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French protesters are not better equipped, more skilled, or more radical than Seattle protesters, they just have more of them. Why is this? Because France doesn't have a culture of "militant nonviolence" (read: highly effective liberal counterinsurgency...swoopers) (1/25)
Seattle protesters accomplished everything French protesters are now on May 30th with very little organization or training. In the weeks since I've watched protesters become extremely skilled. By August, I reckon we'd perfected the Black Bloc (things have waned since then.) (2/25
Seattle protesters could have accomplished a lot more, but they were pacified, not by SPD, not by KCSO, and not by the Guard, but by liberals. (3/25)
Liberals took control and pacified the Seattle protests on Day 2. Things eventually got more radical, that first wave of swoopers is long gone, but they did their counterinsurgency job. (4/25)
They pacified the protests long enough for them to fall to to numbers that were manageable. By the time they were ousted, numbers were in the low thousands. Liberals ran out the clock. The police can handle 1,000 protesters. They can't handle 30,000. (5/25)
The police love peaceful protests. They're boring, but the extra pay makes up for that. Peaceful protests drain protester energy while accomplishing very little. It's the maximum effort for minimum gain. (6/25)
Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that a protest that doesn't cause astronomical property damage is ineffective. If you've only got 50 people, and you manage to block traffic, lockdown precincts, and bring out riot cops, that's the max damage for minimum risk. (7/25)
But if you have thousands of protesters, and all you do is march around and give yourself repetitive strain injury, you've wasted valuable resources. I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'm frustrated. (8/25)
So where do we go from here? As an anarchist, I will continue to look for opportunities to do mutual aid and direct action. Protests are small now, but they're still effective, so I'm still going at least weekly. We're doing what we can with what we have. (9/25)
But what about the next May 30th? Well, radicals need to be ready to defend spontaneous movements from swoopers. That means understanding their tactics as well as we understand police tactics. (10/25)
In Seattle, our swoopers were very effective. Despite being a city with more radicals than most cities of our size, we were pacified very quickly. We had about one and a half days of riots. (11/25)
Swoopers started by claiming affiliation with a movement, and seeking out media. They had a handful of represenatives at the front, making themselves recognizable, and giving themselves legitimacy. (12/25)
They weaponized identity to shut down dissent, and pushed themselves to the front of crowds, with megaphones. I suspect they also had a cadre of people who quasi-organically followed their lead, so this following would spread through the crowd. (14/25)
Ie a Swooper with a megaphone would give a direction, and their cadre of 10-15 followers would follow their lead, and form the nucleus around which the rest of the crowd would coagulate. (15/25)
And that's basically it. Once in control, a swooper could do whatever to sap energy and demoralize. March the crowd in circles, gather the crowd in the open to scold them, have them kneel in front of cops, so on and so forth. (16/25)
I oppose swooping on principle. As an anarchist, I'd never try to swoop a Women's March even though my mere presence would be seen as such by most liberals. (17/25)
But I think ultimately to maximize how much utility we get out of a protest movement, it's critical that we delay centralization and pacification as long as possible, and to do this we must counter-swoop. (18/25)
That means having bigger megaphones, weaponizing identity, and having prepared statements. When a swooper tries to take command, someone else needs to shout them down with their own megaphone, claim legitimacy, and encourage the crowd to be militant. (19/25)
One day near East Precinct, at what would eventually become the "Western Barricade." Swoopers led us in circles. Some folks in bloc came out with their own megaphones, and demanded that we stop marching in circles away from the precinct, and protest. I joined them. (20/25)
"If you want to protest, go this way [to the precinct,] if you want to keep marching, go that way."
"Well, which way are the Black people going??" several demonstrators retorted. (21/25)
"Well, which way are the Black people going??" several demonstrators retorted. (21/25)
I haven't named the Liberal Swoopers, because I don't want to contribute to the harassment of Black people, even if I disagree with them. But you probably know who they are, and they are Black. So were the Bloc people, iirc, but it was less obvious because they're in Bloc. (22/25
The reality is that Black people are not a monolith, and there were Black people going both ways. But white liberals aren't very good at nuance. I said "Both ways" and they reacted with something to the effect of "Yeah right, a white anarchist co-opter would say that." (23/25)
Radicals don't want to take charge, they don't want to be the face of a movement, they don't want power or clout. Liberals do. And this gives them an unfortunate advantage, because it's pretty easy to take power in a vacuum. (24/25)
I'm out of tweets. In conclusion, autonomy is not a power vacuum. It requires that we take control of a space, and reject anyone who tries to be a top-down leader. Otherwise it's only autonomy until some liberal or authoritarian orders a megaphone on Amazon. (25/25)
