Reclaim the Streets

June 18 1999:
10,000 plus activists and revelers in London take to the streets to protest the meeting of the G7, which is meeting in Cologne, Germany. Where 40,000 activists have taken to the streets and the subways. In one action, in Cologne, 150 activists stage a "laugh in," to draw attention to the absurdity of the goals of the G7 conference. In London the worst police violence the city has seen in 50 years occurs and millions in property damage is inflicted on the financial district. Massive street demonstrations take place all over the world in solidarity. All told 76 actions take place in 43 countries around the world. In New York 600 people throw a roving street party in front of and all around the New York Stock Exchange.

As we walked through block after block of bigger than life brighter than bright dazzlement, billboard's hawking everything from socially-sanctified blood-sport to corporate-sponsored "Truth" to pop-culture Cool, suspicion grew to conviction that this should be our next arena for symbolic subversion. It was here, on Good Morning America Way, at 43rd Street and Broadway that we would make our next stand. Where we would raise the tripod and play the music that would set free our collective energies of creative resistance, and we would give gifts, join hands, sing and dance in free celebration. The logic and beauty of the choice was manifest, as clear as the Disney store's massive Mickey billboard and MTV's giddy crowds of teenagers waiting to catch a glimpse of the latest pitchman for "alternative" style.

Flyer text from RTS.NYC:
"Around the world a movement is building. An international tribe of insurrectionists has begun to shake off the foundations of authority and control. Massive sound systems, pirate radio raves, puppets, drummers, thousands of dancing feet are shaking off the chains of power. On November 26th, in concert with others in Seattle, in London, in Geneva, in Toronto, in ST. Louis, and in NEW YORK will DANCE where the profiteers and their puppet police states tell us we should not. As finance ministers and corporate bureaucrats meet in Seattle on November 30th under the banner of the World Trade Organization to continue their assault on the environment, labor, and human rights, thousands of students, farmers, environmentalists, and labor activists will initiate a massive street protest to SHUT THEM DOWN!

April 16 2000:
We formed our parade and headed down Pennsylvania Avenue, black-bloc in tow, "IMF=loan shark" banner raised high, marching band providing high spirit and rhythm. We cut over on L,and then down to K St, where we moved east. No cops so far. It's hard for me to remember when we first saw the blockades, but I think it was on 20th Street as we were heading south towards the World Bank building, near Pennsylvania Avenue. A surge of excitement, fear, pride and surprise (that we'd made it this far) surged through our crowd: Home at last! We lined up in front of the hundred or so demonstrators who were blocking off the intersection and we put on our best show, singing a modified version of Mack the Knife and doing our kick-line. It all went off as planned: Seventy-five people dressed in tuxedoes and shark-fin hats providing spectacle and song for the masses and the media. We provided the locked-down crew with water, lollipops, snacks, and moved on to the next and the next, our numbers swelling and our confidence rising with each liberated city block.

Art Towards an End to Enclosure by: Mark W. Read
May 16 1998 Birmingham, England: As the G7 (2) nations begin their annual meeting, eight thousand take to the street in a Reclaim the Streets! Festival of Resistance, with banners, puppets, and a massive sound system creating a rave on the street. Solidarity actions take place in 21countries around the world. The meeting is nearly shut down. November 30th 1999: Over 50,000 people in Seattle shut down the meeting of the WTO and cause an international crisis in the management of the global economy. Meanwhile, in 23 countries around the world more than 200,000 people stage 42 separate actions in solidarity, during the course of the week on this Global Day of Action. In NYC 700 revelers shut down Times Square using a 30 foot tall tripod and a 5,000 watt stereo system. "Contemplate an art which re-creates the goal of the sorcerer: changing the structure of reality by the manipulation of living symbols (in this case the images we've been "given" by the organizers of this salon- murder, war, famine, and greed). Contemplate aesthetic actions which possess some of the resonance of terrorism (or "cruelty", as Artaud put it) aimed at destruction of abstractions rather than people, at liberation rather than power, pleasure rather than profit, joy rather than fear. 'poetic terrorism." - Hakim Bey "By saying we are not an avant-garde and that there is no avant-garde... the question then becomes... where and when is the world of unmediated creativity? I believe, or would at least like to propose, that the only solution to the "suppression and realization" of art lies in the emergence of the TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone). In the TAZ art as a commodity will simply become impossible; it will instead be a condition of life. The TAZ is an art of life in continual rising up, wild but gentle- a seducer not a rapist, a smuggler rather than a bloody pirate, a dancer not an eschatologist." - Hakim Bey May 1 2000 Worldwide solidarity actions to Reclaim Mayday occur, targeting financial institutions and drawing connections between labor and the environment as both pagans and proletariat join in celebration. The insurrection is ongoing.						June 18 1999: 10,000 plus activists and revelers in London take to the streets to protest the meeting of the G7, which is meeting in Cologne, Germany. Where 40,000 activists have taken to the streets and the subways. In one action, in Cologne, 150 activists stage a "laugh in," to draw attention to the absurdity of the goals of the G7 conference. In London the worst police violence the city has seen in 50 years occurs and millions in property damage is inflicted on the financial district. Massive street demonstrations take place all over the world in solidarity. All told 76 actions take place in 43 countries around the world. In New York 600 people throw a roving street party in front of and all around the New York Stock Exchange. As we walked through block after block of bigger than life brighter than bright dazzlement, billboard's hawking everything from socially-sanctified blood-sport to corporate-sponsored "Truth" to pop-culture Cool, suspicion grew to conviction that this should be our next arena for symbolic subversion. It was here, on Good Morning America Way, at 43rd Street and Broadway that we would make our next stand. Where we would raise the tripod and play the music that would set free our collective energies of creative resistance, and we would give gifts, join hands, sing and dance in free celebration. The logic and beauty of the choice was manifest, as clear as the Disney store's massive Mickey billboard and MTV's giddy crowds of teenagers waiting to catch a glimpse of the latest pitchman for "alternative" style. Flyer text from RTS.NYC: "Around the world a movement is building. An international tribe of insurrectionists has begun to shake off the foundations of authority and control. Massive sound systems, pirate radio raves, puppets, drummers, thousands of dancing feet are shaking off the chains of power. On November 26th, in concert with others in Seattle, in London, in Geneva, in Toronto, in ST. Louis, and in NEW YORK will DANCE where the profiteers and their puppet police states tell us we should not. As finance ministers and corporate bureaucrats meet in Seattle on November 30th under the banner of the World Trade Organization to continue their assault on the environment, labor, and human rights, thousands of students, farmers, environmentalists, and labor activists will initiate a massive street protest to SHUT THEM DOWN! April 16 2000: We formed our parade and headed down Pennsylvania Avenue, black-bloc in tow, "IMF=loan shark" banner raised high, marching band providing high spirit and rhythm. We cut over on L,and then down to K St, where we moved east. No cops so far. It's hard for me to remember when we first saw the blockades, but I think it was on 20th Street as we were heading south towards the World Bank building, near Pennsylvania Avenue. A surge of excitement, fear, pride and surprise (that we'd made it this far) surged through our crowd: Home at last! We lined up in front of the hundred or so demonstrators who were blocking off the intersection and we put on our best show, singing a modified version of Mack the Knife and doing our kick-line. It all went off as planned: Seventy-five people dressed in tuxedoes and shark-fin hats providing spectacle and song for the masses and the media. We provided the locked-down crew with water, lollipops, snacks, and moved on to the next and the next, our numbers swelling and our confidence rising with each liberated city block.