directly democratic and equitable. Lets work it so that death again becomes genuine; either inflicted upon oneself, or dictated by real nature. Lets eliminate the role of society as murderer and rapist. If were going to fuck up, lets do it ourselves with out unnecessary abstractions guiding and excusing our treachery.

Chapter I

The Emergence of The Black Bloc and The Movement Towards Anarchism

by David Van Deusen of the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective

“Get Busy Living, Or Get Busy Dying!”

—The Kings of Nuthin, Boston, Massachusetts

Since the Battle of Seattle, the North American Left, and specifically the smaller yet growing revolutionary Anarchist movement, has been invigorated at least as much as it has become a common reality in the consciousness of the public. This has not occurred in a vacuum. Nor has this happened due to a simple, quantifiable reason. The reasons are as much diverse and subjective as they are objective and empirically observable.

One facet of this movement (specifically of the revolutionary anarchist movement) is encapsulated and advanced by the militant actions of a group commonly referred to as the Black Bloc. This informal grouping has acted as a necessary radical action wing of the larger social protest movement. Where Liberal inclinations have threatened to stifle large demonstrations under a blanket of acceptability, predictability and boredom, this contingent—numbering anywhere from less than 100 to over 1000 in a typical Bloc—has forced a creative unleashing of popular insurrectionary sentiment.

The following essay is primarily concerned with the Black Bloc. However, in order to more accurately discuss this faction, it will be necessary to paint a picture of the larger contemporary framework within and against which it operates. Towards this end this work will be divided into three sections. The first will deal directly with the Black Bloc; its historical roots, as well as the tactics it commonly employs. The second section will discuss the social, political, psychological and economic macrocosm in which the present movement is situated. The final section will discuss the smaller social context in which the revolutionary anarchist movement as well as the Black Bloc directly exists.

It is the intention of this essay to provide a historical, theoretical and practical base from which a more grounded understanding of the Black Bloc, as well as the revolutionary Anarchist movement generally, can emerge. Such a grounding can and will only lead to a more mature discussion and development of Anarchist praxis and revolutionary progress. It is with this in mind that I here turn towards section one.

Section I. The Emergence of The Black Bloc: History, Tactics and General Constituency

“I wear the black for the poor and beaten down... [And] for the prisoner who has long since served his time.”

—Johnny Cash

The Black Bloc can trace its historical roots all the way back to when- and wher-ever people comprising an oppressed class or group militantly rose up against their oppressors. Elements of the particular tactics of the Bloc were previously utilized by the Weather faction of Students for a Democratic Society (the SDS) in North America during the “Days of Rage” in 1969. Specifically, the Bloc’s tactical aesthetic and more refined methods of State confrontation first began to concretely emerge in the 1980s Autonome movement in Germany. There, the seriousness of the anti-nuclear movement as well as the demands of the continuing Anarchist/anti-fascist movement required that mass protests be brought to a higher level of militancy and unanimity. Hence, radical collectives—often from within the anarcho-punk scene and typically of working class composition—began to urge their members and social militants generally to assemble at demonstrations donning uniform black clothes (with masks), and to march as a single protest contingent (among many others). With their identities effectively hidden in temporary uniformity, they were able to more successfully push protest actions in more militant directions while protecting themselves from being singled out for direct State oppression or later legal charges or both. This process matured to the point where the emerging Black Bloc began to develop better self-defense and militant tactics. It must be understood that this formation was not the birth of a formal, or rather continuous organization. It simply acted as a temporary cohesive grouping with the immediate goal of creating a temporally contingent street fighting force, which in practice would dissolve with the conclusion of the action at hand. This is not to say that the sole focus of these included persons and/or collectives revolved around such action. On the contrary, those making up the Bloc commonly were rooted in the social and political organizations and projects which the specifics of their local community demanded. They had their roots. In addition, the militance and subsequent actions of the Black Bloc must also be understood as the embodiment of a certain means of struggle amongst many others, a means which are both legitimate and effective.

As a Black Bloc, this grouping was an alliance of independent persons and/or affinity groups. Collectively, the Bloc acted by directly democratic means whenever possible, and by internal affinity group consensus when situations demanded. Other than that, the grouping conscientiously lacked any formal structure or authoritarian hierarchy.

Typically, the Bloc took positions at the front, rear, or perimeters of the protest march in order to provide a strong defensive presence at normally vulnerable points. In this way, the police were prevented from disrupting the movement of the demonstration without first having to subdue a highly militant, dedicated and prepared section of the protest. In order to strengthen its capacity to achieve these tactical objectives, the Bloc began to carry metal pipes, wooden clubs, and don protective padding and helmets. In addition, other tactical developments included the use of large continuous banners, poles or ropes lining the perimeters of this regiment. The purpose of these tools was to make it more difficult for the police to single out individuals for arrest. The cops would have to pass through a collectively held barrier, while simultaneously contending with blows from clubs in order to carry out arrests.

More than acting as shock troops, or defensive units within the larger protest contingent, the Bloc began to take on an offensive role regarding the conscious destruction of capitalist private property. Here, affinity groups within the Bloc would facilitate the smashing of windows, spray painting of revolutionary messages and trashing of police and/or military vehicles. Of course, all such activity was clearly directed against capitalist targets. Despite the inaccurate assertions of the corporate media, arbitrary vandalism never was, nor is, the goal or practice of the Black Bloc.

Another function of the Black Bloc is to push the protest at hand towards a more militant and socially comprehensive direction. Largely this was achieved by the Bloc positioning itself at the forefront of the demonstration and subsequently forcing an escalation between the State forces and the protesters. Simply by resisting arrest, refusing to remain on sanctioned parade routes, challenging police barricades and by actively directing its anger at corporate targets, the Bloc ensured that such an escalation would ensue.

The purpose of such escalation in part lies in the belief that such conflict necessarily results in the unmasking of the brutal nature of the State. The subsequent brutality of the opposing police/military force is revealed. The idea is that by showing the larger population the violent means by which the status quo is maintained, a significant number of people will become further radicalized by this physical and visual demonstration of the nature of the State. Escalation also has a desired effect of forcing an action to transcend its often Liberal underpinnings and become an actual example of contextually conditioned revolt. Direct action expands past the confines of simple symbolism and then delves into the very real territory of subjective and objective revolutionary insurrection. The demonstration here begins to assume its own identity free of the social spectacle of the commodified-consumer culture, and begins to move in a more fluid, self-defining manner. The role of the demonstration as a social pressure valve, both impotent and non-revolutionary, begins to be inverted into an actual expression of social unrest. In this regards, spontaneity, via militance and violence, becomes an actual expression of the mass action. Hence, the action becomes a free means by which natural human identity is demonstrated through its basic rejection of subjugation, authority, capitalism and status quo.

This element of social clash is necessary by way that it allows the oppressed and alienated person a real experience by which one’s pent up and sheep-like identity and boredom is shattered in a situation of revolt. Here the person begins to feel the future reality that the streets and the city, as a basic creation of the worker, truly do belong to them. Here, possibilities of full revolt and victory are crystallized through the adrenalin of conflict. In short, this conflict is good in that it allows one’s mind to understand real physical struggle, while also allowing one to feel, if only slightly, the possibility of collective self management without the confused abstraction of police and government. The city, in the vicinity of conflict, truly becomes the people’s to be won, lost, held or discarded.

To paraphrase Jean Paul Sartre, “The reason the worker does not revolt is because [s]he does not imagine what a liberated society would actually be like.” And further from the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, “Let us remember, no great step forward in history has ever come to fruition with out first being baptized in blood.”

Therefore, regardless of the particular success of the action at hand, the activity of those within the Black Bloc must be encouraged and understood as both necessary and positive in relation to the subjective requirements necessary in the continual advancement of the revolutionary anarchist struggle.

The practice of such Blocs are as socially/psychologically healthy as they are real. In this capacity, persons claiming to be of the Left, or even anarchists, which argue against the need for a Black Bloc, or that the Bloc is socially and/or tactically ineffectual, must be understood as persons who either do not understand the subjective dynamic of revolt, or ones who are so weighed down in indecision and tacit acceptance of the status quo that they must be considered ignorant at best, or the enemy at worst. These folk would substitute another generation of ideological debate, meetings and boredom for real action. Despite their professed goals, they become the harbingers of defeat and alienation through their inability to understand risk, action, movement and experiential freedom. Thus, the revolutionary would do well to discredit their words through action and, as we are not blood-thirsty Neanderthals, the continuing development of legitimate Anarchist theory.

Following the example of the German people, the formation of Black Blocs soon spread across Europe, where they are still practiced with relative ferocity and effectiveness today. By the early 1990s, these tactics began to take root in North America. Black Blocs were organized during the 1991 Gulf War, during the Democratic National Convention of 1996, and at a multitude of other demonstrations throughout the decade.

However, the effectiveness of the Black Bloc in North America seems to be just reaching certain levels of maturity in this new decade; a maturity which is paralleled with that of the broader social protest movement as a whole.

During the Battle of Seattle, the Black Bloc (numbering approximately 200) primarily focused its attention upon the destruction of corporate property. At the A16 (April 16, 2000) action the Bloc (numbering approximately 1000) focused the bulk of its energies on combating police engaged in violent acts against the Bloc and nonviolent protesters alike. Black Blocs were also present at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions of that year. There they again demonstrated their tactics of physical self-defense and the destruction of capitalist private property and/or State property (i.e. police cars). Blocs were present at a multitude of May Day demonstrations in 2000, the first presidential debate in Boston, at the inauguration of now-President Bush, as well as at a number of other events.

The particularities of each of these actions resulted in a variety of Bloc tactics. These differences deserve to be evaluated in order to ascertain what specific tactics are effective in certain situations. Such an analysis is required in order for us to better prepare ourselves for future conflicts. However, it is not the focus of this essay to go into such details. The primary concern here is simply to discuss the history of the Black Bloc and to place it within a certain larger social context. Therefore, such particularities, though important, will be omitted for now in order to stay focused at the task at hand. Thus, I will here again turn to the social origins of the North American Black Bloc.

Social Composition Of The North American Black Bloc

The Black Bloc in North America, primarily composed of folk from within the contemporary counterculture, and more often than not coming from a working class background, is a political expression of the developing class conscious social revolution. Persons and collectives making up the Black Bloc can be generally described as semi-alienated youth from a poor, declassed or working class background. This is not to imply that a number of Bloc participants don’t come from the upper classes, for they do. However, before someone yells ‘charlatans,’ it should be stated that during this present age of neo-Liberalism (the contemporary mode of Capitalism), the basic strains of alienation run strong even outside of the more oppressed communities. On the other hand, I do not intend to imply that the natural focus of revolutionary potential has been stripped from the more exploited and materially deprived populations. It hasn’t. It is only to say that as society moves in more abstracted and culturally undesirable directions that more and more people across class lines, particularly young people, will begin to seek social alternatives to the status quo. And, it is only reasonable to expect a number of them to side with the social vision of the actively revolutionary poor and working class. Besides, history has proven that while class origins can say much about the general potential and demeanor of large groupings, it also tells us that these generalities are not absolute laws when judged against the real activities of specific persons. For example, one of the greatest Anarchist revolutionaries/theoreticians in history was Mikhail Bakunin. Bakunin came from an aristocratic Russian family. He himself was briefly an officer in the Imperial Army. Yet he committed nearly his entire adult life to the emancipation of all people. He stood at the workers’ barricades during the Bavarian insurrection, and for this his former class origins became both transcended and meaningless. Give us ten divisions of Bakunins, regardless of their past economic standing, and our work as revolutionaries would be over in a matter of days. So, to all you pretentious class concerned critics, I challenge you to tell me what you’ve done.

This being clarified, I use the prefix ‘semi,’ in describing the Blocs participants as ‘semi-alienated youth,’ to mark the fact that the vast majority of those involved are rooted in counterculture communities wherein degrees of non-alienated social relations are organically facilitated. They may be part of a small democratic worker’s co-operative, an artistically oriented consensus based collective, reside in a group run commune, house or squat, subside off tax-exempt funds from the black market, or simply live as well as their anti-Capitalist logic and intuition impels them to. In short, a good deal of their lives are focused around the living example of more natural and life/creativity affirming Socialist modes of existence. They try to be good folk with each other and the poor and working folk around them. They help each other out without expecting profit.

However, this is not to say that they, unlike more mainstream workers, are not alienated. For no matter how ‘counter’ one manages to live within an oppressive authoritarian society, one cannot escape the basic drugging of one’s spirit by the hands of the State. If one lives on a collective farm, that collective is still coerced into paying property tax, or the land will be seized. If one spends their hours working to collectively create a liberating art, food, shelter and art supplies have to be had; and often this is enough cohesion to impel one to sell their labor as a wage slave. Worker co-operatives are no exception. Such operations are driven to continue dealing on a cash basis inasmuch as certain basic supplies (take paint for example, that is if the co-op is centered around that trade) are not easily attainable through barter or other means. All being said, the rat of contemporary Capitalism can be smelled in the best homes. Of course, some homes smell a lot worse then others.

Still, the Anarchist within a counterculture is less alienated from themselves and others as compared to the person squarely within the predominant culture. At least here, radical commodification, consumerism, Capitalism and authoritarianism are viewed as crap yet to be overcome, as opposed to the bedrock of social meaning. With the above understood, the question still remains as to what the deeper social, political and historical reasons are for the emergence of this revolutionary faction within the Western Nations. For the particularities of their cultural leanings seem to make them somewhat unique as compared to their proletariat ancestors. They are not friendly to the authoritarian analysis of the various communist parties, they are not often motivated by hunger (one can find lots of food in the trash bins of Uncle Sam) and they do not limit their demands and social vision to material equality. They call for a re-thinking and re-organizing of society along lines which challenge the very fundamental basis of contemporary western civilization. They are anarchists! But how did the broader social context give rise to them? Who is their constituency? What exactly is it that they seek to disrupt, and what do they intend to replace it with?

In order to answer some of these underlying questions, as well as to place the Block Bloc within a comprehensive sociological framework, I will now turn to a discourse on the particularities of the present Capitalist reality.

Section II. The New Capitalism And Its System Of Radical Commodification And Consumerism

As Capitalism has moved into the new phase of radical commodification and consumerism, its hold on all aspects of the perceived mass existence has seemingly strengthened. Contemporary Capitalism, by way of its inherent imperialism, has expanded its former material boundaries as to make a quantifiable commodity out of the hollows of one’s private time, internal thoughts, recreation and personal relations. The older forms of classical Capitalism, as found in the pre-WWII Euro-American theater, was primarily concerned with large scale domestic industrial production and the subsequent exploitation of the worker, through relatively straightforward means, for the ends of surplus capital (profit). The new concerns center around the exploitation of leisure, the construction of false needs along with the particular commodities to meet these superfluous and profitable ends, and the advancement of its psychological holds to include the subtle coercion of the worker to actively take part in her/his own oppression. Of course the old industrial modes of exploitation are still present, only now the pallet of oppression and dreariness is more well rounded.

The immediate cause of this shift can be found with the ruling class’s ability to export massive segments of the industries (coal, petroleum, machine/auto production, fabrics, etc.) to poorer, formerly agricultural-based “third world” nations where the worker is subjected by the iron heel of puppet dictators backed financially and militarily by the primary Capitalist States along with their plutocracy. Within these countries labor lacks the historical consolidation of organizational strength and past accomplishments such as the eight hour work day and workers’ compensation. This of course is in conjunction with the fact that within these boundaries, safety/environmental standards are hardly allotted a whisper of concern, let alone precautionary legislation. Therefore, the primary Capitalist nations, through their respected ruling class, can increase production at a fraction of the former cost while massively increasing profit. In turn, the ruling class can then throw a few more peanuts of benefits and wages to the domestic workers, in order to decrease poverty-based insurrectionary sentiment while not experiencing any decrease in profit.

Simultaneously these so called privileged laborers are constantly pressured to utilize their new spending ability through the purchasing of Capitalist controlled gadgets and instruments of supposed enjoyment and/or need, i.e. complicated phone services, large screen t.v.’s, ‘brand name’ garments/sneakers, new top 40 musical CDs written and composed by assholes lacking even a hint of soul and/or creativity, and larger then necessary cars with remote locking devices.

“[They’ll] give you all the hits to play,

to keep you in your place all day.“

—The Clash

In other words, false or unnecessary needs are created within this market, and are then allotted to the populace at the expense of further capital. In this way, the ruling class is able to again accumulate even further surplus capital.

To bring about this trend in popular spending, the masses are bombarded with commercial messages of indoctrination commonly referred to as “advertisements.” This force-fed propaganda meets the eye nearly wherever it may wander, and by subtleties and by sheer immensity, directs the hand of the still alienated, if not still half starved, “first world” worker down the road of unbridled consumerism. Here the role of the worker takes on a bizarre character. On the one hand, the worker continues her/his former role as a person/class subjected to an exploitative economic relation. For s/he still does not own or control the means of production, and s/he is still used by the ruling class as no more then a drone capable (not without prodding) of generating profit earmarked, alone, for the already wealthy. S/he still does not control her/his own life. It is controlled by powers from economically above. And further, the general prosperity of the economy is still unattainable in any equitable manner inasmuch as it still rests with a minority of ruling economic elite, protected by both the laws of the land and the guns of the State.

On the other hand, by transforming the worker into a consumer, the economic system manages to make the worker into an active agent in her/his own social oppression. For here consumption is both subtly and aggressively made out to be the means by which the individual can escape the experiential emptiness of their so- called free, yet serf-like, life. The unspoken message that every advertisement carries is that it is only by virtue of consuming that the single individual transcends the loneliness of provincial existence and takes part in the communion of the ‘one’ or at least of something greater and more meaningful. In this case the ‘one’ is capital and the means is the recognition of the self and other (both animated and unanimated, cognitive and non-cognitive) as facets of the universal representation of all commodities, that is money. And in turn, the individual must her/himself sell one’s labor both as a means of material survival and, as this new social relation demands, as a means of becoming a commodity. Furthermore, the worker must now utilize the wages received as a means of again touching the whole through the accumulation/consumption of other commodities. The promise is that as long as this process remains constant, as long as the individual consistently retains an active relation within this process, one can know the universal wholeness of existence, and therefore the additional promise of an ensuing ‘knowledge of a truth’ and ‘sense of well being’ is also granted. This occurs insofar as the ‘one’ or the ‘universal’ has always been described in conjunction with these traits since the beginnings of religion and permanent/city dwellings. Thus, the lie is painted as truth via an implied association.

Here, the worker, drunk on continual advertisements and no longer tethered by hunger and cold, immerses her/himself in a constant state of consumption. S/he becomes convinced that superfluous commodities are necessary elements of a good life, and actively seeks them out for consumption. This, despite the fact that the purchasing of these objects or experiences play an obvious and primary role in maintaining the wealth and therefore power, through continuing profit, of those in the ruling class who control the economic rights to these things. In addition, the consumer-worker is often required to further enslave her/himself to the plutocracy by acquiring these commodities by the means of credit (credit cards, loans, etc.). By doing such, the laborer must perform additional hours at work in order to accrue the necessary capital to pay back the borrowed cash, and subsequently maintain their access to credit and hence adequate levels of material consumption. Of course these hours of labor result in the rich further expanding their profit earnings at the expense of the wage worker.

This dynamic often results in the laborer becoming more docile in her/his capacity in the workplace, in that to be fired translates into being cut off from her/his role as a commodity (wage slave) and full consumer. This is something that the indoctrinated consumer-worker dreads, as such a severing from the perceived ‘one’ would destroy the identity of the self and society which such a neurotic system of relations demand. Therefore, where the worker of old would more quickly risk her/his job security in order to bring about positive change for their class (i.e. union organizing) the new consumer-worker is generally more conservative in order to carefully maintain her/his means to communion.

“The basic tautological character of the spectacle [this system of commodity-consumption] flows from the simple fact that its means are simultaneously its ends. It is the sun which never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.”

—Guy Debord

Where in the religious age ex-communication from the church meant social and perceived spiritual death, now unemployment serves a similar role. For even with such hard earned worker benefits as unemployment compensation, the jobless are still disconnected from half of the perceived process of meaning. In this system it is not enough to consume. A person also must be an object of consumption oneself (a commodified worker). This stands true unless of course you are among the ruling class, in which case you acquire a sort of living sainthood.

This mode of thought also results in a fractionalizing of class unity. For class no longer becomes the perceived focal point of social meaning. Here, the individual (or more accurately, the believer), along with the Capitalist system of radical commodification, becomes the sole basis of human understanding. Each consumer and commodity demands its own separateness which only the unity of capital (as universal commodity) can bring together.

“What hides under.. [this separateness] is a unity of misery. Behind the masks of total choice, different forms of the same alienation confront each other, all of them built on real contradictions which are repressed.”

—Guy Debord

With this mass foolery intact, the worker is no longer as likely to take personal risks for the benefit of their natural historical whole (that being class). Furthermore, the relationship of the consumer-commodity necessitates an us vs. them mentality. For all those who buy into this and who maintain a full connection to this process begin to recognize themselves in a similar way that insular religious and/or nationalistic ethnic communities tend to view themselves. For those included there is a passive acceptance. For those outside there are misgivings and even hatred. It is for this reason that the Right manages to use those collecting welfare as a scapegoat on which the workers can place misguided anger and resentment. Ironically, the social benefits that such persons collect are the same benefits won by the working class struggle during previous times during classical Capitalism. In short, under these new Capitalist conditions, the economic system becomes a kind of social fundamentalism and/or capital based fascism.

To further undermine poor and working class unity, the ruling elite through the public schools, their paid-for political lackeys and mass media conglomerates aggressively disseminates inaccurate terminologies regarding class categories.

Towards this end the term ‘middle class’ has been reinvented so as to drive a dividing line between what is correctly a single working class. Wherein ‘middle class’ was formally considered to be the lower end of the upper classes (i.e. absentee farmers, owners of multiple chain store outlets) it is now used to describe a certain degree of commodity acquisition amongst laborers. It is not uncommon for a person who labors as a nurse, a construction worker, a low end clerk or even one who cleans gutters at $16 an hour to be considered ‘middle class’ as long as that person is in possession of a new car, home, large television, etc. Of course these items are typically made available to the worker through the development of the credit industry, and as such cannot represent any real notion of equitable or bountiful wealth. In themselves, such commodities acquired by credit represent the very real increase in profit of those in the ruling class who own and/or control both ends of this industry. At the end of the day, if you work for a wage at a profession which is controlled from above, count on each paycheck to make ends meet, and if that job represents your sole livelihood and finally if you often or sometimes (during moments of clarity) wish you did not have to be there at all, then you are most likely of a working class origin. In short, terms such as ‘middle class’ are as meaningless as they are divisive. They do no more then reinforce the relative stability of the plutocratic powers that be.

The stabilizing power of the new Capitalism, that of a functioning process of commodification and consumption, derives from mass belief, and when a belief is misgiven, there is always the likelihood that it can and will be reversed. This is especially the case where error is contrasted with objectively material and intuitive experiential truth. And, it is just such a contrast that the contemporary masses are confronted with whenever breaks of continuity occur in the present oppressive system. These breaks are often fraught with existential fear, anxiety, anger, misgivings and regret. Shit, psychoactive prescription drugs aside , it’s hard to imagine a person not reflecting on the absurdity, emptiness and lack of social worth of this system when they lay their head on the pillow to sleep at night. Well, before this begins to sound too pessimistic, let’s take comfort in the fact that the world is no longer believed to be flat.

During previous times, when industrial production was primarily based in what is still considered to be the industrial countries, the ‘bottom line’ of the ruling class limited this relation in that the general working population was not allowed the means to adequately consume in order to take part in this process. In short, the greed of the domestic upper class limited the stabilization of the system. They sucked the working class for all that it was worth and threw them pennies so as they might not starve in order to work, and create Capitalist profit again another day. Here the proletariat’s meager purchasing power vastly limited their ability to consume, and hence the worker could not be as easily fooled into believing in the bullshit communion discussed above.

From the earliest times of serious industrialization, Europe and the United States were fraught with a nearly constant state of relative working class unrest for these very reasons. Capitalism lacked an experiential excuse to dull the knife of mass agitation against the obviously degrading circumstances under which the great majority of people were forced to live. It was not until after World War II that the social situation began to apparently stabilize. This happened, in conjunction with other subjective reasons, as the above discussed economic strategy began to take hold.

However, this period of relative stability was not accrued without certain costs still to be felt today. By curtailing domestic rebellion by fostering an internationalization of Capitalist oppression, the ruling class must continually pay the price of a greatly intensified mass alienation. This proves to be an expense in that it results in certain profound chinks forming in the armor of the plutocracy at the home front. For by domestically decreasing material deprivation (poverty) amongst its domestic laborers, and by setting them upon a course for the nonexistent promised land of happiness within the ‘universal commodity,’ the social framework of society as a whole becomes bogged down in a world of shit, lies and experiential disappointments. In this way alienation becomes a factor which drives society in two directions; one sociopathic, the other revolutionary; neither of which bode well for future stability and a continuation of the status quo. This occurs due to the underlying experiential lie of the promise of the universal ability to achieve wholeness with something both greater and more meaningful. There is a reason why people fear death in this society, and it’s not because of fire and brimstone; it is the fear that their whole lives as consumers may have been a waste of time as much as their apparent (forced) happiness was no more then a plastic carrot on a string. That is not a pleasant final thought. In short, “the Jones” died miserable.

“..do you see

now that you see that everything they told us was wrong?



The elephant caught like that

and caged

like that?

The way they kicked us and caged us too?

How sweetly sad it seems how sad and sweet passing lonely people on the street

the skulls beneath the skin

the arteries bravely pumping liquid as they rush to do

all the foolish things that they must do...”

—Charles Bukowski

With all this being said, it is important to point out that this new Capitalism is still forced to compete with its more backwards internal sentiments. For the ruling class, still being motivated by greed, often finds itself incapable of maintaining the necessary levels of commodity availability for the domestic workers. Wherein it is rational (from the point of view of the Capitalist) to allow the domestic population a certain degree of purchasing/acquisition power in order to guarantee a basic level of material based social stability, and a continuing profit margin based on commodity sales, the underlying greed of this class often acts as a self-defeating force. Today, certain economic trends seem to indicate that the ruling class has become increasingly concerned with drawing a quick fix of mass profit at the price of steady long term increases. Towards this end, it seems that a substantial number of the plutocracy, as expressed through their political lackeys, has forgotten the weaknesses of classical Capitalism, and therefore has embarked upon a course of streamlining domestic work forces (downsizing/layoffs), cutting back of social benefits (dental, medical, etc.) and facilitated a stagnation of real wages. Therefore, the present social realm is marked not by two competing social visions (one status-quo, one revolutionary), but three; the third being a regressive vision of capitalism. Hence, these more recent trends have motivated certain sectors of the consumer-working class rank and file to take certain basic stands against a perceived cutback in their social positions. While these rumblings in and of themselves are often no more than shortsighted complaints directed against those who would challenge their status quo as consumers, they also are indicative of a developing social uneasiness. For the consumer-worker is increasingly being educated to the authoritarian, abstract and antisocial ways and means of the commodified society. They are more and more aware that the basic foundations of society are not geared for them, but rather directed at them only inasmuch as they are considered objects of manipulation from powers above. It is made more and more obvious that the basic mechanisms of society are not controlled by them; they are directed against them. As such, these realizations become increasingly tangible as this regressive capitalist trend is responsible for numerous lapses in commodity-consumer process. And here, some workers will inevitably reach the logical and emotive conclusion that such an economic process is ultimately not congruent with a more naturally meaningful, beneficial and democratic society. These backslides inevitably act as a kind of social shock therapy, whose outcome will be the delivering of larger sections of the working population to the side of revolution. That’s not to say that these anti-worker trends should be encouraged or justified by way of some long term revolutionary program. They hurt laboring people in the here and now, and therefore, working class revolutionaries must lend their hand in resisting these attacks. To do otherwise would result in the revolutionary movement becoming discredited in the eyes of the masses. As such, this is a danger which should be avoided. But still, this trend must be recognized for what it is; ultimately as a condition aiding in the radicalization of the masses.

However, while this is a very meaningful trend, it should not be utilized as a practical means from which to reinvigorate classical theories of revolution which are primarily based on a mass material deprivation. For the fact that these lapses become noticeable, the fact that they become part of a revolutionary equation, point to the reality that they represent breaks with the predominant social process as opposed to its norm. For the modus operandi of contemporary Capitalism is commodification and consumerism. And with such being the case, a greatly intensified alienation, and not poverty (although poverty is still a strong motivating force), becomes the primary motivation towards social revolution. And again, it is this mass alienation which must give rise to certain conditions which inevitably must account for its eventual social transcendence. Alienation creates its own form of revolutionary breaches.

Section III. Counterculture as Social Revolution

Therefore, this necessary increase in mass alienation has opened a new (or rather more mature) social front within the continuing revolutionary struggle. For the rise of radical commodification and consumerism has occurred alongside the rise of counterculture. This is no coincidence. Counterculture (cc) is a natural reaction against this system and is also the living embodiment of the class conscious social revolution. It develops as a natural answer to the intensified alienation brought on by this system. Counterculture becomes the living rebel base peopled by those (most often from the poor, working class and declassed population) who become or are made consciously aware of the basic fallacies and oppressive nature of the larger social/economic system.

Mass expressions in counterculture first emerged in North America with the Beats of the late 1940s to early 1960s. Then again counterculture emerged with the hippy/radical movement of the 1960s and 70s. The mid/late-70s brought punk. Today we have a counterculture that is a kind of synthesis of previously disjoined branches. There is no snappy name for our community, but it clearly carries within it certain elements of punk, hippy, and other counter-modes of being. This is not surprising as the demarcation of this time as being the end of one century/millennium, and the beginning of a new one, subjectively seems to spark a kind of social re-evaluation of past eras. Here, this age is also is marked by a synthesis of styles, thoughts and dreams. In this we truly are a people in between times; in between the death of an old system and a birth of a new.

Counterculture, as the above indicates, assumes different variations at different times. It dies and then is reborn as a former incarnation is either co-opted or simply no longer aesthetically expresses the particularities of the present age. However, as long as the greater society which it is pitted against still exists, the conditions which demanded its initial emergence will still be present. Hence, the particular death of any one form of counterculture is ultimately inconsequential insofar as the emergence of a new particular incarnation necessarily will follow.

Sociologically, counterculture manifests itself in a conscious and organic unity of all those activities that constitute the natural, life affirming, human identity. Social relations, housing arrangements, economy, recreation, art and finally politics are all incorporated into one united, although diverse, alternative community. As this community matures, specific mores, style and traditions develop. The binding factor lies simply in the conscious recognition of the common rejection of radical commodification, consumerism and authoritarianism. In this a sister/brotherhood is formed which is inherently anarchistic and is that of the counterculture.

This culture is only counter in relation to the predominant culture of the commodity-consumer which its existence assumes and within whose borders of dominance it functions. Without such an other, it simply is natural, liberated, culture. But, in the context in which we here discuss counterculture, we must understand it as more than simply an opposition with the aim of dominance. For the pre-dominant culture of the post-industrial age is that of an abstract and hierarchical social system. The common form of this system is found in the most contemporary modes of Capitalism (although it is not limited to it) and with it the complete commodification of society. In short, the predominant culture is that of exploitation, oppression and intense alienation. It is a forced totality specifically defined by the commodity and the process of consumption.

In this context counterculture can only live up to its bill if it rejects this totality. It is this totality which necessitates the levels of social alienation which in turn give rise to counterculture. Thus, by virtue of its very existence, counterculture is constituted as an oppositional force posited against its socially dominant other. In this it is a destructive force. However, for it to do so it must creatively construct (or unearth) as well. The basis upon which this creative process must be built is the unity of human dignity and solidarity as implied by the act of rebellion.

“It is for the sake of everyone in the world that the slave asserts himself when he comes to the conclusion that a command has infringed on something in him which does not belong to him alone, but which is common ground where all men-even the man who insults and oppresses him-have a natural community.”

—Albert Camus

Without committing to such a construction counterculture would fail to challenge the void upon which the all oppressive systems rest. In such, any apparent victory would be false as the death of the particular temporal form of an oppressive system would amount to little more then its reemergence in a new particular form. In short it must posit a constructive claim or fail to address the premises that the system rests upon. Counterculture must be, and in fact is, both destructive and creative at the same time.

“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.”

—Mikhail Bakunin

Counterculture, in our present context, must be understood not only contra the present form of Capitalism, but also for a liberated society free of the arbitrariness of masters and slaves. The counterculture is anti-hierarchical while being for the consecration of a new society of fully actualized human beings. Furthermore, as a creative force, it must actually create. If it does no more then postulate, then it is no more then a criticism, and a criticism alone does not qualify as a culture (be it a counterculture or otherwise). In the act of creating, it attempts to realize those new social relations that the fall of the present system will make fully realizable. In this respect counterculture is a liberating social experiment. It is “the formation of a new society from within the shell of the old.” It is the formation of the social revolution before that of the political revolution.

However, at this point it is marked with a contradiction, for as long as it is a counterculture, it is limited by the repressive forces of radical commodification, consumerism and the State. In this it is impelled to commit certain internal contradictions for the sake of survival. It must abide by certain oppressive laws or at the very least function semi-underground to escape certain restraints. But even underground it is compromised. The long arm of the commodity extends to all corners (some less than others). In such a society, there is no complete separateness from these restrictive traits. But, these limitations do not relegate the counterculture’s existence to an absurdity. Rather, it is these limitations which light the fire of creativity. For to find dignity and affirmation through the creation of an alternative community despite the dominate opposition is truly dynamic. Such limitations impel the human mind to expand its cognitive ability, and in this consciousness is sharpened. Furthermore, the limitations to its full actualization is the impetus to its destructive aspect. It must necessarily seek the eradication of that opposing force as the condition of its coming into full being. In this it is more than a decision to organize in a particular manner. It is a revolutionary force. Thus counterculture can not be judged purely by its contradictions. It must be judged in regards to what it knowingly points to, and to the extent that it stretches the limitations of the predominant culture.

The counterculture is not a subculture, as a subculture is nothing more then a variant of the dominant culture insofar as it fails to reject the basic tenants of such. It merely rearranges the detail in order to create the desired illusion. A subculture stops at establishing its identity as quantitatively different from the present system, but in doing it fails to become qualitatively different from it. At certain times a subculture can be mistaken for counterculture in that it may exhibit similar behavior and language to that of the counterculture in relation to the dominant system. But, it is merely exhorting a claim to the throne with out calling the institution of the throne into question. It may compete with the dominant culture, but its victory translates into itself becoming its former enemy. Such changing of the guard does no more then reinvigorate that which is already entrenched.

Subcultures which do not seek to transplant themselves to the seats of power, are no more then glorified fan clubs. They are incomplete or escapist at best, and social organs of enemy collaboration at worst. They are not counter.

Likewise, a counterculture which begins to demonstrate these above traits becomes degenerative, and hence must cease to be considered a revolutionary organ. Here, in its diminished state, it becomes just another subculture.

On the other hand, a healthy and functioning counterculture, represents a legitimate threat to the predominant culture in that the legitimate counterculture’s expansion necessitates a weakening of its enemy’s hold over the social and subjective realm. The enemy system survives first by the common belief in its false unity and second by its repressive institution (i.e. police and army). And history has shown the second of the two to be inadequate in ultimately maintaining dominance with the lack of the other. The present oppressive system recognizes the danger posed by counterculture and is thus impelled to take moves to neutralize it. Its first line of attack is indoctrination through education, media and advertisement. This measure may prolong the day of reckoning but ultimately it is not enough in the face of continuing experiential oppression and alienation. The essential lie of the system and the necessary intensified alienation of the great majority continually results in more persons from the dominated classes becoming disillusioned with the current paradigm. As discussed above, lapses in continuity do occur for numerous reasons, and it is during such lapses that the process of consumerism is unmasked as a process devoid of natural social worth. In short, the regular uneasiness of the subservient and alienated individual/class necessitates a certain anxiety which often impels the affected person to question the ultimate utility of the dominant process/system. At such a point it is only reasonable to expect that person to consider alternative modes of social interaction which appear to offer a more healthy social reality. In that capacity, the actual counterculture is viewed as an option which the affected person can consider. Its appeal will of course lie in its alternative social principals, strengthened by the fact that it stands as a functioning, ostensible and measurable example. Here counterculture can be expected to grow in proportion to this ongoing trend. And, the rate of countercultural growth must increase as the more persons included in its composition, or at least sympathetic with its revolutionary vision, necessarily results in the dissemination of its basic life affirming message at faster rates and with more prevalence.

This is not to imply that we are headed for a society where the old crew cut and blue collar shirt is altogether substituted for mohawks, ponytails and nipple rings. Shit, it’s not even to say that the odd attraction of Frank Sinatra will completely give way to Joan Baez, The Who, Bad Brains, or Crass. It’s only to say that the emerging culture of life (counterculture) will begin to exert sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle influence over the day to day reality and outlook of the average worker. Ultimately it’s not any more important to the dominant culture if the laborer wears a J. Edgar Hoover button to work and sleeps under an American flag than it is to the revolutionary worker to don tattoos, combat boots and piercings. All that is important is that the mass of workers begin to view themselves as part of a living culture which, though presently situated in a more dominant culture, is inherently contra the basic premises of its would-be master. In other words, it’s a matter of leanings regarding identity. For counterculture does not represent a threat in so much as its counter institutions seek to replace the status quo (although to a lesser degree this is also true). Its real threat is that its very example can challenge the State sanctioned belief system. As already stated, the present system of commodification-consumerism primarily rests upon mass belief. If counterculture can subvert that belief, the present paradigm can be expected to de-stabilize. Hence, counterculture, by virtue of its existence, entails within it an element or means of mass liberation.

This process of mass liberation has already began. How many factory workers already listen to Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, The Clash or Rage Against The Machine? How many already take part in elements of counterculture, all the while desiring more? In a word, counterculture, aside from its more puritanical definitions, is more diverse and subtle then many would like to give it credit for. Its currents, like that of the dominant culture, move through many levels of society. It seeks to help facilitate the freedom of all people, unlike the dominant culture which seeks to make people as docile as they are drone-like.

Here it must be stated that such an expansion of counterculture will not take place purely by historically deterministic means. Such a building of popular base must be actively coaxed by persons within counterculture. If counterculture simply was to exist as an isolated community secure in the notion that it would persevere with or without campaigns of concerted outreach, it would die on the vine of passive isolationism. All things being equal, maybe this would not be the case. However, all things are not equal. The predominant culture actively seeks to maintain its psychological dominance, and likewise various subcultures rooted in religion, fascism and the like actively seek to divert popular discontent into their bases of support. For these reasons, counterculture can not rest on its laurels. It must seek ways to build inroads into the common experience of the common wo/man. It must maintain a dialectical relation with those masses still not consciously brought over to the social revolution. In this, counterculture must position itself squarely within the larger poor and working class communities. It must support them in their day to day struggles even when those struggles do not take aim at the root of oppression and alienation. All the while, it must provide a sufficient and accessible revolutionary critique of these common problems. It must agitate. However, it is not enough to be immersed in the political field. In fact, the political field must be understood as secondary to that of the social/cultural field. For it will not be through creating things such as a living wage that the masses will be fully brought over to our side (their natural side). It will be through the common identification of art, literature, music, social happenings and real friendship. These are things which touch a person directly and communicate a vision of freedom and camaraderie. And, it is through such a connection that more people will come to identify themselves as persons within a common culture of struggle, creativity and future liberation.

The political field, while necessary in as much as the political holds legitimate importance in one’s life, must be understood as primary to a lesser degree in that such activities often translate into notions of “alliances,” “common fronts,” etc., and these concepts still imply a certain degree of temporariness and separateness and are not generally responsible for ideas of cultural commonality. They are provisional as opposed to communal. On their own they may foster issue by issue victories (which is good), but not an organic concept of unity through co-operative communities. They are incomplete.

This being said, counterculture, as briefly discussed above, cannot be content to live on the fringes of the more dominant exploitative culture. To do so would be no more then escapism, and hence the perceived counterculture would, in actuality, be no more then a subculture with a veneer of angst. Ultimately, there comes a time when this natural enemy of anti-social structures must attempt to surmount the palisades of oppression. It must seek to destroy that which prevents it from developing in its more mature forms.

Within such a counterculture it is only natural that certain people will carry the ball in this direction. And it is here that specific people and collectives will organically key in on revolutionary political action akin to that presently demonstrated by Earth Liberation Front cells on the one hand and the Anarchist Black Bloc on the other. Here it cannot bide its time and wait for the perfect moment. It must lash out at its other as a basic means of its political expression. It must transcend its relative passivity through the violent resistance of its own repression as well as the repression directed against the poor and working classes as a whole. And in such, it achieves an honesty which progressive impostors can not readily provide. This is one form of its direct political expression. It is different from much of its other political activity which often centers around piecemeal issues and community outreach. It is animated by its own revolutionary aspirations. And here it hardens itself by experiencing portions of direct, concrete struggle with facets of its enemy. This and prison support for its jailed comrades become its most direct lines of political expression.

Furthermore, by not limiting itself to Liberal dogmatic tactics, it further reaches into the hearts of the yet included poor and working class, who rarely could dig the horseshit of respectable protest and Pacifism. In essence, it develops its own means, and limits itself to that which proves effective, both in regards to objective goals, and subjective (non-alienated) needs. In short, it becomes an oppositional force by opposing. And, it is honest in its opposition by striking back according to the necessity of struggle, self-defense and victory. It is the physical and political expression of the self conscious poor and working class social revolution. Counterculture in political motion.

In conclusion, it is within the above social context that the North American Black Bloc emerges. In it is an important sphere of conflict between a culture of death (Commodification and consumerism) which increasingly has nowhere to go but down, and one of life which must struggle in order to realize itself in a society of cooperation and creativity.

Of course there are many more tactical, practical and theoretical issues, which have not been addressed in the above work, that we must continue to explore in order to realize the final victory of the revolution. And of course it may be necessary to modify or even disregard or reverse certain claims made throughout the above essay (absolutism is for shitheads). However, it has been my intention throughout the above document to map out a more thorough context within which we can further develop the necessary understandings of social process and transformation that will be required in order to bring a liberated victory within our collective grasp. So I trust the above met this task at least in part, and I look forward to the ongoing conversation. Well, cheers for now, and I’ll be seeing you on the front lines.

David Van Deusen, GMAC

The Green Mountains, March, 2001

“To the daring belong the future.”

—Emma Goldman

Chapter II

Early Clashes

North America, 1988-1999

Genesis

Black blocs first appeared in West Germany in the early 1980s. This militant tactic was embraced by anti-authoritarian leftist youth (commonly referred to as Autonomon) as a response to four escalating factors: 1. The increasing confrontations between police and protesters at anti-nuclear demonstrations. 2. In defense of squatting communities. 3. Germany was the scene of massive demonstrations in solidarity with the armed actions of the left-communist Red Army Faction. There it was common for major conflicts to break out between protesters and state forces, and a practical means of self defense became increasingly evident. And 4. the rise of neo-fascist street gangs accompanied by violent demonstrations/counter demonstration made such formations as the bloc appealing as an effective mode of street combat.

Within the decade the tactic proved itself effective in countering state police forces and neo-fascists in the public arena. This demonstrated effectiveness compelled anarchist, Autonomen, and radical left forces throughout Europe to adapt Black Blocs as a means to engage in street battles with the state, short of an armed uprising. Very quickly the tactic spread to other northern European nations. By the mid-80s the tactic spread to southern Europe. By the late 80s the tactic jumped across the Atlantic, making its first appearances in North America. By the twenty-first century, the Black Bloc reached east into the former Warsaw Pact nations, as far west as the Pacific coast of the U.S., and south into Mexico.

The twenty-five year history of Black Blocs is one of effectiveness and popular resistance. Its tactical success is born out in the fact that it has spread to many cities and towns over several continents. If, as some critiques have argued, Black Blocs failed to meet their immediate objectives, they would have died on the vine of blunted protests decades ago. Their very proliferation and sustainability over the course of a quarter century has proven their basic effectiveness.

North America

The first organized Black Bloc in North America occurred at the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C. on October 17, 1988. Over one thousand demonstrators—a small number comprised of the Black Bloc—called for the end to U.S. support for the right wing death squads in El Salvador. The protest, organized by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, managed to disrupt early morning rush hour traffic in the capital, and later to block the main entrance to the Pentagon. The Black Bloc, though small did its part during the actions. From 1988 on, Black Blocs appeared sporadically across North America.

In April 1990, a now defunct group called Youth Greens organized a 2000 strong demonstration on Wall Street in New York City. The demo was held on Earth Day in an attempt to unmask the anti-environmental practices of major American corporations; many of which became ‘official Earth Day sponsors’ in mainstream celebrations across the nation. One practical goal of the action was to shutdown business as usual in the heart of the capitalist beast. In support, a Black Bloc numbering fifty militants made its presence felt. The bloc aided in the efforts by constructing makeshift barricades across Broadway.

During the start of the first in Gulf War in January 1991, large demonstrations broke out across the U.S. 100,000 marched in San Francisco. 30,000 took to the streets of Seattle. Ten thousand demonstrated in Chicago and 40,000 more in D.C. A week later the protests became more intense, with another 100,000 in San Francisco, and 200,000 in D.C. In Washington, the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation helped organize the largest and most militant Black Bloc the continent had yet witnessed. In scenes foreshadowing the events of 2003, a bloc of 300 lead a breakaway march from the main protest contingent. Catching the cops off guard, this grouping smashed in windows of both the Treasury Department and the World Bank. Through this action the bloc drew attention to the link between imperialist wars and the capitalist institutions that underwrite them. Police reacted to these attacks by attempting to arrest a number of Black Bloc’ers. However, the bloc fought back and were able to physically prevent any of their own from being taken into custody.

October of 1992 marked the 500 year anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the so-called New World. While numerous cities were planning celebrations, many Native Americans and leftists were planning demonstrations seeking to bring attention to the five centuries of genocide of First Nation people. October 10-12 witnessed such demos in cities and towns including San Francisco, Denver, Columbus Ohio, Philadelphia, Syracuse NY, Boston, and Mexico City. In Denver the American Indian Movement (AIM) succeeded in shutting down a planned parade. In Mexico City 20,000 marched for native rights. In San Francisco a Black Bloc was organized. The bloc, like those before it, scuffled with police, and held their own against the forces of the state.

In 1996 the Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago for the first time since the infamous riots of 1968. While the Democrats were busy nominating the NAFTA supporting incumbent (Bill Clinton), thousands took to the streets in opposition to the capitalist-anti-immigrant policies of the major U.S. political parties. While the demonstrations remained largely peaceful, the atmosphere was tense. Protesters expected trouble, as did police.

Parallel to the DNC, anarchists organized a “counter-convention” where continental strategies for achieving fundamental social change were discussed throughout the week. 700 anarchists took part in this event. As the DNC got underway, so did the demonstrations; most of which entailed Black Blocs, and again Love and Rage played an important organizational role.

It also deserves mention that it was at these demonstrations which the embryo of Indymedia surfaced via an organization called Counter-Media. This media outfit—based in offices donated by the Teamsters—was largely composed of anarchists. In turn, individuals from within mobile media teams equipped with radios and cameras played the duel role of feeding protesters (especially the bloc) intelligence information relating to police movement. It has been rumored that some individuals also found ways to feed law enforcement bogus intelligence regarding protest movement. This helped to give the bloc an edge which it lacked at most prior actions up until that point.

The first major action was an immigrants rights march. There, close to 1000 mostly working class Hispanics demanded more equitable treatment from the powers that be. In support was a Black Bloc 200 strong. The day remained peaceful, despite tense moments when the bloc refused to enter the sanctioned protest pits at the end of the march.

The second major action was the ‘Not On The Guest List’ march which included upwards of 2000 people, and demanded, among other things, freedom for all political prisoners. As before a Black Bloc of several hundred was in support. The day became interesting when marchers varied from the permitted parade route, opting to pass through predominantly Black housing projects located within site of the convention center. There many poor and working class Blacks joined the ranks and soon one of the major entrances into the DNC was occupied by the Black Bloc, with pacifist elements in support. There a standoff ensued between mounted police and the bloc. A seeming stalemate remained in effect for many hours. However, as night set in, the pacifist and liberal elements made a concerted decision to retreat; leaving the people from the housing projects and the bloc to their own devises. The bloc, eventually realizing that the decreased numbers of protesters put those that remained in danger, called for all present to retreat away from the police lines. During this retreat the bloc came across an alternative entrance to the DNC where delegate busses were being escorted through. There, anarchists blockaded the vehicles, stopping all traffic. The cops responded with force. Scuffles erupted. The bloc’s unity was fractured, and its numbers again dissipated. Even so, 50 militants managed to regroup, and began a long march into the heart of downtown where it was known that prominent Democrats were having a fundraiser.

The bloc made two stops along the way. The first at the site of where a police statue once stood. The monument was in honor of those cops which were killed during the Haymarket riots of 1886. The statue in question was blown up by the Weather faction of the SDS in October of 1969, launching the violent Days of Rage. It was blown up again by the Weathermen in 1970 to mark the beginning of their decade long bombing campaign against the U.S. government. Before the Black Bloc moved on, words were spoken in homage to past struggles. The second stop was at a restaurant teaming with DNC delegates. There anarchists harassed these capitalists collaborators until police began to converge on the scene in large numbers. As this occurred, the bloc moved on to their primary target; the fund raiser.

Upon reaching their destination, it became clear that a massive line of riot police separated them from the premises. The bloc attempted to push through. This resulted in more fighting with the cops. Unfortunately their strength proved short, and the militants were forced to disperse.

Even so, the events of this day demonstrated many of those traits that have come to be associated with the bloc in the years since; they fought longer and harder then their liberal counterparts, and refused to allow the pigs to define their movements with out a fight.

The last of the major demonstrations at the DNC came days later when the anarchists, alone, organized a march against capitalism. The demo, which was essentially a several hundred strong Black Bloc, marched in isolation from other protesters. The police quickly moved to corral their motion, and successfully carried out a number of arrests. All told the action was ineffective. Here an important lesson was learned. When a small number of anarchists go it alone they quickly become vulnerable to the forces of the state. Until anarchists can put thousands in the street on their own volition, it is wise to work with others, even if they are only temporary allies in the context of a few shared goals.

In the final analysis, the 1996 DNC actions can be looked at as a link between the more crudely organized blocs of the 80s and 90s and those that reached high levels of success and relative complexity from 1999 on. While 1996 was still primitive as compared to, say, A16 in 2000, it was a big step towards building a meaningful militant anarchist presence within mass mobilizations.

As the 90s wore down, the Black Bloc made a major appearance at a 1999 march in support of political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal (aka Millions 4 Mumia). The city was Philadelphia. The cause drew upwards of 10,000 people into the fray. The story here was the sheer size of the Black Bloc. It was huge by any North American standards, before or since. Estimates range from 800 to 1200 participants. While the day came and went with out any reported clashes or arrests, it must be recognized that the bloc was out in force, and was prepared for self defense if attacked. The enthusiasm shown by this grouping should have served as warning of what was to come in the months and years ahead. Before the year was out, the Black Bloc would propel itself and the anarchist movement back into popular consciousness by inflicting an estimated $10,000,000 worth in damage to capitalist targets during The Battle of Seattle.

* * *

While the above illustrations are not meant to be the definitive story of the Black Bloc prior to Seattle, one should not fail to recognize how this protest contingent grew from humble beginnings of 50 or so militants, into a more capable street fighting force of hundreds and even a 1000. From Europe, to the East Coast, to the West Coast, and then to the heartland, the Black Bloc became an established tactic in the playbook of anarchist militants. Since those early years it has again spread, and is now prolific, turning up in dozens and dozens of cities and towns, every year, across this continent and the continent of its birth. With this history firmly established, we will now turn to the histo