Reclaim the Streets!

they were arresting at least one high quality indymedia reporter. most people said that a person wearing black pushed the first two arrestees into the police, and then rushed away behind police lines without any police chasing him.
a fire dancer (but perhaps not the fire dancer at the maypole) was arrested at Dwight/shattuck where the police mysteriously did not want people to continue to pass.

here are the first two arrestees, where the cause of arrest was somewhat dubious or unexplained.

What, there's another kind!?!

I could be mistaking him, but it looked like an individual who takes indymedia reporting very seriously, and doesn't just repost stuff from other places or put up event announcements, but actually puts a lot of energy into his journalism. Isn't he the guy who went to palestine and was submitting reports while lying on the floor in Dheishe, dodging bullets? I could be wrong. That was sure smart of them to arrest him.

the fire dancer was released around 2am and faces charges of, not dispersing fast enough, or something erroneous sounding like that.

Beware the bald commanding officer Russell Lopes in the Berkeley PD. He is one of the FBI's liason officers, works (and lies to) the press, and has full knowledge of goings-on in the Berkeley PD's Red Squad. When he looks unconcerned at an event, and the mainstream media is present, watch for the infiltrators seeking to discredit the movement.

On April 30th, my homeschooled 9 year old daughter and i were eating burritos at Kazan's Organics in Berkeley. When we went to pay, the man at the register recognized us from the months we have been participating in the Women In Black vigils on Fridays near Sproul Plaza. He and i had a brief discussion about the genocidal actions of the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians. He then told us there was a rally at Sproul at 5 pm. We quickly did some grocery shopping and looked for a friend who would've been interested in going. Not finding her, we parked and walked over with our frontline puppy. There were cops and parking overseers posted at intersections blocks before we hit the campus. i thought we were headed for the biggest pro Palestinian rally yet.

When we arrived, there were several dozen people milling about. I thought we had missed the event. Shortly after that speakers began (everyone male) which informed us it was a Reclaim The Streets event. Having participated in such a gathering in December, we decided to stay. Taina connected with several other children and Clover met some other dogs.

We noticed that the excessive numbers of police included many cameras and video setups. Taina and i both took pictures of them as well as some of the colorful May Day celebrants.

Eventually, the group moved towards the street accompanied by the loudest, most obnoxious testosterone infused blast of techno noise i have ever encountered. If it was meant to communicate anything other than high pitched irritation, i certainly did not grasp it. But hell, i am half way to 104, so what do you expect.

As we hit the streets, we were immediately surrounded by a corral of cops on foot, bike, motorcycle and car. It did not appear to me that we were deciding the course because cops were in every intersection we came upon. It was rather disturbing to feel so controlled by the armed well organized military unit that recorded every step any of us took.

At one point, Clover had to poop. The cops marched by us as she did her small dump in the street. They completely ignored us. I scooped her dropping up and put it in the garbage. My daughter was upset because we were well behind the activity now and she didn't think the cops would allow us back in the corral. I took the opportunity to photograph the cop with the video camera complete with the RTS march visible in his tiny screen. We hurried along and slipped back in without a word from the marching, wooden globocops.

Though it felt very controlled by the cops, the festive and courageous atmosphere was contagious. Taina was thrilled to be part of such an outrageous parade. I helped the pink haired woman on the bike pulling the maypole in a heavy trailer by catching it's sharp corners before it could scratch parked cars.

I told several people, including the mc who introduced speakers at the beginning, that the male dominance of the event was very disturbing to me. Once again the voices of women and mothers are silenced, left out, ignored. There were few people of color, including my child. It seemed geared for the guys and the girls that follow them. Sorry, but that's how it came off to me.

The RTS event in December was also male dominated. Personally, after over a half century of fighting that, i am disheartened by it's contuation among those who at least SAY they know better.

I love the creative bravery of such anarchism. It is guidance from my innermost being that responds to such actions. But i cannot accept the overwhelming continuation of male, mostly white, dominance that mars so much of the works for a livable planet. What is it going to take?

I am a frontline mother who has included my children in my activism for over 20 years. It is a critical part of their education. It is sad that so few children are part of the activities i participate in all over the west from Washington state down thru Arizona. It isn't til i am on the reservation at Big Moountain that many mothers are involved in struggle with their children. Too many parents put their children in the system and separate activism from parenting. It needs to be an integrated way of life, communities of resistance, as the Zapatistas have called for. We are far from that and it shows in how unbalanced many events are with so few women, children and people of color integrated into the voices that are most heard.

The best part was the weaving of the Maypole. Taina threw glittery confetti all over people. She drew with chalk on the streets and then wrapped the yellow tape that now corralled us with red crepe paper.

Cops were stationed in lines halfway down the block from us and others were all the way at the intersections. When one line began to move towards us with brute intent, i told Taina we needed to get out of there. She said not until she was done festooning the tape with the bright party streamer. She would look up at the approaching squad and continue with her task. She did NOT want to leave and was quite angry with me that i insisted. I was not willing to take the risk without an affinity group to back us. I was sorry to leave when we did, but i know how few people pay attention to what happens to women and children from years of experience as a single fronline mother.

As we headed back to our van, Taina drew peace symbols, hearts and ying yangs on each blockon the sidewalk and on walls. She was so inspired i felt sorrow at the isolation that forced us to depart when we did.

My daughter and her puppy have been to most of the Women In Black vigils i have participated in, the peace marches, speaking events and other important aspects of the movement for change. She often is the only child. Because she is creative, self-motivated and gregarious, she does better than kids who are institutionalized and easily bored. I challenge activists to address this effectively. It is essential.

In peaceful struggle,
swaneagle harijan

(I have no scanner so cannot post my May Day photos. I would like to get them to someone who may be interested. There are some good shots.)

That's your fault, and the fault of the other women who failed to take the initiative by shoving some of these men aside at the planning metings. If you want a male dominated event, show up after the planning is over and the event is already in motion and trot along behind the men. If you want a women dominated event, plan one. If the men object, tell them to sit down and shut up. If they wont shut up, throw them out of the meeting. If they wont go, force them. Complaining about male domination has done no good whatsoever for five thousand years in a row. Switch to Plan B.

Ignore "just a suggestion" - also known as nessie - who appears to be a troll but in fact is as ignorant as he (obviously, a "he") seems. Obviously, part of the problem is that one must "shove people aside" in order to be considered.

Your points are well-taken. Here's hoping I meet you and your daughter having fun in the future.

I don't like it either, but it's a fact of life.

We can either face the facts and deal with them or else we can suffer the consequences. There is no third choice. Five thousand years of waiting for men to abandon patriarchy on their own has failed utterly. If you believe this is not so, prove it. Otherwise, lay off the ad hominems. They just make you look like a inept debater.

It occurs to me that the one insisting "shoving" as solution may be one who fails to support all perspectives being heard. How would the suggester feel about being "shoved" for whatever reason? Perpetrating aggression is not what the earth needs.

As a single mother, it becomes difficult to take on every facet of what needs to be done in semi-frontline situations. During the WTO, a friend was caring for my daughter when we faced the brutality of the cops. At the RTS event, my first priority was my daughter and her safety.

To take on the patriarchal nature of the mobile gathering would have required freedom i did not have. Also, i came on the spur of the moment thinking it was a pro-Palestinian rally, so being part of the planning was not an option. April 29 was the last day of a very restrictive job i had. For the last few days of our time in Berkeley, we tried getting involved in activities we had been missing.

It is also my belief that conscious men need to be addressing the patriarchal nature of activism. Men who keep the power over dynamic entrenched are not goiing to listen to women. It is also the responsibility of privileged white people to educate bigots when abusive behavior occurs. It is not the res[ponsibility of people of color to take on the KKK. Yet, over and over again, this is what is expected of those who are most oppressed.



I have repeatedly taken on rapists, batterers, cops, white supremacists and other agents of repression. I will continue all my life, but to do so alone while with my young child is not reasonable given the supposed consciousness of RTS participants.

My last response seems to have been lost...Try it again

As a single mother, it is my first responsibility to keep my daughter safe in semi-frontline situations. During the WTO, my friend cared for her when we were dealing with excessive police force. During RTC, i did not have the freedom to take on the patriarchal tediousness full force. Sadly, men who claim consciousness should be doing it as sexist men do not listen to women in the first place.

Due to the constraints of a restrictive job, we were not able to participate in planning and we ended up at the RTS event thinking it was a pro-Palestinian rally.

I wonder how the suggester would take supposedly justified shoving anyway? Your position reeks of machismo and lack of vision. Women having to contually take on the sexists is as absurd as people of color being expected to be the ones taking on the KKK. Where are the allies and the awareness? Berkekely should be doing much better than this...

The idea of women *competing* - and competing on men's terms - for recognition and power-sharing is called liberal feminism, and it has not worked. Oh sure, we have female CEOs, heads of state, and the like, but that's not really an improvement.

Radical feminism, on the other hand, has a better handle on the situation. We need to change the social dynamic, not simply add women to a patriarchal, hierarchical dynamic. This requires conscious, conscientous effort from women, but especially from men.

The effort to identify the enemy as singular in form is a reverse-discourse that uncritically mimics the strategy of the oppressor instead of offering a different set of terms.
By conforming to a requirement of representational politics that feminism articulate a stable subject, feminism thus opens itself to charges of gross misrepresentation.
When the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one --Judith Butler


I was there. I need to hear more about why you thought the event was patriarchal. It certainly could have been, but just because there were some men who acted in a masculine fashion, that doesn't mean that an event was sexist. For instance, if you went to a scottish highland games festival and there were a lot of people of european scottish descent, that wouldn't mean that it was a white supremacist event. If everyone there were scottish or there were any tangible white supremacist or racist aspects to it, it would be. The daughters of the american revolution is a racist group because it elevates and extends privileges to a narrow white group. And these people definitely are racist: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/05/06/MN241420.DTL
Some heterosexual people kissing and hugging each other in public would be sexual, but they wouldn't be creating a heterosexist environment unless there was something substantial which would disinvite gay people from feeling free to act the same way.
Music can be masculine and feminine. I would not say that the fact that more men might listen to masculine music such as kidd rock, acdc, noise, hardcore or ja rule, or that more women compose the audiences of TLC, Britney spears, Les Miserables soundtrack etc. make that music sexist. Other things such as the sexist statements and imagery of some heavy metal musicians or confining gender roles promoted by Christina Aguillera would make them sexist.
So with Reclaim the streets, there were two types of music that I heard played. One was a type of techno music that I would classify as fairly neutral, and there was some noise that people were pushing in a shopping cart in the back that was somewhat masculine. The maypole might have been feminine. On the Bay Area direct action network list, a woman from the Peace and freedom party was criticizing the mayday stuff because a guy's announcement had been describing faeries and wiccan type of imagery and she thought it was too religious and not on target enough for the revolution. Anyway, I am open to the idea that the whole event could have been ageist or antiworking class with it's countercultural aspects, if the goal of the event had been to work for an egalitarian cause. but just because a group doesn't match the demography of the rest of society doesn't mean anything in and of itself unless there were specific reasons why particular groups were favored or excluded in however subtle a fashion. So it would be important to describe what this was.

"
A nonessentialist position does not imply a
nonbelonging to a group, nor does it imply loss of agency or of coalitions and solidarities. For some feminists of color, identity politics remains central, though identity may be multiple.
One may position oneself or be positioned in many different groups for different reasons. One may belong to different groups bu gender, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, and so on. There can be syncretic,
"immigrant", cross-cultural, and plural subjectivities, which enable a politics through positions that are coalitions, intransigent, in process,
and contradictory. Such identities are enabling because they provide a mobility in solidarity that
leads to a transnational participation in understanding and opposing multiple and global oppressions operating upon them; that is, these subject
positions enable oppositions in multiple locations. Multiple locations also enable valuable interventions precisely because the agendas of
one group are brought along to interrogate and empower those of another group" - Inderpal - in "scattered hegemonies"

is not a rebuttal.

The statement made by "every person on the planet except nessie" is a statement of documented fact which transcends all possible objections.

Overruled.

This isn't about nessie. Neither, for that matter, is it about you.

1) All rulings given by the "debate judge" are final.

2) Once the "debate judge" has overruled an objection by any "debate coach", further objections will lead to points deducted from the "debate coach" and any who might participate in a collective with him/her.

3) The "debate judge" reserves the right to intrepret any debate procedure as he/she deems appropriate.

4) The "debate judge" is above reproach.

The inherent patriarchal behaviors of amerikkkan men makes it difficult for RTS events not to be sexist and racist. Most offenders do not even realize what they are doing. So it is discouraging that anti-globo activists perpetrate much that afflicts the left. Unless there is a conscious effort on the part of those who do enjoy the status of dominater positions to commit to egalitarianism in as many areas as one is able, the power dynamics go unchanged.

The music that i found most offensive was rapish in how it blasted with no clear revolutionary message. The same guy had his setup blasting at RTS in December. In both cases, the speakers were all male. Do i need say more?

Comparing RTS to a Scottish highland gathering is off the mark. We are supposed to be part of an anarchist movement integrating changes conducive to a better world. That so many men continue to dominate, whether it is RTS or the book release event at Black Oak Books a few months ago addressing the WTO protests, is downright backwards. I spoke to the male speakers at RTS and i spoke to all gathered at Black Oak Books. At the bookstore, many people came and thanked me, including one of the men who spoke.

As a single mother not part of an affinity group at these events, it is risky for me to put my all into addressing this. Caring for my daughter is my priority. Since many men refuse to commit to even revolutionary child rearing, it continues to be on the shoulders of those of us already overbrudened by the oppressions we contend with daily.

At this point, i continue with my frontline mothering and will speak up when i am able. So far, the revolution in Berkeley seems to be treading water as far as true egalitarianism goes.

Murders of Indians in racist bordertowns go unsolved and the cops treat victim's families deplorably. Murders of immigrants on the u.s./Mexican border continue as do murders of prostitutes, homeless, homosexuals and murders in inner cities. These are issues begging to be addressed by anarchists, but are virtually ignored. Genocide in amerikkka must be stopped and it is not up to those being murdered to take it on alone. With such frustrating realities in local events, what hope is there for effective and powerful movements? We must be living communities of resistance and i just don't see it happening to the degree needed.

Tediousness prevails.

As you have noticed, although men may be oblivious, most do want to change things, and your comments help that a lot. It is tiring for women to always point these things out, which is why men should try to notice these things and bring them up before women have to.

On another note, can you do me a little favor? Please don't write "amerikkka". I agree that it is justified (the US is far more evil than most people realize), but it is not effective - only those people who already agree with you understand why you use the term. Everyone else - which is to say most of the people we want to reach and explain the horrors of this reality to - doesn't understand and will be turned off by what looks like angry ranting, "anti-Americanism", "blaming America", etc.

There may be no better to appealing to, say, George W. Bush's better nature. But when dealing with fellow activists, it makes sense. Just making people aware of a problem goes a long way toward solving it.

For example, there is this poster who calls himself nessie. I believe that he is altruistic and not a complete asshole. It's just that he comes off as arrogant and all-knowing and his comments are often very caustic (like telling women that patriarchal behavior is "their fault"). I find him ignorant in the original sense of the word - not knowledgeable or aware of certain consequences of his actions. I will not "shove him aside" (although I do encourage others to ignore his more aggressive and less informative posts). I try from time to time to appeal to his better nature to make him aware of the ways in which his behavior alienates other people and can be counter-productive.

And no, that was not an ad hominem.