G8/G20 Communiqué: Critiquing the Black Bloc

Excellent article. And he draws a significant distinction between the Black Bloc of Quebec and the Black Bloc of Toronto - apparently completely different entities, with the Quebec BB being by far the more attractive of the two. I still wouldn't want BB involvement in any demonstration I might attend, though.

Was there BB involvement at any of the demonstrations that you might have attended in Toronto? For you to have attended a demo organized by Anarchists for the G20, you would have had to know some, or be on their list serve. You aren't right?

Excellent article, thanks for writing it!

Well, yes, they always are. They're transitory by nature, and each manifestation of a black bloc is going to be shaped by the people participating in that specific bloc.

The G20 demo that I might have attended if I were in Toronto wasn't organised by the BB or "Anarchists for the G20" as far as I know.

ps: wouldn't a better title for the group be "Anarchists against the G20"???

Thanks for pulling that together and setting some parameters for a debate. 

And here I thought that the BB in Boom Boom was code

I was going to post this in response to the closed thread with the Editorial by Canadian Dimension, but I think it's also appropriate here as my basic comments are the same in response to Krystal's post and the blog post that I wrote in Feburary that she qoutes from.

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I'm afraid the emphasis of this article is completely inverted. Instead of focusing on black bloc street tactics the left needs to be discussing what we can do to build a real militant mass movement that is strongly rooted in the working class. It may be easier to attack the black bloc tactics and property destruction, but it depressing to hear a left publication like CD suggest that the black bloc's actions are the cause of the left's collective failures instead of a symptom of them. Only at the very end of the editorial is the real question of how to respond to the G-20's planned austerity measures even mentioned.

Using the black bloc as proverbial whipping-boy for the left prevents an honest self-critical look at why the left has failed to build a militant mass movement that's independent of bourgeois political parties and conservative union bureaucracies.

This is not to say that any actions are above criticism, but rather that criticism of militant street tactics should be done in the context of a broader discussion of the left's shortfalls are and what politics, strategy, and tactics we need in the ongoing and upcoming attacks on the working class.

In short, as socialists and anarchists we need to take responsibility for the hard work of building and radicalizing genuine militant mass movements capable of challenging the power and logic of the capitalist class. That's a lot harder to do than criticizing the black bloc, but it is essential if we want to fight to win in the struggle against the so-called "austerity measures" aimed at plunging the international working class into even more precarious work and poverty while dismantling and selling off what remains of an already thread-bare public infrastructure and social safety net.

Is the left capable of rising to the challenge that today's conditions demand of us? Or are we already looking for scapegoats to blame for defeats we see as inevitable? The choice is ours.