A-Infos (en) US, North Carolina: Cops Attack Funeral for Capitalism, Partygoers Stage Successful Defense

It was supposed to be a party. That really is what we wanted, we promise. It was 
supposed to be a magnificent, celebratory funeral for capitalism, inviting our 
small town to bury the past and celebrate the values of mutual aid, survival, 
and resistance that radicals (and many, many others) here put into practice. For 
a month over a dozen anarchists in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, North Carolina 
distributed almost 2,000 anti-capitalist stickers, handbills, and glossy 
party-flyers, built a piñata, two mobile sound systems, a temporary radio 
station, and a beautiful coffin and dummy for capitalism to rest in, and 
generally built the hype. The stage was set, but the night of Friday, November 
21st was a cold one.

Really cold. Despite the massive publicity explaining the event, only about 100 
people showed up in the sub-freezing weather for the (pre-mortem) funeral and 
dance party. Nevertheless, after about 20
minutes of dancing on the sidewalk to coordinated boomboxes and handing out free 
anti Wall St. buttons and festive skeleton masks, we
decided to hit the streets. A huge, cardboard, 8ft. by 3ft. painted, “boombox” 
on wheels, containing a mobile sound system, rolled up, and the street party began.

There was Billy Idol, and Dead Prez, and other songs to dance to, as folks 
danced along the main drag and handed out free buttons and
anti-capitalist “welcome to the party” cards to passersby. As we approached the 
main intersection in our one horse town, a shopping
cart pulling a huge black coffin with “capitalism” written on the side joined 
the procession. At that crucial moment, however, things started to get hairy - a 
cop car pulled up with lights blaring.

The police in our town used to be fairly hands off when it came to protests, a 
part of the general liberal façade of Chapel Hill. So we had hoped to occupy 
that intersection for as long as possible, as has usually been possible in the 
past. We still, after all, had to smash the money piñata, read out the public 
death sentence for capitalism, and draw and quarter the capitalist effigy. But 
the effigy was to remain intact, as the pig with no further warning stopped his 
car, got out, and charged those of us in the back pushing the sound system.

Now, this crazy fool still didn’t have any backup, and we don’t take kindly in 
the South to such hasty behavior. We like to take it slow. But he started trying 
to drag the 24 sq.ft. sound system onto the sidewalk, all by his lonesome, and 
some other folks pulled back. Then the pig decided to go for one of us, and 
tried to strangle one comrade by his scarf, while screaming, “You’re going to 
jail! You’re goin’ to jail!” Ahh, but there were more of us than him, and our 
friend did not go to jail. Nor did any of the half dozen other folks attacked 
after him as more pigs showed up. The screams were loud, and the mace they 
sprayed was intense, but we held our own! One pig was overheard yelling, “Jesus, 
everytime we grab one six more charge us and pull them away!” It was not until 
one comrade dancing apart from the group was surrounded, tackled, and pushed 
into a waiting squad car that an arrest occurred.

By a miracle of ninja-like stealth and quick cooperation, the entire sound 
system was saved. More “welcome to the party” cards were handed out to people on 
the street watching, as the many masked, scarved, and costumed partygoers 
quickly disappeared. Unfortunately, the pigs did manage to steal our coffin and 
effigy. They could be seen blocking traffic, surrounding the coffin with dumb 
and confused looks, as they tried to figure out how to remove the huge object. 
(Eventually, the capitalism coffin was balanced on top of a squad car and slowly 
driven away. If we can find a picture of this incident, we’ll be sure to post 
it, as this will surely go down as one of the more hilarious sights in recent 
anarchist history.) In the process, one pig declared his utter disgust at “these 
anti-capitalists.” Later in the night, a different “good cop” approached a group 
of students and threatened, “You know, a lot of us don’t agree with what y’all 
stand for, and there was a lot of assaulting police officers going on tonight, 
and that’s no joke, so y’all better disperse right now or we’re going to arrest 
all of you.”

Soon after the dispersal, fifty of us met at a nearby location to discuss the 
successes and failures of the event, chat about future events and changing 
police strategies, celebrate the tremendous spiritual and physical solidarity we 
showed each other in the streets, and raise the bail money for our one kidnapped 
comrade. We raised the money in an hour, and our local anarchist lawyer (Wahoo! 
Finally, an anarchist lawyer!) bailed him out. He’s charged with five 
misdemeanors, one of which is misdemeanor assaulting a government official, 
though it carries little time if convicted and is a dubious charge at best. We 
are working on legal representation and a legal support committee, so we are in 
high hopes. A fundraising bake-off, dance party and show is scheduled in 
December, where we hope to raise money for future legal defense and finally get 
to smash this piñata and read this death sentence. Future street parties will 
surely occur, albeit in warmer times, so stay tuned.

A picture of the glossy flyer will be added soon, in the hopes that the text or 
idea could be useful for others planning similar events. We see this not as a 
onetime event but as part of a continuum in Carrboro/Chapel Hill of combining 
large-scale, participatory, diverse mutual aid projects like our really free 
markets, with specifically anarchist street actions and propaganda. This has 
certainly upped the ante for us, despite the short-lived nature of the party 
itself. Perhaps more important than handing out things to random 
street-partygoers, or distributing a thousand anti-capitalist invitations, we 
left feeling more confident of our abilities and loyalties to one another in the 
street.

In time to the revolutionary beats.

One member of the ad hoc reclaim the party collective
Reclaim the streets, reclaim your lives!

PS...A pdf. of the flyer can be viewed at http://www.savefile.com/files/1903691 
and http://www.savefile.com/files/1903692
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