This is what democracy looks like!
… and this is what nearsighted, thoughtless, juvenile, macho thuggery looks like!
The former is an example and a symbol of an ongoing struggle of a growing tide of sensible, honest, love-making, creative humans, young and old, as diverse as the world itself that has surged and ebbed throughout time to place head and heart at the forefront of action.
The latter is the dominant, age-old, dick-driven urge of an otherwise sexless adolescent mentality that uses clubs, truncheons, projectiles, machines and bodies hurled from their lower bestial selves, seeking out the morbid “fun” of destruction. This is for their own personal satisfaction and without foresight or thought for others, or, it is meted out with much foresight, indeed, and intent as the agents of the very forces they ostensibly are “fighting”. To this group belongs the few directionless children engaging in the “Black Bloc” tactics of the current Occupy movement as evidenced here in Oakland in yesterday’s otherwise successfully peaceful city(and world)-wide protests. Few though they are, they like to throw things and garner attention, and like a howling yard of feral children, they will seem many more than they are.
For those of us engaged in the current struggle and out in the streets with it, they are familiar enough. They hide their faces, dress in colorless pseudo-military garb and play at their little commando games like the video game-crazed adolescents that they no doubt are. Unfortunately, they are not playing in their backyards or on their Gameboys. They are in OUR yards and playing with US. They are NOT the %99. Or, rather, they are %1 of the %99 who find the tactics of that other %1 suitable enough for their myopic needs. They are, in fact, the children of that %1 against whom this struggle patiently maintains!
It is certainly possible, and classically typical from within the history of political struggle (they are never original!), that among them are, indeed, agents of “the Man” strategically placed to fan the foment that smolders in HuMan’s most basic instincts. However, it is also sadly likely that they represent what, for me, is exemplary of a certain failure in HuMan’s evolution: the failure to apply critical thought to the rising urges of the animal brain! And it is in childhood that this process is instilled by a healthy society/community/parenthood, for it is that which marks us as human! – In the hidden-faced, drone-like actions of the “Black Bloc” brigades we see the misguided animal behavior of stunted children, of de-volved humans! Monsters really, for animals don’t destroy their own cause. Animals don’t shit where they eat!
You of the Black Bloc types are colorless, hidden (shame?)-faced, unoriginal, blunt, sexless, joyless slaves to the oppression of violence that will continue to plague the efforts of the critical thinking, heart-feeling MASSES who strive to continue to evolve out of the cave from which those who gained the upper hand early in our attempts at “civilization” dominate and plunder!
– You are not of our %99! – You do nothing to further the progress of this world-wide movement towards social evolution! You impede progress and serve the goals of those you claim as enemies! You are our enemies as is a cancer that attacks a healthy body! We are the healthy body of change and like the human body we would do well to deploy groups of white blood cells to surround, sequester and quell with a healing scab the scars you inflict in our movement!
When met with your types in the coming days/months/years, may you be surrounded and prevented from your destruction by the vanquishing force of peaceful resistance like the brave few who attempted to stop you yesterday. Or better yet, go home and read a book!
You will have the status quo maintained! We will have change, once and for all!
Do not assume everyone opposed to Black bloc tactics on the streets of Oakland is a pacifist. Do not assume that everyone concerned about paid saboteurs in this movement is a pacifist. Do not assume that those who have no time for your sterile semantic abstractions are pacifists. You have bragged about using the people of Oakland as a cover for destruction and about choosing martyrdom for our most vulnerable in pursuit of your own agenda. Oakland is not a pacifist city, nor is it a playground for those with delusions of self importance who claim to stand for us while actively increasing despair in the city and consciously driving away all practical outside support for either the city or OO.
I must apologize, apparently my outright dismissal of a pacifism goes to show that my own approach is no less decadent and sometimes fails to be more specific when asked. I’ll use a more figurative language, since everyone seems to think that the 99% is a big enough umbrella to discern how our society works and how it is at the mercy of an unjust system.
Picture a classroom full of unruly children playing musical chairs. By the time it comes to a single chair and two children, the child who fails to obtain the last seat has two options, they could decide to accept their loss, or try to obtain the seat for their own. If the child chooses the latter, there are a few different ways they could go about obtaining the chair, first of which would be to physically take the chair, another could be to get the teacher and explain that they deserve the chair, or they could simply sit in front of the chair and tell the opposition that they won’t be moving until the chair is in their possession.
I see the final two approaches being played out over and over by pacifistic activists, and like I said before, it is clamorous at best regardless of intention. To say that we need to grow the movement is like the child asking for the help of his fellow classmates to obtain the chair by sitting together. It is unrealistic to believe that more of a presence in a situation will cause the willpower of the 1% to bend to our desires and demands. It is unrealistic to believe that a further understanding of our imprisonment alone will somehow aid us to overturn the institution. You are talking about exploitation, not actual growth since, more people included does not equate more progress in the whole movement.
So should there not be a balance between the supposed ‘rational’ passivity, and the ‘irrational’ violent resistance? Do you really think violence has no place when it will only be used against you when you are being submissive as you are? Do you think documenting and vilifying police brutality alone are going to stop it? I’m under the assumption that you must have all of these magnificent answers for how to handle violence without violence that is practical. I just don’t want to be a martyr; I continue to fight when I know my enemy will be doing the same.
The question is, what would you like to change, and how do you hope to accomplish it?
Every successful warrior has moved passed emotion into logic in order to be successful.
If you would like to be successful, move beyond your emotions and use your mind to defeat your enemy. In lashing out with emotion, however justified, you will only undermine yourself.
“the most critical need to effect radical societal change is growing the Occupy movement” Ah yes, the will to more power. If we are to indeed grow, it must be understood that there are those of us who seek to annihilate the longstanding corrupt societal system to lay a firm foundation for a future to stand upon. But, don’t be so quick to throw them under the proverbial bus. “So the idea that sitting in a plaza or marching on the port of Oakland is the same as breaking windows and responding to a police raid with M1000′s, rocks and bottles is just patently false”
You misinterpreted what I was saying, I asserted that you are an apparatus of control, an auxiliary of the police force and that your efforts, your bodies, your peace signs are the exact forms of mediation the state requires to neutralize people’s individual assertation of their own desires, goals, reclamations, joy, and anger. It goes without saying that, not every participant of the “occupy” movement is going to be as fervorous as the next. However, do not expect your sit-in’s to be mutually exclusive when it comes to more vehement action against all forms of capitalism. At the same time, do not mistreat or, misjudge those who are willing to go further in their demands than just merely sitting around, as these individuals ARE part of the supposed “99%”. My point in all of this is that the pacifistic actions I’ve seen take place are clamorous at best.
“Rage and politics should never have been separated. Without the first, the second is lost in discourse; without the second the first exhausts itself in howls. When words like “enragés” and “exaltés” resurface in politics they’re always greeted with warning shots”
This is probably the best version of this anti-pacifist story I’ve ever read, since Tony briefly switches identities with Jack in his dying moments, is then reborn as a thug again and winds up reenacting a condensed and inconclusive version of the same scenario with a couple whose names are Bill Thaxton and His Wife.
Greek Letters is the Robert Coover of militarism tracts. This shit is amazing.
The response by Greek letters completely ignores my main point: the most critical need to effect radical societal change is growing the Occupy movement, destructive behavior turns people against the movement, so is the biggest threat. Two weeks ago, polls showed people supported Occupy by more than two to one. A poll reported today says that 30 % support and 39% oppose.
As I said before, my comments are about the US context, not Rwanda, Uganda, etc, whose contexts were radically different than here. In the US, destructive behavior won’t help achieve the goal of radical change. It will undermine it.
The comment that Gandhi and King “were skilled orchestrators of violence by others” is not worth a response.
Hey Fire Storm (I used google translate to decode your name), you pack a lot of heat in your arguments. I’m a Gemini, which means I’m an air sign. If you know anything about fire, fire needs oxygen (air) to burn, or wind to spread. So admit it, you need me. You can’t go out and break your things on your own. You need me for cover as a human shield, like you said. But if it comes down to drawing a line in the sand, I’ll cross it if I don’t agree with you.
But like you, a lot of us have a fire burning inside of us. However, most of us are in it for the long haul, and our flames are set to low intensity. There’s only so much fuel, you know. Destruction is not sustainable. I mean, destruction will be a way of life when the sun consumes the earth in 5 billion years, but until then, the wind is still going to blow, the grass is going to grow, and the sun is still going to shine.
It’s okay to lighten up a little every now and then, brother. Use your fire constructively. We’re all in this together.
I’m not sure what the point of your story is, but it’s missing one very important element: Batman.
Greek Letters,
I appreciate your post and the thought you put into it, but it really seems like you’re relying on a semantic game that equates all confrontation as violence, and then go further to make all degrees violence equivalent, thus obscuring the fact that while confrontation is inherent to two opposing ideas meeting, violence is not inherent to confrontation. Here’s a definition from the American Heritage dictionary, just so we can have some common ground to work from:
1. swift and intense force: the violence of a storm.
2. rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment: to die by violence.
3. an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws: to take over a government by violence.
4. a violent act or proceeding.
5. rough or immoderate vehemence, as of feeling or language: the violence of his hatred.
6. damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration: to do editorial violence to a text.
Is sitting in a plaza a swift or intense force? Immoderate vehemence? Unjust or unwarranted? Unwarranted alteration? How many people would say “yes” to any or all of these? I would guess very, very few.
Now let’s take breaking windows, looting neighboring businesses, throwing paint at cops, throwing M1000’s and rocks at riot police, etc: Are those a swift or intense force? Immoderate vehemence? Unjust or unwarranted? Unwarranted alteration? A case can certainly be made for the last two, but still here’s the clutch: how many people out there would say “yes” to them? From what I’ve personally encountered through conversations in person and online, I think there is a very great number that would easily say yes.
I’m not even going to try to mount an extended defense against whether that yes is even a real, informed “yes” due to them being brainwashed imbeciles who are manipulated by the 1%, because that kind of argument discounts them as people who have equally valid thoughts and feelings as you do.
So the idea that sitting in a plaza or marching on the port of Oakland is the same as breaking windows and responding to a police raid with M1000’s, rocks and bottles is just patently false. And trying to negate the utility of non-violence via the assumption that it’s pacifism (I’m going to assume that by pacifism, you’re referring to the political tactic that failed with Hitler where you give some asshole everything they want and hope they go away) is making the assumption that non-violent means non-confrontational.
Which by your own argument, is obviously not true.
Wow, your posts read like a satire of the most idiotic and contradictory self-styled “rebel” imaginable. We will not allow you to use us as a shield for your anti-capitalist bullshit. We are 99%, devoted to radical reform of capitalism and saving America, not into destroying America. Go start your own violent revolution somewhere else. I live in Oakland and I’m tired of seeing you trash my town in the name of a movement that you don’t even believe in.
Well, I am a white man without any land, without very much invested in the first place that I could have lost in the market crash, and I am mostly motivated to oppose the 1% because of war profiteering. Marching with violent people is in direct contradiction with my goals. Your whole tone, this statement that starts out with “fuck all you people”, is just the kind of sentiment we don’t need in this movement. Your open racism towards all white people is disgusting. People with an attitude like yours are going to lead this movement towards its destruction. The American people will not support a violent uprising. You seem to be in need of some other movement, adam. Perhaps you should stop marching with a bunch of people who you hate because of their skin color and whose values you don’t share.
Oh black bloc and all your passionate, frustrated supporters. My heart goes out to you.
There was a time, 20odd years ago when I was a hot-headed activist holding the line at abortion clinics against a spittle-flecked row of abortion protestors. We were trained to keep cool and I did. Until one day, there was a girl. A very young, very small girl, maybe 13, holding the hood of a winter coat over her face, crumbling in on herself with fear. Her companion was in her early 20’s steering her resolutely with a hand on her shoulder.
The anti horde saw her and they started closing in. One fell to the ground , blocking the path by writhing and pretending to speak in tongues (no, “rama-lama-ding-dong” is not inspired by God.) This let a particularity vile older man stand in front of the girl to screech in her face about forgiving her rapist and letting the baby live. The girl flinched back, he had hit a nerve. I lost it.
I got in that man’s face and started screaming everything that had been held back for all those months. I pushed him with the flat of my hands, he went for my face, we got into a fairly ridiculous slap fight, hurling insults and blows. It was stupid. It felt amazing. I turned to the other defenders and tried to rally them to join me. Finally! It was here! The confrontation where we got to speak! Instead they pushed me off to the sidelines and told me to go home. Full of adrenaline I stalked off, still yelling over my shoulder.
Of course, there’s a punch line. Life loves to hand out punch lines.
The girl, the frail child who I had been defending was 22 years old, the same age as her companion. A companion who needed an abortion. The two friends had cooked up this ruse in order to fool the protestors. This was their battle, they had planned it brilliantly. They would focus on the trick and get through unscathed. Instead they got trapped in the middle of my anger. Worse, there was another teenager, the one getting out of the car in the parking lot with no clinic defense around her, watching me scream and hit. One of the defenders broke away and ran to reach her but it was too late. She jumped back in the car and they sped away. Was she the only one?
My one moment of pure cleansing anger harmed at least two people that day. Worse, I was never allowed back to that clinic and was no longer able to stand for the cause closest to my heart. I’d burned up my chance to help in town where they needed all the help they could get.
I know how hard it is to stay cool when the world is full of crap that no-one cares about. How it seems like only a block-wide fireball will catch their attention. If we burn it down, they’ll listen and my anger alone could torch this place without matches. I get it. I was there. It took me years to realize that my anger was selfish and because it was selfish, it couldn’t be justified. It is a horrible thing to realize that you have done the enemy’s work for them. I still haven’t forgiven myself.
Unfortunately, no matter how righteous your racist rage you can’t tell your enemies by looking. You don’t know what countries or situations the people around you have come from(whatever skin tone they have), and if you can blame undercover cops for drugs in your community and shaping your fathers behavior why not recognize them here, dressed as protesters of all colors, out to provoke police assualt?
And after all that, what? So we are all violent. Are you defending the window breakers (who also claim to be nonviolent) or defending them? You don’t have to be a pacifist to be angered by this polarizing strategy, or to see that it reduces the impact of everyone elses work. In fact it may be up to non-pacifists to prevent this bullying of fellow protesters in defense of our communities and the movement over all.
The problem with pacifism is not that it’s mistaken or impractical (although it is), nor that it’s an illusion indulged in by people whose own safety is protected by non-pacifists (although it is), nor that non-violence has probably caused more loss of life and suffering than it has prevented (although it has) nor even that the record of pacifists in supporting brutal, corrupt and repressive regimes is at least as bad as that of the CIA (although it is). The problem with pacifism is simply that it does not exist.
What is Non-Violence?
-Obviously, committing violence yourself is not non-violence!
-Hiring or encouraging others to commit violence for you also obviously cannot be termed non-violence. This includes relying on the legal system, which ultimately rests on the use of force as a last resort.
-Goading your opposition beyond endurance to the point where they respond violently is non-violence only in the most hypocritical, specious sense.
-So is obstructing the activities of others so much that they must resort to force to end the obstruction. The sit-ins of the 1960’s were not non-violent in any meaningful sense.
-Putting people in the position where they either have to yield to your demands or resort to violence to stop you is emphatically not non-violence.
-Nor is provoking a violent response in the hope of getting an over-reaction that will discredit the opposition and gain sympathy for your side.
The last four items on the list are calculated, manipulative, and deceptive practices. Neither Gandhi, nor Martin Luther King, nor the anti-war protestors of the 1960’s were non-violent. They were skilled orchestrators of violence by others. The fact that their opponents were usually stupid enough to oblige them doesn’t make the tactics any less manipulative or deceptive; in fact, often the response to an initially restrained opposition was an escalation of confrontation in order to cross the threshold into violence.
-Can you really claim to be non-violent if you engage in activities that you can reliably predict will end in violence?
-Can you really claim to be non-violent if you threaten someone else’s position to the point where they feel they must resort to violence to protect their interests? Civil disobedience is a form of violence.
There is no such thing as non-violent crime.
The only truly non-violent tactic, in the sense that it neither commits nor provokes violence, is complete non-resistance and submission to the demands of the power elite. Even something as benign as education or public health, if it threatened someone else to the point of violent action, would be forbidden. Women would have to submit meekly to rape rather than struggle to resist. And no “pacifist” I have ever heard of advocates that. Generally, what passes for “non-violence” or “pacifism” is one of the following:
-Relying on the law. This is not non-violence because if all other measures fail, the legal system will use force to achieve its ends. That’s why we speak of enforcing the law.
-Maintaining a facade of pacifism while provoking the opposition to violence, or creating an intolerable obstruction that can only be removed by force, or threatening their position to the point where they feel they have to resort to violence to protect their interests. This position, as already noted, is hypocritical, manipulative, and deceptive.
-Selective pacifism: condemning U.S. military action but not violent actions against the U.S. If you take the position that someone has a cause for waging just war against the U.S., fine. Just don’t pretend it’s pacifism. There’s no difference between a cop clubbing an anti-war protestor in 1965 and clubbing an anti-abortion protestor in 2000. Argue that one was not justified and the other is if you will, but don’t pretend that one instance is violence and the other isn’t. Even weirder are the pacifists who condemn the international community for not intervening in places like Rwanda. And do what? Hold anger management sessions for the Hutu mobs? No, intervention would surely have meant military violence.
-Compensatory pacifism: you oppressed us for a while, now we get to oppress you. A perfect example is the statement by Mari Matsuda when the University of Hawaii was trying to formulate a policy against hate speech: “Hateful verbal attacks upon dominant group members by victims is permissible.” While Idi Amin was slaughtering thousands in Uganda in the early 1970’s, some activists in America argued that it was “racist” to condemn him, because Africans had been oppressed by colonialism and now we had no right to criticize.
I don’t have any problem with the use of violence in self-defense, or for taking down an oppressive regime, or for subduing criminals or protecting the weak. And the fact that somebody is so insecure that they resort to violence when confronted by mere demonstrations is often (not always) a pretty good idea who ranks where on the moral scale. But then again, I never pretended to be a pacifist. What I have a problem with is advocating, instigating, or indirectly causing violence while pretending to be non-violent.
Pacifists are vociferous in denouncing “aggression.” I can think of a number of cases where “aggression” either shortened a war or ended genocide. None involve the United States, by the way.
-In 1971, civil war broke out in Pakistan, which was then made up of two ethnically and geographically separate areas. A million people died and ten million fled into India. Faced with an overwhelming refugee crisis, India invaded East Pakistan, which became independent as Bangladesh.
-Madman Idi Amin brutalized Uganda for eight years, killing perhaps 300,000 people, before Tanzanian troops and Ugandan rebels invaded and expelled him in 1979. It should have happened much sooner.
-The Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia killed at least a million people before being driven from power by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979. Most of the American pacifists who opposed the Vietnam War so loudly remained strangely silent while the Khmer Rouge atrocities were being committed (Joan Baez being the one honorable exception). But the U.S. government, still smarting from its loss in Vietnam, shamefully condemned the Vietnamese.
-While Idi Amin was grabbing headlines in Africa, Jean-Bedel Bokassa held power in the Central African Republic, which he renamed the Central African Empire. He killed perhaps 100,000 people. In 1979, France engineered a coup that overthrew Bokassa. Very slick and oh so French. They took advantage of Bokassa traveling abroad to fly in a new president and a few battalions of Foreign Legionnaires, and that was that.
Not only is it morally permissible to commit aggression, sometimes it’s morally obligatory.
Dear pacifist,
I don’t really care that you are against me, and for that matter, unafraid of me.
Please continue to be a human shield so that I might be able to utilize you as a means of deflecting oncoming attacks. I hope you understand that, while you are writing up brilliant new slogans or finger painting your beautifully crafted signs, I will be destroying as much as possible because I am irrational and that is the only reason I do what it is that I do. Pacifism failed in the 20th century, and it will fail in the 21st. Aren’t you tired of losing, or do you expect vexatious litigation and other forms of bureaucratic bullshit to somehow make up for your callow form of fashionable activism? I get it, you seem to think that repetition will work or, the louder you yell the more relevant your point becomes. Have fun being a martyr or better yet, standing on the sidewalk out of harm’s way.
Last week, Jack and Jill Pacifisto were walking home through the park after dinner with friends, during which they had spent a few hours discussing the immorality of violence and war and their commitments to send more money to progressive activists over the next year. Suddenly, Tony Thug stepped out of the shadows and pointed a pistol at Jack and said, “Give me your wallet,” and, pointing the gun at Jill, “Your purse.”
“What?” asked Jack, incredulous, “Hey, we don’t want any trouble. We’re pacifists. We aren’t going to hurt you.”
“Not my problem,” said Tony, “Gimme your money.”
So Jack and Jill did, and then Tony said, “And now gimme your watches, rings, jewelry, everything worth anything.”
“Hey,” said Jill, “This is my wedding ring!”
And Tony said, “Not my problem.”
Jack and Jill handed over their wallet, and purse, and all their jewelry and Rolex watches, and then Tony shot them both twice in the chest and picked up the loot and stepped back into the shadows.
As Jill lay dying she whispered, “Tony? Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you have a gun?” Those were her last words.
“I couldn’t,” whispered Tony. “I’m a pacifist.” Those were his last words.
A few days later, Bill Thaxton and his wife were walking home through the park after dinner, when Tony Thug stepped out of the shadows.
“Give me your wallet, your purse,” said Tony, pointing his gun first at Bill, and then at his wife. He did.
If all of the nonviolent activists disassociated from the people employing black bloc tactics, by sitting down calmly as the smash & burn party raged across the street, there would be no question who is who and which side people are on.
On one hand, it’s good to see so much dialogue focused on the most critical issue facing Occupy Oakland: should the destructive behavior be opposed and addressed, or accepted.
On the other hand, it’s sad, but not surprising, that a big chunk of the online dialogue is abusive, disrespectful, and counterproductive. I strongly agree with the position in the “open letter” opposing destructive behavior, but I strongly disagree with the way the writer expresses it. Those opposed to the writer’s position, won’t be swayed of course. The charged “fuck” you response was also sad and not surprising. It’s also misinformed: Egyptians are not “now running their own country;” it’s the same people, minus Mubarak, still in control so far, and if the people are to gain control, it won’t be through violence.
The most critical factor in making the broader Occupy movement successful (meaning radically changing the economic and political system) is growing the movement. Like many, I’m excited by how widespread the movement has become in such a short time. Yet, to be successful, the movement needs to grow significantly.
The destructive behavior is the main reason a lot more people won’t get involved and is the main threat to the movement. Such continued behavior will result in the authorities, the business community, and the media beating us with it and the millions that so far support the movement, but haven’t gotten involved, will turn on us and not get involved. If that happens, Occupy will be no more than a fringe movement. There’s too much at stake to let that happen, failure means economic and environmental collapse and misery on an unimaginable scale for decades (it’s possible that we’re already too late).
Non-violence is the most powerful tool we have, because, in the U.S. context, non-violence in the face of police brutality will result in millions more people flocking to the movement. It won’t be easy, but it’s essential. Non-violence isn’t “racist,” any more than Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and scores of others were racist. A truly violent response to the oppression of the one percent isn’t breaking windows and tagging, it would be an armed uprising. If that were to happen, the resisters would be slaughtered and most people would condemn them.
The one percent and their forces are fully aware that destructive behavior is the best way to undermine the movement. It’s very likely that they have cut deals with some to incite trouble. They’re also obviously monitoring these websites and loving that there’s dissension, divide and conquer is effective. They’re also likely posting comments to provoke more dissension.
We need to be smarter and more disciplined by having a civil discussion about destructive behavior, and hopefully not support and work to reduce it.
Lastly, not revealing your full name emboldens people to post inappropriate comments. People should either state their full name or if using a nickname, only post comments that they would if using their full name. A nicknamed respondent threatened to run me over if I stood in front of his truck at the Port.
Rosa, being violent against your enemy isn’t “becoming your enemy.” The assertion, I think, is actually very offensive.
Is a woman who attacks her rapist becoming a rapist? Is a slave who attacks the slave master becoming a slave master?
Equally, is a protestor at occupy who attacks a bank becoming a bank?
I’m a pacifist. I’m against you, and I’m not afraid of you.
Hola Rosa, mucho gusto. Yo también soy chicano, pero no pienso como tú.
(Hi Rosa, nice to meet you. I’m also chicano, but I don’t think like you).
What doesn’t make sense is that you proclaim that we don’t understand violence because we haven’t been subject to it, like you have.
Please make my simple mind understand something: If violence is a bad thing perpetrated by our enemies, then why should we become like our enemies and practice violence? Don’t you know they have guns, and tanks, and who knows what else?
If you wish to be violent toward those who oppress you, fine. But know that that doesn’t make you any better than your enemies.
Militant action has its place and time.
Unfortunately, the November 2 strike was neither the place nor the time for the destruction of property.
Destructive action is a tool; we’ve the State use it willingly, I’m sure we can agree. But what was the point of militant action on November 2nd? Did buildings themselves pose a direct, physical threat to innocent bystanders? If not, then how can one claim self-defense? Even if it is retaliation, we’re fighting against a system, not the local branches of Wells Fargo. Talk a flea biting an elephant.
Seriously, do those who engage in Black Bloc live in a bubble? Do they not know what the consequences of their actions are and how the media swallows that stuff up? If Black Bloc endorsers are serious about helping the movement, then they need to start a dialogue about whether the Occupy Oakland via GA endorses Black Bloc. In the meantime, they do not speak for Occupy Oakland.
Militant action has its place and time. November 2nd was neither the place nor the time for militant action.
Fuck the person who wrote this article, fuck the person who blogged this article, and fuck everyone who reblogged this article.
It is NOT “macho” to smash windows. At least half the black bloc were women, and many people of color. Have you not heard of Laila Khaled? What about Comandante Ramona? They were fucking soldiers.
Look at every other social movement in the world—will you condemn Egyptians for torching government buildings when by doing that, they are now running their own country instead of living under an oppressive authoritarian regime? Do you think the U.S. left Vietnam because they sat in peaceful protest while the United States blew their heads off? No.
It’s called resistance. I think a huge reason there’s so much “peace policing” happening at this protest is because so many white people—and poc who are fooled into their racist bullshit—are involved. I talked to a “hippy” white man on the way to the docks, and he said: “I don’t have a problem with undercover cops. That’s their job.” Yeah, seriously. Undercover cops have never fucked your shit up because you’re a white man who owns land. But they destroyed black families with crack. They killed Chicano leaders when they were actually starting to get people’s attention.
What the fuck did white liberals ever do for me? My mom couldn’t get welfare anymore because of Bill Clinton. White conservatives? She couldn’t get housing assistance because Bush cut the program that was helping her out. The white man created the circumstances that gave birth to my psychopathic gangster of a father. I don’t owe them shit. I don’t owe them an apology if I smash a fucking window—which I regrettably did not. I don’t owe ANYBODY an apology for exercising my freedom of speech if I write words on a public wall. That’s the people’s wall. It’s my wall. The corporations should be apologizing to us for filling our world with hideous advertisements.
But you are absolutely right: I’m not part of the same 99% as privileged white people who grew up believing the rich white man’s version of history. I’m not part of the group of poc that have been fooled by the white man’s lies. What the fuck do you have to be angry about? You don’t have a mercedes? You can’t afford 40,000 channels on the Dish anymore? You can’t easily pay for your shitty kids to go to school? Well guess what, my people have been dealing with that for our entire history, and we still are experiencing real oppression.
You don’t understand why preaching nonviolence is racist because you don’t understand violence. You don’t understand what it’s like to live in a place where you might get shot every time you step outside your door. You don’t understand the violence we experience when the police treat the families of criminals, like criminals. You don’t understand the violence I experience every time I turn on the television, and see my people portrayed as either whores, day laborers, or maids. When I fight back, it’s not violence—it’s resistance.
I wish I could say I had more white friends that sympathized, that tried to understand the oppression of my people—but they are few. I love them. I trust them. But I don’t trust the rest of you white people to back up me or my people when we get radical. I don’t fool myself into thinking you’re getting together to change things for me. You do this for you. I’m not part of your 99%, and I don’t want to be.
Maybe I’ll add more to this later.
http://rosadefuego.tumblr.com/post/12318618551/an-open-letter-to-the-black-bloc-brigades-occupy
open your eyes
These people should be taken down by those around them, photographed and given a good old fashion “talking to”
it comforts me to know that their exists an informed collective somewhere. Nic LesFlics, keep up the good work. Solidarity.
A brief defense of vandalism as a viable means of political expression: The old adage: violence begets violence is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it is a useful tool to bring about what Dennis the constitutional peasant in MP & the Holy Grail calls “the violence inherent in the system.” The fat cats in government hesitate to flex their muscles (e.g. NY, Chicago etc) because when they do, as they did in Oakland, the illusory notion that capitalism, and its mistress i.e. elective republicanism are in any way a free system by which i mean, we all participate willingly within it, disappears, and all that is left, all that is evident is the calloused skeleton and armaments of the capitalist plutocracy. What people fail to recognize, through no fault entirely of their own is the extent to which the ideology of capitalism informs their very consciousness. It latches itself onto the mind, a cerebral parasite; a despotic ideology masquerading as a passivist democratic reality. There are reasons why pacifism is OK, and there are reasons why vandalism and civil disobedience are not. the former generally dissipates once a few concessions are made and the status quo is reaffirmed, the latter leads to direct confrontation. Historically change, e.g. american revolution, didn’t begin with the parliament of King George, it began in the minds of disaffected men and women, and was actualized at Lexington and Concord. All governments, as institutionalized ideas, owe their genesis to human blood and sacrifice. If you want to make an omelette break some eggs.
I find this absurd to be coming from Oakland of all places at this time. As if destructive habits could be confined to only those who can be deemed “macho”
Pacifism shouldn’t even be a topic of discussion at this point, its been shown time and time again to cave, and then it’s back to the 9-5 for most. This also seems conflicting with a certain pamphlet being circulated by a group known as The Oakland Liberation Front.
ARE YOU A PACIFIST?
Picture a young woman. She is standing with her back turned to the cops and her hands are raised in the air, fingers forming peace signs towards an ebullient congregation of occupiers. As if we needed another impenetrable wall between our unified mob and our dreams. She has voluntarily joined that wall alongside lines of batons, guns, stun grenades, tear gas, and handcuffs. At the present moment, this image is the saddest and lowest moment of the whole occupation movement for those of us who thought we were all in it together.
When you stand between riot police and The People, do not doubt that every existing apparatus of control and repression is thanking you. When you citizens arrest someone, you are unwittingly complicit with the constellation of power that wages a daily war against freedom and peace. In fact, you are a walking, talking, breathing apparatus of control, an auxiliary of the police force. The streets are no place for the practice of inculcating society with your hateful messages of conservative morality. There are Sundays for that.
How dare you even ask for non-violence, when violence has ALREADY been used by the police? Will you still be standing there with a peace sign when the police spray the crowd with water cannons? And what if they fire tear gas from a helicopter? Will you be able to stop a LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) from confusing, controlling and then arresting comrades? The answer is no. You too will esperience their terror and more.
Your efforts, your bodies, your peace signs are the exact forms of mediation the state requires to neutralize people’s individual assertation of their own desires, goals, reclamations, joy, and anger. If you desire “economic justice” then we encourage you to pursue it. Meanwhile we wild ones will go beyond that demand. We seek a total transformation of society. We seek the complete annihilation of capitalism.
We want to start over together. We are going to begin that process on Wenesday. We won’t stop you if you don’t stop us.
Are you with us or against us?
SIGNED,
THE OAKLAND LIBERATION FRONT
http://i39.tinypic.com/23sf2q0.jpg
Are you kidding?
Agreed. The idiots in black are faceless pussies hiding behind a mass of peaceful citizens seeking to make change.
They are cowards plain and simple, without balls enough to take to the streets alone with their gang of thugs.
Rather, they cower behind teachers, students, nurses etc… what a bunch of pussies.
I hope the OPD uses the full force of the law to eliminate these bastards.
Wow, what an absurd and confusingly-written letter that manages to address absolutely nothing other than a lot of name-calling and insulting language.
Rather than engaging in a genuine discussion about the qualities of militant action (property damage, sabotage, self-defense against the police), you’ve instead chosen to take an “official position” of claiming that anyone who engages in non-pacifistic protest is some kind of child throwing a tantrum. This is an insult to the Egyptian radicals of the Arab Spring, who defended themselves against police with stones and fire – not to mention an insult to every other movement in history which has involved a segment of people deciding to defend themselves and take immediate action against those they oppose.
If you really want to address those who took part in militant protest (which was NOT limited exclusively to “anarchists” or “the black bloc”, according to reports I’ve seen), don’t place yourself on a pedestal of superior morals and launch condemnation and insults at everyone you disagree with.
Not to mention that your repeated use of the word “macho” is insulting to the women who would gladly stand up against armed policemen – as though women aren’t capable of defending themselves, as though women aren’t capable of being radical and destructive!
That and your continual reference to face masks as “shameful” is similarly ridiculous – anyone participating in an illegal protest would do well to hide their identity from police photographers and the 10 o’clock news.
SIMPLE SOLUTION. Pull off their masks from behind and let everyone photograph / video their faces.
Pulling off a mask is not violent if done surreptitiously from behind… Then turn the photos and video over to the police and/or shop owners. Do not let any mask wearers (regardless of whether they are vandalizing) enter the protest crowd. Whenever you see a mask, sneak up from behind and snatch it off, then throw it on the ground.
Thank you for posting this letter!!!