Direkte Aktion

a really interesting book, split into a couple of sections that could probably serve to be their own theses! it's quirky, but is interested in shining a light into the counter-globalization movement of the early oughts, and it comes out with some really interesting insights!

the first half is an account of the planning leading up to 3rd Summit of the Americas protest in Quebec City, and the ethnographic approach makes it a dizzying tour of the nuts and bolts of consensus decision-making, activist problem solving (how do we cross a border without dealing with border security?), and acceptable or interesting tactics. it's about as much of a page-turner as an ethnography can be, and ends with firsthand accounts of the actual protest, which i haven't read much of.

the second half is a little more undirected, kind of interested in answering questions that wouldn't be satisfied by the ethnography. there's a pretty good set of definitions about anarchism, brief discussions about green anarchism and anarchoprimitivism, and how they fit into the broader movement. there's a brief history of leftist organizing since the new left in the late 60's (a sketch), and some discussion about race/class/gender dynamics inside the movements at the time. i don't think Graeber is a particularly reliable source for how pronounced discussions or issues around privilege were, but i do think he illustrates the character of those discussions.

there's a pretty admirable attempt to talk about the natural tension between direct action being acting for yourself without asking for any permission from the state and the necessary optical plays that are involved in large direct actions requiring at least the media to reach other people.

there are a scattering of other questions: "what do cops do to us during protests and why?" "why do we like puppets so much?" "why do cops hate puppets?" "how do we orient ourselves towards the media?" "what are the poetics of media?"