http://dc.indymedia.org Hey BLACK BLOC, Let's talk about tactics! by slip 12:54pm Mon Jan 22 '01 we won a few victories and made a few mistakes, let's talk about tactics! first and foremost, way to go, you all fucken rock my world! mad props to all that came out to protest the facist state, especially our comrades who refuse to back down and fight not only with their voices, but their bodies, minds, spirits, and lives as well. now onto business....we made a few mistakes, i think that we all know that. i think there are some things that need talking about, and i do believe they are ones that can be done out in the open, as the points pretain to things the police state know about already. we had a tactical nightmare! to use a comrade's words "tactically we fucked up like nobody's business throughout the day" we went down roads that bottlenecked, down some small bridge like structure, and when we finally got cornered at 14 and K we had marched around a full block back to the point we started at. now, it is understandable that consensus wasn't being met, there' wasn't time for that-that's why we have comm. now the tactical problem with the streets could have been counteracted if the bloc didn't have another problem-1/2 the bloc staying and 1/2 the bloc ditching when we confronted the kkkops. i think this happened for a couple of reasons, one, unexpierienced people who may have not understood what our main tactics/goals are, and two, once that people saw that some people were jetting, they figured they should get the fuck out of there too. this resulted in a mayhemice situation and eventually left about 75 people pinned up against a wall surrounded by kkkops.("rescued" liberals-who would have thought?!) this situation could be avoided, perhaps, by at our meeting prior to the action, deciding on a few things we would like to saw to everyone that will gather at the meeting point. not have an open meeting, but just maybe a short debriefing and maybe take a few questions if they are absolutely urgent or if something is unclear. maybe just a simple run down of what the general tactics and goals of the bloc are so people at least know that we don't run, we stay. also maybe flood new people with propaganda (granted it was raining, but next time....?) then new/uneducated people can make an educated decision about what they are getting themselves into. the other problem i feel that we really had was about our regrouping point- to get to the 2pm spot you had to walk roughly 45 minutes around the parade route and go through a checkpoint, not to mention that is was on Penn Ave and it was totally on the opposite side that we were and where we wanted to be after we met up. i don't think the point could have been any better if a provacotuer planned it themselves (maybe when it was planned, people forgot that you couldn't cross Penn?) this resulted in no real regrouping point at all, until 4pm, when it was too late. i think there are some things that really can be avoided next time, so please respond and air your grievances, criticisms, props, and ideas. the more we communicate, the stronger the bloc will be. stay safe, stay free (to the future belongs the daring! -emma goldman) [61]add your own comments ummm.. by shitbox 1:16pm Mon Jan 22 '01 to the daring belongs the future. 14 & K by sarin 1:19pm Mon Jan 22 '01 [62]sarin@devo.com 14 & K was partly inevitable. The police left the Bloc alone for almost an entire hour. It wasnt really until we began dragging newspaper stands into the streets that we make a racket and got attcked from the front. Now we were very lucky to not have had a police guard from the start - and I was surprised. We were only watched by a couple of cops, and the police took a long time in bringing up reinforcements. I support light barricades to slow trailing cop cars. Its effective. But it brought the wrath of police on those in the front who suffered some bad beatings. So in my mind the mistakes were 2- 1. some people got too far ahead. Wen the clubbings began, I recall most of us had to run forward to rescue them. This happened while rounding a corner, the usual spot that htings break up a bit. And 2nd - we didnt really consider how long police backup would take to etain those that were caught. Some broke through. Had all been in one it, all could have made it out. Right when the first sign of being bottled we needed to link arms and break through. So long as our Bloc is over a block long, they cannot bottle us up so easily, but because we got strung out and some ran forward, police were able to move in on the front and back. Solution - bike scouts with comms. There were a couple of scouts, but who was in communication with them? We need at least 2 comms people marching at front and back too. The best would be 4- one on each corner of the march then bike scouts in touch. Bike scout comms worked well in Phill where I only ran into one trap situation, but it turned out that the cops didnt block the back end of our small group of 100. Also, a couple windows were broken, and no one was the worse for it. An army recruiting station and a high-end hotel. I heard few complaints and the cops weren't around at the time. Plus taking down the FBI fence was nice. We had a lot of freedom while marching in DC that day. i >dont< think itll happen very often since in this case the cops were ore concerned with the parade route. I think its more typical that we will have a much larger police "escort" for the next BB tour of a city. ajd;fdja;k by August Spies 1:27pm Mon Jan 22 '01 Sarin, I disagree 14th and K was totally avoidable. We were heading towards a large march right? we coudl hvae gotten away from the police in time. Our problem was that we got seperated. When we got boxed in we were like a half of the ealier bloc, and then everyone seemed to not know what to do. Me and some others decided to break out, and did it with out much problem. We could have all broken out at the beggining if we had stayed tight and pressed forward. So our mistakes were 1. allowing ourselves to be broken up. When we hit the first march we lost a lot of people. 2. Balking at the sight of like 5 police men. 3. Not having people at the reassembly points to tell the lost bloc members where to go. Luckily these mistakes didn't cost us much, and we can adapt quickly. tactics by falmer 1:34pm Mon Jan 22 '01 [63]depthsquad@hushmail.com many thanks to to the RAABsters and to indy-media folks for their efforts this weekend. next stop: anti-capitalist convergence A20, quebec city! Nightwalker posted something a little while ago that we'd like to re-iterate-- thanks to the liberals for the solidarity.it was great to see N.O.W mixing it up, too. it's important that that incident be remembered the next time we're feeling critical of the social-democrats (note to our chums in the makhnovist direct action union: lighten up, huh? ). as for tactics: there's really no excuse for bad logistics these days. thanks to the 'net, we can access city street maps, bus & subway schedules, and various itineraries. the problem, of course, is communicating these well-made plans and to do it securely. so is it a question of *tactics*, or is it one of communication and security? too much security leads to weird paranoid vanguardism, but surely some of you clever sparks can think of something. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "To dream Revolution is not to renounce it, but to pursue it doubly and without mental restrictions. To avert the unlivable is not to flee life, but to throw oneself into it totally and irrevocably."--CAUSE (1947) .. by sarin 1:58pm Mon Jan 22 '01 [64]sarin@devo.com Spies - sorry if I wasnt more clear. I meant that that police ttack at 14 & K was inevitable. Our being broken up and surrounded wasnt, you are right. As to the question of tactics vs. comms, in our loose knit consensus driven situations good comms form good tactics. We aren't an army, so we dont have a textbook response that comes about intuitively for everything that comes up. We just have to react to situations and the best way to do that is to know what is going on. the hole in the middle by jc 4:10pm Mon Jan 22 '01 my biggest complaint was the hole in the middle. i was in the middle/back part of the march and for some reason there was a hole between the front and back. i think people dropped otu somewhere, but it f'ed things up. because of this hole, the block was disorganized and when the cops were beating people, the rest of us were trying to get up there. i didn't want to run because running just makes the cops want to club people more. we should have locked arms and walked faster towards them...giving support as a whole to those who were being hit. bikes and comm are definitely what we needed.