I decided to go to Cancun because when I first learned about it; I learned about it from Starhawk and a bunch of people, when I was in a training, I went to a training in California, it was the Earth Activist training, it was all about permaculture and political activism, and I learned about it there. I knew about the issues, and it was really… Why’d I go to Cancun? It sounded really cool. It would be cool to go to Cancun and be with the people that I knew were really amazing, and to actually participate in the kind of protest that I had been preparing for and practicing for. And I knew it was an important meeting, and I knew that it would be hard for most people to get there, so I thought that it was really important that, if I can afford to go, and I can take the time off, it would be really important that I go.
I went down with Luis, so we flew down together.
I had gone through, when I was going down there, my ticket was all fucked up, so I had to take all of my stuff on the plane, I had to do carry on. And I had like five knives, and I had ropes, and I had all this crazy stuff with me, and it was all in my carry on, because they made me take it all on with me. So of course they took everything from me, so that really pissed me off. And, while I was sitting on the plane, I was really nervous about the potential, about not knowing what the Mexican police would do to us, and so I was very very concerned about the violence, and I was really really concerned that I had nothing on me, not that I was going to use a weapon against the police or anything, but, you know, I had everything with me. I can’t even remember all the stuff that they took from me, but I literally had, I think, four different kinds of knives, all this crazy stuff, and they took everything, so I was really concerned about the police. That was my main thought. And then when we got there, we took a van into Cancun, and we got to talking to some of these people, and a woman leaned over in this van and said, ‘Have you ever been here before? Where is all this stuff, you know, all the nightclubs, and things like that?’ And I had never been there, so I was just making shit up, like, look at this place, you can find a bar anywhere you go. It is not like you are not going to have any luck finding an American bar or American food. It is like, ‘Come on, lady, this place is catering to you and your money, so you are not going to have any troubles.’ I was almost offended that she asked me as if I knew, because I thought, I would never spend my money in this place.
I doubt most people stayed in a corporate hotel or bought corporate food or partied in the nightclubs, or anything like that. I hardly spent any money, and it was all with local places. Luis and I stayed in a hotel room. It was cheap, and we planned to, we had hammocks, and we had thermarests, and we just planned to stay anywhere, and when we got there, it was cheap, and so we just stayed in some random hotel close to the convergence space.
In Miami there were four pagan houses and the Phoenix group stayed in one house. Well, we stayed in a condo, and we rented it for the week, and it was this amazing condo, it was $140 a night, or something, so we were going to have eight of in there or ten of us in there, and it turned out that every night, there were about twenty five people there. People were sleeping on the kitchen floor, it was so crowded. And it was a great experience, more so than being in Cancun, because we were kind of living that mentality of, we have extra room, you obviously don’t have any place to sleep, you might as well stay here. And I have a pretty decent job, I mean, I am not going to keep it for very much longer, I am going to do a couple more months, but I have a good job, and I make a lot more money than I ever spend. So I paid two shares for that room, because a lot of people couldn’t afford to pay for it, and then, two shares out of the original eight, so it wasn’t like two shares out of twenty five people, it was two shares of eight, and then one day I got up early, I was the first one up, and I walked down, and it literally was wall to wall people. People were sleeping on the hard tile floor, and they didn’t even have blankets or anything, so I went down and got just a shitload of bagels, and all that stuff, because it was like, these people have nothing, and that is why they are sleeping on my kitchen floor, here. So, it was really great, because I felt like, at this time in my life, I have money to spend on these people that don’t have any money, so when I am in that situation, I can only hope that someone will pay for my breakfast. So it was great, I was good to be in that environment.
I was really closely connected to the other three pagan houses, because at this point I know a lot of those people. I have been in trainings with them and I have been to other actions with them. I was the main contact person between our house and the other three houses, so it felt good because I always knew what the cluster was planning, and where we were supposed to be, and what we were supposed to be doing, trying to keep our group organized with the larger group. I think it is important to be as connected, because I gave me more of a sense of purpose, of why I was there, and the whole idea of living the world you want to create, and all of that stuff.
The first one I went to was in DC, the IMF/World Bank, I think it was September/ October, in 2002. That was the first action that I went to, and he knew the pagans from their work in the movement, and I knew them, and I knew Starhawk in particular, because of her writing, you know, her writing about Wicca and all of that stuff. And so, it was interesting because we got there into DC at the same time, and he said, ‘Do you know Starhawk,’ And I said, ‘Yes, she is amazing, why would she be here?’ And he said, ‘Well, she is a big part of the movement.’ And I saw her and a big pagan. So we got kind of hooked up with them, and did communications for that group, and we only did that for a few hours because they all got arrested and thrown in jail, I mean, walking on the sidewalk, they got picked up and thrown in jail.
It was that one where they preemptively arrested so many people, and it was a good lesson I think, and I do think that the [police] in Miami learned from that lesson, because the permitted march was on a Saturday, and the actions, the first day of actions were on Friday, so what that meant to the police was that anybody who was on the streets on Friday is willing to do illegal direct action, or direct action, and in their mind, illegal acts, so they could just pick up anybody knowing, being pretty confidant that these people would have participated in direct action, as opposed to, (said sarcastically), ‘Oh, you only wanted to be here in the legal march, oh that is a terrible, terrible mistake.’ You know. So they could be pretty confident that they were getting all of the ‘bad’ people.
We got there about three in the afternoon [on Sunday]. We found the convergence space, we met up with Sonya, actually, and there, we met up with a lot of people, Heather, from here, and just kind of met up with Arizona people. Found people, found old, I think we just checked out where everything was; there was a permaculture village that we found. We just kind of checked out what things were happening.
Actually, a lot of people that I met at the training that I went to in northern California [were at the permaculture village]. It was part of the green bloc, and they were mostly people living in ****Sebastapol***, California. Just real environmentally conscious activists, where their, you know, everybody wants a better world, and everybody has their particular interest in creating it, you know, a better world, and theirs, you know, they are concerned about a lot of stuff, but their angle is environmental protection, and building a sustainable world. The green bloc is various clusters that want to focus on environmental stuff, so you know a lot of the green bloc is just different clusters that have joined together.
Do you know anything about the Reclaiming group, the Reclaiming Tradition. You can find it on the internet, it is www.reclaiming.org. It is a tradition that is pretty new. I mean, I know that the pagan group in California, northern California, started it, and it is really jus the idea of bringing together spirituality and politics. When you have, I don’t know to explain it. To answer your question, in the circle, basically what we are doing is we are honoring the world we live in, because I think it is the idea that, you can preach a better world, but, unless you live it and acknowledge it, you know what I mean, like, let’s acknowledge the world that we live in. By acknowledging the world that you live in, you are setting intention. And that is what magic is, is setting your intention. And so, you know, when you cast a spell, what you are doing is, you are telling a story. And you are focusing your energy into making that story a reality. And reality is simply the story that you tell yourself, and you choose to believe. So, for example, if you believe, if the story that is told to you and you believe the story that the police are right, and the police are fair, and the police are there to protect you, then you are going to believe that, and you are going to behave in a way that that is true. So, the reality is, if you create your own story, then you get to live in the world that you want to live in. And, when you cast a spell, that is basically all you are doing, is you are making up a story. And then, you are directing your energies as if that story were true.
So, the next day [Wednesday], what we were doing that night, is we were casting a spell of protection, and we were basically saying, ‘Imagine the world that you want to live in.’ So we imagined that world, and by imagining it, you are setting your intention into creating that world. It is like, people bitch all the time, people always come to me and say, ‘It is so amazing, what you are doing, it is so amazing that you are doing this kind of work, you know, the world is a shitty place; I don’t know how to get involved.’ And my question is always, ‘Well, what is the world that you wish to create?’ And people never have an answer for that, they never fucking have an answer, it is like, ‘I don’t know, I can’t even imagine’ Well, if you don’t know what you are working for, how do you know which way to push.
[we talk about finding direction]
And that is what the spell is about, that is what the magic is about, is setting your intention. It is to say, this is the world we want to create; this is how we are going to do it tomorrow. And that is what we were doing at that time. And we also cast a spell of protection. So we basically said, ‘We are invisible, we are just like the wind.’ No one can really see us coming and going. And it was pretty interesting, because you kind of go, ‘Oh yeah, I have a spell wrapped around me, and no one can actually see me.’ And it was really interesting, because as we were going to the hotel zone, I was with Luis and another guy, and we went through five or six checkpoints where the bus stopped and the police came on and checked ids, and the three of us were standing up because the bus was crowded, and we just sort of ignored them, and they would walk by us every time. And so I leaned over and said to Luis, ‘Boy, it is really interesting that they are not asking us,’ because Luis is pretty light skinned, and this other guy that we are with is white. And so I said, ‘It is pretty interesting that they are not asking us, hat they are only asking these darker skinned workers. Why else would these people be going into the hotel zone?’ And he said, ‘Oh, that’s because we are invisible.’ And I kept saying, ‘Yeah, I know, isn’t that funny, how you create this attitude, and then you behave in that way, and then people treat you that way,’ and he kept saying, ‘No, no, no, we really are invisible.’ And it was just like, ‘mmm hmm, yeah, I KNOW, but.’ And I really just kind of wanted to talk about, we set this intention of, ‘We are invisible, we have created the story, and now we are behaving in a way that that story is true, and people are reacting to us as though it were true.’ But he was so funny, because he so perfectly played out what I was thinking, because he kept saying, ‘Oh, no we are invisible. We really are invisible.’ And I was like, ‘Okaay, yeah we are, okay.’ But that is what we were doing, and that is through the Reclaiming group, and it is also called magical activism, where you actually create the image you are looking for, and it is very powerful. I think if the FBI really wanted to find out how to divide this movement, they would learn about magical activism, because, in the actions, what we do is, we just provide the space for people to do whatever they want, and the pagans are pretty consistently relied on to calm the crowd and change the energy of the crowd, so at any time, there might be a spiral dance that happens. So that is what magical activism is all about, is redirecting the energy of the crowd and the police, and that kind of thing. So it is kind of like you have to get your mind into being creative and tapping into all of the energy and stuff like that.
(Spiral dance in the street Thursday)
It was very hot and very tiring and I lost my voice by the end of the day. Ohh, you really, it is so amazing and so powerful, I mean, it is so powerful on a hundred different levels. Basically what a spiral dance is, we will get in a circle and I have seen hundreds of people do it, and you can do it with a group as small as like ten people. But you have a circle, and the circle will break off, and Starhawk will play the drum, and whenever I have done this with Starhawk, she is the leader, so she’ll play the drum, and you know, you have your circle, and the circle will break off, and it will start to curve like that, and it goes into a tighter and tighter spiral. Well, when the spiral gets really tiny and you can’t really move anymore, you turn the other way, the leader will turn the other way and actually get the spiral going in two different directions. It looks like a labyrinth. And he idea is, there are a hundred different songs, but you tend to sing a song that in some way empowers the group, and, as you are doing it, what you tend to do, you can always tell someone who has never done it before, because they tend to sing and look down, and then as people get more comfortable with it, what people do is, you will be walking this way, and the group in front of you that is facing you will be passing the other way, and what you do is you look into everybody’s eyes. And it is the idea that we are this community and we are moving in a lot of different directions, and it is sometimes hard to tell what the pattern is, but we are moving together and we are moving cooperatively. And it is really powerful, because it is self-contained energy, and when a spiral dance is finished, what you tend to do is raise the energy, by singing and yelling, and you can actually raise the energy, and it is all very self-contained, and then you can direct it with your intention. Where do I want this energy to go? And so that is all part of the magic, and that is part of casting the spells, so it is not this frantic energy, and it is really amazing, because, when you have a spiral dance, you have a bunch of people that are dancing and singing. And the police generally have a hard time attacking people that are sitting around peacefully singing and dancing. But the reality is, you are raising this energy, you are changing the energy, if you have a real nervous crowd, and I have seen this happen, if you have a very nervous crowd, the police are more likely to attack, because they are afraid, too, so if you create this calming energy through a spiral dance then what happens is the crowd tends to calm, and that will calm down the police, so you can think more tactically. And I have had a lot of people say that about the cluster, but after Miami, after the first horrendous day of police brutality, I was talking to a black bloc guy, who I met in Cancun, he is like real good friends with a lot of the pagan cluster, and I met him there, and we just happened to be in this house together and the two of us were talking about the day, as we were just like rehashing how horrible it was, and he said again and again and again, how important it is for the pagans to be there, because, when things get crazy, it is always nice to kind of move back to where there is this calming energy, and there is the beat, Starhawk is always playing the drum, so you can sort of go back to something simple, something grounding, something you can kind of collect yourself and say, ‘Okay, that didn’t work so well, what can I do next?’ as opposed to, you know, you are out there, and everything is crazy, and you are real likely to get just picked off, because everything is chaotic, so it is a great time to kind of come together and relax.
(the DA march in the morning in Miami)
Oh, I didn’t know we were being detained. We didn’t try to leave.
Well, the morning was really pretty..
I know we were right in the front, we were right where the police line was, and it was funny because what happened was, the march, we marched to Biscayne, right at the barricades, and I was real weird. Starhawk actually commented on it later, and I didn’t actually, I didn’t realize what was happening until she mentioned it. But we marched down there, and it was really weird, because we were surrounded by three sides, and there were really scary police with rifles, and they were in these tall cherry pickers and they were really scary, and it was real weird. And so, we didn’t really know what was happening, because there was supposed to be a padded bloc there, and there wasn’t, because they couldn’t get the stuff in, because there were so many police, they couldn’t get all of the stuff they needed inside. Well, we didn’t realize that until it was too late, and so we were there, and the idea was, we will be there to hold space, and then, if the padded bloc is successful and opens the fence, we are going to move in, the pagan cluster will move in. But we never even got that close because there was no padded bloc and there was like a one to one ratio between protestor and cops. So it was awful, so we got all the way down to that one area, and we didn’t really have any c]place to go, and nobody was really doing anything, so we did a spiral dance, and then the police moved in. The police said, ‘You have three minutes to disperse,’ or something like that, and then the tear gas came. So we moved back a little bit and we just kind of waited. No one really knew what to do, because nothing was going quite well. We weren’t really making any progress. And what Starhawk later said was that the energy in the space was so bad that we couldn’t really build momentum. We were outnumbered, so that wasn’t so good, but we couldn’t build momentum among the crowd. Nobody could. So we were just sort of holding space, so we finally decided as a cluster that we would just wait there until the permitted march started, because we were going to be in the permitted march also. And so when we were there we were at the line and the police started pushing, and they were pushing and pushing and pushing, and that is when they threw pepper spray. And so everyone dispersed after that because they threw it right in people’s faces. I mean, dead on. It was really fucking sick; it was really a very sick situation. And so we were all getting medical attention on the street, and then it was sort of dispersed because suddenly everybody else was allowed to be let in, which was so weird. I mean there was a lot of tactic, a lot of tactical, control, I mean, we were so controlled, we were being so controlled, because when they did finally push us, that’s when they let the crowd in. I guess they didn’t want to let the crowd in when we were so close to the front line. I don’t know, I don’t know. So anyway, that is what happened in the morning, I mean, they attacked us, both times.
The whole day, it wasn’t even like you could kind of build momentum with the crowd, like we did in Cancun, where it was just like, ‘Oh my god, we’ve taken the street, Oh my god, we’re making a deal with the cops, oh my god, you know, we’ve won.’ And that led to the momentum for next day, where the barricades came down. But in Miami, it was like walking up to a wall and us, like, beating on the wall. It is like, we are not going to take down the wall, you know. We couldn’t even back up to charge the wall. Everything was right there in your face and there was no room to move or organize or have good tactics because it was so, it was a police state, I mean it was really just, it was brutal. It was so awful, there was no energy to take advantage of. It was just, it was stagnant. It was completely stagnant, and I think, sad, really sad that that is what we have become.
On Monday I went to some forums. On Monday I went to a campesino forum, it wasn’t a campesino forum, but it was for local farmers, not local to Cancun, but you know like small-scale farmers that had come to Cancun to protest. So I went to some forums there and listened. I connected with the pagans. We saw a video of actions and how people are organizing and rebelling all over the world, and how we need to join together, I mean it was just, it was kind of another day of organizing. So, but it was mostly just connecting with the pagans again, to see what needed to happen and to see what kind of actions we needed to get ready for.
It was hard to do that in Miami because we couldn’t walk anywhere, I went and didn’t have a car and within a day or so we realized that we are not going to be effective if we don’t have a car, so we rented a car for a week. But I think in Miami, that whole thing, we have had this conversation before about peaceful direct action versus more non-peaceful actions. We have had this discussion, everybody has these discussions. And, you know, I am still a believer of personally, I am going to participate in peaceful direct action, but I recognize and respect and fully support people that take other actions, and I think that a really good example of why is what we saw in Miami where we have such a violent repressive regime that absolutely will not let the voice of the people out, and I don’t think that I would burn down a building, I don’t think that I would actually do those things, but I would support. I will be in a place to hold space to allow other people to do it.
I had a really interesting experience, kind of an epiphany, in Miami, and I happened so quickly that I had to think about it later on. When we were in Cancun, we were pulling down the barricades, we were both right on the front line, but after we started to tie the ropes on, I was part of the line that was holding back the crowd, like they had the ropes here and then there were lines that were kind of holding back people behind them. So, I was standing up near the front, but I was kind of on the side, and I was with some of the pagans and we were standing with a line of black bloc, and I couldn’t even talk to these people because they couldn’t speak English, but we all kind of acknowledged that we were there for the same reason, and so I was walking closer to the barricades and an American was on a telephone, and he said, as the barricades were starting to come down, he talked into his phone, and he said, ‘We need people in body armor right away.’ He was calling on protestors with body armor to get up there in case the police attacked. That’s what he was calling on. And, it was like, within that moment, I realized, ‘We are at war. We are really at war.’ And we are getting organized enough, where, and this never happened, but the fact is, we are getting organized, so it could happen, and my realization was, ‘If we have one army that is going to fight the other army, we need to stay really honest in this movement, in that the small purpose of people that are willing to be in the front line, and willing to fight the police, willing to actually use violence against violence, that really needs to be for a very small purpose because if we allow the violent force, that I will support, I mean, I will support a violent force that allows an opening for peaceful action, I think that is fine. But if we allow a violent army to go head to head with another violent army, and then that violent army becomes the speaker for the rest of the movement, then we are only replacing one violent regime with another violent regime. With that realization, I think we need to stay very honest and kind of acknowledge where the less peaceful forces should be direct4ed and not be allowed to take over the movement. I mean, I really do have a lot of respect for he people that will go toe to toe with the police, and I will stand right behind them, watching their back, but, once they have created space, allowed space, then I think the peaceful movement needs step in, because if we don’t enforce that, then we just become the movement that we are fighting.
In Cancun we had more space to be creative and create an atmosphere of another world, and in Miami we didn’t, and I think the result of that will be the movement will become more violent. It is only natural. The more you get repressed, the more likely are going to resort to more and more and more tactics of violence, which, like I said, I support that, I see the need for that, but I think we need to remember that there is a place for that, it is not the movement. Or at least that is where I fit into the movement.
Not at all, actually. I really didn’t [connect with people who weren’t Americans], for two reasons. The first one is, my Spanish is terrible, I mean, it is that simple, I mean, the fact that we don’t speak other languages in this country is really so egotistical. But Spanish is not a language that I know. And, the other reason is, it was only my second major demonstration, and I was still really trying to figure out how it was organized, and what was happening. So, instead of being very proactive, and getting the word out, making connections, and building coalitions, and all that, I really focused on, ‘Who are the people in my cluster, how does my cluster work, what are the principles, do I want to be in this cluster?’ and really just kind of learning all the issues. So that is why I really didn’t do a lot of it at all. But, in Miami, we did go out and we did talk to the local people and explained what the FTAA is and why we were there, and what we were doing. But, also, I learned so much more down in Miami, that I feel like, at the next one, which is in April, I will be ready at that point. It is the IMF/World Bank again, in DC.
I am all over it. I won’t say that I am getting to be a junkie but…
Yeah, you do a lot of local stuff, which is critical. On the other hand, people are fucking crazy if they really believe that there are alternatives to going to these mass mobilizations, because there is no fucking alternative. People give me this crap about, ‘Well, it is our representatives that make these deals, so we are actually participating in this.’ It is like, ‘Bullshit. That is such a bullshit! There is no way.’ We bitch about it all the time, and it doesn’t make any fucking difference. For last year, February 15th, millions of people around the world said, ‘No,’ and we were totally fucking ignored. So don’t give me this crap about, ‘Oh yeah, through your ballot boxes, or lobby your representatives, it is like, that is such crap, you know, that is such bullshit, so it is getting to the point where this is really the only thing to do. It is getting to the point where we can only fight fire with fire.
It is so frustrating because it is hard to see what you could get 2000 people to come out to protest. That is the problem. Because everybody knows that we have got problems in the world, but that is as far as they can talk about it, ‘Well, what is the problem, well…’
I am with you and I am ready to do more local stuff in that way, more local mobilizing, but I think the free trade issues are one of the real root problems that these other problems come from, you know what I mean, like I think the reason why we have this amazing prison population and the reason why we have privatized prisons is because people can make money off of them. But also the reason that I focus on the free trade stuff is because it is happening so fast, and it is happening so quickly, and I think there is still an opportunity to stop it whereas I think that the way that we treat prisoners and our general criminal justice system is so far from justice and so far removed from anything based on something other than the market. I mean, it is so fucking stupid, half of our prison population is because of drugs. It is like, ‘What is that all about?’ And you know, being raised in poverty, maybe drugs is your only way out, you know, deal in or do in, or whatever. It is so stupid. So you know, the reason that I think that you can get so many thousands of people to a free trade demonstration is because it is an immediate, I think, real central problem with our system. I think if we can get fair trade in people’s minds instead of free trade, then what comes along with that, is if we have fair trade then maybe we won’t have child labor, so instead of working on child labor, maybe people should be working on free trade, and I am not saying people shouldn’t. People can work on whatever they fucking want, but the reason that I think that it is such a rallying cry for free trade is because as a result of free trade, as opposed to fair trade, you have all of these other societal problems like child labor, and you have the drug trade, you know, and all of these, I think a lot of, prison privatization, environmental degradation, all of those things are as a result of, among other things, but a major result of this farcical idea that free trade is going to benefit everyone. I think a lot can be solved if we can kind of slow that growth.
It is a real difficult concept to grasp, especially for someone that doesn’t have any idea of what is going on in the world, people that don’t have any idea of what is going on in the world at all, people who are completely ignorant of politics at all, it is pretty hard to understand the problems with NAFTA and FTAA, and then you get into the IMF and the World Bank, and people are totally oblivious and confused, but the idea of, ‘No war,’ it is easy but still, it doesn’t mean anything. It is like, ‘Just because we don’t go to war, does that mean that we have peace?’ Well, no, not really.
(campesinos)
I had a lot of people say, ‘Oh, no, I never buy anything’ and I was like, this is exactly fair trade, so everyone was getting their money out. Yeah, I bought a lot, I mean, I didn’t buy a lot, but I bought some gifts and stuff, directly from people there. The served food there, they had big food tents. I was there a lot. I was hanging out at the permaculture setup, and that was right under the food tents so I was there a lot. They were selling stuff. Actually they were camping in that area. And they were selling stuff. They brought things from where they came from, a lot of crafts, so I just kind of walked around, bought stuff, and used my bad Spanish.
What amazes me, and I hope this doesn’t sound like, you know this sort of far removed American, but I thought it was really interesting, because they were the poor people of their country, and they were so political, and they were organized, and they had a tradition of fighting for their rights, whereas in this country we don’t really have that. I mean, what we have are the unions, which is different. We don’t live off the land anymore, we don’t have communities, anymore, like they still do in Mexico. It has changed a lot recently, but people still until recently have lived off the land and lived in small communities, and things like that. I surprised me how political they were. I went to a forum and listened through translation to what was being said, and they just used this amazing rhetoric, that we don’t use in this country, like, ‘We need to fight for our freedom and our resources aren’t for sale, and things like that,’ and they are such radical concepts in this country, that anything is sacred at all. We are the most religious country in the world, but nothing is sacred. And so it was interesting to see the poor people of that country being so political. It was great. I thought it was fascinating. But they all came in their traditional outfits, because that is what they wear, so it was really beautiful. You could see whole villages of women wearing exactly the same dress. It was really interesting.
The way that the day was sort of explained, the way that the various groups agreed to work together, because, you know, there was the language barrier and the cultural barrier and all of those things. The way that the groups decided to work together was this would be a day for the campesinos to protest. And everyone kind of agreed that it was going to be their rules; it was the one day that they wanted to have their voices heard, and they wanted to do it very peacefully. No one informed the Koreans. I don’t know where the Koreans came in, but, anyway, that was their thing. The pagans, Starhawk in particular, was asked if she would participate and if the pagan cluster would participate in a religious ceremony, and so we were the very front of the march. And it was a ceremony that, it was all said in the Mayan language; I don’t know what language it is, maybe it is ‘Mayan Language.’ But it was all done that way and I was translated into various languages and it was all about the idea that we are taking the seeds from the earth, and we are giving back those seeds, and the water is sacred, and we actually are dependant on the earth, and just acknowledging that we are not these all-powerful beings that can actually take control of the earth. But it was a really beautiful ceremony. And then the camoesinos kind of moved up to the front, after that was done, they moved up to the front. And then the Koreans. The way that a black bloc guy, what do you call them, members, a black bloc person? Black blockers? Anyway, a black bloc guy, he is from [Arizona], I just don’t want to use his name. So anyway, what he was saying, we were up near the front, kind of holding space, we weren’t like doing hand to hand combat, but you have seen the videos where they were doing hand-to-hand combat with the police. Bu I wasn’t that close; I was kind of behind there. So anyway, what this guy was telling me [was] the black bloc agreed that they would not start anything, that they would hang back and they would take the cues from everybody else, which I thought was an amazing display of respect and cooperation, which I really thought was amazing. Then, all of a sudden the Koreans let loose, and charged the fence, and so the black bloc, he is so funny, he said, ‘So, a couple of people on the front line, these black bloc guys, on the front line, kind of looked at one another, and they charged the fence, taking their cues from the Koreans.’ But it was a pretty powerful day. I mean, the barricade was destroyed. It was a real powerful day for me because it was the first time I had ever been that close to the point of conflict. So it was pretty amazing, and I was pretty scared in that I didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my god, I might get hurt,’ it was more like, ‘I don’t know something is going to come, like where a rock is going to come from.’ I mean, I was so stupid that I saw some people breaking up the pavement, and I grabbed the person that I was working with that day, and I said, ‘Why are they doing that?’ and she said, ‘Oh, shit, that is what they are going to throw.’ I mean, that is how naive I was. So, it turned out that the police only threw things back. They didn’t throw anything at us, they just threw rocks back at us. So that was kind of weird. But, it was a pretty peaceful day, I mean, there was a while where the barricade was coming down, and I have seen the video, but I didn’t see the violence. I was a little bit aways.
End of Sue #1
[Mexican students and Koreans doing a lot of direct action all the time, video of Americans inside the conference center doing DA, no room in Miami for DA, repression in Miami, if do any direct action will be thrown in jail in a heartbeat, conference call for planning Miami]
I think common sense dictated that. Why go through? The conference center was nine kilometers away. I think it was just common sense. I heard about it at the action, and, as the last barricade come down, I started saying, ‘Well, what do we do? We have got to have some sort of plan here.’ And word went out that we weren’t going to go through, we were just going to sit down. I think it was just common sense. I mean, we could have gone through and hiked nine kilometers, but what could we have done at that point. I don’t know who actually thought it through, but I didn’t know enough. It think it is a real fine line between letting the group decide what needs to happen and allowing space for experience and just a clearer understanding of how it works. I think that that is a fine line, I think that is another part where the movement needs to stay honest, in that it is really for me to say that I have only been to one or two [large] actions, so I am not going to say anything because those people really understand what is happening. I am going to defer to them. And it is a different thing for those people to take that decision and make it their own, and I think we need to be very careful about that. I think it is everybody’s responsibility. I think it is the responsibility of the perceived leaders to not always take a leadership role, and to not always make the decisions, but it is also up to the other people to be involved in the decision making and to be involved in picking up the slack and understanding how it works. It is all of our responsibilities.