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In addition to the eight-hour workday, anarchists are responsible for Planned Parenthood, Graeber noted. From the 1870s to World War I, anarchism was the main revolutionary movement. After the war and Russian Revolution, “suddenly Marxism seemed a lot more realistic,” Graeber said. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, Soviet communist fell soon after and anarchism suddenly started to see a resurgence. Anti-globalization became one of its main causes.
“As soon as we have a world of peace, anarchism pops right back,” noted Graeber, himself an anarchist. “Most pacifists are anarchists. Gandhi is halfway to being an anarchist. Most Americans are halfway to being anarchists in their hearts. Most Americans don’t really like politicians, think that they’re corrupt and lining their pockets.
“We want to annoy [the powers that be] a lot and make their lives difficult,” he continued. “Events like Seattle, everyone talks about a few windows broken. But they perfected effective methods of nonviolent civil disobedience that shut down a major conference. All the people who would have been Marxists 20 years ago are anarchists. This is the new revolutionary movement — and governments really take it personally.”
So what exactly would an anarchist America look like?
“It wouldn’t be the United States of America,” Graeber said. “It would be an interlocking confederacy. It would be all sorts of things, groups of professionals and syndicates — people might belong to seven or eight.”
What if a foreign power decided to attack?
“It would be harder to conquer a noncentralized country,” Graeber contended, “because you’ve got to do every single community or town out there.”
The No Police State Coalition, a group that has been holding regular speak-outs in Union Sq. for more than a year, was listed by the Daily News among “potentially violent groups identified by the N.Y.P.D.” “Fringe group of anarchists, suspected of planning to spark violence,” the News said of the coalition. During its segment on potentially violent anarchists, “Nightline” showed photos of four of its members, Geoffrey Blank, Joel Meyers, Dennis Griggs and Bob “Loanshark Bob” Marion.
“I’m not an anarchist at all. I consider myself a socialist,” said coalition co-founder Blank, 30. “I think government isn’t inherently bad, it’s who controls the government.” Blank said he is neither a pacifist, in that he will defend himself if attacked. He and his cohorts use an amplified megaphone — but without a permit — three times a week at Union Sq., holding forth on a variety of topics.
“When the Daily News story broke, I was shocked, but not surprised,” he said.
Blank was arrested a few days before and once during the R.N.C. “The goal was to get me off the streets,” he said. “The first time, I hadn’t even used the bullhorn for 15 or 20 minutes. Someone else was using it.
Blank, who lives in Brooklyn, said he was followed by police fairly constantly for two or three weeks before the convention.
“They would ring my bell at night,” he said. “My friend told me they were checking to see if I was home.”
Meyers is a hardcore East Village Marxist, Griggs believes U.S. presidents are descended from the English royal family and Hitler and Marion has affiliated with neo-Nazis and espouses a theory of “povercide” — that the poor are being killed through poverty — to all who will listen. Marion recently won a settlement from the city for being locked up in Bellevue and injected with tranquilizers after he went on a povercide rant when his appointment for a circumcision was cancelled.
However,John Penley, an East Village activist, who has observed Meyers and Marionaround Tompkins Sq. for years said they are “more loudmouths than anything.” But one source said Blank is quite capable of “starting a riot.”
“This was a whole planned propaganda strategy by the Police Department just to scare people away, to keep numbers down and demonize protesters,” Penley said, “to justify the massive violation of people’s rights during the convention.”
So what do local elected officials think of anarchists’ goal of eliminating all government? Councilmember Margarita Lopez, for one, said she’s not sure it would work.
“It’s a little difficult to run business without some structure,” she said. “The word ‘anarchy’ comes to mind…. It’s a wonderful idea.”
On second thought, Lopez said, “It looks like the Republican Party — less government, power to the people; though at the same time Bush is the same guy who says you don’t have the right to choose or who you can marry…. I just realized,” she said, “perhaps the president is an anarchist.”