While the anti-Olympics convergence and the militant actions in Vancouver have been celebrated as successes by local anarchist organizers and their comrades around the world, two so-called anarchists from Ontario's 'Common Cause' have joined the corporate media, police, and IOC in publicly condemning the black bloc. The traitors names are Mick Sweetman and Alex Dicenau, and they have a history of publicly insulting other anarchists, dominating Common Cause's discourse with their own opinions, and even kicking people out of Common Cause for not adhering to their 'party line'.

After dedicating much of my time and resources into opening a new branch of Common Cause in London in the hopes of seeing it grow into a larger more effective force for spreading anarchism in South-Western Ontario, the higher-ups in this so-called non-hierarchical organization decided to strip me of membership in their euro-centric, academic, male-dominated anarchist club. The reason they cited for kicking me out was my refusal to participate in the extreme sectarianism of denouncing any and all perspectives that were not platformist. They told me I could not support any anarchist projects other than platformist ones and insisted that I break my ties with other non-platformist groups; specifically Crimethinc.

Once this authoritarianism and aggressive sectarianism revealed itself, I no longer wanted to be a member of Common Cause and I distanced myself from it. It seemed ironic that an organization which preaches 'Mass Movement' incessantly would work so hard to fracture the anarchist movement. Even more ironic would be that I would get expelled from Common Cause for my efforts to building a mass anarchist movement that is inclusive to the whole anarchist family and that does not use patronizing and insulting language like 'our misguided cousins' and 'idiots' to describe our comrades.

Still, I did not publicly criticize Common Cause, as I considered them an essential institution in my region and considered many members to be true comrades. But now that two of it's most influential members are condemning the 'Heart Attack Black Bloc' and insulting other anarchists including my most solid comrades I can no longer stay silent. In a funny twist of events, Dicenau and Sweetman are now claiming to be the victims of a 'sectarian attack' after Alex Hundert responded to them publicly and called them on their shit. Now their saying it is wrong to engage in sectarian attacks on other anarchists even though they continue to do so themselves.

Sweetman publicly called the anarchists in Vancouver 'idiots' while parroting the corporate media's dominant narrative. Dicenau took it even further with attacks such as "crimethink-inspired ignorant sectarian drivel' 'embarrassing anarchist cousins' and 'fringe of the fringe'. This type of language implies that any anarchist who has been inspired by crimethinc is ignorant, that all anarchists who do not share his beliefs are embarrassing to the anarchist movement, and that only platformists are involved in mass movements while the rest of us are the fringe of the fringe. How much more sectarian could he possibly get?

In any case, when it comes to Olympics resistance Sweetman and Dicenau should have minded their own business from the start and kept their mouths shut. Neither of them did anything to build a mass movement against the Olympics while most of the participants in the black bloc spent years building that movement. And while none of the organizations involved in this mass movement have denounced the black bloc (not even liberals like the Council of Canadians!), these two have chosen to publicly spit in our faces. How dare they condemn our tactics when their tactic for resisting the Olympics was to do NOTHING AT ALL!

It is in the best interest of Common Cause as a whole to think very carefully about the way their members are alienating and attacking other anarchists at this critical time in Ontario with the G20 literally right around the corner. If Common Cause's number one priority right now is to undermine and attack other anarchists in order to appease liberal celebrity Judy Rebick (so that she'll fund their book tour), as Alex Dicenau is suggesting, then Common Cause is a lost cause.

Frank Lopez, submedia host and co-founder of Vancouver's Media Co-op declared that "one of the most important things that came out of the convergence was seeing who our allies are and who our allies aren't". It is now painfully clear that Mick Sweetman and Alex Dicenau are not allies of the Olympic Resistance Movement, the indigenous sovereignty movement, or even the broader anarchist movement. It's up to the rest of Common Cause's members to decide how to handle this situation but at this moment Sweetman and Dicenau are jeopardizing Common Cause's future as a viable anarchist organization.

Mick's first article denoucing us: http://linchpin.ca/English/We-need-ma...black-bloc

Alex Hundert's Response to Judy Rebick and Mick Sweetman: http://alexhundert.wordpress.com/2010...dy-rebick/

Alex Dicenau suggesting alienating other anarchists in order to get money from liberal celebrity Judy Rebick.

DIRECT QUOTE:

"I'm thinking here of his attack on Judy Rebick.
BTW, I was thinking that what is at stake here for us is shown pretty clear by the fact that at the same time AlexH is personally critiquing Rebick, we're asking for her financial support for the Black Flame tour. I know we don't have a position here as an organization, but in my opinion, we do need to show an alternative anarchism in moments like this even if we alienate some of our anarchist cousins."

www.news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2010030904504895/