[Imc-dnc-discuss] background article on BTS?

[Matthew Williams]

Hey all --

What do you think of using this feature from February for our background 
article (i.e., having a link to it on the page that the Razorwire links 
to through "Articles") on the Black Tea Society? We don't have anything 
more recent and it would be good to have something.

-- Matt

http://boston.indymedia.org/feature/display/19870/index.php

News :: Democratic National Convention	
Consulta Reportback From Austin Activist		
by Bl(A)ck Tea Society
Email: nodnc04 (nospam) hush.com (unverified!)		25 Feb 2004
An Austin activist provides a reportback to the DNC resistance consulta, 
held in Boston Feb 13-16.

The Democratic National Convention Resistance Consulta, called by an 
anti-authoritarian coalition known as the Bl(A)ck Tea Society, was held 
in Boston on the weekend of February 13-16. Participants traveled from 
all over the country, either with or on behalf of larger affinity 
groups. Written proposals came in from as far away as Washington state. 
The purpose of the consulta was to collectively discuss and educate one 
another about the upcoming actions surrounding the Democratic National 
Convention, to be held in Boston on July 26-29. Participants came to 
hear what was already being planned, both by the Bl(A)ck Tea Society and 
the State, as well as to offer discussion and proposals about possible 
action scenarios.	
An Austin activist provides a reportback to the DNC resistance consulta, 
held in Boston Feb 13-16.
blackteasociety.org

The Democratic National Convention Resistance Consulta, called by an 
anti-authoritarian coalition known as the Bl(A)ck Tea Society, was held 
in Boston on the weekend of February 13-16. Participants traveled from 
all over the country, either with or on behalf of larger affinity 
groups. Written proposals came in from as far away as Washington state. 
The purpose of the consulta was to collectively discuss and educate one 
another about the upcoming actions surrounding the Democratic National 
Convention, to be held in Boston on July 26-29. Participants came to 
hear what was already being planned, both by the Bl(A)ck Tea Society and 
the State, as well as to offer discussion and proposals about possible 
action scenarios.

The majority of the consulta was held in a rather large rectangular 
room, on the second floor of a radical community church near Copley 
Square. (A painting on the third floor featured the Virgin Mary in a 
balaclava.) The walls of the meeting room were draped with Anarchy flags 
of every color: black/red (anarcho-syndicalism), black/purple 
(anarcha-feminist), black/pink (anarcho-queer) and black/green 
(eco-anarchist). This broad inclusiveness of anti-authoritarian 
perspectives, staunchly defended by the facilitators against pressure 
from multiple directions, allowed the Bl(A)ck Tea Society to open a 
space where struggle was placed before platformist quibbling-where 
theory was supplanted by a solid commitment to cooperation and action.

Through the morning session of the consulta, somewhere between 60-70 
participants were presented with an innovative model of facilitation 
that was nothing short of inspired. Members of the BTS spoke with all of 
us about the questions they had dealt with in the weeks leading up to 
the consulta. The big one, they told us, concerned whether our community 
had reached a level of maturity where mass decentralized action was now 
possible. Their conclusion, based on long discussion, was that we, as an 
anarchist movement, were ready to take the next step.

The decentralized mass action still fresh on a lot of our minds was the 
“People’s Strike” in Washington, D.C. the fall of 2002. While a certain 
number of affinity groups there had pulled off daring direct actions 
(the burning barricade still vividly recalled by a number of us) the 
large percentage of those that converged on the city were arrested on 
the first day. Each was corralled together after participating in the 
few centralized actions that had been planned: the pagan cluster, the 
snake march, critical mass, etc. From this experience, the problem 
appeared of how to best encourage larger numbers of people to organize 
and carry out autonomous direct actions.

The BTS facilitators decided that the problem was one of support and 
coordination. At the People’s Strike, groups traveling from far out of 
town did not have access to the sorts of information they might need to 
plan an action. This was true both in terms of tactical logistics, as 
well as the particular weave of local issues and threads of history that 
overlay any city. The consulta opened, then, with a detailed 
presentation of Boston’s geography and the ways in which certain 
locations intersected with systems of class and race privilege. About 
Charlston, Dorchester, and Roxbury, we learned about the construction of 
INS detention centers, the lack of reliable public transportation, and 
the presence of Bioterrorism research laboratories. The BTS made it 
clear that it would provide any sort of historical or community-specific 
information that might be needed in the planning of any direct action.

“People coming to Boston must have a plan,” one of the BTS facilitators 
insisted. Affinity groups were encouraged to cluster if they wished to 
coordinate larger, more above-ground actions. At the same time, all 
groups were welcomed to approach the BTS about any logistical support 
needed for more clandestine actions-as long as details were kept 
private. (For purposes of greater electronic security, all participants 
were encouraged to procure encrypted accounts from Hushmail.com.) The 
role of the Bl(A)ck Tea Society, as they described it, was not to plan 
actions but to provide a framework for action, a certain amount of 
infrastructure, and their full support before, during, and after each 
affinity group’s action.

Included in the Bl(A)ck Tea Society’s coalition is the National Lawyers 
Guild (which has already pledged a minimum of 50 legal observers), BALM 
(Boston-Area Liberation Medics), and the Anarchist Black Cross, which 
teaches street defense and provides material, moral and monetary jail 
support for those arrested. The message delivered to all of us by the 
BTS was that our backs were covered at every step of the way; and they 
would bend theirs over backwards to ensure that whatever we wanted to do 
would be carried off in the clearest, safest, and most effective manner 
possible.

The education provided by members of the BTS and allies about local 
issues was considerable. We were given a detailed analysis of the labor 
situation in Boston, which may or may not calculate heavily in the 
equation of this summer’s actions. 32 of the 32 city unions do not 
currently have contracts in Boston, and this includes the Police and 
Firefighter unions. While it is expected that Mayor Menino (D) will 
negotiate at least some of the contracts prior to the convention, the 
ones that remain without contracts are likely to march. In the case of 
the Police union, the city police are threatening to strike and consider 
any outside security officials, including Federal and State, scabs. The 
general consensus was that we should in no way fool ourselves into 
believing that a Police union is our ally. Nonetheless the situation 
might provide certain opportunities for action.

Other pressing social issues were discussed, including the severe lack 
of affordable housing or living wages throughout Boston, high taxes, 
gentrification, and the unaccountable growth of corporate power. BTS 
organizers encouraged anyone planning an action to conduct research 
about the area beforehand, either independently or with their support. 
The chances are high that allies may be found in even the most 
unexpected places.

Weeks before the consulta, Tom Ridge declared the Democratic National 
Convention a “high-level national security event.” While the Boston city 
council has expressed that it wants nothing to do with the so-called 
“Miami model,” there will be at least one thing in common between the 
two approaches. It is what has become the most visceral, material 
expression of all that we oppose: the FENCE. In this case, however, we 
might see it in its most honest form: a solid, opaque, black wall fully 
enclosing several blocks around the Fleet Center where the convention 
will be held.

Anyone (the police in particular) looking for a repeat of Miami is 
likely to be disappointed. The BTS has made it clear that, for all the 
support they intend to offer out-of-towners, they will be planning no 
centralized march against the fence. Attempts to dismantle it were by no 
means discouraged, but the implication was that any attempt-small or 
large-would be more likely to succeed if planned and executed in secret. 
For this and other such actions, the Bl(A)ck Tea Society reiterated 
their commitment to provide as much information and coordination as 
possible before the event.

At the same time, the Bl(A)ck Tea Society expressed a strong desire, 
shared by most of the consulta participants, that the initiators of any 
action join and extend local struggles. This would be in contrast to 
previous “fence” actions, whose participants risked isolating themselves 
from local communities by seizing upon only the most visible, and also 
most temporary, symbols of exclusion in the city.

Throughout the discussion on Saturday, which continued for over eight 
hours with only a few short breaks (as well as an unexpected false “fire 
alarm” that forced us to evacuate the building) what impressed me the 
most was the considerable focus and-dare I say it?-“professionalism” of 
all those that attended. Many attendees took extensive notes and forced 
themselves to jot down to every comment, even when they seemed ready to 
topple over from exhaustion. Everyone was fully engaged in the 
conversations taking place. The dialogue was spirited, cooperative and 
impressively efficient. There was a general sense that our discussions 
were of actual import; that all we said and how carefully we listened 
would have a real, material impact on future events.

I was reminded of the shift described by militants in Paris, France 
1968; where they “broke out of the psychology of defeat, the outlook of 
the loser” (endemic of Western Leftists, even then) and began to 
understand themselves as subjects of their own history. There were no 
spectators present at the consulta, and no spectacle either: only 
participation. Should this level of direct personal involvement 
continue, expressed collectively in our rejection of electoral politics 
and its thin veils of “democracy,” the participants of the Republican 
National Convention protests will have much to live up to: once they see 
the barricades burning in the streets of Boston.

http://blackteasociety.org


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