The central feature of a convergence is a very general schematic outline of a scenario and media messaging centered on a specific place and time. The role of an open body in this is to organize and co-ordinate logistics housing, health care, legal support, training, messaging, and parameters of the resulting protest. Without an emphasis on stages and tactics, individual small groups can formulate their own plans in the context of the broader scenario. San Francisco was shut down for three days after the start of the Iraq invasion not by secretive planning by a small cadre of activists, but by everyday citizens openly planning a disruptive protest.
Target mapping is critical, as is a supportive political context developed over time. Community mapping of key intersections, defense contractors, government buildings, combined with descriptive text provides a menu of target options for small closed groups. Here in DC, there is no master map of historical sites, or targets.
The other key dimension, a supportive political context has both local and national aspects. During the day after actions in Washington, several sites were targeted, but the nature of a city devoid of local control, dependent on federal employment, and with major race and class fault lines has limited the extent of participation in direct action activities. Fragmentation along jurisdictional boundaries also impedes action in what is essentially a single urban region.
At the larger scale of the nation, the political juncture is much more favorable. The dilemma facing the leadership of the Democratic party is how to safely respond to the popular call for withdrawal from Iraq, while at the same time advancing an imperialist agenda. At the current moment, there is a window of opportunity for the social movements to move a social justice program - if the leverage was there.
Two contending geographies exist, one of bounded territories and one of connectivity.
The geography of states, elections, and lobbying is an uneven terrain. The NE, NW, and upper MW are where population is concentrated. They have a civic construction of nationalism, where the remnants of the old industrial union movement linger on. This was the regional base for the electoral shift last November, with some outliers.
The geography of fiat boundaries is an area of emerging opportunities in the Washington Metro region. Northern Virginia was pivotal in the election of a democratic majority in the Senate. NoVA is rapidly urbanizing, a sun belt economy just across the river from DC and MD with about 2 million residents. NoVA is a new immigrant gateway, a high tech corridor, and a bastion of democratic voters. Virginia is the most likely state to shift into the blue state column maybe in the next general election, most certainly after redistricting in 2010.
Building a strong movement would be a counterpoint to incremental efforts to increase voter participation. Expanding the envelope for political action, claiming space and creating a social imaginary of resistance through confrontational methods could take the heat off people of color communities, when confrontations are spearheaded by white youth.
The second geography is one of linked urban nodes where economic power flows in and through points of attraction for global immigration, key sites of connectivity. LA, NoLA, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, and the urban region from Boston to DC, centered in NYC. Washington, as the Capital, and nerve center of empire, LA as chief port of entry for imported goods figure most prominently in this topography. Creating the conditions for meaningful action in Washington would have global implications.
As the second leading center for defense procurement, after LA, as the fifth most populous urban region, and as the capital city, it is a critical point for leverage. A diversity of tactics approach to ending the war and shifting domestic priorities would balance consolidation of the anti-war regional base and capacity building in key urban areas, most notably the DC metro region.
Given that Washington will be the focus for much of the national mobilizing going forward, it behooves the small army of progressive lobbyists, activists, and think tanks to focus some attention on connecting the dots between appropriation by dispossession at the regional scale in the Washington Metro area and global patterns.
Using a convergence model for national protest events, consistently raising the question of white skin privilege, and challenging white supremacy by using white privilege against itself would be one way that predominantly white movements could concretely support the struggle for national liberation at home and abroad. Taking risks, structuring protest along confrontational lines and creative use of media are critical ways to develop tactical agility in a fast changing and unstable political situation.
This networked structure and format has the advantage of lower costs, greater involvement, and more media for the buck-since unpredictable chaotic events are inherently newsworthy. The expenses incurred by the authorities are extremely high, their use of force lowers the legitimacy of the state. By claiming of public representative space the movements create conditions for mass political education in a popular education sort of way.
The most expensive convergence we have done in DC only cost 100K. Even when politically isolated, with only 6000 people and a budget of a few thousand dollars, activists were able to change the rules for arrest procedures after the mass arrests during the people`s strike, several years ago.
I really think the major left and anti-war outfits who dominate the landscape these days are locked into old thinking about organizing demonstrations, have an out-moded view of political economy, and fail to understand scalar effects or connectivity. Lefebvre, Debord, Deluse and Guattari, Soja, need to be read and studied when thinking about post modern political interventions in a media saturated urban environment.