Only One Side Is Armed
The fine tooth combs continue to run over Occupy Oakland’s general strike on Wednesday, November 2nd, its sequence of marches, port shutdown, and building occupation. News, however, is just now trickling out about military veteran Kayvan Sabehgi (two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan), currently recovering from surgery for a spleen lacerated by a beating police administered during his arrest early Thursday morning, November 3rd, near the occupied Traveler’s Aid building on 16th in downtown Oakland. As opposed to the case of Scott Olsen, which immediately surged to the attention of the nation, Sabehgi’s story is emerging by way of international sources. The repetition of events marks out a decisive contrast in their coverage: first a tragedy, then a farce.
According to his own account, 32-year-old Sabehgi was surrounded by a group of cops — he was then struck, forced down, and struck repeatedly with batons. In severe pain, he arrived at jail where the “nurse” suggested a suppository for his vomiting and diarrhea. When he was finally bailed out the following afternoon, he was too weak to leave his cell. His jailers shut the door; eventually an ambulance rushed him to treatment. While corporate media outlets busily reported on the “violent” window breaking and graffiti from Wednesday, the real violence thethousands on the ground saw was, as usual, concentrated in the hands of the state.
The mainstream media has now entered a second phase of its campaign against the Oakland Commune, with talk of “emergency” as backdrop to incredibly fallaciousreports. In one instance, NPR and the San Francisco Chronicle blankly repeated police chief Howard Jordan’s screwball estimate of 7,000 people at the port shutdown (other mediatized estimates were as low as 4,000). A correction was later issued. The two successive, massive waves of marchers from Oscar Grant Plaza amounted to at least 100,000 people by any reasonable estimate. This was the strike the Wall Street Journal claimed (with lame diction) had “largely fizzled.”
Given the limited rights of workers in our private sector, the limited contracts of the unionized public sector, the many people who live paycheck to paycheck barely making ends meet, and the fracturing of the Bay Area left in recent years (and since the advent of the crisis) — the numbers and size of the coordinated demonstration seem that much more remarkable.
To begin at the end: the building occupation fell in a hail of tear gas, non-lethal “force,” and arrest. The Traveler’s Aid building, what some were calling the Raheim Brown Community Center, (temporarily?) closed down once again. The building had been strategically entered earlier that evening (not “just before midnight”), and with heavy rains across the Bay Area this weekend, access to buildings seems all the more necessary to the occupation. Symbolically as well as practically: As the housing crisis for many continues to deepen (devaluation, eviction, foreclosure) and a turn both to protecting the vulnerable as well as to reclaiming abandoned buildings and residences seems a prescient, path-blazing move. At its radical edge, building occupations contest the relations of private property, and the artificiality of its conventions; in California we feel acutely this contradiction, with so many homeless and so many vacant properties and homes. The media’s attempt to normalize the police violence establishes pacifism as the only “acceptable” form of Occupy politics. The diversity of tactics and general inclusivity of the rest of the Oakland Commune is demonized or ignored.
Big Wednesday
The general strike rolled out with morning “flying pickets” aimed at Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America — all of which refused to close their doors. Marchers chanted and sang, “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out.” When Specialty Bakery threatened their workers to prevent them from striking, the picket flew over. An early estimate had pre-noontime crowds on the street at 5,000. I arrived from Santa Cruz around 1 PM with a group including Gopal Balakrishnan; our group’s preparations included creating medic kits with a liquid mix of antacid for teargas; a back-pocket pair of toenail clippers in case of zip cuffing; and plenty of water and sandwiches. We walked up Franklin and encountered one of the many flying pickets, this one shutting down the University of California Office of the President.
We had arrived in time for the Anti-Capitalist March. Think Seattle 1999, Greece 2008. A black banner with the slogan “Death to Capitalism” hung at the 14th and Telegraph intersection. At the front of the march another black banner read “If We Cannot Live We Will Not Work,” yet another, “Long Live the Do-It-Yourself Revolution” with accompanying Arabic translation. A group of black-clad, masked, and fast-moving demonstrators (sometimes called the “Black Bloc”) tore through ordinary matter like a quantum particle at the front of the crowd. They smashed up windows of a Chase Bank in broad daylight, and would later do the same to a Bank of America. These anarcho-communists and ultra-leftists were aware of being raised to the level of big capital’s spectacular montage as they chanted: “Fuck the property of the one percent.” (Those wanting everyone to show their face should remember the lesson of campus struggles two years ago, the site of occupation movement’s origins: avoid detection, avoid punishment. Any actual political resistance will have its rendezvous with domestic intelligence services.) Whether stunned or ready for the rowdiness, the large march trailing them kept on.
Their next target: Whole Foods. New at the checkout line alongside the rare chocolate and digestible good conscience: a left-wing action against liberal PC consumerism. With a mix of white spray paint and paint balloons, the groupuscule hit up the front of supermarket with an enormous graffito: strike. They made their way to the large side windows of the store and after repeated attempts at bringing the window down, the right deviation’s “peace police” began chanting “peaceful protest” and did so threateningly enough to force the “Black Bloc” on to their next target. “Union busting is disgusting,” the left-wing demonstrators chanted back to them.
The current hegemony of “peaceful protest” has kept property destruction contained, but the growing sentiment on the march seemed to be: Fuck it. Give me a rock, or better yet a dense D battery. “Though we wanted to pave the way for friendliness, we could not ourselves be friendly,” wrote Brecht. The rightist argument also goes that building occupations, property damage, and other radical tactics will only attract the cops and provoke an attack on the broader movement, necessarily limiting participation. First proviso: don’t misapprehend the police, an active rather then merely reactive force. They will come to building occupations and other attempts at expropriation in the middle of the night, when the crowd thins or tires, when they can maximize their comparative advantage in weaponry and discipline. In deep-blue-state California, repression is well organized. Second proviso: don’t forget the actual history of struggles, remembering only Martin Luther King Jr., while forgetting both Malcolm X and Robert Williams. Thus the left-adventurist subject — the product of conscious revolutionary study and mobilization — reared up in the crowd.
Barbeques Every Day
Back at Oscar Grant Plaza, we found a great restless festival. Buses arrived to take folks down to the port. Some unionists cooked out on enormous grills. And the four o’clock march to the port was something else — red flags, black flags, posters, pickets, marching bands, bikes galore, crust punks, militants, burners. I saw poets, former students, old friends, even two of my literary mentors, amid a vast current of strangers.
I was shooting footage on the march and kept on getting ahead and behind a certain group of friends before losing them altogether. I encountered other friends then moved off by myself. At one point I had to stop and put a new memory card in my camera. I kneeled down and struggled with the package for a few minutes. As I stood up again and looked around, I found myself in another dimension of the several mile long and very dense march. The cramped valley of corporate buildings could hardly accommodate the mobilization. Mostly assembled since the 80s, with the Los Angeles Men’s County Jail and Gehry’s Disney Hall as the two sides of their aesthetic ideal, these “junk space” columns of glass, air-conditioning, and steel are the “great” architectural measure of corporate globalization. Without a central square plus enormous amplification (à la Mexico City’s Zocalo), a crowd this size can neither be easily spoken to nor coordinated. Regardless, this crowd was going somewhere.
Entering one of the ports of today’s global capitalism, one has the feeling of entering into some parallel universe. Marx pointed out that large-scale machinery develops in a combat with workers, and this battlefield has almost entirely wiped them out. Dirty with diesel and truck tire particulate, these enormous spaces subdivide up into berths and terminals of the various world shippers: Evergreen, TKY Logistics, China Shipping, etc. I had spent some time filming at the port of Long Beach one lonely Saturday some years ago with my friend Cooper Brislain, and this experience contrasted immensely with that previous port visit. The walk in was dramatic and exhilarating. Before the final bridge to the port the march hit a freeway over pass. The stalled truckers honked and the exuberant crowd roared as did the several bands that moved under the pass. And from the final bridge one got a good look at the port’s scale. I stalled out at the bridge for long enough to see the 5 PM wave of marchers come through, even bigger than the earlier march.
Suddenly my phone blew up with texts and calls. The front of the march had reached the crucial berth 22 some three miles into the port. Riot cops formed a visible line. I remembered the 2003 antiwar demonstration at the port of Oakland in which gas and non-lethal rounds were deployed against the demonstrators. The circling picket, a couple thousand strong, was actually preventing the port from operating. Police helicopters trained spotlights on people from overhead. An arbitrator was on the way out to decide on whether or not the port would shut down because of unsafe working conditions. I walked Maritime Avenue for miles to catch up. The old saying is true: If you go far enough on any California street, eventually you find a taco truck. There were two along the route, both nearly sold out of food. By the time I got there the cops had split.
At the picket, several friends were talking to an ILWU member named Charles. He was explaining many of the particulars of a port shutdown. The ILWU itself is involved in a continual low-intensity conflict with its employers. Partial shutdowns and continual slowdowns are among their normal tactics. Charles made it known that if the picket stayed then any attempts to restart the port’s operation (at 3 AM and 6 AM) would be thwarted. The choke point of just-in-time production would cut big capital’s airflow a full 24 hours.
At one point, Charles asked a disarming question: “Who are all these people?”
I told him that the five of us in front of him were in teachers and teaching assistant unions (UC-AFT, UAW local 2865), and that the broader movement was composed of folks from the Justice for Oscar Grant struggle, the antiwar movement, environmentalists…
“Oh, OK, so everybody,” he replied. “Well, we’re with you.” (In the anticipatory words of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: “here comes everybuddy.”)
The strike call had been a strange one for the union brothers. Charles heard about it on TV and then he and other workers discussed it in the ILWU union hall. In the ordinary conditions of these recent depoliticized decades, unions call the strikes — the proximate cause usually being specific contract negotiations or grievances. Indeed, Charles talked about a co-worker who had lost her legs in a port accident. The shippers were fighting any compensation for her. These being increasingly extraordinary times, this was far from a normal strike call.
As 8 PM approached, Boots Riley got on the bullhorn to announce that the port was shut down. We would be the lead group spearheading a march back downtown. Four or five of us left a bit before everyone else. A mile on, back at 7th and Maritime, we found another large crowd. There were four different human microphones going simultaneously in a frantic attempt to communicate. Things finally coalesced around preventing a news van from passing through the intersection. The driver was told to walk home and chants of “Fuck the corporate media” resounded in the chopper blade air. The first attempt at coordinating such a sizable crowd was breaking down before our eyes. The numbers necessary to defend the building occupation downtown might not be able to make it back.
Famished, we left for pizza at a friend’s nearby West Oakland apartment, before making our way back downtown to the occupied building on 16th street. Another Brecht line echoed in my head, “Our goal lay far in the distance, it was clearlyvisible.”
The Sun at Night
With the financial crisis beginning a new round of intensification this fall, the occupation movement across the U.S. will need to expropriate buildings, workplaces, and schools across the country in order to survive and thrive this winter and beyond. It will need permanent architecture, alongside enduring encampment with the country’s homeless and poorest people. But, last Wednesday night, a single building would have to do. We walked down Broadway to 16th street and encountered minimal police presence just after 10 PM. Two helicopters circled over downtown. A makeshift trash barricade cut 16th off from Telegraph. Down 16th, a large, energetic, but also nervous crowd surrounded the building. An “Occupy Everything” poster faced out from the second story window. Statements were being read over bullhorn while dance music played. Inside a library was already set up.
A hurried conversation with one group of comrades shifted to reports of police advancing in two directions. (A local homeless man later told me he had seen 30 vans of cops coming down Broadway.) A protestor line formed on 16th. Protestor gas masks, goggles, helmets, painters masks all came out. The black flag went up over the action. The police formed a line across Broadway as they slowly crept toward us, before fanning out over Telegraph. Eventually they appeared along the main thoroughfare north of the plaza. As hostilities commenced with a police charge, the barricade along sixteenth exploded in flames for a few minutes. The cops fired volleys of tear gas, flash bang grenades (with “Made in Wyoming” labels), and rubber bullets. The protestor line was forced back toward 15th Street. The air was thick with the acidic particulates. Bottles, bricks and projectiles were hurled at the cops. Flames leapt into the air. There were reports of a primitive m80 cannon. I recalled the means Argentina’s Zanon factory occupation used to keep police at bay in 2002 during some of their pitched struggles to defend their worker-controlled factory: marbles and slingshots.
Some of us fell back to the Oscar Grant Plaza before being successively rallied back up to the line. There were reports of beatings and mass arrests on 16th. Here was resistance in the age of Obama. We consoled one young woman who was weeping for her suffering comrades. I tried to sooth the nerves of two young men disconcerted by protestors throwing bottles and other projectiles.
The tense standoff continued until nearly 4 AM, by which point the building was firmly back in state hands. Some thought the police would attempt to dismantle the plaza encampment again. They appeared, however, still politically hampered by their last plaza incursion. If buildings can be occupied downtown in Oakland in the coming weeks and months (and this seems something of a necessity), the failure to “hold the space” Wednesday night may be seen in a new and brighter light. The abandoned Traveler’s Aid building remains ripe for the picking.
The General Assembly Friday night, November 4th, revealed some splits and divisions among the participants. The right deviation at the camp remains a vocal but hostile and threatening minority, likely no more than 20% of regular participants. The proposal format requires a high level of consensus (80-90%) for any actionable results. In the subcommittee report back portion of the GA, a sound subcommittee member reported hearing talk of violence directed against the “anarchists” in the camp. Brian explained that the sound system he has operated since the first day was off for the night in protest; he and others identified as anarchists felt physically threatened. The labor subcommittee reported some complaints from union leadership about the unspeakable “violence” done to some bank windows on Wednesday. IWW carpenter John Reimann forcefully defended the anarcho-communist wing of Occupy Oakland, pointing out their absolutely essential presence in the movement, one from which he had learned a great deal.
The comments period began. A city worker from SEIU local 1021 explained that he and other plaza building workers wanted to coordinate closely with the occupation by forming a subcommittee to do so. An immigration activist talked about how to bring more vulnerable workers into the struggle. Someone criticized Wednesday’s direct action by quoting Mao Zedong’s old line: “The contradictions among the people regarding revolutionary tactics are not the same as the contradictions among the people and its enemy.” Despite the presence of a vocal “peace police” minority, the night’s solidaristic vibe dominated proceedings.
The General Assembly on Friday proposed the formation of neighborhood assemblies. These assemblies would mobilize around a ballot initiative to give them, not city bureaucrats, some power over a budget process that currently sees some 50% of its money go toward policing. The comments period of the GA saw suggestions circulate around three crucial concerns: the defense of Oakland residents facing eviction or foreclosure; the occupation of foreclosed or vacant properties; the defense and occupation of schools in the growing education crisis in California. The mediating power of neighborhood assemblies with respect to expanding the coordination of the movement could prove tremendous even if a ballot initiative goes down to electoral defeat.
The weather has changed and the mood in Oakland is now colored by deeper experiences, trials in flame and storm. The movement finds itself more developed than anyone could have foreseen even a few weeks ago. Much remains to be done, and much concerted pressure remains to be applied, in the shadows of an intermittent sun.
David Lau is the author of the book of poems Virgil and the Mountain Cat(University of California Press). He co-edits Lana Turner: a Journal of Poetry and Opinion and teaches writing at UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College.
All photos: David Lau
hey think!,
sorry to hear this has been the response you’ve recieved in the occupation. it is a common refrain and i hope that you find more receptive and respectful occupations throughout the rest of the bay. try and hit up the facilataiters who those busy are hella down folk.
margaret said on November 12, 2011
“Those who advocate physical force politics during the solidarity building phase of a post 9/11 era movement that has managed to motivate the actual masses, turn away far more than pacifists, liberals, business owners, “yuppie scum” and the physically vulnerable. They also repel anyone who cannot afford to get arrested or who, for whatever reason, would prefer to limit contact with immigration, the FBI or the Dep. of Homeland Security.(ie actual poor people and people with actual experience of militant struggle).”
Understandably many people don’t want to be around when there is property destruction or when the cops decide to riot. However this represents an overly reductive representation of how struggle and movements actually operate. or what has happened in oakland. Movements are diverse and uncontainable. Struggle is both visible and invisible. While yes some people in the groups you;ve listed are turned away from the movement (some never even give a shit or are openly hostile to it) because of property destruction. This doesn’t mean these groups are as homogonous as you represent them. Their not all on your side and of the same opinion. There are plenty of poor people on the front lines and risking arrest. No one is being asked to risk arrest or attack if they aren’t willing to. The bloc isn’t; at every action. They were only on the anti-capitalism march and the various conflicts w/ the cops. This means people are safe and can go to the actions they feel comfortable w/. additionally the bloc is not simply physical force politics – they’re also medics and help those who come under attack from rioting comes. The problem is not what happened on the nov 2nd , at least not the with regard to the bloc, the problem has been the hyperbolic divisive response of the “responsible” activist w/ “verifiable roots in this area.”
“Their limited, cartoon like fantasies of combat with low level law enforcement and local media, their contempt for other activists with long term verifiable roots in this area (many of whom have faced war and imprisonment here and around the world) their insistance on viewing the neighborhoods in which we live, work and care for our families as “inanimate” junk yards, their willingness to shout down, intimidate, mischaracterize and disrespect life long members of our communities with whom they disagree, have all served to sour relations between these poseurs and many locals on the left who are no less “radical” than they are.”
I don’t think it sounds like your doing anything to improve relations or build bridges. Most of the tone of this post has been to entrench reductive us/them dichotomies that do more to harm the movement than it does to help it. With all of your verifiable activist roots one would think that this would be nothing new and you’d expect these kind of tactics and debates by now. This debate has characterized the internal discussions within the direct action activist community for the last 2 decades.
“How dare they preach to the rest of us Bay Area activists about police brutality, poverty, and the context of world events as if we were born yesterday in some sheltered suburb and have never read a book!”
Like wise. Cite sources. Provide nuanced analysis and this won’t be the case.
“How can they imagine we’d accept this juvenile, jargon strewn pseudo revolutionary bullshit as an explanation for why they’ve chosen to expose our children to even more graffiti, toxic smoke and broken glass?”
What children were hurt by the black bloc? If you wish to shelter your kids from graffiti and toxic smoke maybe you should move – because that shits endemic in Oakland. Or maybe you should keep trying to pressure city hall through peaceful/legal means because it’s historically been such a smashing success. Isn’t cool that the bloc didn’t go out into the neighborhood or port march so as to avoid kids.
“(and no, I don’t mean tear gas) I’ve yet to hear a single apologist for physical force tactics or the particularly odious black bloc folk address the repeated and well known use of these tactics by undercover police and other outside saboteurs.”
Numerous people have responded to the idea that the bloc were infiltraitors. Just because you haven;’t read everything on the forum doesn’t mean its not been said. I have noted that
A.) This argument is based on conspiratorial assumptions that are difficult to falsify or verify.
B.) You have no evidence to support this claim. These are simply speculations.
C.) Most examples of this include inserting cops and/or using rightwing youths (eg in Italy cops use fascist soccer hooligans) and many of the blocers that I saw were emaciated late-teens and early-twenties – not buff late 20’s early 30’s. the bloc didn’t appear to cops and to my knowledge we lack organized rightwing youth in the Bay Area – thus based on the vary limited evidence one can bring to bare on this issue I would say that the bloc wasn’t a bunch of cops – and ive also heard that the people smashing down town when the cops raided the plaza on the morning of the 3rd weren’t in black but regular clothes meaning this could have been anyone.
D.) I would argue that given the cops propensity for hospitalizing people it’s far more likely that they would’ve been more aggressive and more violent than what actually took place – all the better to smear the movement. Hospitalized bystanders would’ve been a much clearer message that the movement is violent than broken windows and a burning baracade.
E.) So you can keep condescending to people you disagree w/ or you can actually articulate a warranted position w/ some degree of evidence and analysis to defend the assertion that the black bloc on the 2nd was a cop action.
F.) And while this is an inherently problematic fact of the black bloc tactic – I would argue the impact in this instance is marginal (see above sub point D).
G.) Cops have infiltrated and monitor nearly all activists groups. Numerous peace groups were infiltrated during the bush admin. Common Ground in N.O. was the site of a big ugly infiltraitor scandal. Domestic wire taps, databases and unlimited survailence powers in the post-9/11 world means that the impacts of police repression on the left/activist is nothing new and whether or not cops are in the black bloc is largely irrelevant because the impacts of police repression are pretty fucking pervasive and inevitable.
H.) Cops will attack us and marginalize us regardless of whether or not the bloc is there. This means the worst of the impacts are inevitable – the cops will attack peaceful protestors, they will use lies and obfuscations to justify these actions.
I.) Given all of this I think the conspiracy theories of black bloc infiltraitors are over-blown, divisive and spread fear through our movement without even being factual.
“Nor has anyone addressed why rightwing (not just mainstream) media are having orgasms over these people without even having to provide their usual misleading commentary.”
This is factually inaccurate. The media is mischaracterizing what took place there are a number of posts that have demonstrated this. The original post to which you’re responding is a perfect example of someone who was there who can rebuff the misleading commentary of the mainstream media (if your looking to influence fox news good luck – they’re irrelevant – code pink and all the peaceful protestors who give tens of thousands of dollars to republicans for the chance to yell at one of them for 10 seconds are just as maligned on right wing news). It’s unfortunate that representatives of the bay area left are so misguided and under the spell of the illusion cast by elite that they can’t even see when they’re being lied to and manipulated into dividing the most inspiring mass movement this country has seen in generations.
“They’ll find little comfort in their arrogant, dismissive characterizations of other activists as middle class “peace police” or the “right deviation” if they continue to provoke the ordinary (and not so ordinary) people on our streets.”
I feel like this statement needs to be reflected back at you. You literally engage in arrogant and dismissive characterizations of other activists as middle class, for instance when you say that some can’t because their “actually poor” as if to say the bloc is all of means. Now you say this despite not knowing any of them or their socio-economic back round which is exactly what your accusing them of doing.
Those who advocate physical force politics during the solidarity building phase of a post 9/11 era movement that has managed to motivate the actual masses, turn away far more than pacifists, liberals, business owners, “yuppie scum” and the physically vulnerable. They also repel anyone who cannot afford to get arrested or who, for whatever reason, would prefer to limit contact with immigration, the FBI or the Dep. of Homeland Security.(ie actual poor people and people with actual experience of militant struggle). Their limited, cartoon like fantasies of combat with low level law enforcement and local media, their contempt for other activists with long term verifiable roots in this area (many of whom have faced war and imprisonment here and around the world) their insistance on viewing the neighborhoods in which we live, work and care for our families as “inanimate” junk yards, their willingness to shout down, intimidate, mischaracterize and disrespect life long members of our communities with whom they disagree, have all served to sour relations between these poseurs and many locals on the left who are no less “radical” than they are. How dare they preach to the rest of us Bay Area activists about police brutality, poverty, and the context of world events as if we were born yesterday in some sheltered suburb and have never read a book! How can they imagine we’d accept this juvenile, jargon strewn pseudo revolutionary bullshit as an explanation for why they’ve chosen to expose our children to even more graffiti, toxic smoke and broken glass? (and no, I don’t mean tear gas) I’ve yet to hear a single apologist for physical force tactics or the particularly odious black bloc folk address the repeated and well known use of these tactics by undercover police and other outside saboteurs. Nor has anyone addressed why rightwing (not just mainstream) media are having orgasms over these people without even having to provide their usual misleading commentary. They’ll find little comfort in their arrogant, dismissive characterizations of other activists as middle class “peace police” or the “right deviation” if they continue to provoke the ordinary (and not so ordinary) people on our streets.
Hello Fellow Worker,
I very much appreciate your respectful tone. What some people don’t seem to realize about this discussion is that insulting eachother is a way to ensure that we don’t get anything done.
What I have expressed in my posts only comes from a place of trying to contribute what I know and do best. I have, for years, studied the impact of media and human behavior. It is a subject I know very well, which is why I focus on it. I understand how the mainstream media has been used as a propaganda delivery system to brainwash the public mind. I also understand what needs to be done on a larger scale, here in America, at this point in time, to grow the movement, through the use of media. We can USE the system that’s already in place to our advantage. I understand that my beliefs about this are at odds with those who advocate a “diversity of tactics.”
I have spent a lot of time trying to fit in to #OO, as I felt that I could bring a different voice that might be useful. It has been difficult. I have found those with whom I have tried to dialogue to be insulting and adversarial. This has been disheartening. I thought we were trying to work together to fight the 1%. But some are so angry they can’t keep themselves from lashing out at fellow protesters with a tone of disrespect.
I have come to the conclusion that I don’t fit in with #OO, and it is time to move over to #OSF and #OCAL. I don’t feel there is much I can do to be useful here. I respect you all, and wish you well. Please protect yourselves and be safe. May the 99% prevail! LOVE!
come on dude your not being fair to other peoples perspectives instead your sowing the seeds of division. one could compile all of your post and they would show that yes “Anyone can throw a tantrum.” and no its not constructive.
you’ve accused me of this fantasy – when its not what ive said or support – instead you reduced all of the constructive comments ive tried to make in response to your temper tantrum. you seam to have a lot of time to troll the forums but not enough to organize a nonviolence training that equips people with the skills you demand of them. MLK and the rest did just come into the world ready made activist – they learned at the highland school – how to do what they did. now try being constructive instead of destructive.
thanks for the response.
yes the state can escalate violence and will often use overwhelming force, however, people have historically overcome overwhelming technological superiority when they mobilize and stay united (nearly every national liberation movement, the arab spring movements, every revolution and every mass social movement throughout history has faced insurmountable odds but people stood for what they believed was right and helped to create the world they wanted to see come into being).
money and fire power don’t determine the outcome of social struggle (see vietnam, any of the classic revolutions, examples above). so much of this seams to be predicated off of the idea that people are advocating a violent rev, and as far as i can tell neither myself nor anyone else has advocated taking up arms to start the rev. window smashing as you point out and most people understand isn’t gonna be the end of capitalism. no-one has said it is. it is often an articulation of class anger and an effort to smash the illusions of a society that values windows more than people – or put another way – property rights over human rights. something even the “left” doesn’t seam willing to grasp.
now im not gonna be so condescending and say your joking yourself, but to imply changing consumer choices will produce the change we want to see, in not that probable.
a.) corporations co-opt consumer choices – see wholefoods, and walmart’s move into organic food not because it will change the world for the better but because it will increase their profitability. or the greenwashing phenomenon.
b.) boycots have little effect Israel has withstood their boycott far better than South Africa did, the boycott of Sudan wasn’t vary effective – e.g. bashir is still in power, the boycott of china before the olympics had little impact, there are so many corporate boycotts it’s hard to remember what to buy and what not to buy. and every consumer transaction conceals within it a violent antagonistic social relation – or at least that’s what marx told me – i kinda doubt changing what we buy will do away w/ violence, exploitation and oppression. and finally using your logic (big powerful state can overwhelm little people) it would seam to reason if we fight on the terrain of consumption that the corporations will win. additionally the fact that big states like the US are unsuccessful w/ their boycotts (that they call embargoes) like the ones against Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea etc. then what makes you so certain that boycotts are the way to go? and if black bloc is expected by now even from average consumers than what’s the big deal these are just part of a diverse and movement. neither of these tactics is an end in themselves so if that’s how you want to roll im down – go big – get organized and shut em down – same for the rest of the movement – none of these tactics are mutually exclusive their just individual choices and commitments we all have to make for our selves.
Hi think!,
I agree w/ much of what you say – i just disagree on the magnitude of the impacts of the vandalism/”violence” and the degree of emphasis we should put on it, compared to the degree of mobilizing that we do in response to what i and many others feel is real violence that results in hospital stays, i also feel that this discussion is largely ahistorical, and uniformed w/ the nonviolence side in particular simply asserting their “rightness” without backing it up w/ analysis (ie warrants, data, evidence, sources, useful implementation of logical methods like reasoning by example where numerous examples across time and space are analyzed and compared in their all of their nuance) instead we get claims that MLK, Ghandi, historical evidence, and pragmatic politics all necessitate supporting/committing to nonviolence. Unfortunately none of these claims are backed up with the level of argumentation that is being provided by those advocating a diversity of tactics, a united front and class conscious resistance (for instance, by challenging the definition of violence by positing violence as only that which is directed toward the living beings not inanimate objects, and by challenging the representations of “successful” movements as “nonviolent”, as well as challenging the chronology that presents police/media/state repression as reactive, and challenging the assertions of efficacy and results, and finally opposing the morality and ethics that has wasted so much energy focusing on vandalism instead of organizing to create a better world where cops don;t feel like its okay to shoot people or attack those who rush to their aid).
All that said i dig the respectful and constructive tone of your response. Thank You. I just respectfully disagree on some of the finer points. I feel like we can debate these topics w/ an open mind, bringing to bare all the power of collective intellects, however so far i don’t feel this has been the tone or spirit of the debate over tactics. i feel it has devolved into a debate typified by sectarianism, dogmatism and ideological purity over intellectual curiosity or qualitative analysis and a desire to build a constructive path forward. To the extent i’ve contributed to this im sorry.
“Being against violence is not an “extreme” stance.”
i was referring to your dogmatism, which i believe is typified by your unwillingness or inability to grasp other peoples perspectives on this issue without repeating the same ideological and divisive mantra – nonviolence or else.
“It is how Code Pink operates,”
cool. code pink can keep on keepin on – doing absolutely nothing. they should keep on spending thousands of dollars to get into a gala dinners where they can yell at some bush admin functionary. Remember the success of their 2006 mobilization to oppose the war in iraq – that really worked because the surge was awesome. yay code pink.
“it is how MLK Jr. operated,”
so what things change. there were also a lot of problems w/ the South Christian Leadership Conference, for instance the top down hierarchy, focus on charismatic leadership. additionally he’s given credit for everything that was positive in the civil rights movement even though the lunch table sit-ins, and the freedom rides were organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who organized in direct opposition to the organizing tactics and strategies of the SCLC (for a source search Graeber rebirth of anarchism in north american). My point is not to say that SNCC was violent or that it justifies black bloc, but rather just saying MLK is ahistorical, dogmatic and undermines what people are trying to build here now.
“and it is in line with the fact that the vast majority of the 99% are not ready to riot in the streets.”
no one is asking people to riot in the streets. on nov 2nd the black bloc wasn’t on the morning marches or the port march they were only on the anti-capitalism march and at TAS building occupation – actions where they were expected. they in no way tried to force anyone to participate in their activities. they respect other people’s ability to choose for themselves how to behave and advance the movement.
“For you and others to continually imply that myself or anybody opposed to violence is insensitive to police brutality is a base and disgusting tactic full of rhetoric and void of meaning.”
really? so are you taking a stand against real violence by actively organizing to resist it; or are you just taking a rhetorical stand for purposes of purity and media spectacle. because i’ll ive heard and seen is rhetoric – but where are the nonviolence trainings, where are the nonviolent peace keepers, where are the people who support nonviolence and why haven’t they organized outside of the internet forums or the proposal process to create the nonviolent movement they want to see come into being? you say my rhetoric is disgusting and void of meaning but this is just a convenient way of avoiding the facts – the cops are violent, protestors aren’t property destruction isn;t violence. my point is that we should be mobilizing to that people don’t get their skulls fractured by cops who attack people instead of responding to real emergencies. My point is also that we should be organizing and building a diverse movement instead of issuing ultimatums and sowing division. the debate is going nowhere mostly because the vacuous nature of the arguments in defense of nonviolence which simply repeat the received narrative of power – the powerless are only powerful if they admit their powerlessness and turn it into a media spectacle asking for salvation. additionally no sources being cited, people are just making assertions and acting as if that is sufficient for winning the debate and determining the future form of the movement. actions speak louder than words go get organized.
“I know Scott Olsen,”
cool. i don;t.
“I was personally offended by what happened to him.”
me too.
“I don’t know him well enough to know for certain, but I’m pretty sure he would not want his injury to be used as a justification for violence. I object to your doing so, and I reject the concept of violent revolution in America.”
i don;t know or care. because
a.) i dont pretend to speak for him or others
b.) i dont know who’s using his injuries as a justification for violence. i know im certainly not.
c.) there is an ongoing debate over what constitutes violence and i dont know where he stands on it. i do know, however, that he joined one of the most violent institutions ever created in human history, yet he seams to have great intentions and a desire to make the world a better place.
d.) this is largely irrelevant, accept insofar as it reveals the incessant need on the part of the nonviolence crowd to impose its perspective on those who can’t speak.
e.) where did i call for violence? or a violent revolution?
f.) i object to your desire/inclination to put words in peoples mouthes and mischaracterize what they say. it hurts dialogue and debate and does little to advance your cause if you oppose it to a complete fabrication.
“The other Occupy camps are not taking part in this violence. Oakland is isolating itself from the world.”
no duh they’re not here. yes they are and even if they aren’t the media will still frame it that way. just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s true or that it’s the way things are represented in the media for instance here’s (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/29633473/detail.html) a link to a new story that begins
“After violent clashes with police Saturday, Occupy Denver demonstrators focused Sunday on getting arrested activists out of jail and promoting a peaceful message.”
and here’s a statement from occupy boston in solidarity w/ oakland http://occupybostonglobe.com/2011/11/01/general-assembly-passes-resolutions-supporting-occupy-oakland-general-strike/ (i know it precedes the nov 2nd strike).
additionally – the arab spring has been full of violence. the people of egypt engaged in over a week of pitched street battles w/ security forces – don’t be naive the people of Tahrir Square were engaging in violence and it was necessary. and after the police started cracking down on occupy protestors egyptians mobilized in defense of our movement and we are still standing in solidarity w/ one another (see the GA proposal passed on wen in solidarity w/ ongoing the struggle in egypt against the military junta). the world is watching and they know institutions of power often lie and they still support us.
i will also venture to say that every municipality that has, is, or will try to evict the respective occupations in those locals does so on the basis of inaccuracies (ie lies) about risk to public safety posed by the Occupations. being the target threat construction is nothing new – even MLK and SCLC were the targets of the FBI. what we should do is try and breakdown the narrative frame that allows these kinds of tactics to be wielded against our movement – instead of turning them inward on each other.
How Peaceful Protesters are attached by Black Bloc followers like what happens to this fellow in the video trying to put out a fire make me wonder what the Black Bloc is attacking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW8Qeprahcs
Violence is not an effective strategy for a smaller and weaker group pitted against a larger opponent (the State, Corporations, etc.). The smaller and weaker group only has power in attacking the larger opponent in ways that the larger can’t defend with its money. If you really think that smashing some windows or even burning down a building will hurt a large company, you must be joking yourself. What really hurts large companies is massive changes in consumer behavior against their company, so learn how to do smear campaings, learn how to organize boycotts against the companies…a couple broken windows costs them nothing and it doesn’t convince the regular consumer of anything except that there are some ruffians invading Oakland that like to break things.
Revolutionary… I get the feeling you think we are not all on the same side, here? Do we not have a common enemy?
The people advocating nonviolent protest are not your enemy! WE are not the corporation! WE are not the repressive state!
I believe that probably mischaracterizes what really happened anyway. People like the author have deluded themselves into thinking that all the 10 or 20 thousand who marched on the Port of Oakland are in support of their fantasy of violent revolt.
Hello Fellow Worker,
Those of us advocating nonviolence simply want to see the Occupy movement make real change in this country, the same change you would like to see. Our viewpoint is not “extreme,” it is aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement as a whole. In fact, if anything is extreme, it is trying to win this fight with violent acting out that the rest of the movement believes will undermine our own cause.
There are many more effective ways to fight a repressive state other than violence and vandalism. There is plenty of historical evidence to support this fact.
“The current hegemony of “peaceful protest” has kept property destruction contained, but the growing sentiment on the march seemed to be: Fuck it. Give me a rock, or better yet a dense D battery.”
That pretty much tells me all I need to know-. “Fuck it” is not an organizing tool. or a strategy Anyone can throw a tantrum.
Also I just want to remind you, if you are pushing away people like me — who may be “right” of your position but are far “left” of most Americans — you will damn sure never reach the majority of the 99%. So it seems many of you are striking the pose of a martyr at a time when real coalitions need to be built across the spectrum.
OK, well I admit that I am to the right in relation to people who believe in a violent revolution to bring about either Marxism or anarchy in the United States. I also believe the vast majority of the 99% is to the right of this extreme sentiment. It’s naive to think otherwise. So this extreme philosophy is driving people like me away from the Occupy movement, and it is isolating and threatening the people at the camp.
Being against violence is not an “extreme” stance. It is how Code Pink operates, it is how MLK Jr. operated, and it is in line with the fact that the vast majority of the 99% are not ready to riot in the streets. For you and others to continually imply that myself or anybody opposed to violence is insensitive to police brutality is a base and disgusting tactic full of rhetoric and void of meaning. I know Scott Olsen, I was personally offended by what happened to him. I don’t know him well enough to know for certain, but I’m pretty sure he would not want his injury to be used as a justification for violence. I object to your doing so, and I reject the concept of violent revolution in America. The other Occupy camps are not taking part in this violence. Oakland is isolating itself from the world.
I agree with David Heatherly. I am quickly becoming convinced that the GA process is fatally flawed, because it favors campers over the rest of us who marched on Nov. 2. The vast majority of us did so because the Occupy movement has been DEFINED as NONVIOLENT, and the march was PROMOTED as NONVIOLENT. And yet those of us who have commitments, like work and family, or live too far away, or are scrambling to pay our rent, cannot be there to represent ourselves.
FYI: The “2nd vet injured” story was broadcast on the local ABC station Nov. 4, around the time or just after the Guardian reported it, and had an exclusive interview with the vet’s sister; it was immediately reported on Twitter that day as well:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=8419771
Here’s the story on the 2nd Iraq vet hospitalized by police brutality – a story posted first by a British newspaper, the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/04/occupy-oakland-second-veteran-injured
Here’s the picture of him after being tackled by OPD and held down, on KTVU news, also on Nov. 4; Twitter posts called for KTVU to release the full video:
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/iraq-war-vet-11-4/nFWrJ/
Not making a distinction between the violence of the state and its corporate allies against the people as opposed to the destruction of that property is inherently right wing in relation to the above piece. Also, I have a hunch the author would not want to be thought of as “Progressive” as that is merely a title given to the moderate wing of the state power structures. But I would not presume to speak for them.
have you condemned the violence of the “peaceful protestors” who violently attacked the black bloc?
are you spending equal time organizing people to resist the violence of the police who have hospitalized at least 2 people and have beaten and arrested countless more?
are you willing to take a REAL stand against violence, by standing with OO and against repressive state forces like the police (who beat people) and the media (who ignore this focusing instead on broken widows as this post eloquently demonstrates) or do you only care about the media images and dehumanizing calculative stratagem that prefers the image of person w/ a fractured skull to the images of class anger and solidarity?
And finally are you not calling for the exclusion and isolation of people who you (wrongly) characterize as violent, refusing to hear or understand alternative perspectives, in order to impose your extreme (ie dogmatic) ideological code of non-violence on every else while giving the cops a pass?
I strongly object to your characterization of those of us who tried to prevent vandalism and violence from marring the General Strike as “the right deviation.” I have just as much right to claim the title of progressive as you do. I am against war, and I oppose all forms of violence no matter who is perpetrating it upon who. Most Americans are not pacifist, but they will turn against this movement thanks to people such as yourself making an argument in favor of vandalism and violence. Referring to us as “right deviation” and trying to isolate us from the movement because we want peace and non-violence is sure to make this movement a small extremist failure. Thanks.