Tactics and ethics in responses to globalization: Replies
Neumann, Rachel
IN HIS APPRECIATION of Milwaukee's civility, David Glenn calls the state defense of civic order "a fundamental and necessary condition of a decent society." But I don't think our current state...
...he's making quite a large jump from racist attacks over school desegregation (which hurt people where they live and work) to damage to billboards or neon signs owned by corporations...
...He argues that the property destruction repulsed Middle America and gave the media something else beside the labor march to focus on...
...The media in fact did a better job than usual...
...To be both ethically and strategically successful, any vanguard movement needs to be linked to a broad-based coalition...
...GLENN ARGUES that if property is going to be destroyed in the service of progressive causes, the agitators should follow his three commandments: try other means first, connect to broader social movements, and do their time in jail...
...Finally, Glenn admits that property destruction may have been effective in the "short term" in influencing politicians and WTO delegates...
...it's defending the concentration of wealth in the bank accounts of the few from the anger of the many...
...It's on the third commandment that I think 96 s DISSENT / Spring 2000 Glenn and I differ in principle...
...if this can be achieved by orchestrated or non-orchestrated protests without property destruction, then I am all for it...
...It is a limited and targeted attack on property owned by companies that themselves perpetuate violence...
...Glenn calls it a wash...
...The first two I agree with wholeheartedly...
...I would prefer a community, rather than state, responsea community defense when the community's agreed upon standards are violated...
...As for the second, this is the crux of my argument...
...But to believe people should go to jail, should, in fact, walk into the police station on their own, reflects the blurred morality I am writing against...
...They represent only one example of a larger argument about how to widen and reinvigorate political movements...
...Yet many of the young people who came out later in the day (surely they count as "citiDISSENT / Spring 2000 n 95 ARGUMENTS zens") came out because of the unusual energy and the combination of groups and strategies...
...But historically, property destruction has often come about after these methods have been tried and failed...
...The latter is not violence against people or against a neighborhood...
...in papers I looked at from Chicago, California, Washington, and New York, many of the articles made a point of separating the different messages...
...First, about Seattle...
...There's been enough focus on those few hours of property destruction...
...Those who were repulsed, like Thomas Friedman, were repulsed by the whole thingthe audacity of all those non-experts who had thoughts, feelings, and arguments about the WTO...
...Aren't these some of the same people we must reach for any long-term change...
...nor does it necessarily involve breaking a community standard...
...As for the rest of Middle America, those who would have otherwise supported the demonstration supported it anyway and were able to tell the different groups apart...
...Of course the overall goal is social transformation...
...Jail is a common consequence of protest, whether sitting in the street, tagging walls, or breaking windows...
...There is value in being willing to go to jail for one's beliefs, and incarceration has created amazing solidarity among political groups...
...There are the immediate issues of race and gender: most women and people of color of any gender wouldn't conceive of wandering into the prec¾??£?f??A????M?;?n ?þ>âr???Ç?u...
...But I don't think our current state is defending civic order...
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...This is the question I wish Glenn had addressed, as opposed to simply stating the requirement, noting the well-worn example of the Weathermen, and moving on...
...Seattle seems more of a positive example than a wash, butif possiblelet's put it aside for a moment...
...Is it possible to integrate the energy and emotion of property destruction into a larger movement...
...All of Glenn's examples are of physical violence toward other human beings...
Vol. 47 • April 2000 • No. 2
