Hi Brian

Well written piece ! I was present at Seattle and saw much of the same dynamic which you describe. Particular regarding property destruction. Specifically I saw the Black Bloc stay very focused in its targets; Starbucks, MacDonalds, Nike etc. However many locals that did not possess the level political development of the Bloc decided to join in and trashed anything and everything indiscriminately. This needs to be stopped for the good of the movement. How one goes about this is a matter open to discussion. My personal view is the Bloc for the time being should focus its actions on the Police adopting the Self Defense Strategy that was used by the Black Panther Party in the US in the late 1960s. Allow the Pigs to make the first move then respond with overwhelming force. Serve notice to the establishment if the pull the kind of shit they did Sunday Morning at the GSF/Indymedia Center that they will be using the body bags on themselves

The financial elite's veil has been blown away. They are now illigitimate and illegal. They cannot claim democracy, defence of human rights or economic or climatic safety. Genova was open class war. And we are winning. We must make sure our direct action is effective. Effectice not only in raising the media profile raise awareness, but also effective in terms of political and economic pressure. The street fighting was mostly excellently organised and effective - taking out banks, disciplined retreats and offensives and self-defence. Our movement is learning quickly and must extend our tactics into the labour movement. Direct action strikes hit hard at capitalism and can switch off the machine altogether. But where exactly next? The next big global elite meeting is the WTO in Qatar. I think that we should coordinate a global attack on the most potent symbol and stadium of finance capital - the stock market. A global blockade of the Dow Jones, Nikkei, Wall Street and every national finance centre will hit hard at the nodes of capital worldwide and focus the anti-globalisation struggle.

Reply to "voice of justice":
Problem is, we're not just talking about an organized "Black Bloc," unfortunately. Getting the window-smashers as a whole to behave like the Black Panthers is a great idea, but it will be impossible cause there's no community behind them to protect and to inspire. Lots of them (I don't say all) are violent loners or small gangs from another city or country. It's not the same sociology. The point of my text was to think about what to do in situations where you CAN'T target the violence anymore. I do think it's a dangerous situation.

Reply to Mike:
The stock markets are the nerve center of globalized capitalism, for sure. But any direct-action protest against the stock markets that doesn't have important backing from labour movements and ecology/civil-society associations will be repressed with absolute savagery. I mean it'd be like the Gulf War. June 18th caught London by surprise. That's over. I believe in the necessary relation between politics, media work, and direct action. So a protest against the stock markets would have to be the coordinated target of the whole movement, with political and media work at least as good as that of the GSF in Genoa. And their work was and continues to be very very good, let me say. With a lot more political and media impact than anywhere else, except probably Canada.

'the first violence is the fence... the first violence is free trade' jose bove - about quebec at people's summit.

the first violence is eating a big mac.
the first violence is not buying organic.
the first violence is shopping at the gap.
the first violence is buying a pair of nikes.
the first violence is getting a visa card.
the first violence is puchasing an suv.
the first violence is not recycling.
the first violence is allowing ourselves and our communities to drift down capitalism brook a little further every day, one by one, we're swept 'alone' in with the tide.
we cannot afford to wait until the next action, today we must change, and tomorrow too.

we do not need more actions we need creative alternatives.

we shop.

we are our own enemies.

we need to focus on us; they will do what they will anyhow.

ironically, qatar will lead the movement home. we'll go to our respective back yards and sit in our own shit... next to the people we let go. we'll be forced to work with neighbors (rather than stangers at protests) and confront our own hypocricies. sure there's a place for good globalization and mass mobilizing - but they should grow more effective with time... are they?