Party for the death of Capitolism
author: Injunb
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This sounds like an idea that can be replicated here in Portland and indeed was tried last year for funk the war. I would like to see more things of this nature start happening what do others of like mind think?
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North Carolina: Cops Attack Funeral for Capitalism, Partygoers Stage Successful Defense
Tuesday, November 25 2008 @ 10:27 AM CST
Contributed by: Anonymous
Views: 858
It was supposed to be a party. That really is what we wanted, we promise. It was supposed to be a magnificent, celebratory funeral for capitalism, inviting our small town to bury the past and celebrate the values of mutual aid, survival, and resistance that radicals (and many, many others) here put into practice. For a month over a dozen anarchists in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, North Carolina distributed almost 2,000 anti-capitalist stickers, handbills, and glossy party-flyers, built a piņata, two mobile sound systems, a temporary radio station, and a beautiful coffin and dummy for capitalism to rest in, and generally built the hype.
Cops Attack Funeral for Capitalism, Partygoers Stage Successful Defense
It was supposed to be a party. That really is what we wanted, we promise. It was supposed to be a magnificent, celebratory funeral for capitalism, inviting our small town to bury the past and celebrate the values of mutual aid, survival, and resistance that radicals (and many, many others) here put into practice. For a month over a dozen anarchists in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, North Carolina distributed almost 2,000 anti-capitalist stickers, handbills, and glossy party-flyers, built a piņata, two mobile sound systems, a temporary radio station, and a beautiful coffin and dummy for capitalism to rest in, and generally built the hype.
The stage was set, but the night of Friday, November 21st was a cold one. Really cold. Despite the massive publicity explaining the event, only about 100 people showed up in the sub-freezing weather for the (pre-mortem) funeral and dance party. Nevertheless, after about 20
minutes of dancing on the sidewalk to coordinated boomboxes and handing out free anti Wall St. buttons and festive skeleton masks, we
decided to hit the streets. A huge, cardboard, 8ft. by 3ft. painted, "boombox" on wheels, containing a mobile sound system, rolled up, and the street party began.
There was Billy Idol, and Dead Prez, and other songs to dance to, as folks danced along the main drag and handed out free buttons and
anti-capitalist "welcome to the party" cards to passersby. As we approached the main intersection in our one horse town, a shopping
cart pulling a huge black coffin with "capitalism" written on the side joined the procession. At that crucial moment, however, things started to get hairy - a cop car pulled up with lights blaring.
The police in our town used to be fairly hands off when it came to protests, a part of the general liberal faįade of Chapel Hill. So we had hoped to occupy that intersection for as long as possible, as has usually been possible in the past. We still, after all, had to smash the money piņata, read out the public death sentence for capitalism, and draw and quarter the capitalist effigy. But the effigy was to remain intact, as the pig with no further warning stopped his car, got out, and charged those of us in the back pushing the sound system.
Now, this crazy fool still didn't have any backup, and we don't take kindly in the South to such hasty behavior. We like to take it slow. But he started trying to drag the 24 sq.ft. sound system onto the sidewalk, all by his lonesome, and some other folks pulled back. Then the pig decided to go for one of us, and tried to strangle one comrade by his scarf, while screaming, "You're going to jail! You're goin' to jail!" Ahh, but there were more of us than him, and our friend did not go to jail. Nor did any of the half dozen other folks attacked after him as more pigs showed up. The screams were loud, and the mace they sprayed was intense, but we held our own! One pig was overheard yelling, "Jesus, everytime we grab one six more charge us and pull them away!" It was not until one comrade dancing apart from the group was surrounded, tackled, and pushed into a waiting squad car that an arrest occurred.
By a miracle of ninja-like stealth and quick cooperation, the entire sound system was saved. More "welcome to the party" cards were handed out to people on the street watching, as the many masked, scarved, and costumed partygoers quickly disappeared. Unfortunately, the pigs did manage to steal our coffin and effigy. They could be seen blocking traffic, surrounding the coffin with dumb and confused looks, as they tried to figure out how to remove the huge object. (Eventually, the capitalism coffin was balanced on top of a squad car and slowly driven away. If we can find a picture of this incident, we'll be sure to post it, as this will surely go down as one of the more hilarious sights in recent anarchist history.) In the process, one pig declared his utter disgust at "these anti-capitalists." Later in the night, a different "good cop" approached a group of students and threatened, "You know, a lot of us don't agree with what y'all stand for, and there was a lot of assaulting police officers going on tonight, and that's no joke, so y'all better disperse right now or we're going to arrest all of you."
Soon after the dispersal, fifty of us met at a nearby location to discuss the successes and failures of the event, chat about future events and changing police strategies, celebrate the tremendous spiritual and physical solidarity we showed each other in the streets, and raise the bail money for our one kidnapped comrade. We raised the money in an hour, and our local anarchist lawyer (Wahoo! Finally, an anarchist lawyer!) bailed him out. He's charged with five misdemeanors, one of which is misdemeanor assaulting a government official, though it carries little time if convicted and is a dubious charge at best. We are working on legal representation and a legal support committee, so we are in high hopes. A fundraising bake-off, dance party and show is scheduled in December, where we hope to raise money for future legal defense and finally get to smash this piņata and read this death sentence. Future street parties will surely occur, albeit in warmer times, so stay tuned.
A picture of the glossy flyer will be added soon, in the hopes that the text or idea could be useful for others planning similar events. We see this not as a onetime event but as part of a continuum in Carrboro/Chapel Hill of combining large-scale, participatory, diverse mutual aid projects like our really free markets, with specifically anarchist street actions and propaganda. This has certainly upped the ante for us, despite the short-lived nature of the party itself. Perhaps more important than handing out things to random street-partygoers, or distributing a thousand anti-capitalist invitations, we left feeling more confident of our abilities and loyalties to one another in the street.
In time to the revolutionary beats...
One member of the ad hoc reclaim the party collective...
Reclaim the streets, reclaim your lives!
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