Infiltrators.

• Author: Seavey, Todd

The former Black Panther Party member started his talk by saying, "All power to the People." The members of the non-hierarchical leftist discussion circle sat in polite silence. But the Panther raised his eyebrows as if someone had committed a faux pas and repeated, slowly, "All power to the People." The group chanted, "All power to the People."

"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I first went to visit the Manhattan performance/discussion space ABC No Rio, but that is in no way the fault of the Rio organizers. I was misinformed by anarchists.

It began with a visit to the New York Libertarian Book Club's annual anarchist forum. For readers who are not interested in political theory: The libertarians are the ones who wear ties and have books with Adam Smith on the cover; the anarchists are the ones who wear black and have books with snapping chains and rioting workers on the cover. A gathering of the "anarchist community" was announced for a few weeks later, to be held in the space called ABC No Rio.

Figuring an anarchist mixer was likely to include a lot of punker women who listen to the Sex Pistols, I decided to go. Unfortunately, the anarchists failed to get organized (insert joke here) because the anarchist setting up the event had a conflict with his Industrial Workers of the World meeting.

I heard about the schedule conflict from one of the ABC No Rio managers (not an anarchist herself) when I went there. She explained that the real goal of the anarchist who had planned the gathering--formerly known as Dan Tranquility but now just called Dan--is to turn the skinhead movement in a Red-anarchist direction instead of a fascist-racist direction, which led me to wonder what all the skinheads really have in common anyway. "Is it just the haircuts?" I asked. "There are the boots, too," I was told--and a loyalty to the working class, supposedly.

I decided to come back again sometime, and the next meeting--of the leftist regulars, not anarchists--was a discussion of the Philadelphia radical group MOVE, whose plight resembled the Branch Davidians'. Living in a cult-like group, they claimed they wanted to be left alone with their guns and their rhetoric, but they were eventually bulldozed and later bombed by Philadelphia police. Now some former Black Panthers, among others, are trying to stop the execution of an imprisoned MOVE member.

I commented to the Rio manager that greater respect...