Long before the United States was even a concept, colonial Americans had been expressing their desires for revolutionary changes in their society through the only means available to them: rioting. Many people now counted among our nation's founding fathers argued for years against the violence employed by the American workers - wage laborers, slaves, ex-slaves and seamen - to literally fight against unjust laws and business practices (1). In the end, conservatives like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton threw in their lot with the violent masses they had previously denounced as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, Negroes and mulattos" (2). It's not that the conservatives had a change of heart, they merely recognized the impossibility of stopping the people's urges for freedom in their world. The aristocracy felt a need to try to control and suppress the peoples' will to fight for liberty, or they ran the risk of being swept aside by the revolutionary masses. It was not by coincidence that the first action of the United States Army was to put down the insurrectionary forces of the Continental Army which had freed the colonies from British rule (3).

Americans have yet to lose that fighting spirit, as evidenced by the battle against the forces of capital in Seattle during the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference late last year. While peaceful protesters were demonstrating once again their ability to absorb kicks, truncheon blows, pain compliance holds and pepper spray, hundreds of other people decided to go on the offensive and physically attack the institutions directly responsible for the exploitation of people in impoverished communities.

Horrified by the so-called violence of the insurgents, the liberals and "professional activists" rushed to the defense of McDonald's and Nike. Unlike the conservative elements of the American revolution, the conservative elements of the WTO protests were unable to stem, contain or otherwise control the spirited rebels in the streets. So, in the aftermath of the people's victory in Seattle (4), the conservatives have lined up to denounce the jubilant victors.

There are criticisms to be made about the tactical value of rioting to achieve revolutionary goals. After all, the moment passed, the damage was repaired and business now continues as usual. Of course, this argument can be applied to any protest. In order to affect real change, a movement must sustain the attack until the social order breaks down completely.

Unfortunately, this sort of willful non-compliance with the existing order has dire consequences. As Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing with demand, it never has and it never will."

Here in the U.S., most people live in a degree of material comfort very few people in less developed countries experience. Few Americans are willing to jeopardize their comfortable lifestyles by fighting against the powerful forces that maintain it. So those who are - in theory - oppose the destruction of the natural world, the slaughter of animals, the exploitation of impoverished communities, people in distant lands and the environment. When riding upon other people's backs like they would animals, the liberal consumer will do anything to ease the suffering of those beneath them except get off their backs.

Social and environmental conditions have reached such a wretched state that the first world consumers are beginning to not just question their roles as consumers, but to reject and actually fight against these roles. The insurgent people in the streets in Seattle weren't fighting against Starbucks or Nike or US Bank or event he WTO. They were expressing their outrage that entire families have to work picking coffee beans or thy all go hungry, that young girls are sold into slavery to work in Indonesian shoe factories and that wealthy corporations, banks and governments want to find ways to become more profitable, regardless of the human and environmental consequences.

The street fighters in Seattle tasted a bit of what real power is like. For a time, they owned the center of a major American city and they determined that they would not allow business to continue as usual. Now that they've tasted their own power, they'll hunger for more. Will there be more continuous pressure against suicidal consumerism until it collapses?

Perhaps as important as the actual fighting will be how the so-called traditional opposition will react to it. Will they, as they did in Seattle, jump to the defense of Nike? Will they climb down from their positions of privilege, or must they go down kicking and screaming, desperately clinging to their car keys and cell phones?

It is not even ironic that many of these same people who denounce property destruction in American cities also claim to support the Zapatistas and other armed insurgents… abroad. It is not ironic: it's imperialistic and racist to sit back in a comfy chair and let other people provide your cheap food, clothing , fuel and electronic gadgets for you, while cynically encouraging them if they rebel against their circumstances (5).

Just as rioting spread through the Americas until colonialism was swept aside by the revolutionary urgings of the many, varied people yearning for liberty, the continued uprising of the masses of indigent ex-consumers will one day break the stranglehold capitalism has on our world.

Footnotes: 1) Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Harvard Press, 1979). 2) John Adam's escription of the crowd fired upon by British soldiers commonly referred to as "the Boston Massacre." Adams was the defense attorney for the British captain who ordered his soldiers to shoot. See Hiller B. Zoebel, The Boston Massacre (Norton, 1970). 3) David P. Szatmary, Shay's Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection (Univ. of Mass. Press, 1980). 4) According to the Mayor of Washington, after the anti-WTO riots: "When you have to call in additional police forces from out of town and send in the National Guard, you're basically saying "the anarchists won!" 5) For a more complete discussion on the failure of pacifism as an instrument of social change and the difference between principle pacifist activity and cowardice dressed up in moralistic jargon, see Ward Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology (Arbeiter Ring Publishing).