‘We who believe in freedom cannot rest. . . .’ It’s a line from
a Sweet Honey in the Rock song, and we’re singing it sometime
around 1 a.m. to torment poor Erik, who is trying to sleep in the
room off the dining room where six of the twenty-five people
sharing this house are gathered. Eileen and Rodrigo and Meddle are
translating press releases into Spanish, Rio and I are reviewing my
explanations of gray water and worm composting, and Andy is reading
Tarot cards in his Hawaiian shirt. It’s a little like a late-night
session before finals in the dorm.
‘I wish I only had a bad grade instead of a busted head to
fear,’ Meddle says, with his cheerful smile. I really appreciate
people who can be consistently cheerful in a quiet way on four or
five hours of sleep.
It’s been a long day. It starts with a quiet morning doing some
writing and having another technical battle with my e-mail, then
goes on to a six-hour marathon direct action meeting. Around 5 we
take a break and have enchiladas and ceviche at the caf? down the
street. Then back for more discussion and refinement. Some very
beautiful young women have come in and spend a lot of the meeting
stretching and doing yoga and contact improv in the background.
Several of them turn out to be Pagans, and we all go out for a
quick beer and guacamole and talk about magic and ritual for half
an hour. They bring Sean from Australia, with whom I’ve had a long
correspondence on e-mail. It’s good to meet him in person. We start
to plan rituals and magical activism trainings, and it’s a very
bright interval in the day.
Some of us go back to the convergence center to have a long
house meeting, mostly devoted to the question of how many more
people we intend to pack into this house. The bathrooms are getting
grungy. No one has any time to clean. It’s hard enough just to keep
ourselves in water and toilet paper and a little bit of food.
The Indymedia Center is showing the video of the World Economic
Forum demonstration from two years ago, and I stand watching in
grim fascination as the cops brutally beat people up on screen. I’m
not sure if this is the best thing to show right before the action,
or not. But it’s real, and in some sense it makes what we’re facing
comprehensible, not so unknown. We’re thinking hard in the action
meetings about how to limit potential police violence, how to set a
tone that doesn’t provoke it. But we also know quite well that if
we are effective, our very success may well be met with violence —
whatever tone we set.
We’re tired. We head home for our late-night homework session.
The cards look good tonight, with the Sun at the center of the
reading. And in spite of what the song says, we need to get some
sleep.
To Make a Tax-deductable donation, send a check
to:
Daughters/Sisters Project
(Make check out to Daughters/Sisters, earmark it RANT)
PO Box 4492
Rolling Bay, WA 98061
EIN: 91-188-5041A
All non-tax deductable contributions can be sent directly
to:
RANT, 1405 Hillmont St., Austin, TX 78704
Please specify in the memo field how you want your money used for
the WTO Ministerial mobilization. ie. buses, permaculture project,
convergence space, general.
