bittersweet cynicism

Indeed, well where was I?

So the next day we woke up, tired from staying up till 3 watching riot porn and began to pack our stuff. We got a ride into Camp Rostock, the closest place to the city actions...

When we got there they were just starting a meeting, which we joined and it seemed like tons of shit was needing to get done. There were only like 30 people there at this point. There wasn't even drinkable water apart from the sparkling mineral water being sold at the bar. They had a bloody bar set up stocked with beer and constantly staffed, but they didn't have drinking water! So after the meeting I decided to go where people had said they needed help, while the others set up camp. I started going up to people asking what they needed help with and they looked at me strange and would usually send me looking for some tool. When I'd ask people where that tool was they would nonchalantly tell me they didn't know or care. As our camp started getting set up others in our brigade would join me in my quests, but they all ended the same way, us deciding that no such tool existed or was able to be found. It was sparatically raining throughout all of this, getting my feet soaked. Eventually we got the task to make rubbish bins for recycling and trash.. and decided to just do that ourselves with no more asking for info. We found pallets already being formed into crates and decided we'd finish those up and turn them into rubbish bins. Somewhere along the way a British woman named Ana joined us.

We spent most of the day making a rubbish bin, and decided we'd go to the meeting and maybe spend tomorrow doing something more than busy work. So we got to the meeting that night and it was the worst meeting I've ever been to bar none. Worse than the Cascadia meetings... worse than any of the various 'process meetings' i've been to. Worse even than the World Can't Wait meeting after they snitched us out. The facilitator stopped facilitating midway through the meeting. There was nobody taking stack, so people would just shout as loud as they could and whoever shouted loudest got heard. Women were interrupted more often than they were not interrupted. So throughout all of this I was remaining silent and curling up into a tighter and tighter ball, until I snapped, and I stood up, and I yelled that this meeting was fucking bullshit and every single one of them needed to just shut the fuck up for a minute. Then I explained stack to them and they asked if I would keep stack to show them. We continued the meeting with stack and it went much more smoothly, excepting once when they started talking over each other again and I had to again yell at them, telling them to shut the fuck up. I was wet and cold and aggravated. In all honesty I haven't a damn clue what was said at the meeting. I spoke once or twice about the meeting topics, and I think Seda spoke once. Vanc and Säed didn't speak, and it seemed to wholly be a failure.

We went back to our tent to find there had been a leak. There was a puddle in the tent but the spot I put my sleeping bag in was immune. I fell asleep to the slow humm of vanc and saed complaining.

The next day I started off by helping with one of the big structures that was being built. From there I seemed to be of little help so I went to make another rubbish bin with the other mckinley brigaders plus ana. We built another rubbish bin as we slowly realized that we were in the middle of a commie barrio. To explain, the 3 large camping spaces were being planned to be split into barrios for like-minded individuals and safer spaces for womyn, queers, and tranny folx, but some NGOs thought it would be a good idea to make their own barrios. So during this day we slowly recognized that everything from the tools that we borrowed, to the drinks we bought, to the building we built belonged to the commies. They had trucked in tons of rich commie dollars to make their camp the bougiest. Shießa commies. They controlled the means of production. Throughout that day porta-potties showed up in droves, till there were around a hundred. That was pretty weird. This day was the day we realized we were in the liberal and commie camp. The commies kept putting red flags on everything. Every building they built had a big red flag on it. Or a Che flag. Or a hammer and sickle... until more than half the camp was showing red flags. That evening we turned a trash bag into a huge black flag and hung it from our tent. We also put huge circle a's on our rubbish bins, which were fabulous fyi.

Later that night we formed a line to dig the water out of the puddles with buckets, and while we did that, the commie barrio built a second bar for the camp... a bar from which funds would be funneled into their organization.

I went to sleep that night, and was so feeling so bad about camp that I hardly woke up. I woke up briefly but I took two long naps that day. More and more people showed up, mostly commies, also liberals and ravers. The ravers are going to have a rave at that camp from saturday evening until monday evening. The ravers set up a huge disco ball and a huge stereo system that they played techno from. The commies were apparantly two groups and one set up another huge sound system to play other music from. They mostly played linkin park and gangsta rap. The two sound systems were approximately 30 yards from one another. The other commie camp set up a projector and a sound system to go with that. They played a german war movie late into the night while the ravers played techno and shined their disco ball and the other commie tent played christian rock.

The situation had reached critical suck.

The next day I was well rested and up to getting some work done around camp. I did some work at the greeting tent as people poured in, more than a person a minute this day. I did a lot of cooking in the cooking tent and did a security shift at the parking spaces, while the rest sat around the tent shießa-talking. The shit-talking is understandable but I didn't feel like it was making anything better. I was more into making my presence known and connecting with others like us. There were, after all, a few like us, just not many. When I came back to the tent they were discussing leaving camp early, in the next day or two after the action. That sounded good to me until it was discussed that we could leave sooner. Today, and get back to the convergence center, go to the first major action the next day, and then pick a new camp after that. We went to the train station and rode to the CC and more people piled into that camp. I wish those people luck. Which brings us to now. We only have one person's size of sleeping space here, so I'm not sure what we're going to do, but whatever it is, it will work better i.m.o.

Tomorrow is the first major action. Actions are split between an antifa demo against some nazis who are protesting the g8, and a more general anti-g8 anti-capitalism protest in the city. I'll tell you which one we went to after it's done, but in the meantime I'm curious as to which you think we would be most likely to go to.

Gute Nacht, Fruends!