Rants and Reflections
A street-side view of the Democratic Convention
Despite a few confrontations with protest organizers whose decisions, they felt, played too passively into police demands, Black Block was decidedly peaceful for the rest of the week, and had a lot more fun than anyone else around. On Tuesday its members marched behind a banner displaying Emma Goldman’s famous words “If I can’t dance, . . . it’s not my revolution.” By Wednesday they had taken to chanting “Who’s sexy? Black Block!” and on Thursday evening, with lines of riot cops with guns trained on them just yards away, at the very spot where they had clashed with police two nights before, they entertained themselves, and their ever-present escort of reporters, by playing their version of Duck, Duck, Goose — Anarchist, Anarchist, Pig.
III. On the Media, or Nice To See the Mainstream Losing Ground
Perhaps never before has a protest, much less a week of protests, been so thoroughly and extensively documented. Thanks to the efforts of the Independent Media Center, which issued its own press credentials to all comers, to the relative affordability of video cameras and to the ease of posting on the Web, hundreds of activists photographed and taped nearly every moment of last week’s demos. Newly able to record their struggles and communicate without the help of the corporate press, they were there every time a stinger round was fired, every time a nightstick fell. They pushed their way into the huddles whenever LAPD Commander David Kalish delivered an impromptu press conference, and used those occasions, usually exercises in toadying, to throw tough questions at the commander. Mainstream-media folks grew noticeably defensive. Shoving others aside for a clear shot, one network cameraman was ready to rat out impostors at Wednesday’s rally in front of Rampart station. “Everyone without a real credential,” he growled, “get out.”
The grumpier such types become, the better our chances for truly democratic media, however hollow the word “democracy” may now ring.
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