Self-described anarchists were blamed for inciting the violence in Seattle at a 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in which 500 people were arrested and several businesses damaged. They have been accused by the police of throwing rocks or threatening officers with liquid substances at demonstrations against the Republican convention in Philadelphia in 2000 and at an economic summit meeting in Miami last year.

Now, as the Republican National Convention is about to begin in New York City, the police are bracing for the actions of this loosely aligned and often shadowy group of protesters, and consider them the great unknown factor in whether the demonstrations remain under control or veer toward violence and disorder.

The city is trying everything from giving protesters discount coupons to using an army of police officers to deter violent protests, and police officials said yesterday that they had identified about 60 people as militants, some of whom were arrested for violent acts in past protests.

In a show of force yesterday, the department rolled out its arsenal to show reporters the techniques it is using during convention week.

But even anarchists who are against violence are warning of trouble and admit that they are planning acts of civil disobedience, including blocking intersections, staging "chaos on Broadway'' when the delegates attend Broadway shows on Sunday night, holding a "die-in'' near Madison Square Garden, sneaking into parties and other functions and generally harassing the 4,853 delegates and alternate delegates.

"This is where much of the real business happens, the business of buying and selling our laws to the highest corporate bidder,'' said a message on an Internet discussion list on Tuesday that included the sites of several corporate parties planned during the convention. "Excellent targets for street actions! Please spread the word.''

Jamie Moran, the 30-year-old anarchist from Brooklyn who, with a few colleagues, operates the RNC Not Welcome Web site and discussion list, makes a point of casting himself as the moderate face of the movement. He calls police suggestions that they may be attacked "fear-mongering'' and has urged his fellow anarchists to cast off their dark clothing and body piercings in favor of more conventional attire, if only to blend in better.

Like many anarchists, he disavows violence against people. But things get murkier when it comes to property, particularly property belonging to perceived corporate enemies.

"I never cry over the destruction of corporate property,'' Mr. Moran said in an interview. But "that doesn't always mean it's strategic. It can be indiscriminate and un-strategic.''

Sarah Strombeck, 27, is one self-described anarchist who says she is fed up with the disruptive techniques of her colleagues. She said she was jailed for two weeks after being arrested during a demonstration at the 2000 Republican convention, and says protests have largely been ineffective.

"They cost the movement so much,'' Ms. Strombeck said. "People just get beat up. Some don't want to put the time and effort into community organizing'' advocating for better schools, health care and fair wages.

Part of the difficulty in discerning which ideas floated for disruptions are real and which are not is that the anarchists, a subculture that includes young people disaffected with political parties and graying adherents to a political philosophy at least a century old, are far from a monolithic group. They pride themselves on organizing in collectives and "affinity groups" that operate autonomously and make decisions by consensus, eschewing hierarchy or any whiff of commands from on high.

Chief John Timoney of the Miami police, whose officers scuffled with anarchists during a World Trade Organization meeting last year and in 2000 during the Republican convention when he headed the Philadelphia police, said they pose a number of challenges to the authorities. He said in many cases the violence can be attributed to a small, hardcore band that moves from city to city, instigating violence.

"These guys are pretty sophisticated and just wait for opportunities,'' said Chief Timoney, who as a ranking officer with the New York police confronted anarchist demonstrations during the 1992 Democratic convention. "They are going to look to provoke the cops. It's all a game.''

With an obscenity, he dismissed allegations that his officers needlessly roughed up demonstrators in Miami, saying anarchists and other anti-authoritarians had repeatedly provoked the police.

In Philadelphia, he said, groups of anarchists simply ran down streets, prompting officers to pursue them and creating the impression of chaos. In Miami, he said, they swarmed around officers seeking to arrest troublemakers during otherwise peaceful demonstrations.

Police officials typically send undercover operatives to gatherings of suspected protesters and watch postings on the Internet, but they usually do not know exactly what is planned until the moment it happens. In addition, some of it could be idle chatter or disinformation: Internet plans to throw acid at officers, for example, were not fulfilled in Miami, nor was a plot to damage news media trucks fulfilled at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last month.

"At the end of the day there is too much information,'' he said. "You need be able to decipher the wheat from the chaff and it is not clear. You can't overreact to the Internet because it can be a 16-year-old kid in Chicago mouthing off.''

Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, however, said the police were taking all threats seriously.

"We're taking the wheat as wheat,'' he said, adding that the threat posed by anarchists "is nothing the N.Y.P.D. can't handle.''

Two years ago, at the World Economic Forum in Manhattan, the police thwarted many attempts to disrupt traffic and vandalize property, making 150 arrests and keeping the violence to a minimum. Some protesters said afterward that they had largely given the city a pass in deference to the Sept. 11 attack.

But New York may represent a different challenge given the passions over the war in Iraq and the fact that the city has its own vibrant, if fragmented, anarchist scene.

There are "Anarchist Soccer" games on Sundays in Tompkins Square Park, Anarchist People of Color picnics in Central Park, salons and even a small makeshift bookstore in the East Village called Mayday almost entirely devoted to anarchism.

Definitions vary but most see anti-capitalism as the bedrock of their ideology. They question and disdain authority and hierarchal government as corrupting and intrusive in personal affairs. "Neither slave nor master'' is a common slogan.

Some are zealots; others see anarchism as a way to raise awareness of problems like hunger, greed and materialism.

"My guiding vision is a society without a state, but I am not necessarily a fundamentalist,'' said Meddle Bolger, 29, an anarchist from Sonoma County in California, who has led several San Francisco Bay Area demonstrations as part of Green Bloc, an anarchist group with an environmental bent. He said he is in New York now to take part in the Aug. 31 day of civil disobedience and rehabilitate community gardens in the South Bronx.

Chuck Munson, a 39-year-old anarchist in Kansas who runs the anarchist site infoshop.org, said he has observed more young people, particularly those once drawn to the "do-it-yourself politics'' of the punk movement, drawn to anarchism after the first Persian Gulf war and the fall of the Soviet Union.

After those events, "people saw the traditional radical left as not as relevant any more,'' he said. "I think it opened up interest in anarchism.''

The 1999 Seattle protests, known in anarchist circles as "the battle in Seattle,'' is now seen as a turning point. Many anarchists believe that, despite any sullying of their reputation, it raised awareness of what they consider the evils of global capitalism.

The standard mass marches of chanting slogans and waving signs, they believe, hardly make as forceful a point.

"Direct action gets the goods,'' Mr. Moran, the Brooklynite, said.

-- Jaidev (j-jaster@yahoo.com), August 20, 2004

Answers

You kids! LOL!

You know, I wonder what else Anarchy can be other than jobless, clueless, and worthless boils on the ass of society taking up precious oxygen and wasting my tax money to beat down.

All that free time...you'd think one would pick up a constructive hobby or god forbid, a job, to occupy ones time.

Christ, even during the million man march, only one guy took off from work, and he called in sick!

tsk tsk tsk...

-- So funny I remembered to laugh (HAHAHAHAHAHA@LOL.com), August 20, 2004.

Where did this article come from? It's obviously biased towards the police. The Miami protests were largely peacefull until the police started shooting rubber bullets. Timmoney is a fascist. Read this:

www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Police_State/Miami_Model.html

As for the "battle of Seatle", that was totaly instigated by the police. There were no black-booted anarchists lighting cars on fire or anything like that. It was totaly peaceful. I've seen some pretty goddamn disturbing pictures of police brutality there. I saw one picture of a policeman in riot gear hitting a middle-age woman carrying A BABY in a front pack in the jaw with his club. It's out of fucking control. At least in '68 the whole world was watching. Where the hell is the world now???

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), August 20, 2004.

Answer: Minding their own business and allowing law enforcement officers to keep the peace. Want to avoid getting an ASP baton wrapped up side your melon? Get the hell away from there! If you were stupid enough to bring a baby to something like that, two words: Hard Cheese.

-- Truth (thetruth@usa.net), August 20, 2004.

I don't know, maybe they were acting under the bizzare assumption that in America, the police don't randomly beat the shit out of anybody they don't like. What a crazy idea!

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), August 20, 2004.

Huh. Sounds to me like this "parent" needs to receive a call from social services. Some parent! Who the fuck would bring a baby to something like that anyway? Oh, I know the answer, right anti? The Republicans won't provide her any money to hire a babysitter.

Weird, isn't it? You need a license to drive a car, a license to get married, a permit to build a house, but any goink can become a parent.

I'm pissed! I'm calling in the social workers! I want an investigation! I hope they sue for any damages to the baton!

-- You know (proudAmerican@sigh.com), August 21, 2004.

Don't forget to call the F-B-I **oh no! **while you're at it dipshit.

-- hmmmmm. (hmm@mmm.mmm), August 28, 2004.

"Huh. Sounds to me like this "parent" needs to receive a call from social services. Some parent! Who the fuck would bring a baby to something like that anyway?"

They assumed it was going to be peacefull. People bring kids to inaugurations without fear of the pigs showing up and busting heads, don't they? Why should an entirely peaceful protest full of middle- aged ex-hippies be any different?

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), August 29, 2004.

Tough titty said the kitty but the milks still good.

Still no excuse for piss poor parenting.

As soon as the "parent" saw the event turn to shit, it's first action would be to get the fuck out of there.

Of course, I guess you'd actually have to be a parent to understand that, right Anti?

-- Proud American (proudamerican@proudamerican.com), September 03, 2004.

How do you know the parent was sticking around? Things can turn to shit pretty quickly. Perhaps the parent didn't have time to get away. Perhaps that was what they were trying to do when the pigs came and started busting heads?

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), September 03, 2004.

The people who brought the kids were being irresponsible, because many (if not most) of the people protesting the RNC were homosexuals.

-- Patriot (familyvalues@straight.com), September 09, 2004.

That could very well be the dumbest thing I have ever read. I don't suppose you've got any figures to back that up? Wait a minute, silly me. You never have figures. After all, why let the facts get in the way of a good argument?

Oh, and by the way, the protest I was refering to was the WTO protest- -the Battle of Seatle--not the RNC, numbnuts. Pull your head out of your ass (and you can save the corny joke you will undoubtedly make out of that turn of phrase) and start using it.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), September 09, 2004.

So, you have no objection to people being irresponsible enough to take their children to places where there might be homosexuals. Even though they might be plotting to get the kids' pants down.

-- Patriot (familyvalues@straight.com), September 11, 2004.

At no time did I refer to any 'infant'. Again - there are often homosexuals at these anti-government demonstrations, so therefore it is IRRESPONSIBLE to allow or encourage children to attend.

-- Patriot (familyvalues@straight.com), September 11, 2004.

Since you have no concern for the damage inflicted on the bums of young boys by homosexuals, it proves that you must be homosexual yourself.

-- Patriot (familyvalues@straight.com), September 11, 2004.

As you're a homosexual yourself, you need no explanation of your disgusting penis-fondling, bum-touching, scrotum-licking habits. You are sick and perverted.

-- Patriot (familyvalues@straight.com), September 11, 2004.

"So, you have no objection to people being irresponsible enough to take their children to places where there might be homosexuals. Even though they might be plotting to get the kids' pants down."

The fact that there could be homosexuals there is totaly irrelevant. It was an anti-globalization protest, not a gay pride rally. You've got about the same chance of encountering a homosexual at an anti- globablization march as you do at the supermarket. Or do you keep your kids locked up inside the house 24/7 to keep them "queer free"? Do you even have kids? Christ, I hope not. May God have mercy on them.

Aside from that, I'm going to ask you a question that you're probably too damn stupid to answer: can you prove that there is any kind of correlation between homosexuality and child molestation? Show me some figures to back that up, assuming you aren't just making shit up.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), September 13, 2004.

Damn right I've got kids - and I raise them to beat hell out of anyone with homosexual behavior. I also tell them the facts - it's the female vagina where they're supposed to insert their dongs - NOT the male bum. I tell them - when your penis is hard, stick it in that hole between a girl's legs.

-- Patriot (familyvalues@straight.com), September 14, 2004.

"Damn right I've got kids - and I raise them to beat hell out of anyone with homosexual behavior."

That is just about the most disgusting, irresponsible thing I've ever heard. You are a fucked up person. When I see somebody getting picked on, I jump right in and tell the fuckers doing the picking to beat it. I would enjoy kicking the shit out of your kids if I saw them beating up some person just because he was gay. God dammit I hope you're kidding.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), September 14, 2004.

So you'd 'beat the shit' out of kids, but leave the molestors alone?

THAT is the sickest thing I've ever heard. YOU might be a homosexual, who 'jumps in' when one of them is being kept away from an innocent kid. But if they're allowed to run around trying to grab kids' asses, somebody should be responsible for protecting children's safety.

-- Patriot (familyvalues@straight.com), September 15, 2004.

Hey numbnuts, I didn't say anything about child molesters. I'm going to ask you one last time: Do you have any proof that there is a correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia? All of your responsses will be deleted until you answer that question.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), September 16, 2004.

It's common sense, stupid. Just like junkies will probably experiment with other drugs, people who are into one kind of perversion will definitely try others.

That's why I raise my kids to NOT be perverts. The rule is, if your dick gets hard: stick it in a girl - DON'T masturbate!

-- Patriot (familyvalues@straight.com), September 17, 2004.

That's bullshit. Just because you're heterosexual doesn't mean you molest little girls. Just answer the question. Can you prove that homsexuality leads to pedophilia? Come on, if the rest of the country feels the same way you do, as you claim, then there should be countless studies that back up your point of view. Prove it or go the fuck home and tell your kids not to assault their classmates, you sad fucking excuse for a parent.

If I had parents like you, I'd take my chances on the street.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), September 17, 2004.