Theory of Demonstrations, Demonstrations of Theory

by Dr. Frederick M.D.

Its been a year since the events during the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization suddenly made demonstration activism seem like an effective way to make things happen. There have been a lot of other attempts to shut down meetings in the months since then, most of them not as successful. The honeymoon is over. In recent months we have learned that just showing up and blocking intersections is not going to recreate what happened in Seattle. The police are ready for us now, they know our strategies, they have our planning meetings bugged, they have a media blackout arranged so no one will even hear about our attempts. Its time to decide whether we want to abandon the demonstration approach for another thirty years, or find new ways to (re)vitalize future demonstrations. When youre creating through the medium of revolution, you have to always keep ahead of inertia (especially when that inertia is represented by the F.B.I.!). What follows wont be a comprehensive guide (thats impossible!) or even a thorough introduction (which would be indispensable!), but I hope it can remind others to think these issues through themselves.

Before we get into this, lets go over why participating in these big demonstrations can be worthwhile in the first place. A lot of the people who deliberately choose not to go to demonstrations argue that the events in question do not represent their particular ìissuesîor favored methods. For example, my friend in Germany stayed home from the Prague demonstration because he thought the protesters wouldn't do a good job of communicating with the local civilians. This boycott of a demonstration rests on the assumption that a demonstration is one mass event with a single mission or platform. Instead of staying home, my friend should have gone to Prague and worked to create the pieces that he saw as missing. After all, demonstrations are going to happen whether we go or not. Boycotting may be valuable in the case of hopelessly petrified institutions like K-Mart or the vote. Demonstrations, on the other hand, are not institutions, they are a forum. As such they have the power to be fresh with each materialization. The anarchists who made Seattle so important didnt stay home because the Revolutionary Communist Party was involved. Instead they came and, D.I.Y., threw their own party, with a lowercase "p"!

When people are going to be in the streets trying to make things happen, the rest of us have two options: we can leave them to struggle on their own, imagining that our absence will speak for our qualms, or we can seize the opportunity to shape the event. We should view demonstrations as a chance to create the situations we want, not just to vote with our presence or absence for some particular method of organizing. Unless we can find something more effective to do somewhere else, theres no reason we shouldnt be there.

A demonstration is different from almost any other project we could use that time to work on. A public demonstration means thousands of people see our work with their own eyes. In a mediated world we cannot forget the power of direct visibility. The interactions spawned by this contact are far more valuable and meaningful than the scraps of "coverage" the corporate media may or may not toss us.

Participation is also an excellent way of raising issues (from globalization to animal rights) in the eyes of people we are close to. This is important because often these people will not be involved otherwise. Family and friends who hear about our activities become aware of important issues as an extension of their concern for us. At the same time we can use the forum to reinvigorate ourselves: its easy to come to accept the most horrific tragedies as normal things, until you try contesting them.

Of course its also an opportunity to fuck shit up for those fucking it up for us. When we demonstrate that the monster has weak spots other people will be inspired to do the same. On the other hand, when others try to demonstrate this and have a hard time, because people like us are withholding our fresh ideas and participation, it reinforces the illusion that the monster is invulnerablewhen all it would take to dispel this might be another couple participants with a secret plan.

There are other reasons to participate in these mass demonstrations, that activists dont usually talk about as much. The demonstration is an opportunity to collaborate with people from outside the circles we usually travel in. If were going to make this cooperative anarchist thing work, well all need lots of practice with this. (Remember: there is nothing that pleases the motherfuckers more then infighting among the people. It is perhaps their greatest weapon against us.) Furthermore, demonstrations can become conferences where we develop plans, have fun, see friends from far away, meet new people, fall in love. Far from the blockades and handcuffs, we sleep on the floors of strangers (who are soon to be friends), and over the meals we share, we exchange stories and ideas. The smallest of these details is as important as our most radical long term goals.

Now, back to the subject. The people who came up with the strategies that worked in Seattle had been developing them for many years. Just like the band whose ground breaking music is repeated until it is a cliché, our masterpieces often become monoliths that loom from the past, trapping us in ritualistic attempts to resurrect them. Preoccupation with precedent can prevent us from finding the new innovations we desperately need. Now that chaining ourselves together across intersections is not so fresh and vital, a responsibility lies in our hands. Those of us who have been coming to these events unprepared, hoping to be directed by the ones "in the know," must bring our own plans to the next event. We, who have not been central to the organizing over the last few years, may actually have the most to offer. Our minds have not yet been filled with years of plans, failures, expectations and assumptions that are difficult for the experienced to shake off. What we need to shake off is our passivity. Each of us must prepare as if the success or failure of the whole demonstration depended on our contribution.

This decentralized approach will be the most effective for a number of reasons. Its impossible to infiltrate if the F.B.I. had to discover the secret plans of every single person headed to a demonstration, they wouldnt have a chance. The affinity group model has been a good start towards this end, but it could be taken a lot farther, particularly if the individuals who have been hanging back in these groups waiting to be directed brought their own plans instead. ["But it would just be anarchy! shriek the old-fashioned communist organizers, to which we respond, "Exactly!"] Of course we should not act in total disregard for what others are doing. The most effective approach will be one in which everyone answers to themselves while planning original approaches that complement those of their friends. I'll give some examples of this below. The old guard are going to stick to their predictable stuff, anyway, and its going to keep on not working. Instead of just arguing about their methods we would do best to introduce something new and fertile.

It was the introduction of fresh elements that made Seattle so effective in the first place: the anarchists destroying property, the radical cheerleaders, the infernal noise brigade. Countless unique individual projects which no one expected created a situation that no one could control or predict.

OK, on to specific examples. The number one cliché we have to avoid: going to fucking jail. Movement after movement has started in this country, gotten going, and then collapsed when mass legal trouble scared off half of the participants and embroiled all the resources (money, time, patience, you name it) of the rest in court cases. The lawyers and judges are surely the segment of this society with the very least potential to be radicalized! Why waste all our energy on them? Lets keep it in the streets, where it belongs. For countless reasons, getting arrested is just a bad ideaespecially in this atmosphere of media blackouts, getting-caught is martyrish at best. Abbie Hoffman (who went through this whole thing three decades back) once commented: the trick is to find things to do that aren't illegal yet. Or just not to get caught.

My favorite example of fully legal mayhem remains the time Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin shut the New York Stock Exchange down just by walking out onto the visitors balcony and dropping money down to the stockbrokers. The crazed capitalists, well practiced in the ways of short sighted gains, abandoned their posts to collect falling dollars precipitating a stock market crash for the day! Had Hoffman and Rubin tried to barricade the market by chaining themselves across the doors at 5 a.m., they probably wouldnt have succeeded, they certainly wouldnt have had as much fun, and even if it had worked I wouldnt be writing about it over thirty years later.

Now lets use the Philadelphia Republican National Convention protest (which I attended as the kind of unprepared automaton criticized above) as an example for some things that could have been done differently.

Had I known how much more my creativity was needed than my mere presence, I would have tried one of the following ideas, which Brian and I came up with after it was too late. One of the main things we were all trying to do was block traffic, and delay the beginning of the Convention. There we were, trying to block traffic with our bodies, when we all know what blocks traffic best: more traffic! If everyone who came to the demonstrations by car had simply driven them very slowly into the area where the hotels were, stopping to ask for directions at every block (perhaps with clever art on our cars, like floats in a parade), traffic would have been effectively halted. The beauty of this plan is that if they chose to arrest people, theyd have to tow their cars out of the jam, which would just make matters worse!

Hell, we could have done that and still have had plenty of people left over to do other things. Heres another idea, which could easily be applied in any traffic-blocking demonstration. Usually the people in blocked cars are regarded as unfortunate victims (if not apolitical car-driving assholes!), and nothing more. Why not take the opportunity of these traffic jams to communicate with them? A radio transmitter that can reach car radios within a block or so can be built for around $10, and its legal. Take one of these to the next demonstration in a car (so it wont be confiscated), and hitch it up to a tape loop explaining what were doing and why. When you get stuck in the traffic jam, friends will be ready at the curb with signs reading "FOR INFORMATION ON TRAFFIC DELAYS, TUNE TO 98.9 FM." We could make the next demonstration into a pirate radio convention, with twelve different stations participating (each with its own message). This way, formerly useless, mad or bored motorists become the guests of honor! At least when the newspapers the next morning say "the protesters' message was unclear," the drivers will know thats just bullshit.

More on traffic: Lets say you dont have two hundred people with cars to gum up traffic; if you had ten people who were ready to get a little crazier, you could achieve the same effect. Have a few benefit shows, and raise money to buy each person a clunker car thats on its last legs. We could have found hundreds of them in Philadelphia... long old American cars just begging to "break down." Purchase them under fake names (or whatever you gotta do), then at the assigned minute, ten old cars breathe their last breath in the middle of ten crowded intersections, paralyzing traffic for hours. Maybe the drivers have escape routes planned; or, if theyre gutsy, they'll just stick around insisting that they dont know whats going on (in that case, they could use their own cars, with no fake names). Even if ten people get charged with ìconspiracy to block trafficî it is still preferable to four hundred people getting charged with assault for being beaten by police because they created a human blockade. If you're an expert and you really want to increase the tension, you could rig a device to set your old junker on fire (cars sometimes burst into flames you know!), andtalk about demonstration ambiance!

Or lets say we couldn't get our hands on any cars at all. Let motorists deliver them! Did you know that if you clog up the exhaust pipe of a car, it shuts down? Potatoes are ideal, just pound one in, way in, so its good and lost. In a matter of seconds youve got your blockade provided by some unfortunate motorist or truck driver. And happily for those of you with qualms about "property destruction," the offending tuber can eventually be extracted with no lasting damage... slashing the tires, on the other hand... works too! If wed managed to enact a few of these plans, the delegates would have had to take the fucking subway to get out of the downtown area, and that would be the last thing theyd want to do with hundreds of demonstrators (with plans of their own!) on the streets.

While all this was going on, it would really just take one person who had planned far enough in advance (and gotten a nice enough haircut) to have infiltrated the Convention itself to go to the basement and cut the power on the whole event. Or, since all the police in the region were at the Convention center or waiting downtown for the demonstration, it would have been a perfect time for a group of people to appear in a totally different part of the city, free to wreak the havoc that everyone would be talking about for years.

One interesting new tactic surrounding the Philadelphia Republican National Convention occurred almost spontaneously. At the time, Brian and I were on the road with a performance project of folk lore, science, music, home made instruments and a large inflatable teddy bear. As it turned out, our somewhat inconvenient itinerary began in Philly and ended up buzzing around it like a moth. Our periodic returns to Philly combined with close contacts with highly involved individuals there put us in the position of becoming folk media. We ended up incorporating news of the demonstrations into our performance. Every where we went people were desperate for real news of the events. We provided the information we could within the performance and in several instances ended our show by beginning a discussion about the demonstration. The discussion gradually lead to important local needs and issues. By the end of the discussion, we had provided national news to a local audience and learned of local newsall from first hand sources. In addition we were able to send out e-mail updates. We have evidence and reports of many of these being forwarded around the world. Distrust of the media is not uncommon but it is quite uncommon to be in the position of being a first hand authority on an important issue that the press is actively blackballing. With a little more planning, the role we ended up playing for the Philly Demonstrations could be covered in a much more thorough way.

These are just a few examples of dumb ideas my friends and I have tossed around. There are a thousand other starting places. Next May Day, instead of doing that march carrying signs down the street, break up and have each person start a conversation with someonethats much more real, much less of a spectacle. Bring yo-yos to give out for everyone to play with at the next protestitll make us feel less dumb standing around there. Invent games, be tricksters, do things no one can understand (that's what our leaders do). Come up with crazy alliances between totally different groups that could come together for one moment to make things happen that nobody could have imagined. My wildest dream is that one day we can coordinate one of these mass demonstrations to coincide with a citywide police force strike. They have reasons to be discontent too, you know, not the least of which being that their masters are always forcing them to be assholes to us. If we took to the streets one day and the rank and file of the police force stayed home in protest, that could be the first day of something bigger than any of us have ever seen...

Regardless of our methods, our collective activities hold unlimited promise for transformation. It is during the brief moments of clarity, when a demonstration stops being self conscious, that we begin to wonder why they ever end. You know, fat cat murderer C.E.O. motherfuckers proudly flaunt their ideology of power on the streets every day, and in front of the very people they exploit! These demonstrations are a chance for us to be ìoutî about what we believe, too: rather than hiding in our punk and political ghettos, as if being conscious and concerned was something to be ashamed of, we adventure, we get a taste for what real action feels like, we test the possibilities. And the possibilities are big; all this revolutionary talk seems pretty dumb until you live through a moment when it comes true. The first time I really experienced what it was like to change a little piece of the world, my life was altered forever.

Postscript: But What About Local Activism?

A lot of people point out the drawbacks of these mass demonstrations and then say we should just be concentrating our efforts in the places we live. Well, of course we shouldand a lot of us are, otherwise the broad base of individuals who join in these demonstrations would not exist in the first place. At any rate, there is certainly no need to choose one over the other.

It is crucial, above all else, that we do not stop doing outreach to others. Its that outreach that made what were doing possible. I'm sure the Powers That Be would like nothing more than to see the small number of radicalized people remain small. Cut the spearhead off a spear, and its just a stickwe need to remain active in the places (like the much-maligned punk community, and even the college activist scene) where we first learned about activism and anarchy, so others will too. These need to be augmented, not replaced, and certainly not fought against. We need to find local environments and communities where interaction and action can take place. But concentrating on local activism doesn't mean that we cant also work together for big events that unite us from across the world. This system of cross-pollination is critical if our activism to remain fresh; in fact, it is at these gatherings that people exchange the new ideas and inspiration which travel back home and keep the fires burning.

I'd like to conclude with a couple more ideas of what we can do at home to "get the message out." I wrote in the features section about trying to provide for the needs of the community in anarchist ways (without necessarily using that word!). With our energy applied that way, our communities wont have to meet so many needs through the usual (Christian, etc.) channels. Through our example, people will learn about the alternatives to old process of doing things. A good case study is the B.R.Y.C.C. house in Louisville, Kentucky, a vast building my friends opened (with a $150,000 grant from the city!) to be a "youth center." They have a 'zine and book library, a radio station (which is, in effect, a record library as well), an art gallery, punk shows, poetry readings and Food Not Bombs. All of this is organized by young people acting autonomously and getting involved in radical shit in the process. The city government has no idea what its funding there, and my friends are filling a space in the community that would otherwise just be occupied by assholes.

Something else the readers of this magazine can do to make the alternatives to the capitalist nightmare visible (when the big demonstrations arent going on) is autonomous media. There is more to this than just zineswheatpasting and graffiti writing are good examples. If we make our own media to reach people outside our communities, than we don't have to beg the media barons to do the job for us. Instead of photocopying 'zines, put the ideas that usually remain within our circles on posters and wheatpaste them all over the streets of your town. People will see them for the next three months, and even after the text is unreadable theyll see the remains of the flier and it will make them remember what was there before. If I had a wheatpasting recipe committed to memory, Id print it here, but Im sure you can find one easily enough. This kind of adventure is a fun and empowering experience for people who do it. It means deciding for yourself what your town should look like and spending your time and effort to make it so. This is radically different from the methods of slave masters like Nike who simply spend loads of money dumping their an-aesthetics on our towns. Remember, we have more ingenuity than they have cash. Aside from being an invigorating experience for the "artist," the results of autonomous media and street decoration will encourage others who see it. Maybe they thought they were alone in their discontent until your efforts started showing up. Maybe you think you are alone in your discontent... until someone begins to reciprocate.

Another option, beyond wheatpasting and hand spray-painting billboards and walls, is stenciling. Here's an idea: If you want to safely stencil an image all over the sidewalks of the world, cut the bottom out of an old back pack and attach your stencil in its place. Youll look like youre just rummaging around in your back pack when youre actually spraypainting through the bottom of your auto-media portable decoration machine. Then, there's stickering. If you live in the U.S., its easy to make free stickers that are hard to remove. Go to the post office, where free stacks of priority mail stickers will be available. Make a stencil and spray paint a design on the stickers (you could even have a big design that was formed by a number of stickers together). You can put the stickers up (on the front of newspaper machines, at bus stops, on stop signs: Stop being bored/eating animals/etc.) so fast that its practically impossible to get caught.

Anyway, all these examples are just to encourage you to be thinking about this stuff yourself. Youve probably heard most of these ideas before, and surely you can come up with better ones on your own. The thing is to focus on doing stuff yourself, coming up with your own approachesthats the best way to have fun, and save the world, all at once.

See you on the streets (not in the jails, if we can all help it!)...

your friendly neighborhood folk scientist, Dr. Frederick M.D.