Praveen responded to one of our friends on email about why it is important to protest. His answer is below.
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Your analysis of the rights we enjoy in America is almost exclusively a
“left coast” thing – san francisco, portland, and seattle have all been
fought for hard to remain a place that’s not under total lockdown. As I
type this, I’m seeing the report of my friend Dave Worth in NM shot by a
rubber bullet for being in a small peaceful protest of 300- a
demonstration that was surrounded by SWAT and gassed:

http://nm.indymedia.org/media/protests/display/391/index.php

Granted it wasn’t a live bullet. If the crowd was any larger, it would
have been a live bullet. But, I’d like to point out,
that right now:
– tens of thousands of middle eastern immigrants are being wholesale
monitored, detained, and deported with no good reason
– the U.S. prison population is pushing 2 million in wholesale
concentration camp style class warfare, with a vast
disproportion being latino or black.. As the general public turns a blind
eye against what they see as a “criminal class”.
– political activists are time and again monitored, railed against,
and framed

I don’t want to be negative or a downer, and you know as well as I do the
situation here…. There have been a lot of critiques about U.S.
imperialism throughout the entire world, but we as americans are just as
subjugated as the rest of the world.

Who do the streets belong to? It’s a matter of perspective. It’s a big
cultural gap between myself and mainstream america. If you come from the
neighborhoods and the class where I do, it certainly doesn’t belong to
us. It’s tough to convey some of this living in the Bay Area (an
island of public discourse)… But I’ll give it a shot… Walk along the
streets from your house to the stores or to your workplace. Is it your
streets? Or is it Krispy kreme’s? Or the mega realtor that owns the
neighborhood? The class, the wrong race, being homeless, and you must
keep moving- you are a criminal if you don’t. I say this from a very
personal perspective. The U.S. has developed a compulsion to keep what
they don’t like out of their reality, and have legislated it thusly. If
it’s not for sale and it’s at all publicly empowering, we have to
legislate it out of existence. If there is even a risk of cutting into
profits, we must legislate it out of existence. Keep the homeless out of
the suburbs, keep the shanty towns down, lock them in prison. Keep the
kids on curfew, keep minorities working in the industries where they
belong.

What’s happened because of this compulsion of real estate prices is we
have effectively choked all forms of physical communication
networking between people across the country.

You know already know this. This is why you are talking to me.

Let’s say the protests yesterday were predominantly latino or black.
Would we be seeing the same news? Or would we be seeing a “riot” instead
of demonstrations? What would the body count be then?

The reason the left and these protests have been able to sustain the
pretext of “civil disobedience” and the ONLY reason we haven’t had people
disappearing in the U.S. is because of a great legacy left by communists
and christian radicals: NETWORK network network. Get your voice out
there and get it LOUD. Were we in the pre-internet era, and were there no
indymedia, there would be no protests because they would have been
squelched before they started (see cointelpro), and you wouldn’t have
known about them.

10 years ago, the only people who would know what the “WTO” is are
economist and conspiricy wingnuts. 10 years ago, the actions of the U.S.
in foreign countries would not have even been known unless you were a
wingnut. Remember the Panamanian invasion? Did you ever heard about the
U.S. bombing raids over peasant farmers?

Now, at the cost of angry drivers, broken windows, the “masses” are able
to have a discourse about these topics.

Reclaiming streets is a very real form of networking- the coordination and
capability of spreading the message and guiding the smart mobs are another
example of how we can break the system by finding support within each
other.

Well, this is the sugar coated arguement. I’m antipathic mobs. I think
the masses are asses and many of the activists that show up are no
exception.

Much of the reality is that I no longer care. I’ve thought about the
arguements of the SUV driver and the cops and everyone and traffic, and
you know what? I don’t really give a fuck. This is the semiotic gap:

racism imperialism suburbs gentrification war burgeiouse starbucks krispy
kreme freeways corporation third world

^^^^ these words can seem completely meaningless

It’s easy to build maps in your mind of what someone else’s experience
might be like, especially when magazines and televisions and newspapers
construct a map for you. When I see someone angrily railing against all
homeless people, railing against the dirty muslims, they are operating on
a maps of assumed experience.

I’ve tried to convey my experiences and experiences I know others have
shared to people, and it usually results in disbeleif.

There may be reasons to play nice and be respectful.

After 9/11, when I see a huge body count to justify an already too high
body count- when I see people operating on an unprecedented fear and anger
on a global level, I stop caring about polite society.

It’s time to reclaim the streets. It’s time to stop giving these fuckers
the benefit of the doubt. At this juncture in history, I’m not going to
be look back and tell the future history with me consenting to this, and
to let this happen without a lot noise. It is a myth to think that a
“governing elite” can govern without the consent of the many- from our day
to day unconcious behavior.

These protests aren’t just about the war, they are about our lives as
americans.

Maybe someone is stuck in traffic for 2 hours. Maybe they should change
their attitude and enjoy the little added chaos.