The Incident at Berkeley has caused much hand wringing and hair pulling, "pearl clutching" in a word, throughout the law'n'order/"non-violence" -- except by the state -- crowd.
Ohnoes!!! Broken windows! "Molotov cocktails!" Disruption! Black clad anarchist!!!
This attitude toward disruption, inconvenience and broken glass (black clothing too) is one of the reason why we're in the pickle we're in. The fear of actually doing something that might-could get someone in trouble, change the narrative, prove disruptive, inconvenient, or break a window has been so ingrained in the American subconscious that when it happens -- as at Berkeley, but many times before -- there is a reflexive recoil. "Ohnoes!"
Well, stop.
While I don't find the Black Bloc to be a particularly effective tactic -- never was -- it exists, it happens, it's going to continue, get over it.
Yes, really. Get the fuck over it. I think I said much the same during Occupy, whenever the Pearl Clutchers went into their periodic -- and idiotic -- hysterics over someone breaking something somewhere or burning trash in the street. Come on, it's a tiny thing when compared to the outrages of the ruling class. If it gets attention paid to some of those outrages, great. If not, it's not the end of the world.
Welp, here we are now, and Antifa is a rising thing as people start to recognize that Fascism has evolved and the Trump regime is its New Model avatar. If we really don't want fascists to rule us, we'll have to accept a bit of vanguardism from the Antifa.
Don't worry about it so much.
If you don't want to participate, don't. Is that so hard?
Of course I've heard plenty of reports that there are provocateurs sent by the state in every Black Bloc action we know of. Could be. I did encounter provocateurs during Occupy, but to my knowledge they were not included in any Black Bloc action I had personal knowledge of -- which wasn't all of them, by any means.
Any movement is going to be infiltrated. That's just the way it is, and it's another thing to get over and get used to. Infiltration will happen and authorities will attempt to decapitate any nascent movement -- at least any nascent movement on the Left -- before resorting to naked force. It's Iron Law.
We've seen, however, up at Standing Rock in particular, a remarkable level of resilience and continued resistance, despite the efforts of the authorities not just to decapitate but to violently confront and kneecap defiance.
Defiance, in fact, seems to be what puts the militarized police into an absolute frenzy. Hello. Clue stick. This is how you bring the system of rule to a halt and eventually bring it down.
Surprise: it's not a straight path to victory, and the Resistance makes many strange bedfellows along the way.
A key understanding is so far missing from the Resistance: this is Class War, and it is necessary to place Trump in the Ruling Class category and let it be known that the class he represents is in most ways just like he is.
In order to reach victory the entire 1% must feel the effects the defiance of the masses.
Their rule can be brought to a halt by making it impossible for them to govern.
The Antifa vanguard is already taking the risks, though it doesn't look coordinated -- yet. Interestingly, the RevCom agitators are right out front. Communists and Anarchists ordinarily don't get along -- and I'll leave to another time speculation on just who and what RevCom is -- but perhaps the danger is so great now that tired old animosities must be set to the side.
The Antifa vanguard is active but so far it is uncoordinated. Perhaps that will change with the next ukase from the Winter Palace. We'll see.
But for now, I am surprised -- and impressed -- at the number of Antifa activists at the Disrupt J20 inauguration events.
Why is the New York Times promoting the “black bloc”?
By Bill Van Auken 4 February 2017
The New York Times, the semi-official voice of the Democratic Party establishment, published an extraordinary article in its Friday edition headlined “Anarchists Vow to Halt Far Right’s Rise, With Violence if Needed.”
The piece, which ran across four columns of the newspaper’s front page under a huge photo of a black-masked individual preparing to break an office building window with an iron bar during Wednesday night’s protests at the University of California, Berkeley, amounted to free publicity and promotion of the violent protests organized by elements identifying themselves as the “black bloc,” anti-fascists and anarchists.
So there ya go. Chaos ensues...
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind...
(Note: the Trotsky-ites at WSWS are great at analysis, but they tend not to get involved in anyone else's uprising. They field political candidates though, so there is that...)
Theodor de Bry, Ilustración de la Brevísima de De las Casas, c. 1552
The various Spanish entradas into New Mexico were accompanied by so much grotesque violence that it ought to shock the conscience of even the most hardened would-be conquistador. Today, of course, Americans are pretty much inured to the cruelties of Our Valiant Troops as they march in conquest around the globe, slaughtering and dispossessing the gibbering Natives along the way, while teaching them -- of course -- the benefits of Democracy. Not unlike the Franciscans who accompanied the Spanish Conquistadors, teaching the Natives to welcome the benefits of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church and of course to submit to the rule of their distant but always merciful overlord, the King and Emperor Whoever-it-Might-Be in Spain.
The scene above is not specifically from New Mexico, but it might as well have been. The report is that in the winter of 1541, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his multitudinous seekers after Cibola and the remaining Gold of the Indies decided to camp in the Rio Grande Valley, in the province of Tiguex, near modern-day Albuquerque. They demanded supplies of the Natives, which were mostly given though with some grumbling. When the weather turned cold -- and it does get cold in the Albuquerque area to this day -- the Spanish demanded that the Natives closest by vacate their pueblo and turn it over to the Spanish for their comfort and convenience; the Natives could go live with their friends in other pueblos in the region. The Natives vacated as demanded and the Spanish moved in.
The Spanish let their stock and horses graze over the Indians' harvested fields of corn -- thus consuming the fuel (dried corn stalks) that the Natives used for heat and cooking during the wintertime. The Indians captured some 40 of the free-roaming animals, mostly horses and mules, and according to reports, they killed them all. In addition to supplies and shelter and the consumption of winter fuel, the Spanish demanded women, and if they weren't sufficiently forthcoming, the Spanish took what they wanted. This was the proverbial last straw.
Naturally the Spanish proclaimed that the Natives had "declared war." Spanish conquistadors being peaceful and all.
The Spanish assaulted one pueblo after another, driving the residents to assemble in and fortify the one remaining pueblo where the Indians held out for two months against Spanish aggression. Finally, they negotiated a surrender of sorts, with promises from the Spanish of no reprisals, and in fact of "pardons" to the rebels.
What that meant was that two hundred of those who surrendered would be burned at the stake as a "lesson" to other Pueblo peoples. What would happen to the survivors was undetermined until they tried to flee, at which time they were slaughtered in their multitudes.
All of the Tiguex pueblos in the Albuquerque area were abandoned and some were destroyed altogether during the winter of 1541, but Coronado and his murderous band of thieves, er "Conquistadors", withdrew from New Mexico in 1542 after failing to find the fabled remaining Cities of Gold (but he did see the Grand Canyon and buffalo herds). He was a broken man, so they say, and never fully recovered from his failure. So we are supposed to feel sympathy for him. He did his best in a Glorious Cause, and only killed those Natives because he was provoked. You see. He took their supplies, their houses and their women because he needed them. Simple.
What actually happened during the winter of 1541 is still subject to considerable dispute in New Mexico, in part because the Tiguex pueblos were all reported to be occupied and prospering when the Spanish came back to reconnoiter in the 1580's and they were still apparently doing fine when Juan de Oñate came a-Conquering again in 1598, and they were still going strong until the 1620's when Spanish diseases started decimating the Natives, ultimately reducing their populations to only a handful compared to previously. The Tiguex pueblos would finally be abandoned during the Pueblo Revolt of the 1680's, though two -- Sandia and Isleta -- would be restored after the de Vargas Reconquista of 1692, and Indian refugees would be invited to return from their scattered locations around the territory.
After all, the Spanish needed laborers.
To this day, Coronado, Oñate, and de Vargas, so celebrated among the Spanish in New Mexico, are regarded with contempt bordering on fury by the Pueblo peoples for their cruelty and duplicity. While it is not completely clear what really happened during the Coronado sojourn in the Rio Grande Valley -- thanks to the fact that the Spanish had a tendency to wildly exaggerate their exploits (including their murderous rampages) and the Indians were reluctant to talk about it afterwards -- it's obvious from some of the remains that still litter the ground around the former pueblos that something terrible happened that winter and that likely many people suffered. The only problem the story as it was told in Mexico after Coronado's return is that burning two hundred people at the stake is no easy task, the Spanish were notoriously lazy when it came to performing "work", and the Indians were decidedly resistant to taking orders from their New (but at the time temporary) Overlords.
The point is that this first Spanish entrada, and all the subsequent ones were accomplished with almost inconceivable levels of violence by the invaders and any sign of even peaceful resistance by the Natives was brutally and murderously crushed. In other words, no matter what the Indians did -- including submission, or the appearance of submission -- the Spanish would treat them violence. The question for the Pueblo peoples then and now is how do you survive under the circumstances? Apparently they found some kind of answer, because they have not only survived but in some respects they have flourished; today the Pueblo peoples form the base and the backbone of New Mexico's unique culture and society.
This is no small accomplishment.
The Pueblo Revolt turned the tables on the Spanish in 1680, leading to the deaths of many Spanish and the expulsion of the remainder (actions that were patterned on the behavior of the Spanish toward the Indians). And it seems that "doing unto the Spanish" what the Spanish had done to the Indians, even if ultimately the Spanish were allowed to return, was sufficient to change the relationship between the Indians and the Spanish enough to develop a kind of mutual if grudging respect for one another and one another's presence and culture that endures (tentatively) to this day.
Anglos tend to be outside this whole cultural and social dynamic, and I make no pretense of understanding it more than superficially -- if that.
Humility about things we don't really understand is not generally something Anglos display with confidence, yet those of us who have so much to learn would do well to listen more than speak about such matters as the relationships between the Spanish and the Indians in New Mexico. It's certainly not what we may think it is, and it probably isn't anything like what it looks like to us.
So it's with something of dismay that I present the following video of Chris Hedges and Kevin Zeese pontificating at a gathering in Washington, DC, on the question of nonviolence particularly as it relates to the behavior of "Black Bloc Anarchists," which clearly they know nothing of.
Or if they do know something of that which they speak, they are deliberately obfuscating for the purpose of propaganda, demonization, and scapegoating. In other words, they appear to be on a mission to civilize and control the "natives" -- as it were -- and to expel (or otherwise deal with) those who refuse to submit to their authority.
Not unlike the Spanish priests and conquistadors back in the day.
And note, please, that the largely older and very Anglo (ie: white) crowd -- this event, remember, is taking place in Washington, DC -- cheers and applauds the assertions of Authority and the pontificiations of the Missionaries from the pulpit (in a manner of speaking).
They are certainly hearing what they want about the nature of "revolution" and the priority of "nonviolence."
Which, by the way, the speakers are only interested in to the extent they can control and direct the actions of others -- or eliminate them.
The obsession with Black Bloc that seems to animate these speakers and this crowd is in many ways the same sort of obsessive need to control The Other that was so prominent in the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the subsequent British and American fascination with doing likewise. Taking territory and treasure is certainly part of the process of conquest, but often as important, if not more important, is the control of the behavior of others, of the Natives as it were, and failing that (or sometimes as a consequence of the ability to control them) their extermination.
The Anarchists, Black Bloc or not, have been demonized by Hedges and Zeese and their ilk as The Other, to be feared, denounced, expelled and eliminated from the Occupy Movement, and I would suggest the reason is simple: they've been successful.
The success of genuine Revolution is not at all what Hedges and Zeese and their followers want, at least not the success of a genuinely populist and largely anarchist Revolution. There is almost nothing more fearsome to them. What they want, if I can carry the analogy to the Spanish Conquistadors and their religious advocates a little farther, is to be able to order and control the lives of others even more thoroughly than present governments do, and to become those governments.
This is a form of Revolution, to be sure, but it is Revolution by imposition from the top down.
The notion that Anarchism and/or the Occupy Movement as a whole is somehow or can somehow become a violent insurrection because somebody somewhere sometime ago threw a bottle or broke a window is absurd on its face. Yet Hedges and Zeese and their followers at this event (as well as a whole cohort of "nonviolence" advocates) continue to insist that a broken window or a thrown bottle is the most serious offense possible if it occurs in connection with Occupy. The violence of the state or the implicit violence of their demonizing and eliminationist rhetoric is nothing compared to the overt "violence" of a thrown bottle or a broken window. After a while, this sort of ridiculousness becomes tiresome. But they are preaching to a choir of believers, and that's the most important -- and potentially dangerous -- thing.
One of the points often made by the Anarchists who are and have always been at the core of the Occupy Movement (unlike Hedges and Zeese) is that prefiguration, anticipation, and modeling what kind of future we want to see is an important, indeed fundamental, aspect of the Occupy Movement. It's the central element of the Revolutionary nature of Occupy, and it is the most threatening to the Powers That Be. That's why there had to be such a coordinated and brutal suppression of the Occupy encampments, for they are the "models" -- or at least the beginnings of the models -- of what can be and ought to be in the future.
We find with Hedges and Zeese and their followers, however, that the kind of future they are modeling is more like that of a Medieval Inquisition. Hedges, especially, is becoming more and more like a Savonarola. As you see in the video, He and Zeese sit in judgement of their nemesis, the Black Bloc, and declare from their pulpits anathema upon them, just as the Spanish priests railed against Native observances, always leading to more or less brutal suppression -- until the Natives fought back using Spanish terror, demonization, and expulsion tactics against them.
That changed the dynamic.
In the modern situation, there is no necessity to fight back against Hedges and Zeese and their followers because they have little or no power over the Movement -- regardless of their desires and demands. It is their powerlessness over the Movement that seems to be driving them to ever greater levels of rhetorical excess.
The question is whether the Movement in its collective wisdom will find ways to change the dynamic between the ruling corporatocracy and the People such that the corporatocracy must "respect" the People rather than continuing on the course of mindless destruction and exploitation.
The Pueblo People found a way to change the dynamic between themselves and their Spanish overlords by assaulting them with their own tactics: they learned and used the bloody and violent means of the Spaniards against them and drove them out of the region. The consequence was that they found themselves becoming too much like the Spaniards, however, and in the end, they decided it was better to preserve what they could of their traditional way of life and to go forward on a new path with the Spanish rather than in constant conflict and opposition to them -- or in intentional or unintentional emulation of them.
The Pueblo Peoples of New Mexico are the descendants of the legendary Anasazi who built the proud ruins in the Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. Despite extreme natural and human pressures over many centuries, they are extraordinary survivors, and we'd all do well to consider their example.
Occupy has been a magnet for Crisis since its inception last September.
Of course its predecessor movements in Europe and North Africa, as well as Wisconsin, also focused attention on the Crisis of our times. That Crisis is resolvable into the juggernaut of Neo-Liberalism and aligned dictatorship that are running roughshod over the interests of the People nearly everywhere all around the world. As we've seen in the case of Greece and many other places, it is in essence a neo-colonial enterprise on behalf of a shrinking handful of plutocrats and oligarchs who seek nothing less than to rule the world.
Occupy and its sister rebellions spontaneously arose in opposition to this juggernaut of sadistic cruelty and global exploitation. While there have been several apparent victories, many of us recognize that the struggle has barely been engaged on either side of the yawing gulf between the People and those who have set out to rule them with a rod and staff. The collapse of the Tunisian and Egyptian dictatorships was a step -- but only a step -- toward an eventual resolution of the Crisis that precipitated the rebellions. The root of the problem is still firmly in place, and so far, democratic processes are not able to uproot it.
And the inability to thwart the control of governments by a shadowy international cabal of plutocrats and oligarchs has led to something of a Crisis of Confidence among the many rebel movements around the world aligned to accomplish that thwarting.
In the United States, the pattern of Futility and Failure was set in Wisconsin, where a spectacular and apparently very effective sit in/occupation of the Capitol in Madison, and huge demonstrations in the streets accomplished essentially nothing. Every aspect of the Koch/Walker "reforms" were enacted, no matter what the People had to say about it, and no matter what the People did. The Wisconsin demonstrations were objectively failures.
Not only that, but the follow-up recall elections failed to change the balance of power in the Wisconsin Legislature; whether the current series of recalls slated for this summer will have a more positive effect on behalf of the People remains to be seen. But the lesson here is clear: standard protest and electoral processes don't work any more to change public policies for the better.
The peoples of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece (among other European nations) learned this bitter lesson some time ago; the peoples of North Africa and the Middle East are learning it now as their victorious rebellions (where they have been victorious) have turned into something less than they bargained for -- and in some places much worse for the masses.
What to do? Can the concerted actions of the People actually thwart the progress of the Juggernaut that is crushing them under its wheels, or is there some way to halt it in its tracks?
No one knows yet, and that uncertainty is part of what gives rise to the exploration of alternatives and the Crisis of Confidence that has been afflicting the many rebel movements and especially the Occupy Movement for months now.
But all is not lost.
Here is a wonderful short video of what happened in Portland, OR, the other day as the People marched in solidarity against he depredations of Our Corporate Overlords and their control of government through ALEC:
Here's a longer one that shows a bit more of what was going on in Portland:
It may look tame -- especially compared to some of the events and street battles in Oakland -- but I think there have been some significant changes in the approach to The Revolution This Year.
Those who relish spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about Occupy insist the Movement is "dead" and there is no point in bothering with it any more. The cause of its purported "death" is said to be the "violence" precipitated by Occupiers (with special emphasis on Occupy Oakland), which has allegedly alienated the masses from the Movement.
But you can see from these videos -- and I could post many, many more -- that the Occupy Movement is far from "dead." In fact, it has evolved (or metamorphosed) into something quite different than it once was. It still has a very strong mass appeal and Occupy events can still turn out hundreds or thousands of participants on a regular basis, but it is not the same sort of participation -- nor are the actions quite the same -- as was once the case.
We're seeing far more creative involvement and a great deal of mockery for Authority.
The Clown Police have been around for quite a while, but they are now much more apparent in demonstrations, and not solely in Portland. Their mockery of police overkill against the Occupy Movement is devastating in the videos above. It is a very creative way to highlight the nature of what the The Occupy Revolution is fighting. It's not simply ALEC or Corporate Control or what have you, the struggle is also against police who doll themselves up in Robo-Outfits and prance around on horseback to enforce Corporate Control on the rebels.
In a different way, the Clown Police are as effective in delegitimizing the Authority of the police and the Overlords they serve as the remarkable Shield Wall in Oakland was on January 28:
But there was more going on in Portland. During the march some people stood their ground and refused to be intimidated or moved by The Tsar's Cossacks:
This is another very effective way of delegitimizing the Authority of the Overlords and their Police. For many people, it's very disturbing to witness something like this. It is a completely nonviolent action that asserts the People's authority against the authority of the State -- and the People win. Of course, in Portland and elsewhere you have to be leery of these "wins," because the Tsar's Cossacks are liable to return by stealth after being thwarted (as they did after tens of thousands of Portland's People initially thwarted the eviction of Occupy Portland from their encampment last November). You never know.
Delegitimation of Authority is the principal Occupy strategy for the moment. It works, but it is also frightening to many people, especially if they can't see beyond the delegitimation to what comes next. So far, what comes next is vague at best. What does the Better World we're supposedly intent on building look like?
Delegitimization works, but what then? Until that question can be answered clearly and forcefully with ample demonstrations of Things to Come, the Crisis of Confidence that now afflicts parts of the Occupy Movement will continue.
In some ways it's appropriate and productive because it leads more people to consider, really deeply, what all this hoo-hah is for.
[Note: this video shows a lot more of the Portland F29 actions. Note the presence of a completely nonviolent Black Bloc. Just saying...)
You may have heard that there was a "riot" in Sacramento on Monday as Occupy Oakland "attacked" other demonstrators and police at the California State Capitol, "injuring" at least two officers and resulting in the arrest of at least three "black clad and bandana wearing anarchists from Oakland."
You may or may not have heard that the other demonstrators were a white supremacist group from Oakland who had a permitted event to publicize what they claimed was the "genocide" of white people in South Africa and that the Occupy Oakland group had come to Sacramento specifically to oppose their demonstration.
You more than likely heard nothing of the fact that the opposition to this white supremacist demonstration at the Capitol was composed of a number of autonomous affinity groups, and that the "riot" actually consisted of hurling mutual anathemas and epithets at one another, and that the officers who were injured apparently injured themselves -- one tackling an unidentified protestor, and one by other means unknown (you have probably heard the claim that he was maced or pepper sprayed, but if so, it wasn't by anyone in the crowd.)
You may have heard that objects such as cans, bottles, rocks and "paint filled eggs" were thrown at the police, but you probably have not heard that perhaps nothing except one paint-filled plastic baggie was actually thrown at the police, and that as a means of marking the officer as one who committed assault on demonstrators. (This tactic was also used in Oakland during some of the confrontations with police on October 25 -- after the violent eviction from Ogawa/Grant Plaza but before the wounding of Scott Olsen.)
You may or may not know that most or all of the reports about what happened that have appeared in the press and mainstream media to date were filed by people who were not there and have no first-hand knowledge. Their second and third-hand knowledge comes from interviews and statements almost exclusively from Sacramento police, California State Highway Patrol, and a very limited number of witnesses.
You also may or may not know that almost all the stories that have been filed to date about the "#F27" events at the California State Capitol have been massaged to fit a "riot" narrative heavily featuring the (scary) Occupy Oakland contingent of "black bloc anarchists" in order to frighten the bejeebers out of the old people and the horses.
This is how propaganda is done. It can be highly effective.
Note: I wasn't there, didn't even know there was going to be a "riot" to attend. I found out about it through police channels well after the events of the day. The police were calling it a "riot Downtown" and advising people to stay out of the area from very early on in the confrontation according to the reports I heard (second-hand t0 be sure.) These reports were -- so far as I was able to discern -- at least half in jest. Much was made by the police of the presence of a contingent from Occupy Oakland. The entire protest was alleged to be an "Occupy Oakland" protest, but it was not.
A point can and should be made that the police in California -- and the 1% they serve -- are terrified of the militancy of Occupy Oakland; not their "violence, " for they are not violent in any rational sense. They stand their ground in other words, and by doing so, they are examples for other Occupys. Standing ground is one of the most effective means of delegitimizing Authority.
In addition to police sources (at least second hand), I also found first handsources on the ground, whose reports, though not perfect, at least came from within the events themselves in real time. Something that "the Media" seems incapable of doing any more, whether by intention or neglect, we'll leave it to the reader to decide.
These reports paint a very different picture of what happened -- and more to the point, why they happened.
There was a small (permitted) demonstration at the Capitol on Monday sponsored by an outfit calling itself "The South Africa Project" -- which is apparently a rather notorious white supremacist affinity group (widely scattered throughout the country) which focuses on the "genocide" of whites by blacks in South Africa. These sorts of claims of whites being mindlessly slaughtered by gibbering blacks and other Natives of course has a long and miserable history in this country and throughout the Euro centers of the Universe. There are always gibbering Natives slaughtering Peaceful and Civilized White Folk somewhere; it's just the way things are. It's a wonder there are any White Folk left. /snark
There was an unpermitted demonstration against "The South Africa Project" at the Capitol that involved at least 100 and perhaps more protestors including contingents from Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area as well as locations in the Central Valley. (California geography lesson: Oakland is about 80 miles west of Sacramento; Sacramento is near the center of California's Central Valley which extends approximately 400 miles north to south and is between 50 and 100 miles wide. The Central Valley is flat land, mostly orchard, farm, and ranch land, though heavily suburbanized during the run up to the Crash of 2007-8, that is often referred to as "The Other California" as it is quite a different sort of place than California's coastal and mountain enclaves. Many of those who live in the coastal areas have only the vaguest notions about the Central Valley, mostly contemptuous, but that's another essay for another time.)
In other words, the counter-demonstration against The South Africa Project's demonstration was by no means an "Occupy Oakland" event. It was an Anti-Fascist event that included people from many parts of California, including Oakland.
Some of them wore black and carried black flags. Eek. Anarchists! Black Bloc! Run for your lives children, we're all going to dieeeeee! Demonization of the Other is one of the primary tactics of propagandists, no matter what interests they serve, and in this particularly instance the propaganda of demonization was heavy on all sides.
Demonization, dehumanization and scapegoating go on so often, many people don't notice when it's happening. In this case, the "Nazis" -- and the police who were protecting them -- were being demonized by the crowd of protesters who had come from the Bay Area and the Central Valley (interestingly, Occupy Sacramento was not involved in this Direct Action) to protest them. The kaffir Natives of South Africa were being demonized by the "Nazis" for killing whites. The media was demonizing "Occupy Oakland" and the "black-clad anarchists" for "causing a riot." And so on.
In addition, there was an excess of process during the day's events. The "Nazis" were allowed onto the Capitol grounds on Monday because they had a permit. The demonstrators who came from the Bay Area and the Central Valley to protest them were not allowed on the Capitol grounds because they did not have a permit, and they were held at bay by a heavy state and local police presence, some of it on horseback. Certain members of the independent media were not allowed on the Capitol grounds while others were, depending -- it seemed -- on skin color and (shall we say) how "polite they were." Later, only media with big honking cameras were allowed to record close ups of those who were arrested after the rallies broke up.
The police were solicitous and very protective of the "Nazis," escorting them from the Capitol grounds when their rally was done, and protecting them from the objects thrown from the crowd of protestors. Who actually threw the objects and what they actually were is not entirely clear. The videos I posted above do not show the objects themselves; one of them doesn't even show the "riot" itself. The one that does show the incident that has been called a "riot" also shows that it lasted approximately 5 seconds. It shows police chasing and running down demonstrators who supposedly threw things at the "Nazis" but there is some question of whether they were actually the ones who did so. One mounted officer is heard to exclaim that his target for arrest has just committed a felony. The man runs and is tackled by a rather portly officer who is then hauled away in an ambulance because he seems to have bloodied his chin in the tackle.
It's all supposedly being done "by the book," though it does seem the police actions are somewhat laid back -- as they often tend to be in Sacramento in connection with Occupy. Certain rituals have been adopted that maintain a rather formal and polite, sometimes even humorous, relationship between Occupy Sacramento and the local gendarmerie. The "black-clad anarchists" from the Bay Area and the Central Valley are another kettle of fish altogether. They were far louder and far ruder toward the police than the police are used to in Sacramento, and it was obviously disconcerting to them. Nevertheless, I'm sure that they had been warned of what to expect from the Occupy Oakland people -- who inspire such fear all across the nation.
Whether any of them actually threw anything at anyone (apart from insults and a baggie filled with paint) is a matter of dispute. As we know, infiltrators are legion in the ranks of Occupy -- why every other Black Bloc is all police infiltrators, aren't they? Or maybe not. It's so difficult to say anymore. The question of who is actually throwing things at any given time, and what their affiliation is, never really gets explored, and it should be. I think there might be some surprises.
There was no riot in Sacramento on Monday; this is the third or fourth time I have seen reports of "riots" in connection with Occupy that were no such thing. You would think that people would be able to discern the fact that something like loud voices and one or two thrown objects and a handful of arrests do not a "riot" make. But propaganda is powerful. And if the propaganda media says it's a "riot," many will uncritically believe it to be so.
It's literally taken me this long -- since Monday evening -- to pore through the "news" and the other material available to piece together something like a factual understanding of what happened based on evidence as opposed to hearsay and hysteria. Propagandists know that most people can't do that, and they aren't inclined to do so anyway. So propagandists can often get away with saying whatever they want. On the other hand, they can't get away with it forever.
How long will it take for average Americans to understand they are being lied to? Something tells me they already know it.
David Graeber, of course, is one of the founding anarchists of Occupy Wall Street, and he's been involved in Movements of various flavors for many years.
I was glad he took on the responsibility of responding to Hedges' sad little meltdown over the Black Bloc "cancer" in Occupy. I was glad he pointed out how dangerous that kind of rhetoric is; it's the rhetoric of eliminationists, and no matter what you may think of Black Bloc and anarchists, no matter how negative you may be about them, eliminationism is a serious -- and deadly -- social malignancy; it's an attitude toward the dehumanized Other that leads to disastrous consequences, and not solely for the dehumanized Other. As I've said before, Hedges did something shameful by scapegoating and demonizing "Black Bloc anarchists." Being a writer, he knows the power of language to inspire fear and loathing and providing excuses for deadly action against the Other. He was in Bosnia. He KNOWS. Therefore, I do not cut him any slack on that account, unlike Graeber who tirelessly appeals to Hedges' better angels.
As Graeber puts it somewhat more powerfully than I do, let's go to the quote:
I am appealing to you because I really do believe the kind of statement you made is profoundly dangerous.
The reason I say this is because, whatever your intentions, it is very hard to read your statement as anything but an appeal to violence. After all, what are you basically saying about what you call “Black Bloc anarchists”?
1) they are not part of us
2) they are consciously malevolent in their intentions
3) they are violent
4) they cannot be reasoned with
5) they are all the same
6) they wish to destroy us
7) they are a cancer that must be excised
Surely you must recognize, when it’s laid out in this fashion, that this is precisely the sort of language and argument that, historically, has been invoked by those encouraging one group of people to physically attack, ethnically cleanse, or exterminate another—in fact, the sort of language and argument that is almost never invoked in any other circumstance. After all, if a group is made up exclusively of violent fanatics who cannot be reasoned with, intent on our destruction, what else can we really do? This is the language of violence in its purest form. Far more than “fuck the police.” To see this kind of language employed by someone who claims to be speaking in the name of non-violence is genuinely extraordinary. I recognize that you’ve managed to find certain peculiar fringe elements in anarchism saying some pretty extreme things, it’s not hard to do, especially since such people are much easier to find on the internet than in real life, but it would be difficult to come up with any “Black Bloc anarchist” making a statement as extreme as this.
There have been many more responses to Hedges. He is not getting away with his smears, but he may have his King of OWS crown repossessed.
-----------------------------
Meant to post a link to this response to the Hedges Smear, but forgot I guess. It's from a Socialist perspective and it's quite good compared to a couple of others I ran across; the comments are good, too:
Linkage (since the player embed doesn't seem to want to be embedded in this remote corner of Blogistan.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial comment:
Hedges seemed almost contrite in this onair "debate" with Kristof Lopaur of Occupy Oakland, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do the decent thing and outright apologize for smearing Occupy Oakland with falsehoods, inaccuracies, and inappropriate accusations. Instead, he backslid and insisted that "OWS" should not be confronting the police (on the premise that if they weren't confronted by demonstrators, they would come over to the side of the protest... a problematical assertion, but we'll let it go for now.)
He abandoned essentially any criticism of Occupy Oakland, though, and that's quite a change from what he wrote in his polemic, where almost all the examples of "Black Bloc anarchism" were taken from incidents in Oakland, and he insisted that he "wasn't writing about Occupy Oakland," he was writing about Black Bloc. When he was informed that there was only one Black Bloc in Oakland -- and there has been none that I know of anywhere else in Occupy -- and that was in November of last year on General Strike Day, Hedges essentially wanted to change the subject.
No, he claimed that his focus was Black Bloc and not Occupy Oakland, and what he wanted was to preserve the popularity of "OWS" among the middle classes.
Of course his polemic was triggered by the events in Oakland on January 28, when Occupy re-emerged onto the media radar with some absolutely stunning and spectacular events that included an ample dose of police violence. That wasn't what the media featured, of course; they featured the flag-burning and the something-throwing which was supposedly the justification for the brutal and violent police reaction, which of course is completely out of sequence, but when one has a crusade under way to stamp out the (non-existent) "Black Block anarchists" in Occupy, one really doesn't care about such trivialities as "facts".
Hedges was careful, however, to say nothing antagonistic about OO. He was actually more tongue-tied than I have ever heard him be. And nearly contrite when challenged, which I have never seen or heard from him, either. He tends to get hostile and huffy when challenged. Not this time.
I thought that Kristof was gentler with him than he had to be, and I assumed that was a strategic decision. It was clear that Hedges has taken an immense amount of heat for his falsehood-filled polemic, and Kristof made it clear that OO isn't some separate thing, like a cancer alien to OWS; in fact, he said that OO and OWS are in contact all the time, and if Hedges wanted information about OO, OWS was happy to give him contact information; in fact they did. But Hedges never called.
But Kristof showed no antagonism toward Hedges and he did not descend into rhetorical violence while he calmly corrected the record and rather gently took Mr. Hedges to the woodshed. Ultimately, Hedges may prove to be a useful... ally.
Anyway, Hedges attitude when confronted with his falsehoods and smears of Occupy Oakland in this interview/"debate" is quite a contrast to his writing about OO from his perch at Truthdig.
[Interestingly, "The Power of Nightmares" is apparently no longer available in full on the internet, though other BBC/Adam Curtis material still is. Here's a link to a 22 minute excerpt, a link to the final episode, and here is a link to a transcript.]
[Further Update: As if by magic, "The Power of Nightmares" has re-appeared at Archive.org, so get it while it is hot... The other two episodes are at the link...]
Well, this has been an interesting morning. Not a pleasant one, but interesting.
Went to bed last night thinking about how really sickened I was by Chris Hedges' polemic, specifically at how harmful his dehumanization and scapegoating is. I understand it's "his way." At times, I can even appreciate it, but this one really stuck in my craw because it was a frontal assault on Occupy Oakland.
I think it's pretty clear that though I am not a direct participant in Occupy Oakland affairs, I do support them somewhat more strongly than other Occupies I also support, and I defend anarchists, especially those who have been given the rawest deal by ignorant people who have no idea what anarchism is or what anarchists believe. I'm still learning, but I wouldn't have had more than casual and very peripheral contact with anarchist thought and anarchists in person were it not for Occupy. I'm an old man, and it's kind of a thrill to have a whole new way of looking at things be opened to me at this late age.
In the course of my Occupy activities, I have dealt with people who wanted to engage in unspecified but clearly Black Bloc type Diversity of Tactics. They were very sincere, dedicated, not at all wild-eyed radicals intent on assassinations and bombings -- which is basically all most Americans have ever heard about or think they know about "anarchists."
I've dealt with them, and I am not at all afraid of them. They have no interest in harming me or any other human being. They want, sincerely, to help make things better, and they believe, sincerely, that Diversity of Tactics can hasten that better world we all claim as possible.
Thus when I see something like Hedges' egregious attack on what is really a phantom, a ghost of Black Bloc at all, my skin crawls. He uses the weapons of dehumanization and scapegoating against his target, which isn't really "the Black Bloc anarchists," it's Occupy Oakland, where these phantoms, these black-clad ghosts, loom so very large in his reveries.
His weapons of dehumanization and scapegoating are right out of "The Power of Nightmares," Adam Curtis's extraordinary 2004 documentary about how peoples can be driven by the politics of fear.
We fear what we don't understand or what we are told to fear, and we are prevented from understanding by the political need to instill fear in order to manage and control... you and me.
I don't fear anarchists or Black Bloc because I know them well enough to respect them, even if I don't agree with their positions or tactics. Hedges is counting on the fact that Americans by and large don't know anything about anarchists or Black Bloc -- except to fear them. And he ratchets fear of them up to the point of stark hysteria.
Scapegoating and demonization are extremely dangerous weapons in such a highly charged situation as we face now within the Occupy Movement. The external pressure from the authorities is only going to get worse as this election year and its numerous National Special Security events take place.
The anti-Occupy repression and propaganda campaigns haven't even begun compared to what's coming, and the notion that somehow by purging "the anarchists" -- Black Bloc or not -- now, the Movement will assure its safety and preservation is, in my view, whack. Purges can wait. The police are going to attack violently anyway.
I posted a version of my Chris Hedges' Meltdown piece over at dKos, and the response was fascinating. Not only was there an enormous amount outright hostility expressed toward my rejection of Hedges' thesis, there was an extraordinary amount of sheer ignorance on display; ignorance especially about anarchists and anarchism, Black Bloc, Oakland, what is and is not "violence," and so on. People don't know, and they are not meant to know. (Power of Nightmares again) Makes it surprisingly easy to inspire fear and dread, even hatred toward "the Other" by the Powers That Be, and in this case, it's Chris Hedges who is doing it.
I think it is shameful.
So, apparently, do some others, but I didn't see any shame at all in the comments to my essay; instead, I saw nodding approval of Hedges -- and frequent, full throated denunciation of "the anarchists" and their so-called violence.
I've encountered this phenomenon over and over and over again the past few weeks, so many times and in so many places with so many different kinds of people who almost all say the same thing: "Anarchists bad, they violent, smash them!" that I'm truly gobsmacked. How can people be so easily misled?
Well, we know, don't we?
Some counterpoint to the stupid:
OLA Anti-Social Media, an online Black Bloc site for Occupy Los Angeles, takes Hedges to the woodshed and smothers him with... some of his own medicine. And love. Oh yes. Don't forget the love!
And then there was this, posted at dKos shortly after my post that really, really ought to cause Hedges and all of his drooling adherents a LOT of heartburn, because Diane goes right to the point of why this kind of shit is so damned wrong.
We haven't seen the end of it by any means; the effort to purge "the anarchists" will continue until the Overclass embraces the Occupy!
...and I didn't say anything, but if they hadn't come, I would have called the cops myself.
When they came for the Anarchists, I didn't say anything because it was just as well, those people can never be satisfied.
When they came for the Communists, I kept my mouth shut because nobody likes them anyway.
When they came for the Marxists, it was all the same to me; there's no profit in being prematurely right, after all.
When they came for the Socialists, I didn't care, since Socialists are such namby-pambies.
When they came for the Secularists, it was nothing to me, since I'm a Believer.
When they came for the Libertarians, I said "Good Riddance."
When they came for the Zeitgeisters and all the various Alternative Energy Proponents and Self-Sustainers, I hardly noticed; I'd forgotten they were still around.
When they came for the Homeless Advocates, the NLG, and the other trouble-makers, it was too bad, but they made their beds when they tried to hijack my movement and protect those who were breaking the law. It's not about the Homeless and Criminals!
When they came to round up the Nonviolence people, I figured they were next, and at least they knew how to behave.
They didn't have to come for me because I'd turned myself in; I didn't want to be alone anymore....
Oh dear. My man Chris Hedges is on the warpath now. Appears that "the Black Bloc anarchists" have got his panties in a big old wad. For someone who's been around the block as many times as he has, this strikes me as a bit odd, as if something personal may have happened to him vis a vis "the Black Bloc anarchists," and he's lashing out for some reason.
I haven't finished the article yet, so I'll go back to it now and return anon to unpack it.
Bless his heart. --------------------------------------- All right, it is clear something has happened, but I don't know what. Chris Hedges is lashing out wildly, targeting "the Black Bloc anarchists" for his rage, but not comprehensibly. For example, someone called "Venomous Butterfly" wrote something highly critical of the Zapatistas (remember them?) that was published in a now defunct magazine called "Green Anarchist" -- and here's Chris posting a link to a website that has archived this undated article in a magazine that no exists and he's waving his arms and screaming, "See! See! Cancer!"
OK. I thought he was both smarter and more mature than this.
Something happened, I don't know what. Not only is he dredging up irrelevancies from doG knows when, but he is obsessed -- as so many Occupy "advocates" suddenly seem to have become -- with the tiny handful of individuals who have been out sporting now and then in black costumes, causing mischief to be sure (somebody, for example, lit a box on fire during a Fuck the Police march in Oakland in January, and the police had to walk around it when they were clearing the street. )"Violence! Anarchy! Wobblies!"
A bottle was thrown! Don't you understand???!!!
Uh. Yes. I do understand. And a mature response to a bottle thrown does not include going into hysterics and having a very public and very sad melt-down over it. Which is what is happening to Chris Hedges -- and apparently a lot of others in the Nonviolence Community.
I've been exposed to more outright hysteria and extraordinarily hostile and quite violent rhetoric from the Nonviolence Community in the last few days than I have ever been exposed to in my life.
There have been some really intense and emotionally charged internal confrontations connected with Occupy and Black Bloc since the beginning, but not until now have so many Nonviolence people got so in touch with their Inner Rage and let it out so passionately, using such violent rhetoric. In fact, I can't recall anyone in the Nonviolence Community doing so prior to the aftermath of J28 -- which I assume was the trigger, but I'm not sure. And over what?
Somebody wrote something years ago critical of the Zapatistas?
A bottle was thrown? In November?
No, I think it is pretty plain it is something else.
J28 marked the re-emergence on the public stage of the Occupy Movement, and it was very violent. It happened in Oakland where a flag was burned in front of an AP camera, and that image was plastered everywhere as "emblematic" of the Movement I guess. Actually, there was more than one flag burned, but we'll let that go. There was also an intense street "battle" -- of sorts -- in front of the Oakland Museum, during which a thousand or so unarmed demonstrators, some with makeshift shields and carts full of furniture (for the aborted "move in" at the Oakland Auditorium -- I'm old; that's what I know it as) confronted a line of several dozen cops who liberally and repeatedly fired tear gas, rubber bullets and various other kinds of "less lethal" munitions into the crowd.
There were other incidents of nonviolent -- but confrontational -- crowds being subjected to random munitions fire, bludgeons and attempts at kettling that climaxed with the mass arrest of hundreds and hundreds of people in front of the YMCA who were not allowed to disperse.
While there may have been Black Bloc participation in these incidents, I can't say for certain that Black Bloc was involved at all; some Black Bloc tactics were employed, notably protecting the wounded, but otherwise, there were few demonstrators dressed in black, and so far as I recall (it's been days, and I watched hours of video, some of it out of sequence) there was no actual Black Bloc contingent in the demonstration at all.
As I and others have reported, there were some incidents of individuals mostly in front of the crowd on Oak Street, none dressed in black that I recall, throwing back munitions that had been fired at them by police. There were reports -- and I saw at least two incidents -- in which individuals in the crowd on Oak St threw other objects at the police, including a garden chair. If they reached the police lines -- the chair didn't even come close -- I doubt they caused any physical harm. Given the intensity and frequency of the police fire, what was thrown at them in response was essentially nothing.
But none of that seems to be chapping Hedges behind. No, he's raging because someone in black threw a bottle in New York in solidarity with Oakland and someone else threw some trash in the street. BLACK BLOC!!! CANCER!!!! WOBBLIES!!!! REDS!!!!
This reaction is so over the top, so inappropriate and so apparently coordinated, I'm "beginning to wonder" if there isn't something afoot here.
Well, of course there is. Jeebus, were we born yesterday?
For Hedges, the problem may be that he is seeing the Revolution he plighted his troth to go off on another path without him. I remember the video of him literally in tears in Times Square last October or November, so moved he was that The Revolution he had hoped for had finally come. It was really very touching. I'll see if I can find the video. It happened October 15.
If he still believed what he is saying here, then he would know full well that Black Bloc is an insignificant, nearly nonexistent, element in the Occupy firmament -- especially in New York -- and those who adopt Black Bloc tactics can't take over the Movement, nor, in my estimation, do they want to.
What I've seen and heard from them and experienced is that they sincerely want to help. They believe sincerely that their disruptive tactics can and do help focus public attention on the violence of the system and who and what is responsible. What they seem to want more than anything is to be heard out and respected. An individual throwing a bottle -- whether or not dressed in black -- is not Black Bloc. Frustration and anger can affect anyone -- obviously including Chris Hedges, poor man -- and sometimes people will act out if they feel they have no other option.
At first I suspected the Black Bloc actions during General Strike Day in Oakland last November were the product of provocateurs, but then I saw more extensive video and assessed the targets and it was clear to me this was Black Bloc, not police provocateurs -- though I'm still suspicious of some of the later actions that caused damage closer to the City Hall. These actions, in my estimation, were spectacular, but they didn't really help the Movement, at least not in the short run, and one should note: they have not been repeated, despite all the hyperventilating about thrown bottles and makeshift shields.
There apparently is a Black Bloc learning curve, duh.
I can't say that right now for the Nonviolence purists like Hedges never seemed to be before.
That's what so odd about his outburst. He has never seemed to be a Nonviolence purist or pacifist or anything like that. He's been in Revolutionary situations; he knows what happens. It's messy, people do the best they can; and purges can wait.
The attacks on Occupy from within are clearly a coordinated effort to purge the anarchists who gave rise to the movement to begin with (not all anarchists follow Black Bloc methods and tactics). This is almost a duplication of what happened in Russia when the anarchists were purged from the Revolution. The rationale escapes me, however.
Unless -- as some have suspected -- the purpose is to ensure the Movement can't be effective, but perhaps persists as a sort of adjunct to the co-opted progressive left.
A coordinated effort at purging anarchists by co-opted progressives is deeply troubling if that's what's happening.
Or if it is as personal as it seems to be with Hedges, and his Revolution walked out on him, then it's sad...
At any rate, I'll give Chris a pass on this one for now; it's been a hard slog to this point, and people's nerves are really on edge.
I've tended to stay away from the Occupy Conference Calls since last November. I'm not keen on the highly structured format among other things, but since I've been pretty well embroiled in the intensifying online discussions regarding the merits of Occupy Oakland's more militant and confrontational "Way" compared to the constant litany of "Nonviolent Peaceful Protest" we hear out of New York and elsewhere, I thought the discussion (however tightly it was controlled) might be interesting this morning.
It was.
When I joined, about 20 minutes into the discussion, I thought I heard the tail end of OO's Boots Riley's observations, but I can't be sure, because there's nothing in the minutes about his participation, and as far as I know, he never participated again.
There seemed to be about twenty or twenty-five participants, the plurality in New York, but there were others in Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, so it was something of a geographical cross section, but did not seem to be inclusive of a variety of positions regarding Nonviolence or Diversity of Tactics. There was instead a heavy concentration of pretty rigid adherents to the narrowest definition of Nonviolent Resistance (you must follow Gandhi and King exclusively or you are a violence advocate, it seems), and there was pretty much no one else at all, at least none (well, few) who spoke up.
I made a couple of points about the fact that overall and in the context of specific occupations like Occupy Oakland, the Movement (pdf) is by definition a Nonviolent Resistance Campaign that includes no Violent Resistance at all. Black Bloc tactics and "the anarchists," are Nonviolent by definition, and they are part of a Nonviolent Resistance Campaign. No one in the Movement advocates or practices Violent Resistance. No one. And no one is engaged in a Violent Resistance Campaign -- which is defined as armed insurrection and the use or threat of deadly force.
Well, the room exploded in furious denunciation and disagreement with my own sweet self. I never heard so many Nonviolence advocates on such a rampage!
I wasn't surprised at their disagreement with me, but their vehemence about it took me aback. These are believers in Nonviolence? Ok then...
As should be clear by now, I'm not a Nonviolence "purist;" while I certainly have respect for Gandhi and King, my view of Nonviolence is colored by a somewhat different experience set than that of many people who are highly socialized and accustomed to a very rigid and narrow definition of Nonviolence. I tend to take a broader, Big Picture view of the topic, and I am a good deal more inclusive by nature than many of the purists. Pretty much anyone who advocates and fights for civil, social and economic justice while eschewing resort to arms and physical coercion and harm toward others -- fits the Nonviolent Resister definition in my book. A purist will go full Gandhi and assert that even protecting oneself in a violent situation with authority is impermissible. I don't agree with that. Nor do I agree that one must follow Gandhi's and King's models in order to be "effective."
In fact, I would argue that rigid adherence to those models in the contemporary context is actually counter effective, because as I say in another post, our Overclass has learned the lessons of King and Gandhi very well, and their chief interest lies in ensuring that their form of Nonviolent Resistance never succeeds again.
I would further argue that Nonviolent Resistance Campaigns that are principally focused on marches, rallies and charismatic leaders and their speeches, homilies, and demands essentially can't succeed in this country any more for the simple reason that the Overclass has learned how to confront them and neutralize them nonviolently. Without the official violence and brutality aspects of the confrontation, the power of the Nonviolent march and the rally and the charismatic leader is significantly reduced or (as in the case of the anti-Iraq War protests) eliminated altogether.
There is much, much more involved in a serious Nonviolent Resistance Campaign than those few aspects, of course, but they are the ones that receive the most attention. And I argue that they don't work the way they used to, nor are they likely to be more than marginally effective for real change in this country again. Their effectiveness is declining in foreign lands, too, as the authorities learn ways and means to counter them.
Something else is needed, specifically something more militant, though not more violent. The days of passive resistance will soon be past.
(I've written before about how disturbing it has been for me to watch the passive behavior of the hundreds and hundreds of people on the Brooklyn Bridge submitting to their arrest after being trapped by police; much the same feeling of extreme unease came over me as I watched the first part of the arrest of the hundreds and hundreds of surprisingly passive people in front of the YMCA in Oakland last weekend. I couldn't watch the rest of it. The scene was too disturbing.)
When the People "stand up and fight back" -- militantly but nonviolently -- the tables are turned and Authority is de-legitimized. This happened at UC Davis in rather spectacular fashion in response to the egregious pepper spray incident. And it has worked extraordinarily well in Oakland as well.
During the call (back on topic!), Starhawk was invited to provide her insight as a long time progressive activist whose experience with Black Bloc and Diversity of Tactics could be instructive. What I got from her talk was that her ideas of Nonviolent Resistance are more inclusive and expansive than those of most Nonviolence advocates, but she can't recommend giving Black Bloc advocates free rein. The backlash against some Black Bloc tactics damaged the movements she's been involved with.
I don't doubt it, but she didn't have time to go into detail, and I would very much like to know more about her experiences, which movements she feels were effective and why. But that's for another day.
Someone talked about how the "violence meme" was constantly being applied to Occupy -- which I thought was odd, but people's perceptions are shaped so much by what they see and hear and read, and I don't have cable, rarely watch television news, have a relatively short list of online bookmarks I visit regularly, and I've decoupled from Facebook and Twitter. So my perceptions are based largely on what I have seen via the online streams, what I have read in the postings on Occupy websites, and how some in the blogosphere and online news community have reported or reacted to Occupy events. So my perceptions are clearly not the same as those who are immersed in the mainstream propaganda.
Nathan Schneider was one of the participants, but I really don't remember what he had to say, and that's too bad. He wrote a really good article for Waging Nonviolence on the topic of OWS, and their employment of Nonviolent version of Diversity of Tactics. It was so long ago in Occupy Time, it seems like centuries, but still the points he makes are valid.
There were some people who pointed out, correctly, that Diversity of Tactics and Black Bloc does not necessarily mean vandalism or other forms of destructive mischief at all. One of the things that happened during The Battle of Oak St on J28 was a classic Diversity of Tactics/Black Bloc action -- whether intentional or spontaneous, I don't know. A demonstrator appeared to be injured and was on the ground well in front of the crowd. One member of the crowd -- unprotected -- went to the injured person to see what had happened and one of them motioned to the police to stop firing. Then the shield bearers in the crowd moved forward to surround and protect the injured person with their bodies and their shields. They weren't dressed in black, but protecting the injured in a demonstration is a Black Bloc tactic. Completely nonviolent, too. Of course they were fired on by police -- which should have shocked the conscience of any onlooker, but you never know about that.
My final comment during this morning's call was that if practicing Nonviolent Resistance was so important to Occupy, there needed to be far more comprehensive and accessible training in what it is and how to do it. Most people have no idea.
The notes from the call are very incomplete, but they may be informative.
There's supposed to be a follow up call in a week to explore the Nonviolence issue further, but I think I'll be on the road that day and will probably miss it.
It becomes part of the hierarchy of rulership. From its position "at the table," as it were, some of the newly minted leaders of the Movement may affect policy decisions within the rulership -- but maybe not. And for them, it really won't matter whether they affect policy decisions or not because they are taken care of, and so long as that is the case, what happens to the Movement and its supporters is of no more than peripheral concern -- if that.
The relationship between the Movement and the rulership is reversed. The purpose of institutionalizing is to have membership, first of all, and then to be able to assert control over those members in service (of course) to a higher calling or goal. "Doing what's best for everyone."
This is a far more comfortable -- and comforting -- position to be part of than to be on the edge pursuing populist revolutionary goals and objectives. Better, always, to be comfortable than not.
For most people, that's simply an honest truth. Real Revolution is hard, harsh, and typically involves only a minority of people, sometimes a very small minority. Most people just want to stay out of the way, get on with their lives as best they can, and hope for the best in the by and bye.
The Mad Max Future Dystopia is one we are all conditioned to fear -- though many have broken with their conditioning and actually look forward to a time when the elements of a full on goon show future fall into place. Any Revolutionary movement -- including the sweet-faced OWS Movement -- can be seen as a means toward that mean end.
Consequently, when outbreaks of vandalism occurred in Oakland during the General Strike on November 2, some people were salivating at the thought of what it could portend. "Ah, things are falling apart, the Anarchists are on the loose, the crackdown will be fierce, and so will the response to it be. Chaos! Ha!"
Of course, when the situation devolves to chaos, the loudest voice or the strongest bully can often take charge, and that charge taking can lead, surprisingly quickly, to institutionalization of rulership by whatever individual took charge during the period of chaos.
Vandalism in Oakland on the day of the General Strike has been taken by some to be the Sign of incipient or present chaos in the Movement, thereby signaling the loud voices and bullies to take charge. As it happened just a couple of days before Occupy Wall Street introduced a radical new operating model to their community, one that can enable the efficient take over of the New York Occupation by interests yet to be determined, it's no wonder that some of the more paranoid among us might think there's a Plan afoot.
But oddly enough -- or perhaps not -- the situation is seen quite differently in Oakland itself. Outrage at the outbreak of vandalism is mitigated by the success of the General Strike on the one hand, and by the recognition that the "violence inherent in the system" is far more pervasive and much worse in practice than anything Black Bloc tactics could engineer or would engineer.
Yet the hysteria over the vandalism in Oakland -- "A Million Dollars in Damages!@!!!11" -- has been almost non-stop. Well, actually, it's not "damage," as in vandalism damage. It's mostly costs. Like overtime and such. For the repression. BUT, the screamers natter on and on about all the "damage" caused by the "chaos" precipitated by the "anarchists," and they cannot be moved.
This is conditioning of the masses at work. The good citizens of Oakland know full well that the actions of the Black Bloc were mild in comparison to what they could have done, the vandalism damage was minor, and the General Strike was a stunning success overall. The hyperventilating over Black Bloc tactics should be seen more as a conditioned reflex toward "violence" from within the Movement (ie: the People) than as a well thought out objection to the vandalism in context.
The question is how can you break through and break down that conditioning so that the contrast between, say, what the Black Bloc does, and what the System does can be seen starkly and clearly? How can you break down the conditioning sufficiently to recognize that "violence" as a political statement can be kept to a minimum (but not eliminated entirely) in a successful social system, and that this Revolution does not depend on "violence" for success?
These things are clear enough to me, but they obviously aren't to others. You can say it over and over again: "Black Bloc tactics do not define anarchism; Black Bloc tactics are mild compared to the violence visited on the People day in and day out; occasional Black Bloc tactics provide a startling contrast to the generally peaceful and extraordinarily positive ongoing efforts of Occupy Oakland," but few will hear because they have been so heavily conditioned to believe that any sign of "violence" whatsoever from within the Movement cancels out any good will it may have developed over time. This is patently absurd; but it is now rigidly held conventional wisdom, no matter the fact that the people of Occupy Oakland -- especially -- have pretty much worked out the kind of relationship they want to have with Black Bloc tactics. It's far more nuanced and complicated than one might expect -- for the obvious reason that Black Bloc is autonomous; Black Bloc are not "members" of Occupy Oakland (there are none), and Black Bloc tactics are employed by those who choose to do them, regardless of the "official position" of Occupy Oakland.
The more important thing is the repression that is employed by the Authorities whether or not there is Black Bloc activity.
Hello?
This video is startling in a sense because it is such a graphic depiction of the overwhelming force of Authority randomly and deliberately brutalizing what appears to be a lone individual who poses no threat to that Authority. This was also the case with the veteran who was beaten so badly by police that night that his spleen was ruptured. There was video of that incident (at least parts of it) that is now no longer available; but in what I saw, it was obvious that the man was not a threat. It didn't matter. He was There.
And the Revolution's Here:
Well, some elements of it anyway. ---------------------------------- Meanwhile in New York, they've conceded to the Politburo. I've been trying to follow the discussion about the Reformation of the Revolution in Liberty Square, but I find it is oddly truncated. According to some, that is because the "leaders" of the leaderless movement scrubbed almost all the well-considered and well-reasoned arguments against the Spokes Council/Politburo model of operations, leaving only a few of them interspersed among hundreds of off-topic posts. If that's true, then the problems in New York are fundamental and so deeply rooted, it's unlikely the Occupation there can survive the winter.
I still haven't had a chance to catch up on all the news regarding what happened in Oakland on Wednesday and into Thursday, but much of what I have been able to look at concentrates on the Black Bloc tactics employed during the day and into the night culminating with the police crackdown, more tear gas, arrests, and the usual injuries from "non-lethal" projectiles. Oh, and the Mercedes that ran two people down when they wouldn't get out of the way. Driver not even cited, released to go about his business.
The vandalism and squatting have become the major issues -- not just in Oakland but apparently throughout the Movement, at least from what I can tell. What the Black Bloc did is Topic A; what to do about it is Topic B.
If the reports are accurate, the vandalism was quite minor -- some 18 windows broken, some spraypainted slogans and symbols, some dumpsters set alight, etc. A vacant building was briefly taken over and barricades were erected and burned. I'm sure there has been much more damage during demonstrations over the death of Oscar Grant, among other incidents.
There was no riot.
A lot of people were arrested and held on trumped up charges. Some of the reports tried to assert that the arrestees were all Black Bloc, but accounts on that issue are confused. Some probably were; others were journalists, or people who were trying to get away from the disturbances.
A homeless man was apparently shot and severely wounded by a "rubber bullet" -- some kind of projectile -- near the Plaza; another man -- yet another Iraq War vet -- was beaten by police when he didn't move fast enough or in the direction they wanted or something. He was taken to jail with a ruptured spleen, and was only taken to the hospital after many hours in agony.
I haven't linked these stories because they are still in flux.
There is a great deal of outrage and animosity toward the Black Bloc at this point, mainly because they spoiled what had been a triumphant day for Occupy Oakland. Many people seem to support the goals of OO and even support taking over vacant buildings, but they also believe that the Black Bloc tactics are alienating supporters.
Well. Yes. They are.
Many people get very nervous at the thought of taking serious physical action that includes vandalism and squatting. That's going "too far." Peaceful protest, in their minds, may involve the protesters being subjected to violence, but never taking active part in violence itself.
Here's the thing, as I see it: All through the nonviolent resistance/civil disobedience period in India and the United States there were other actions going on, some of which were not necessarily nonviolent at all. In other words, both nonviolence and more assertive actions going on simultaneously can have a very powerful effect.
And what I've noticed in news coverage of the General Strike is that it is mostly very positive about Occupy Oakland and the many activities it coordinated on November 2, including shutting down the Port of Oakland at least for the night shift, and most of the coverage makes a clear distinction between OO's activities and what the Black Bloc did -- indeed, some of the coverage makes clear that the Black Bloc was not even part of the OO demonstrations but was organized and implemented separately.
You would not know that, though, from reading and listening to all the keening and garment rending of some of the demonstrators who feel so mortified and betrayed by the violence.
At some point, they may come to appreciate what the Black Bloc was doing. The contrast between the Black Bloc tactics and Occupy Oakland was heightened, making OO look very good, better, perhaps, than they otherwise might have. Much the same thing happened to the Indian Independence movement and the Civil Rights Movement. By comparison to some of the more militant activists, Gandhi's and King's movements looked better and better.
So, I urge those who feel so despondent about the Black Bloc activists to lighten the fuck up.
