Royal Bank Firebombed in Ottawa Part Three

aka Mycroft wrote:

Quote:

   It is delusional to think that any pain brought on by this action would be borne by the system of capitalism, the state, or even the RBC. You can't burn those things down. It is business as usual for all of them.

I've extracted the passage that is worth considering.

My own proposal now is for a peaceful coup in taking over the premises and entire physical infrastructure of the CBC!

Speaking to the broader issues of solidarity & what needs to happen for the world to turn the corner on all of tthe most pressing issues together and simultaneously, is that I think ~tactically, that it would be best if all anti- G8/G20 demonstrations of whatever form take place before the planned dates of those 2 particular summits & that the actual dates then be fully dedictaed to the work of the main counter summit, which in the end is going to be the more important and consequential forum because this will begin the implementation of the new 'new world order', actually more a reversion to natural law of government by the people and for the people!

... an aside, probbly shouldn't really even mention as another tactical idea but I will here anyway just for seeding of discussion purposes: that it might be very effective if the more directly militant aspirants were to publicly commit to an action such as declaring, then enforcing a refusal to allow the planned 3 meter fences to be erected in T.O!!! If communicated in solidfarity with the Missassauga's whose territory the Toronto Concention Centre illegally stands upon, the forces of indigenous solidarity & international law will be supportive.

derrick wrote:

Why not respond to our arguments, rather than name-calling or questioning our good faith? There is a lot of history we can draw on here (Weathermen, Squamish 5, etc); it would great to look at that more rather than moralizing about the practise of either violence or non-violence in our resistance.

Hi Derrick. This board is three pages long. There have indeed been responses to the arguments against respecting diversity of tactics within the movement.

I think that dismissing respect for diversity of tactics as simply advocating for violent direct action is inaccurate. I don't even think it means ramping up the level of violent action. It really does open up lines of ocmmunication. I think that in the past decade a lot of the violence we have seen from activists (and by violence i mean property destruction, economic violence, vandalism, police provocation) has been done by people who have felt left out of the broader movement due to the strict adherence to general pacifism. I think that the fact that these activists have not felt as though they had a place within the masses meant they have acted alone and this is a big part of why we haven't seen much that could be called "effective". I think that by creating space within the movement for discussion, debate, alternatives means that vilent actions can be used in a way that coincides with the messages of non-violent demonstrators. I actually think that opening up the possibility of diversity of tactics means that violence is less likely to hijack the media portrayal of activists. If we respect diversity of tactics and don't to put violence "out of sight, out of mind" we can be smarter about it and have a real chance at effectiveness.

Cytizen H wrote:

derrick wrote:

Why not respond to our arguments, rather than name-calling or questioning our good faith? There is a lot of history we can draw on here (Weathermen, Squamish 5, etc); it would great to look at that more rather than moralizing about the practise of either violence or non-violence in our resistance.

Hi Derrick. This board is three pages long. There have indeed been responses to the arguments against respecting diversity of tactics within the movement.

What I was hoping for was a moratorium on 'don't spend time criticizing this when the banks/capitalists do much worse...' since the (majority) of the people on this board making the criticism are doing so because they think there is a better way, and that arson attacks like the "FFFC" one are counter-productive. Just like "democratic centralism" before it, "diversity of tactics" has come to be applied in a dogmatic way that in practise often stifles open discussion and debate.

even if there was a 'First Nations group or community or First Nations solidarity group or community...consulted by the FFFC prior to the bombing, supports and backs the FFFC in its RBC bank bombing, is happy with the actions of the FFFC and wants the group to follow through with its manifesto of continuing on this course of action...'

I hardly think it wise or necessary they come forward and say so to you...

statica wrote:

Please stop me right now if I have missed this, but please show me one First Nations group or community or First Nations solidarity group or community who has come forward and said: 1: it was consulted by the FFFC prior to the bombing 2: it supports and backs the FFFC in its RBC bank bombing, is happy with the actions of the FFFC and wants the group to follow through with its manifesto's promise of continuing on this course of action.

Well spoken by a nice woman of privilege.  Appropriating the aboriginal voice is apparently okay for you but I find it rather distressing that you would think this is a argument of solidarity. 

I will in the future need to ask you if you have heard of any one who agrees with my action and that is to the determining factor in whether the action is legitimate or not.  I am in awe of your knowledge of all the activist FN's groups and their views on issues.  That must be quite the burden to carry around for a nice red head.

Slumberjack wrote:

statica wrote:

In this case, whomever was involved in the FFFC bank firebombing should be held accountable by the two stakeholder groups it claims to represent: the activist community and the First Nations communities.  

Please stop me right now if I have missed this, but please show me one First Nations group or community or First Nations solidarity group or community who has come forward and said: 1: it was consulted by the FFFC prior to the bombing 2: it supports and backs the FFFC in its RBC bank bombing, is happy with the actions of the FFFC and wants the group to follow through with its manifesto's promise of continuing on this course of action. 

It would probably be better if you stopped yourself from repeating this line of argument.  No one is responsible for anything in this instance, except for those who carried it out.  Others who wish to voice an opinion on the matter are free to volunteer one, or not.  Communities are not accountable for the actions of a few individuals who decide amongst themselves to undertake a controversial course of action.  Perhaps you feel, as your reasoning suggests, that Muslims haven't been vocal enough either on the issue of violent acts committed by various groups that invoke Islam as their motivation.

I used the word "Accountable", not "Responsible". As in the "few individuals who decided amongst themselves to undertake a controversial course of action" should be held accountable to the community they claim to represent. Otherwise, declare in advance you are acting alone as individuals and don't claim any links to any greater cause or larger community if you have not consulted with that community or cause in advance. Simple enough.

Quote:

 I think they didn't think through the strategic implications of their action, I don't think they cared. 

And obviously neither do you if you can't hear what people are saying about potential risks to bystanders and their homes. 

Quote:

 We've got boots on the ground butchering uneducated medieaval peasants in Afghanistan, OUR taxes are funding a half trillion worth of military hardware obscenity and people are pissing themselves about a fucking bank branch on fire.

Thanks for the lecture. That should change everything since we didn't know that RBC, the other banks, the oil companies and the arms makers were so bad. 

It is true that no one was "injured" (although from the video it looked like they almost set themselves on fire). Not sure about the effect of breathing in potentially toxic fumes. 

I read the news almost every day. I think that my indignation meter is tuned. Given the upcoming G8/G20, the protests and the "upping of the ante", discussion of this "tactic" is very much in order. There are lots of other threads that talk about all the nasty and horrific things that our adversaries are doing. 

statica wrote:

Otherwise, declare in advance you are acting alone as individuals and don't claim any links to any greater cause or larger community if you have not consulted with that community or cause in advance. Simple enough.

Hi Statica,

I think in your blog entry that addresses this issue you make a very good point about taking into consideration the possible blowback for the people one is acting "on behalf of".

It seems, however, that your argument makes fighting in solidarity with others a problematic decision. This may seem an extreme example, but if one were to demonstrate on behalf of prisoners in Guantanamo, there would be little or no way to consult with them before acting. Recently in Toronto there were demonstrations against Barrick Gold in solidarity with indigenous people in SA and Africa. There were representatives from some of those places, but not all. Should we not have demonstrated without consulting with everyone who is affected by Barrick? These examples may seem unrelated, but I don't think they are. I think that, if these were non-natives who bombed the RBC, there is still an important right to protest against things that are being done in one's name.

I don't think there are such cut and dry answers to this situation as you posit.  When police in Portland killed three people in two weeks the anarchist community rioted. Things got broke. As far as I know they didn't check with the victims families or the homeless communities in their city first. VIolence was done by the police in the name of ordinary citizens and the response was anger and direct action. I wouldn't call these anarchists heroes, but I would stongly disagree with anyone who denounced their actions.

In terms of the RBC bombing, we simply don't know enough about who this group was to say without hesitation that "they didn't consult anyone" or that they even needed to. THey made no claim to be representatives of anyone but themselves. I think Canadians have a right to be angry about what actions done in their name.

The police certainly haven't been known to consult with the communities they oversee prior to beating someone, tasering them, or opening fire.

Slumberjack writes: "The police certainly haven't been known to consult with the communities they oversee prior to beating someone, tasering them, or opening fire."

I know this is just the internet, and one shouldn't expect too much from comments people leave on a web site. But still, I'm a little shocked that so many people who post here are willing to apply the same standards to people who claim to be part of the Left that they apply to corporations and the police.

Do we really want a Left that will pat itself on the back whenever it can say it's doing better, morally, than RBC or the police?

I'll speak for myself: if I thought that the Left was unwilling to hold itself, collectively, to a higher standard than that, I would reject the Left and add it to my list of opponents, alongside RBC and the capitalist state.

sdarcy wrote:

I know this is just the internet, and one shouldn't expect too much from comments people leave on a web site. But still, I'm a little shocked that so many people who post here are willing to apply the same standards to people who claim to be part of the Left that they apply to corporations and the police.

Which standards would you be referring to? Looting and hoarding wealth on an industrial scale, graveyards spawned throughout the world by endless aggression, planetary scale environmental disasters the likes of which have never been seen before in history, the ever tightening grip of poverty and state sanctioned violence under the guise of security which is meted out wholesale against communities.  Public coffers drained to prop up zombie financial institutions? Those standards?

The list to be achieved is a fairly tall order indeed, and somewhat unwieldy. For discussion purposes, you might consider paring it down to the priorities that you stated we'd apply.

Listen, Freedom 55 - I'm not talking about "infiltration". I'm talking about the action in its totality. Every single positive account I've seen about the bank arson has this caveat: "... assuming it wasn't agents provocateurs... "

When 150,000 marched in Montréal to condemn the approaching invasion of Iraq, no one who praised it said, "... unless it was organized by police agents ..."

When workers go on strike and organize picket lines, many express their support - they have no need to add, "unless of course it's the bosses who organized this to discredit the labour movement".

When the Mohawks and their allies of Kanesatake waged an armed occupation and resistance against the state and its plans to expropriate FN property in 1990 at Oka, no one said, "Hmmm... I support this, but we mustn't discount the possibility that this is just a conspiracy organized by the state..."

Likewise for the FN blockades of railway lines.

Last example for now - the demonstrations last year at Montebello. They [b]were[/b] infiltrated - by Québec cops, posing as assholes wearing masks and carrying rocks. The provocateurs were unmasked. But [b]the mass protests themselves were praised by all, and justly so.[/b]

Every single one of these struggles, and movements, may have infiltrators. People need to be vigilant. But that's not the problem with the arson attack on a bank branch. There, it is [b]the action itself[/b] which is being condemned by leftists of all hues as being antithetical to the people's movement.

That's why I said what I said. It matters little whether the perps are cops or not. Either way, their action is the action of any enemy, not an ally. They may be very nice well-meaning deluded individuals. You want to support them? Tell them to stop their f***-ing criminal activity and humbly seek some guidance from real people who haven't yet despaired of final victory.

Unionist, that's not the reaction that I've been hearing - even from people who wouldn't describe themselves as radical (or even political).

I know the Left has been obsessing over it for the past week, but people in Ottawa who actually know the building and the neighbourhood aren't nearly as worked-up about it all.

I never said that I support them. But I do think it's silly that people are in such a rush to pronounce judgment on people and actions about which we still know very little. When all is revealed I might join you in your condemnation, but until then, I see no need to pretend that I know fuck-all about who did it and for what reasons.

Freedom 55 wrote:

When all is revealed I might join you in your condemnation, but until then, I see no need to pretend that I know fuck-all about who did it and for what reasons.

You may not agree with my point, but here it is anyway in the simplest terms I can express it:

I don't care who did it.

And I don't care what their reasons are.

What they did is bad. It hurts the movement.

Who among the political establishment in this country is leading the charge toward this final victory of yours Unionist?  Never mind, I'll tell you.  None of them are, and none are coming.

unionist given your remarks putting words in peoples mouths in the Bryant thread that is rich unionist....please stop with the hypocrisy.

You know, RP, if you can't argue a position without attacking the other person, you should (a) learn, or (b) refrain.

You do it all the time, why should I refrain?

Ok, so fuck, I get incoherent.  Unionist, this isn't as simple as you like to make it.  Are you serious about social justice or just union issues?

Slumberjack, could I hire you when all the government dudes wade in.  ;)

Thank you for your unique writing style Slumberjack, you've really gotten to me and I've learned a lot.  Solidarity.

[url=http://warriorpublications.com/?q=node/112]Warrior Publications[/url]

Quote:

The action and communique from the FFFC-Ottawa speaks for itself. In the days following, others (besides the government, corporations and pigs) have also taken the opportunity to speak; not against the RBC or genocide of Indigenous peoples, but against those who carried out the action.
Some have done so by invoking the struggle of Indigenous peoples itself as a way of condemning the attack. Some Native reformists and bureaucrats have attempted to impose themselves as some kind of 'leadership' over Indigenous peoples and resistance. One jet-setting actorvist has stated that those who support the struggle against the Tar Sands must abide by the 'leadership' of those on the 'front lines,' including nonviolence (although the only 'front line' he's familiar with is that at the airport check-in).
I personally know Dene from the Fort McMurray area who rejoiced at the news that an RBC had been fire-bombed as an act of anti-colonial solidarity. They are the real people—they have seen, and are seeing, family members die of cancers, their land and water toxified, their traditional way of life destroyed, as a result of the Tar Sands and RBC's financial support.

Cytizen H wrote:

derrick wrote:

 Just like "democratic centralism" before it, "diversity of tactics" has come to be applied in a dogmatic way that in practise often stifles open discussion and debate.

So has "non-violence"...

But, seriously, how about an actual response to the arguments presented.

I'm opposed to "dogmatic non-violence" too. I'd just prefer that these discussions look at movements' history more, rather than just moralizing. "The banks/capitalists/etc are really bad" is not an argument in favour of any tactic. The arguments I have seen justifying the RBC arson are ahistorical and moralizing arguments that seem detached from any larger strategy of movement-building. (The 'communique' taking credit is just bizarre, especially since it signs off with a reference to "The Fire This Time"; anyone who knows politics in Vancouver knows that this is the name of a tiny but infamous pseudo-marxist/Fidelista sect here -- what SUV-driving James Baldwin/Biblical-reference quoting anti-authoritarian insurrectionary wrote this??)

Anyway, The Left in North America has been down this road before (not that we can be sure this was done by anyone on the "Left") and the results aren't very pretty. Former Weather leader Mark Rudd is worth reading on this, even if one doesn't agree with all his political conclusions.

Rudd has explained many times that his cohort of -- mostly white, many very privileged -- activists pursued the self-expression of their radicalism even though it directly contradicted the strategic advice of the Vietnamese resistance. That is, the Vietnamese, who were waging an heroic armed struggle (one of many historical examples debunking dogmatic non-violence), were urging North Americans to build a broad, united anti-war movement. The Vietnamese gave this advice not for moral reasons, but because they felt that the Weather strategy of smashing stuff and bombings would be counter-productive to stopping the war. Here's an interesting interview with Rudd:

"As for tone we should have been less arrogant in attacking the rest of the left for not being more like us. And that leads to tactics. Our tactics (and strategy) were based on showing the superiority of our anti-imperialist politics. We often attacked the wimpy liberal left, such as the Mobilization. We destroyed SDS because it wasn’t radical enough (it couldn’t take the final step of anti-imperialism to armed action), thereby doing the work of the FBI...

The entire Weatherman strategy was a macho nightmare. It was designed to prove ourselves as young men (and women)...

"...We should have united as many people as possible within an anti-war movement. We should have maintained an anti-imperialist analysis but not insisted that everyone engaged in armed revolutionary struggle. That was stupid, it split the movement and it played into the hands of the FBI. The country was not in a revolutionary stage and we overestimated where we were at. We were true idealists, in the sense that we thought revolution was on the agenda just because we had the idea, and having the idea proved the reality. It’s no different from the imbecilic idealist neo-cons running the govt. who have the stupid idea that supporting Israel and invading Iraq will bring democracy to the Middle East."

Derrick> Thanks for posting this, it is  a great interview. My knowledge of this kind of history is not where it should be and I appreciate people with more knowledge passing it forward because, as you say, understanding the history of these movements is important.

derrick wrote:

The 'communique' taking credit is just bizarre, especially since it signs off with a reference to "The Fire This Time"; anyone who knows politics in Vancouver knows that this is the name of a tiny but infamous pseudo-marxist/Fidelista sect here -- what SUV-driving James Baldwin/Biblical-reference quoting anti-authoritarian insurrectionary wrote this??

The Fire This Time is a phrase that I'm familiar with from Dub Poetry. It is also the name of a collection of plays by African American playwrights. It is also the name of an album by Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasty, I think. You're explanation sounds better...

derrick wrote:

Rudd has explained many times that his cohort of -- mostly white, many very privileged -- activists pursued the self-expression of their radicalism even though it directly contradicted the strategic advice of the Vietnamese resistance. That is, the Vietnamese, who were waging an heroic armed struggle (one of many historical examples debunking dogmatic non-violence), were urging North Americans to build a broad, united anti-war movement. The Vietnamese gave this advice not for moral reasons, but because they felt that the Weather strategy of smashing stuff and bombings would be counter-productive to stopping the war. 

I think this is a really good point. This issue has come up a few times here, that if acting on behalf of someone's rights you should make sure that your tactics aren't hurting their cause. This specific example, of Vietnam, is obviously quite different than the RBC bombing. THe main difference is that, so far, this is an isolated incident. There has also not been (as far as I've seen) a definitive response from the communities who are on the front lines of the struggle that FFFC Ottawa claimed to be fighting for. I think that the anti-Vietnam movement also had a much clearer target: END THE WAR! This makes it much easier to measure effectiveness. Either the war ends, or it doesn't. When fighting and resisting systemic violence and oppression within a country's borders the ability to measure effectiveness is much hazier.

derrick wrote:

"...We should have united as many people as possible within an anti-war movement. We should have maintained an anti-imperialist analysis but not insisted that everyone engaged in armed revolutionary struggle. That was stupid, it split the movement and it played into the hands of the FBI. "

I suppose this is what it comes down to, isn't it? The ability to unite people and create a mass movement. I, personally, know more people who have left the movement because of the ineffectiveness of non-violent protest than because of the fear of violent action. I think there is a useful discussion to be had about how we measure the effectiveness of direct action.I think, despite what some say, that there is also a really important discussion to be had on how we define violence. The argument that "the majority is opposed to violent action" is a slippery slope. A hell of a lot of people in Toronto were vehemently opposed to the Tamils taking of the Gardiner last year.  The response to it from the general public was that it was a violent action. To us it seems like perfect non-violence.

So, what's my point? I'm not sure. I think that I agree with you, Derrick. Building a movement, uniting people, effectiveness, this is what is imporant. So let's debate it it, discuss it, try things, tweak things... was the bombing an effective tactic? On it's own, probably not. But we acan learn from it if we are willing to not outright decry it as criminal and therefore bad. So let's figure out how we can be mroe effective when things go boom.