Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster produced by the British
government in 1939 in preparation for World
War II. The poster was intended to raise the morale of the British public, threatened with widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities. As the popularity of the poster in various media has grown, innumerable parodies, imitations and co-optations have also appeared, making it a notable
meme. Messages range from the cute to the overtly political, typically with references to other aspects of popular culture.
A
black bloc is a tactic used by anti-capitalist protesters who wear black clothing, ski masks, scarves, sunglasses, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing and face-protecting items. The clothing is used to conceal wearers' identities and hinder criminal prosecution by making it difficult to distinguish between participants. It is also used to protect their faces and eyes from pepper spray, which is used by police during protests or civil unrest. The tactic allows the group to appear as one large unified mass.
Black bloc participants are often associated with
anarchism,
anarcho-communism,
communism, libertarian
socialism, antifascism, or the anti-
globalization movement.
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The tactic was developed in the 1980s in the European autonomist movement's protests against squatter evictions,
nuclear power, and restrictions on abortion, as well as other influences. Black blocs gained broader media attention outside
Europe during the 1999 Seattle WTO protests when a
black bloc damaged property of various
multinationals.
Diversity of tactics is a phenomenon wherein a social movement makes periodic use of force for disruptive or defensive purposes, stepping beyond the limits of
nonviolence, but also stopping short of total militarization. It also refers to the theory which asserts this to be the most effective strategy of
civil disobedience for social change.
Diversity of tactics may promote
nonviolent tactics, or armed
resistance, or a range of methods in between, depending on the level of
repression the political movement is facing.
Printed in USA
