Thursday

Thursday April 13
10 am
Subway station

Sleep was fitful and short. Now we're out trying to find the 'convergence center,' but the subway maps yield no clues. Whatever the virtues of this group, the collective directional lobe is wanting; plus I am noticing the first creaks of antagonism between certain parties, which bodes ill. Besides, their plan makes no sense to me from what I can make of the city's layout; so I decide to strike out on my own. I bid them farewell and wander away, followed by Chris.

Walking along, Chris and I talk about - what else - activism. We compare awakenings of consciousness - his among the West Coast First Nations, mine amid the elite theorizing of Z Media Institute. And we talk about the generation gap and familial incomprehension - where his family seems reactionary in the blue-collar tradition, my frustrations have more to do with genteel liberalism, a reformist spiritualism that I find wanting in practical understanding of how oppression works.

In some ways this is even harder to deal with, because it's not just idiocy, it's a convoluted variation on my own sense of justice, and putting it down feels counterproductive sometimes. But the reverse is true too - when nonviolent protesters turned against the trashers in Seattle, they were the ones undermining solidarity, I insist. This nonviolence thing is torment for me - not that I would engage in violence, but if I condone it, then how will I fit in with the culture of these demos? I wonder.

My train of though is interrupted when we run smack into an enormous procession of protesters bearing down on The Gap to expose their sweatshop-generated fortunes. Wow, that was fast - the demo came to us! We turned right around and followed the masses back down the street. I looked at all the camcorder nerds scurrying around the periphery - ha ha! None of that for me, not this time. Freedom. however, I made a note to drop by the Independent Media Centre later on, for research purposes.

Soon - after bumping into still more Toronto friends and chatting up the crowd - we decide to split. Time is marching on.

Thursday April 13
12:30 pm
Convergence center

I had heard for years about DC dualism - shiny monuments on one end of town, run-down ghetto on the other - and by now we are definitely among the latter, thank God. The neighborhood, while not big on exciting storefronts, is fascinating and hospitable, and with some help from the locals, we navigate the twisty roads to reach convergence.

The place is located down a wide alley and around a bend, inside an old warehouse. People are playing basketball, painting props, practicing songs, sitting around. There are maybe a few hundred there, not the thousands that were expected, but it was still early in the week. It has a good feel, everyone seems focused but relaxed. I check my pack in the lockup, grab all the literature I can find, study the schedule of events on the wall, register at the sign-up table. They ask what role I would be taking in the protests; I still have no idea.

Sure enough, Dave and the gang are there too. There is a general excitement about the legal training, and while I have no idea what this entailed, I decide to follow as they head in its direction.

Thursday April 13
1 pm
The first in a series of churches

The Legal workshop turns out to be an indispensable part of the organizers' itinerary - basically a role-playing exercise in direct action. We are greeted at the door by people with cardboard cameras asking stupid questions, just like real media - "So how do you feel about all this violence?" etc. Then, having been led into an enormous main room, the Midnight Special Law Collective presents us with the vital action guidelines:

            1. We will use no violence, physical or verbal, towards any person.
            2. We will carry no weapons.
            3. We will not bring or use any alcohol or illegal drugs.
            4. We will not destroy property.
(#4 featured an amendment about how breaking down barricades was OK, but this had been crossed out)

As these points are reviewed, my contrarian instincts start rising. 2) and 3) are understandable - though I recall that my friends in the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty have always done fine without them. No violence against people - I can even get into that, violence is depressing, right, and how effective was it likely to be. But the classification of verbiage as 'violence' seems puritanical and silly, and the property-destruction thing calls up the spectres of division from Seattle.

The thing has hardly begun, and I'm really getting pissed off. After all, I struggled my way down here to fight for justice not to 'demonstrate' but to pursue real goals and authority be damned. Of course the fight had to be tactical. But as I sit seething, 2) and 3) seem more like passive capitulations to the rule of law. Acknowledging the ethic of the cops while disowning that of your partners in struggle - what kind of solidarity was that?

Complicating all this, of course, was my awareness of the other side of the debate that had raged around Seattle - most persuasively put by Mike Albert from good old Z Mag - that these things have to have parameters that are geared both to outcomes and the needs of the participants. Philosophy aside, nonviolence is a tactic, designed to emphasize principle and commitment and make the brutes on the other side look bad to the home audience. If an action is explicitly organized around such principles, the argument goes, then it is tantamount to sabotage to use violent action within that setting.

Oh, what to do. Now I find myself locking arms in a deep tangle of bodies before the dais. Wisely, they use their own volunteers in the cop roles - they do a great job, are energetically menacing as they try to drag individuals out of the group. The tactics are lad out: point and 'om' at trouble spots - pull bodies back to un-arrest, but never touch the cops; 'puppy-pile' bodies on bodies to inhibit dispersal. And when (or if, I guess) they finally drag you away, go limp - but not your head, or else you'll hurt yourself.

Next is an enactment of 'jail solidarity,' which is fascinating to me. The key principle is absolute solidarity under all circumstances - everyone gets the same charges, the same court date, no separation of prisoners, no ID information. Internationals are to be included - breaking the law in a foreign country being a big no-no - and we start reminding ourselves to stop giving away our Canadianness. We are taught the jail-solidarity reminder:

            I am going to remain silent.
            Uh-huh uh-huh.
            I would like to see a lawyer.
            Oh yeah oh yeah.

And we act out vivid and confusing playlets on what to do in event of injury, with many forms of duplicity visited upon us by the mock-cops.

As the theatre goes on, I realize that the internal dynamics of this kind of disobedience were in fact pretty brilliant - I am impressed. In fact things are so carefully worked out that they seem to demand absolute compliance on the part of the protesters - this being the reason, of course, for all this vigorous training. Of course, if it works, the emphasis on uniformity would be somewhat justified, and though it goes against my instincts, I'm starting to appreciate the tactical reasoning here.

And then the workshop leader - a very articulate woman, on crutches to support a broken leg, stationary at the podium throughout the workshop - makes the following, unsolicited remark regarding resistance tactics: "There are people who believe that the police are just bad, and so they won't co-operate with police or the government, and so they don't use tactics. And that's fine."

Coming just as I am managing to align myself, this sends me into a quiet, but blinding, fury. The implication is, of course, that anyone who doesn't submit to this protest regimen is completely beyond any tactical reasoning - that those who advocate force are responding to some primal instinct or hormonal imbalance. This is just wrong - the tactical use of force has been theorized to death, in fact - and it seems petty and sectarian. Besides, who says the cops AREN'T just bad?...but I'll save that for another time.

I call out a considered reply, but the conversation drifts forward, and I am once again alienated and unsure. What am I doing here.

Thursday April 13
5 pm
Independent Media Center

Following the group once again (well, part of it), I trot an hour across town toward the boxy building that houses the Independent Media Centre - and outside the door, working security, is Pat! He plumbs me for travel tales as he takes me inside to get a press pass - I'm still reticent to play media guy, but I need the pass to get into the place, and anyway I'm leaving all options open in my state of post-Legal depression. I do, however, decline to put my name on the pass - I'm still covert, after all.

The IMC is in fact an occupied art gallery. It consists of several work areas, with computers of various capacity creating text, stills, audio and video for the IMC-DC web site. Considering what a splash the IMC movement has made - I got almost all my Seattle news from its chaotic, info-packed pages - I am a little bit surprised at the obvious otherness of this crowd. What I see here are mostly thirtyish guys in expensive shirts, toodling around their expensive machinery. Several of them I have trouble picturing seated on the pavement, cops or no cops. They look like...like...media pros. (I went to school with a bunch of them, so I know whence I speak.)

Hmmm...so there are class divisions here. I wonder how this colors the reportage, and how such division at this early stage bodes for the future. And all of this inferred from a few flashes of fashion sense.

Having failed to locate my friend jay, whom I met at ZMI and who is a certified indymedia bigwig, I crawl into a car with a stranger and head back up to convergence to pick up dinner.

Thursday April 13
6 pm
Convergence center

Outside of the warehouse, a cube van full of food is parked; in front of it, multiple workers are toiling over dinner, a soupy stew full of tofu and greens. They tell me they've fed 1,000 people today, and are expecting 2,000 tomorrow. So the numbers are growing. The food is good, too.

After helping secure IMC portions, I elect to stay here, eat and help with the dishes - taking on the shit work like a true communard. Then I'm off to a nearby community centre for a talk on Third World debt.

Thursday April 13
8 pm
Community centre

The lecture is inspiring in that it is represented by delegates from countries from Africa to Central America to the Caribbean. They tell stories of their respective social and economic struggles, and what these meetings mean to them. The South African guy leads the room in an attempt at a Zulu war dance.

Although the cavernous acoustics, squealing PA, and somnolent translators render the details somewhat hazy, this is a good opportunity for us to reflect on why all this is going on in the first place: corporate globalism. Of course, the focus in DC is on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but the really important thing about these protests as they grow and diversify is that they are not about one institution, but about attacking the supporting pillars of a larger evil. The target of all these protests, folks, is capitalism itself - in spite of all the reformist wishy-wash in our midst, the cumulative effect of direct action is to destabilize the unquestioned monopoly of big business over workers, of moneyed countries against the underdeveloped world - and presumably, eventually, create an opening for real change.

So we question the IMF's "Structural adjustment" policies - tying loans to restrictions on social spending and organization, in the process diverting control over basic and vital resources to international big business. But we don't just question the policy, in isolation - we question the whole organization of industry, the control of the wealthy over decision making, the squandering of resources, the inherently anti-democratic nature of capital, the whole chain of fundamental implications that spring from the first symbol. And we follow these leads into questions about genetic modification of plants and animals, about the nature of police repression, about the dubious validity of our state and governments themselves. Well, anyway, I do, and I can tell you that in DC I don't feel lonely.

The question is, first, if the movement will be committed enough to remember these implications when, as will eventually happen, the big guys throw us a bone; and, second, whether the political power that we have marshalled can be cultivated and expanded into a comprehensive and ongoing answer to these social diseases, namely, the facilitation of a good, sustainable life that is not subservient to money.

Who the hell knows? In the meantime, I dedicate a Zulu war dance to the collapse of this particular summit, and continue to scheme toward the goal beyond.

Thursday April 13
10:30 pm
Convergence center

The talk is over, and my friends have all dispersed to their domiciles, but I am drawn back to convergence - still giddy, still looking for something to do. Emerging from a couple rooms full of inaccessible and intense debate, I come to the Singing Room, where a single acoustic guitar is making the rounds from folkie to folkie.

Let me honk my horn here and say that I am displaying enormous tolerance and cultural empathy by hanging around this room for more than an hour, because I HAT FOLK MUSIC. And I ESPECIALLY hate fucking ACTIVIST folk music - somehow the form tends to bring out the pristine self-righteousness in whoever it touches, and the result is a kind of hermetic self-congratulation that has more to do with wanking than art or, God knows, entertainment. And to make matters worse, the justification for the aesthetic seems to be couched in some notion of earth-mother feminism, so as a big bad male I have to feel all guilty about my contempt! Fuck!

I don't think the songs themselves are the problem: the singalong leader, who seems to be held in bedazzled reverence by a good portion of the room, turns Woody Guthrie's "Deportees" into some Jessye Norman fantasy lullaby at around 15 bpm. What the song needs is a fake Okie accent, dummy! That's the problem with all this 'spirituality' stuff - no matter how well-intentioned it always seems to wind up as an escape from the degraded trappings of mortal sinners such as you and I.

Nonetheless, I bear with it, singing along where I can, applauding with everyone else as folks displayed their misguided attempts at songwriting. I even tap my foot to Singing Goddess's fortieth Sweet Honey in the Rock song of the night - it goes "our souls in a state of emergency," but in true folk-soul fashion it comes out sounding uncannily like "assholes in a state of emergency" - I stifle my giggles as best I can.

Finally, my heart racing, I stretch my hand toward the guitar - it's time for me to SING. I have barely sung in public for two years, and I relish the opportunity to show these guys what a REAL song sounds like. As I strap 'er on, I have to come clean and admit it: fuck tolerance and cultural empathy, I just want people to listen to ME. Of course, it's only appropriate to play them the song I wrote (more or less) about Seattle, even though it's not quite finished. It goes like this:

YOU ARE JUST A LOUSER

Can you tell me where to go
Where the hot air doesn't blow
Get in get out give back nothing at all
Three piece thugs are on parade
Cows on drugs to buy or trade
Line up lock down no one enters the hall

Hey Mayor McCheese
Hi there Sergeant Sleaze
It's a long way to come
To be greeted by this rubber gun

CHORUS
They go me oh me oh my
Bombs are falling from the sky
(No sir no sir everywhere you go sir)
Me oh me oh my
Everybody's gonna die
(No sir no sir you are just a louser)

Can you tell me what to do
Stop this steamroll screaming through
Uptown downtown they're just having a ball
If some pests get in their way
They'll prescribe a stronger spray
Payback head crack line us up on the wall

Turtles crawl like hell
ACME cracks that shell
It's a law and order void
They wake the neighbors up and they're so annoyed

CHORUS

Pick us off the ground
Bus us out of town
Grind our glasses down
Kick our ass around
But we won't make a sound
No no no

Can you tell me where it ends
Maybe you should ask your friends
Massed up gassed up next stop forcing the fall
Everyone gets out the zone
But we take that battle home
Round up wound up wait to answer the call

CHORUS

I hit the last ringing chord of the song, and silence descends on the room - except for some quiet chatting among the Song Goddess's buddies. out of the dozens of songs performed in this room tonight, mine is the only one that nobody applauds. If I were a real punk, I would take this as a compliment.

Thursday April 13
Midnight
The squat

Earlier on, I had been musing to Pat about accommodations; since Kole's place was only good for the first night, I had to search on, and the crash registry at the info desk had not much. Pat told me about his crash spot of the night before - a squat house only a couple of blocks from convergence. And it's there that I now find myself, heading for the basement door as instructed, maneuvering through a packed and smoky room of teenaged stoners, up a rickety flight of stairs, and through several darkened rooms, always looking for an adequate patch of floor, always in vain.

in the top hallway, I run into someone who was awake, and ask him if any of the permanent tenants are available. The response is inevitable: "Are you a cop?" This is the price I pay for my shaved head and advancing years. Fuck, I just want a place to sleep. We backtrack downstairs, and he contritely offers me a corner of what would be the dining room - I would be about the tenth person to inhabit this approximately 10' x 12' thoroughfare, and I wouldn't be the last either. I blow up my bourgeois mattress, lay out my sleeping bag, and sleep.