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Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 15:19:15 -0800
From: "L.A. Kauffman" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [freeradical] REVOTE OR REVOLT?
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forward freely....
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FREE RADICAL: chronicle of the new unrest
          by L.A. KAUFFMAN

          www.free-radical.org
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REVOTE OR REVOLT?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Issue #11

Wait a minute: Weren't *we* the people who were supposed
to push the American system into a crisis of legitimacy?

By "we" I mean those small but feisty pockets of U.S.
society dedicated to rabble-rousing, trouble-making, and
fundamental change. For a shut-it-down radical like me,
the election mess in the United States has been altogether
too surreal,  coming at the end of a raucous year of
politics in the street.

I'm one of those who believe that our political process is
thoroughly corrupted by moneyed interests and that the two
major parties often differ only in which corporate masters
they serve. The heated battle underway between Democrats
and Republicans strikes me as wildly out of proportion to
their actual political disagreements - a classic example
of what Freud famously called the narcissism of small
differences.

Yet still I find myself drawn into the vote-counting
drama, as if an accurate tally would constitute a
democratic outcome, in an election between two plutocrats
hand-picked by ruling elites. I cheer the African-American
students from Florida A&M University who took over the
state capitol building for nearly 24 hours to protest the
voting irregularities. I'm moved by the stories of
Holocaust survivors weeping at the realization that they
voted for Holocaust-denier Pat Buchanan. I'm stirred by
accounts of protest rallies in Florida whose fervor echoes
the black voting rights struggle of the 1950s and early
1960s. And I realize that - despite having voted for Ralph
Nader, with zero regrets - I really do dislike Bush more
than I dislike Gore.

Over the weekend, I walked over to a hastily organized
protest in Times Square, one of many taking place around
the country. Promoted almost entirely on the Internet, it
had a very homespun and spontaneous flavor. Nobody had yet
created buttons or t-shirts. The signs were nearly all
hand-lettered. The crowd had clearly not been mobilized
either by the Democratic Party machine or any of the usual
protest organizers (labor unions, advocacy groups, college
organizations, whatever).

The protesters, who numbered perhaps 700 at their peak,
came up with chants full of faith in the basic political
process:

	"No fuzzy ballots"
	"Will of the people"
	"Every vote counts"
	"This is about democracy"

The signs were in a similar vein:

	"Let Grandma's Vote Count"
	"No Jim Crow Voting"
	"Isn't this a Democracy?"

But that ultimate question - is the United States in fact
a democracy? - was something that no one was really
asking. And that virtually no one is discussing during the
topsy-turvy process of battling over the vote.

That evening, I went to a screening of "This Is What
Democracy Looks Like," a remarkable new documentary on
last year's Seattle WTO protests, which takes its name
from the most famous of the chants coined there on the
streets.

It was on the third day of the protests that I first heard
that chant. Having successfully disrupted the WTO's
meetings through a nonviolent blockade, we had variously
been tear gassed, pepper sprayed, shot at with rubber
bullets, deafened with concussion grenades, beaten,
arrested, and chased. Martial law had been declared, and
all of downtown Seattle had been decreed a "no protest
zone," where it was illegal even to carry a sign opposing
the WTO.

Thousands of people - including many Seattle residents who
had not originally joined the protests, but who were
outraged by the complete decimation of civil liberties -
decided to defy the ban on public assembly and began to
march through the city. Our numbers swelled as we crossed
downtown and then headed uphill toward the jail where
those arrested for protesting on the previous day were
being held. As the enormous and defiant crowd neared a
spot where I had seen the police viciously gas seated,
nonviolent protesters two days before, the chant went up -
"This is what democracy looks like" - and moved me almost
to tears.

For what this brave and extraordinary crowd was saying -
echoed by every crowd that has since taken to the streets
for global justice - was that real democracy is not
confined to the voting booth or the halls of government.
Democracy is when those without power join together to
hold the powerful accountable; when people refuse to have
basic decisions about their lives taken out of their
hands. Democracy is loud, often unruly, and always public.

The outcome of this election certainly matters. But it's
dwarfed in importance by a great many other fights taking
place through direct and collective action: for campaign
finance reform; against racial profiling and police
brutality; against corporate domination and the
privatization of public goods; and so on ad infinitum. For
democracy will not win, no matter who goes to the White
House.
-30-

************
The film "This Is What Democracy Looks Like" draws on
footage from over 100 activists who took to the streets in
Seattle. It's phenomenal, and not to be missed. To find
out when and where it's playing, or to organize your own
screening, visit http://www.thisisdemocracy.org

For info on election-related protests, see http://www.countercoup.org

There's a great photo of the Florida A&M students' sit-in
at http://www.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=8686&group=webcast

************
FREE RADICAL is an e-column on the current upsurge in activism, written by
L.A. Kauffman ([log in to unmask]). It aspires to weekly publication but
in practice appears irregularly.

This issue is archived at http://www.free-radical.org/issue12.shtml

************
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.A. Kauffman ([log in to unmask]) is perhaps the first person in U.S.
history to be arrested for allegedly committing a crime by fax machine. (The
Manhattan D.A. declined to prosecute.) She is currently writing DIRECT
ACTION: RADICALISM IN OUR TIME, a history of U.S. activism since 1970. A
longtime radical journalist and organizer, she is active in a number of New
York City direct action campaigns. Her work has appeared in the Village
Voice, The Nation, The Progressive, Spin, Mother Jones, Salon.com, and
numerous other publications.

*************
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All contents Copyright 2000 by L.A. Kauffman
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