350 War Resistors Blockade and Disrupt UCSB Army/Industrial Conference - 3 Arrests
About 350 anti-war activists met to rally at Pardall Tunnel, where they were
addressed by speakers at an open microphone, including a man from
Police attempted to barricade the event against the approaching students,
but the crowd forced itself through police lines and dismantled
blockades. Police appeared helpless to stop the flow of demonstrators,
who proceeded to occupy the courtyard in front of the pavilion, where collaborators,
some in business suits and others, more honestly, in military fatigues, had
been in the midst of a lunch break.
While the crowd went wild in their occupied space, the entire area was
redecorated using chalk and marker. A space previously reserved for war
makers was soon covered in anti-war, anti-government, pro-peace, and
pro-freedom slogans, as well as peace signs, hearts, circle-A's, and the
now-infamous Anarchy Heart, a common symbol amongst today's growing anarchist
movement. Also present were anti-police messages and web addresses for
sites like crimethinc.com and indymedia.org.
While most were encouraging the act of reclaiming space, some present felt
hesitant about the property destruction, especially police, as it represented a
physical blow to the military conference they were protecting, rather than
simply a symbolic one.
At the same time, several black-bloc anarchists grabbed open trays of food
from the conference and distributed them amongst demonstrators, police, and
collaborators alike. "Cookies for the Revolution!! As Free and
Beautiful as all of you!" were the words of one masked young man as he
carried around a liberated tray of sweets.
At this point protestors locked down, keeping some military collaborators
outside, and some locked in. Police attempted to pull some students away
from the doors forcefully, but were met with heavy resistance.
Solidarity amongst the students and other demonstrators seemed to be the
best it's been in
As the battle raged on, occupations and blockades of the war collaborators
inside their conference continued. At some points, demonstrators who had
snuck into the meeting managed to burst through the doors, and students and
police both rushed to get in first. It was always the police, who would
quickly drive the peace protestors back with batons and raised cans of pepper
spray.
At one point, one of the meeting doors was wedged open and kept that way
with the help of a couple plastic bottles jammed in the crack. A
megaphone was placed up against the open crack and every tactic imaginable was
used to raucously disrupt the proceedings inside. Several resistors
fought police away from the opportunity the crack presented until the crowd
rushed in to push police back.
One policeman, a certain Officer Stern, grabbed and twisted a young woman's
arm in apparent frustration at his impotence in removing the bottles jammed in
the doorway.
Disruption, speeches, songs, and acts of defiance continued as the sun was
beginning to set.
Suddenly, there was an opportunity; the doors were unlocked, and, while riot
police managed to secure two doors, a third was forced open and the protest
rushed inside.
The meeting was just about finished, but as the march moved into the
building, the same young woman whose arm had been twisted previously was
grabbed around the throat from behind by two and then more police as she was
removing posters from the walls of the conference. The crowd rushed to
her defense, but was beaten back by riot cops with batons and pepper spray, and
she was beaten, slammed into a glass door, and forced face down on the cement
before being dragged away.
The conference had been successfully disrupted, but there would be another
act of resistance. The crowd beat the police to their cruisers and
another standoff took place as they locked down once again to prevent the
removal of the young woman. It seemed as if the police were more agitated
then before, having failed to prevent the disruption of the Army's
conference. In response to accusations of brutality from the crowd,
police made nervous excuses, claiming to have been attempting to secure the
'free speech' of the war makers, or to have been 'only following orders'.
Organizers addressed the crowd, reminding them that the police did not have
a legal leg to stand on, and that these senseless acts of brutality in defense
of war had no legitimacy, and therefore, the entire law enforcement apparatus
present had no more legitimacy in the eyes of the war resistors. The
sitting crowd, arms linked in solidarity, managed to remain locked despite
attempts at forceful dispersal by the police present, and they faced down the
riot police yet again, until it was clear that the young woman would be cited
and released, at which point demonstrators allowed the police cruiser to beat a
hasty retreat. The young woman's current condition is unknown to this
reporter.
UPDATE: Word has been received from an anonymous source amongst the catering
team working at the conference that the Military has been successfully forced
from UCSB, and the second day of the 2-day conference is to be carried on
downtown at an undisclosed location. To those who chanted 'UCSB, Military
Free!!' this means a dramatic success; the removal of representatives from the
most powerful military institution the world has ever seen from their
University. Despite this victory, protestors will meet at Corwin Pavilion
today, Wednesday, February 13th, at
Syndicate
Comments
Anonymous reply to law-fetishism sucks donkey dick
First of all… are you really comparing the protestors (yourself?) to Nelson Mandela? Or the Jews? Somehow I think that you aren’t anywhere near the same league as they are/were. I also think that vandalism is not something even Gandhi was capable of despite spending plenty of time in jail. Besides… those are older times and society has changed a lot. In today’s US you can be Gandhi x 3,000 and you will never spend a day in jail. It’s called freedom of speech; not freedom to commit crimes at your hateful discretion. I live in today’s world… which means the second part of your retort is completely ridiculously and invalid. It’s that kind of backward thinking that makes people like you less progressive in thought. For some naive reason you believe the world is currently capable of peace yet you explain that people like me (I believe I am a realist) are somehow connected to ideologies that are archaic and can't be changed (because I am the enemy). Pick and choose my brother. I want peace and believe people can change but there are hateful people in today's world who are willing to kill, terrorize, and vandalize for their beliefs. There are even hateful people in the UCSB community who are willing to vandalize for their believes at the cost of innocent people like the students who pay tuition at UCSB! What’s right and appropriate about protest is speech. If you disagree with a decision the US makes then by all means speak out about it. Please don’t call me blind because I disagree with you on a position about war or the ethics of protesting. I am not blind in that I do at times disagree with the things we (US) do and I stand up for what I believe is right and argue against what is wrong. I have an educated opinion as I sort of believe you do (despite the hateful way that you express it). This is still a democracy and I do have an opinion of which I come to my own conclusions. I formed my earlier opinions based on that I believe there are evil people in the world who wish to destroy you and I. How can you argue against that? Sure there are/will be times in which breaking the law is justified. I am not an absolutist. But the UCSB protest was not one of those times. In the case of the protest the breaking of the law does not outweigh good moral virtue. To put it in other terms… the vandalism did not change anything except hurt their efforts by changing public, University, and ICB opinion against them. Had they not vandalized anything their voices would have been LOUDER. Now, people just think the protestors are ignorant vigilantes. If their target was ICB and the University then guess what… they are definitely not listening to you now. How about next time everyone instead has an intellectual conversation in which both sides attempt to understand each other and mutual changes can be enacted upon. How about creating progress? Consider my suggestions because to me it sounds like I am the pacifist! Next: You cite Native Americans were capable of self-defense without a state. Duh! They had a rudimentary form of government headed by elder chief(s). I think the point here is that people gave up their individual freedoms to have protection from a government/clan/tribe/etc… It’s a quid pro quo and honestly… people can’t survive without a government which would provide consequences for actions such as theft, rape, and murder. In our country people come together via government to determine what is right and not right. Of course as we both pointed out that they sometimes get this wrong. But if we are to be members of our society, if we are to be contributors to our brothers in this land or the next, we have a responsibility to do what is just/right even over our own governments. This sometimes also means that we have to subscribe abiding by government’s laws despite our own opinions as a majority of our society believes has decided you shall. It’s a balance you have to weigh but if you commit a crime that you can’t justify and being moral then you are an anarchist or at the minimum going against the will of the people. And guess what… if you follow the law you aren’t automatically blind. If you follow the law you aren’t automatically a conformist. Stop with the labels and place real value on what’s important namely the war, the cost of lives, and it’s legitimacy. And please… if possible… try and demonstrate to me why the vandalism was actually legitimate in contrast to the alternative actions I provided above and why despite the fact that the US and world governments have procedures in place to air your grievances (i.e. Peace protest, petitioning, activism directed towards government representatives/law makers, etc…) but it was instead chosen on the part of the protestors to harass a bunch of people who aren’t going to change anything and have no control over the war anyway. Thank you. P.S. I am Jewish and I uh… happen to know a great deal of people who had family members perish due to their obedience with the German government. Many of my Jewish ancestors, for example, displayed obedience to the German government despite knowing it would cost them their lives. I believe they did this for two reasons: 1. Their faith in God provided them guidance to do so and acceptance for their faith in the afterlife. 2. The world would see their sacrifice for what it was and paint the picture of Nazis as horrific and inhumane. I also do not believe fear of Nazis was a factor because as any strong faithed Jew or Christian knows; God will provide for them on Earth and the afterlife (That’s John 3:14 for you Christians). God rest their souls.
law-fetishism sucks donkey dick
I guess this "anonymous" character believes people should never break laws. That breaking the law is always worse than not breaking it. So he would just have let the Jews go to the concentration camps. He would have opposed Nelson Mandela, and Tiananmen Square. If he lived in Iran he would report women who unveil. If he lived in colonial America he would kowtow to the British and condemn the tea party as morally equivalent to robbers (let alone the people who actually took up arms!) Basically he fetishises the law, he worships it as though it were a god, and so he casts away and sacrifices his own will and hands it over to the state. He doesn't decide what to do, the state decides what he'll do. Not only that - he doesn't even think for himself what's right or wrong, he lets the state tell him what's right or wrong. If he does this then he might as well not have a brain. He is acting like a robot or a zombie, denying his own humanity. He is showing inability to perform basic categorical logic. He assumes that everything subsumed under the category "illegal" is actually equivalent and has to be supported or rejected at once. This is like assuming that, if we called cows dogs, they would bark instead of moo. It's an arbitrary fetishism of a specific language, when other boundaries can also be drawn. He is drawing a false boundary. He seems to think: if we reject his assumption that breaking the law is always wrong, therefore we must reject the view that ANYTHING is wrong. This makes no logical sense. It would justified to write slogans "illegally" to rectify a systemic imbalance in access to the opportunity to speak. It would certainly be justified to break a window to get someone out of a burning building - which really is no different from damaging property to stop mass slaughter through war. A morally autonomous person does not let their moral judgements be swayed by the whims of the powerful. Nothing is rendered "wrong" simply because it is against the law. The law is just the whim of the state. Some things which are wrong anyway, are also against the law, and don't necessarily become right. But breaking the law as such is not wrong. Ignoring the preferences of the state as to how you should act is no worse than ignoring anyone else's preferences as to how you should act. The law is simply an "occupational hazard", a risk to be negotiated - nothing more. Being at risk of state repression because "breaking the law" is morally equivalent to being at risk of lynching because the KKK disagree with your actions. It is not historically accurate to claim "government was created to protect us from our enemies". Look at Kropotkin's "The State: Its Historic Role" for many historical counterexamples. Protection from enemies is achieved through conflict mediation and/or mutual aid for self-defence. The people of Chiapas and West Papua, and before them the Native Americans and Amerindians were all quite capable of self-defence without the state. Nobody knows for certain why states were originally formed, but it's likely to do with enforcing social hierarchies - that states have their origin in caste systems and accumulation by means of plunder. In any case, I'd say my first enemy is the person who thinks I should do what they say, just because they say it, whether I like it or not, and whether I think it's right or not. Which means my first enemy is the statist, the cop and the law-fetishist. How do I defend myself against this enemy? Well, that's the whole point of autonomous direct action! I don't know if I'd say I'm claiming to be protecting "the community" however. I do what I want, tempered by what I think is right (NOT what the state thinks is right), I associate with other people who don't restrict my freedom, these people act together to defend ourselves, and are open to expanding to whoever does not oppress us. But I don't hold myself to standards of what happens to please sheepish conformists, nor am I trying to "protect" sheepish conformists from the disasters they themselves bring on. If we want a peaceful world then we must throw spanners in the wheels of the war machine, otherwise it will continue chugging onwards undisrupted, functioning by its own whims, ignoring everyone else. This has always been what states do, unless they're constrained by external forces. Meanwhile, a great big CONGRATULATIONS to the activists who shut down this conference!
Cookie versus ICB
For shame....you forgot who you really impacted
Save for the mess of the pen
Twisted priorities
Yes it is such a shame that there was spilt milk on campus. But then let's not worry about 150,000 Iraqi civilians killed after Cheney Bush crowd manufactured a lie to justify the invasion of a soveriegn nation.
I agree ... for shame
A bunch of spoiled kids wasting food, vandalizing property, and shouting down any dissenting views, and justifying it all with hollow slogans.
Amazing action!
Demilitarization of higher education in action. What an inspiration.
People are being murdered by the US government and ICB is complicit in this. I don't worry about a few tossed cookies or marked up tables. Only a fool would sweat this stuff while there's a genocide occuring in Iraq.
I did not see the same.
Yes, marker and chalk were used on the table and tent, but honestly, it's hard to be confrontational and effective in shutting down anything without doing any damage to any sort of property or person's self esteem. If we had marched into the courtyard around the munitions contractor CEOs and yelled at them, danced around, and stomped on the ground but in no other way were confrontational, the men there wouldn't have left. I doubt they would have done more than laughed at us. We arrived at the conference towards the end of lunch, at which time many of the tables were empty and much of the food already eaten. Those involved in this action don't want to see food go to waste and it would be completely uncharacteristic of any of them to toss food to the ground. I witnessed people passing around food as a way of reclaiming the space, as a way of saying to the contractors that they were no longer welcome on the UCSB campus that in many ways belongs to the students who live, learn, and work there. In order to clear the space, tables were folded up and chairs stacked. The mess after this event was not catastrophic- the UCEN staff were not cleaning up much more than they would have if the conference lunch went uninterrupted.
For shame....you forgot who you really impacted
Such shame, I was there & saw waste...food thrown on the ground by some protestors, permanent black marker used on tables, students from the UCEN cleaning up protestor mess, underpaid custodial staff cleaning up protestor mess! For shame, this event created victims of the UCSB UCEN employee students & UCSB custodial staff.
wake up
we're all victims in this military-industrial complex
rock on!
great job!
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