Midwest Action Network

I spent this past weekend at the Great Lakes Anarchist Gathering in Toledo, Ohio. It was the third time I'd been to this annual event, which means that I've attended every year since the inception of it's current incarnation.

By most measures this particular conference differed very little from those of year's prior. The discussions and workshops covered mostly familiar territory, the venue was sufficiently uncomfortable to prove that the organizers were in appropriately dismal financial situations and the night life was every bit as loud and alcohol fueled as one would come to expect from past participation. Oh, and things got off to a laudably late start.

But, for me, something this year seemed different.

Permeating every diatribe, discussion, activity and recess was a newfound sense of familiarity. The whole room had the vibe of being one big house meeting, switching out chore lists and gardening plans for protest organizing and, well, gardening plans. It was the kind of intangible that had never stood out in my mind as a specific goal for such a gathering, but, once realized, immediately became what I felt to be our biggest success to date.

The weekend's activities started about an hour and a half late. A couple of groups from out of town were running behind schedule, and we collectively opted to wait for their participation in our opening discussion on regional networking. That particular discussion, slated for two hours, could easily have taken up two days on it's own. Proposals ranged from detailed charters outlining regional assemblies and working groups to suggestions that we simply exchange e-mails and everything in between as we debated the merits of various organizational models. In the end we reached consensus only on continuing the discussion in months to come.

Throughout the rest of the day we worked on getting hyped up and planning for the upcoming Republican National Convention (thanks to the RNC Welcoming Committee, some of the hardest working organizers in the country right now), learned how to not get beaten up and arrested, practiced our urban ninja skills, and got some great information on community gardening and local food sustainability.

Then it was party time. Oh, I should add that this event was taking place in Toledo's Old West end, a sort of low-income/arts/elderly queer community that sprang up in the abandoned mansions of the city's 1960s white-flight, during the Old West End Festival, which is basically a huge party sort of akin to a Thanksgiving celebration to show appreciation for all of the terrified old rich people leaving us their beautiful neighborhood. So, needless to say, there was partying and excitement late into the night. Except for me. I just wanted to go home and get some sleep.

Astoundingly, and leaving me no less surprised than if people had shown up with zebra heads, nearly everyone managed to make it back to the conference on time the next morning. To keep things in balance we would, however, manage to progressively fall behind schedule as the day went on.

The crew from Minneapolis got things started by filling us in on the details of the Democratic National Convention, which our more westerly comrades hope to shut down a couple of days before we vanquish the RNC in the Twin Cities. A lively discussion on women's health that expanded to include discussion of gender and inter-group dynamics followed, preceding a visual presentation on the history of North American anarchism. At this point we had wound up more than an hour off schedule. Next, a film maker from Buffalo screened an original documentary he had made about Food Not Bombs and discussed a bit about radical film history and theory. As those with their names on the rental space for the conference nervously watched the clock we hurried into a discussion on the continuing struggle of those imprisoned or wanted for their involvement in Toledo's historic October 15th Uprising. Midway through the discussion the room began coming down around us like a movie set, as the organizers continued their race against the clock. The dialogue continued informally as we moved outside to engage in a street medic training workshop, which would be the final scheduled activity for the day.

Over the last several years the members of the Midwest Action Network, as the participants of the GLAG have come to be known, have communicated online, organized over the phone, met up at regional and national actions and protests and, in a very organic way, become increasingly familiar with one another. I feel comfortable calling a lot of these folks by their first names, not out of courtesy or as a memorization technique, but simply because they've become my friends. And when we're done training for the revolution, I feel totally comfortable sitting on the porch and chatting about bad movies over dumpstered bread and fresh spinach.

It's would be easy to come away from these types of gatherings and deride the lack of tangible, concrete changes or solutions, to ponder whether it was worth the time or the gas money. But at least in my case, and perhaps this isn't the same for everybody, the simple feeling of community, the creation of community is what these conferences and networks are all about. These are people that over the course of the past few years I've laughed with and fought side-by-side with in the streets. And the chance to spend time getting to know and learn with them is something I'll gladly spend a few bucks and a couple of days on any time I get the chance.