Black Bloc Solidarity
No2010 Victoria statement on the anti-Olympic Heart Attack action in Vancouver Feb 13
Contact no2010victoria@gmail.com
No2010 Victoria endorses the Olympic Resistance Network's statement on solidarity and unity and we support the people arrested in connection with the Feb. 13 Heart Attack action.
No2010 Victoria endorses the Olympic Resistance Networks statement of unity and soidarity, and we support the people arrested at the February 13 Heart Attack in Vancouver.
The Heart Attack action broke a few windows, but the cost is negligible compared to the violence done by the targeted corporations. As long as these corporations invest in polluting industries, coopting indigenous culture, and abusing human rights, people will continue to retaliate.
The black bloc action drew more international media attention than the rest of the week's event combined, creating a larger space for everybody to speak up about the impacts of the Olympics.
The Heart Attack shone a spotlght on the history of colonialism and the Hudson's Bay Company and demonstrated a willingness to use economic sabotage strategically.
The action was organized by an ad hoc group independent of the Olympic Resistance Network, contrary to statements made by David Eby of the BC Civil Liberties Association. Eby has implied that ORN made the decision to reject BCCLA legal observers for the Heart Attack event. He has apparenly misunderstood the leaderless structure of the black bloc group and wrongly assumed that the person who delivered the message was making decisions for the group.
Eby's statements criticizing the black bloc go far beyond the BCCLA's civil liberties mandate. In fact, Lawrence Hildes of the National Lawyers Guild calls the BCCLA's denunciation "unethical." The role of these lawyers is to defend people who are arrested -- not to pass judgement or to police the protestors.
We are shocked that the legal team is praising police violence as "restrained," while turning their backs on the movement they had pledged to support.
Nevertheless, we've seen an outpouring of fan mail for the Heart Attack from around the world. The black bloc has shown we will not be intimidated, we will not be coopted, and we cannot be stopped. We will continue to defy police repression and undermine corporate rule.
Solidarity!
The site for the Vancouver local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
Commentaires
Hmmm...
This reads like someone from the black bloc saying they are in solidarity with the black bloc. Fair to assume there is some crossover here and if so, maybe make this transparent.
Also, are you kidding?
Really, I thought the cops had a pretty easy time here. What was the goal of the action? How do you measure success in this case?
What? Smashing three insured windows? What was strategic here? Certainly not the media attention which was overwhelmingly negative. Nor the fact that the police can now justify future billion dollar security budgets. Or that anarchism's reputation as an incoherent criminal movement has been reinforced (thank to the media yes, but they were given the opportunity).
Solidarity with those arrested. For sure. But let's not let solidarity get in the way of inside the movement critique.
media attention...
The media will always be negative - or they'll just ignore you. The people who own the media aren't on your side, they don't like you or what you stand for. If they can ignore you, they will and if they think they can portray you in a bad light, they'll do that, in preference to ignoring you.
The only way you'll get any media coverage, the only way you'll be able to get any message out via the mainstream, corporate-friendly, corporate-owned media is if the media can show scenes of violence which can be used to portray the "movement" as criminal and dangerous. Most people have this pretty well figured out, they know that the media spread corporatist propaganda, they're shills for the Corporate State, it's why people quit watching or believing TV or newspapers as sources of truth.
Peaceful demonstrations are boring, they show peaceful people carrying signs, being respectful of authority. There's no way to put a negative spin on that, so that kind of thing is deemed "not newsworthy" and coverage gets bumped in favor of dramatic events like the mens snowboarding or the hotly-contested hockey game between Canada and the US.
The Black Bloc provides exciting images which provoke an emotional reaction, so that's the sort of thing the major media will cover; there'll be reporting which paints the whole of the demonstration as supporting the Black Bloc, whether that's the case or not. Demonstrators' signs will be shown, and shots of black bloc'ers breaking windows, and commentary about how bad, how un-Canadian this all is... but at least there's the possibility of a message getting out because people don't get mad enough to get up off the couch and go into the streets and carry signs and break windows *for nothing*... They're there for a reason, and people watching this can figure that out. Their response is going to be largely dictated by whether they agree with the reason, but at least they're making a choice. They won't be presented with that choice in the first place if there's no coverage. There's a saying in the advertising business: "There's good publicity and there's bad publicity, but it's all publicity." Persistent bias by media leads people to draw opposite conclusions, away from what the media are trying to persuade people to think.