Back from Saint Paul: Anarchists Be Proud!

I returned from St. Paul to Denver at 9 AM this morning, exhausted but victorious in helping produce 16 hours of Crashing the Party, Free Speech TV's coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Convention Protests. From creating a live daily update of the legal situation in St. Paul and Minneapolis from I-Witness Video, a heroic group of video activists who put themselves directly on the front line to document police violence against demonstrators to programming daily shorts by Submedia, Mobile Broadcast News, Rochester Indymedia, and others, I have seen the bravery, courage, relentless pursuit of excellence, joy and desire for liberation in organizations and individuals from throughout the country. Many of us learned new skills, found better ways of working together, criticized and responded to criticisms in order to move our work forward. Despite an enormous amount of state violence including house raids, physical attacks, pepper spray, arrest, tear gas, concusion grenades, and other weapons, poor people, anarchists, anti-war activists and others worked together to challenge the violence of the two party system. As we reflect on what worked and what is not working in U.S. anarchist protest movements, we must keep in mind that tens of thousands organized successfully, built infrastructure that will last well beyond the protests, and fought boldly for justice, equality, liberty, and peace.

The strength of our networks, the boldness and persistence of our actions, our love of humanity, the earth, and possibility demonstrates that we are capable of building the world we want to see. The tools we have. Lets do it.