Rolling Thunder - CrimethInc

welcome a tussle with the cops, today was not going to be agood day for that sort of thing. So, what to do?Cheap Chinese! There are few better things to eat after apleasant walk to watch the Pentagon burn than cheap Chinesefood. Usually vegetarian, often vegan, and sometimeseven without MSG, we also suspected that the restaurantso≠ering this fare might be ideal for laying low. And aroundthe corner was a classic Chinese restaurant in one of therundown strip malls that litter America, and the Chinesejoint was—miracle of miracles—still open for businessthis September the 11th. I emptied my pockets, countedthe quarters and nickels, and managed to scrape togetherenough for some vegetables and rice. The lone employeeseemed to be happy some customers had appeared, anddidn’t even appear to find us strange. An irrepressible fanof Chinese hot mustard, I covered my portion in the yellowtangy substance and turned around to watch the TV.It seemed as if nothing had changed from this morning.Our dear President George W. Bush was still nowhereto be seen. Instead, the footage of the falling towers (withshots of the Pentagon infrequently intermixed) was beingplayed over and over again as if with the intention of inducinghypnosis. The talking heads of the media seemed to besomewhat more in control of themselves than earlier, andwere now repeating “Middle Eastern terrorists” and “BinLaden” over and over again, although there seemed to be noconcrete evidence yet.I was relieved that they were not mentioning the word“anarchists,” as this gave us a little time. However, it waspretty clear over noodles and fortune cookies that thiswould be the perfect excuse for a witch hunt against us andanyone else the government considered a threat. Colin andI sat, mostly in stony silence, trying to figure out the implicationsof this day for the movement—and how the hell wewere going to get home.“We should eat slowly. Look, we’re pretty safe here. Noone knows we’re here. We can just sit here and eat until itgets dark and we can get home.”“Fuck, that’s going to be a while yet.”“Well, better safe than sorry.”When night finally began to fall, we bid a fond adieu toour host at the Chinese joint and proceeded down the road.We asked the few pedestrians we encountered for directions,and eventually found our way home through endlessalleys and bridges and back streets. When we arrived at ourlittle hideout, we looked around to make sure we weren’tbeing followed, then employed various comical anti-surveillancetechniques that mostly involved walking in circles,before finally stepping inside. Apparently the landlord hadgone back into his porn- and cigar-laden cocoon, and ourfriends were inside chomping at the bit as they plannedtheir getaway.Colin and I argued that we had to compose some sort ofanarchist response, and quick. There was only going to bea short window of time between September 11th and theinevitable government clampdown. If we could manageto pull together a quick response, we could at least get ourviews out there. People were confused and terrified, easilymanipulated by the heartless mindfuckers who were surelygoing to launch some sort of war in the not-so-distantfuture. Right at that moment, however, the US power structurewas utterly paralyzed. If we had our act together, wecould do something inspiring and historic then and therebefore the government even had time to respond with itswitch hunts and wars.There were a host of practical questions to discuss:should we carry on with the IMF protests, should we fleeunderground before the roundups began, should we go tothe public with our own answers about why some peoplehad hated the US government and corporations enough toram a plane into their headquarters? There was so much todo, and so little time.“When those bastards declare war, we gotta march in thestreets of Washington, IMF or not, just to show people everywherethat we’re against the fucking U.S. government, too.”“Then we really gotta get the fuck out of dodge.”“Man, that was the craziest fucking walk I’ve ever taken.”Five years ago we were ready to die. Or more precisely,to be murdered in cold blood by the state, as had happenedto Carlo Giuliani in Genoa. That was a price worth payingfor our dreams of a more compassionate world. We thought,not entirely without reason, that they were going to shootat us, and we were headed to the front lines anyway, to laydown our lives if it came to that. And then history outpacedus—not, I fear, for the last time—and our thunder wasstolen by people with drastically less concern for human lifethan ourselves.Is the world a better place? Are we any closer to the revolutionarysituation we dream of as a result of the decisionswe have made or failed to make? And at whose feet can belain responsibility for this sorry state of a≠airs, and for allthe bloodshed and sorrow that took place that day and thedays before it and the days after? Ours, theirs, the corporations’,the governments’? Five years ago we were ready todie. For better or for worse, there is no doubt that the yearsto come will provide us with many more opportunities toask ourselves if that is still the case.Gentle reader, the rest is up to you.PostscriptShortly after September 11, 2001, a cell of the CrimethInc.Ex-Workers’ Collective produced a text entitled “Afterthe Fall” in an attempt to analyze the causes and ramificationsof the events of that morning. It can still be found inthe “Miscellaneous” section of the reading library at www.crimethinc.com. Those days—and these—demanded muchmore than words in a newspaper or on a computer screen,but we still stand by this piece of writing as possibly the mostclearheaded and prescient statement to come out of theanarchist milieu at that time. The future is still unwritten.MATCH-STRIKERS:a personal storyHalfway through the tour, we thought we knew what we weredealing with. The singer was battling pneumonia and had beenunable to make a sound for two weeks, the drummer was receivingdeath threats by email from six countries, the guitarist, unable tolay his hands on a razor, had resorted to scraping his head with thepocket knife he’d inherited from his grandfather, and the roadies,along with the bass player, had been drunk for a month and a halfstraight. As for myself, out of respect for the mighty forces at work,I had refused to bathe for forty days and nights, and now I wasstretching it on towards fifty. We looked like a gang the governmentcould’ve used to justify blowing up an elementary school in Bangladesh.When we got there, the twelve of us, the poor guy who wassupposed to put us up only had an apartment of about thirty squaremeters, and we occupied it like Christiania in ’71.Page 40 : Testimonials : Rolling Thunder, Issue Three, Summer 2006Rolling Thunder, Issue Three, Summer 2006 : Testimonials : Page 41