Anarchists! Wobblies! Commie-Pinkos!

Kevin Gosztola over at FDL has been following this matter of "anarchist extremists" for a good long time now, and he is on top of the story with regard to the RNC Convention in Tampa.

I want Chris Hedges to know that this is what he has done. I hope he's proud of himself.

What was likely to happen as a consequence of Hedges' polemic regarding the "cancer" in Occupy was recognized immediately upon its publication, and many observers were horrified at the prospects. Partially as a result of Hedges' over the top excoriation of what he called "Black Bloc anarchists" -- not knowing anything about them -- the FBI and other parts of the National Security State have targeted self-proclaimed anarchists for surveillance, investigation, infiltration and -- from the scant evidence available -- framing and arrest for various nefarious plots against the Establishment, including (now) something to do with "acid filled eggs." This, I guess, has taken the place of "baggies filled with urine and feces" that were once commonly alleged to be stockpiled for use against The Man.

This is probably only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to official actions against "anarchist extremists," and most of it is traceable right back to Hedges' demonization and scapegoating of "Black Bloc anarchists" last February.

The whole point of which is to chill activist dissent, to control and make acceptable those who engage in authorized dissent (as Hedges and many others do) , and to ensure that no effective opposition to the current status quo arises from the left, or more specifically from the People. In other words to stop Teh Revolution in its tracks.

It's not so much about the anarchists extremist or not, Black Bloc or not. My impression is that they can take care of themselves, and for the most part they will take care of one another when need be. The issue is more about what the state is prepared to do to preserve itself against opposition, what it will do to prevent the masses from engaging in widespread and effective opposition, and how it regards the existence of potential opponents.

More importantly, it's how the state sees the unarmed "anarchist" threat as an existential one, whereas the armed militias (as well as the innumerable Lone Gunmen) are not seen as such a threat at all. They are little more than nuisances, indeed they seem to be regarded as useful idiots.

Not the "anarchists" though.

Of course, there is a long history behind the suppression of anarchists in this country, one that long predates the infamous acts of so-called "anarchists" -- such as the assassination of William McKinley in 1898 as well as the dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times building in 1910. Anarchists became the political demons du jour -- which meant rather extensive and heavy-handed persecution.

So here we are again, with the supposed threat from anarchists now outweighing the "threat" from terrorists, indeed the one being conflated with the other.

The link at the top of the post details what's going on now, and it's appalling. This is your police state in action.

The Alexander Cockburn Thing -- "Occupy Is Dead -- or Something"

Occupy Is Dead. Long Live Occupy. Poster announcing Occupy Oakland Anti-Repression Committee benefit to be held on July 19, 2012.

Yes, well.

As I was yakking with friends and buying some art yesterday, the topic of the Occupy came up, specifically Occupy Oakland, as the artist involved lives in Oakland, and the main comment was that Occupy Oakland "just went away."  It was so active for a while, and then all of a sudden, it seemed to vanish. At least to all appearances.

I thought, no, this isn't right. Occupy Oakland and the Oakland Commune are still strident and still going strong... aren't they? They were, at any rate, the last time I checked a month or so ago. Oh. Has it been that long? Jeeze.

So I opened up the OO website, and sure enough it is still there, still appears to be going great guns, just took its first harvest from the Gill Tract, who could ask for anything more? Ah, but there have been fewer -- far fewer -- clashes with the police lately, and there has been much less bloodshed and tear gas and stun grenades than once was the case. Furthermore, the Tent Phase of the Occupy is pretty much over with (there are exceptions, of course.)

I got to wondering what it all means, this notion that "Occupy Is Dead" when I did a virtual tour around the Occupy sites I keep track of and found almost all of them at least minimally active, and some quite creative and effervescent despite the summer heat.

The Alexander Cockburn piece, "Epitaph to a Dead Movement" was sort of thrust in my face as I was checking out the Occupy haps. The Philadelphia National Gathering had just concluded, and I had just made it back to my now temporary California home. I had some issues with the Occupy Caravan. But that was not the National Gathering, and I thought that from what I saw, mostly on Nate's stream, the National Gathering was terrific. The key to it was the Visioning. But I'll get to that in a bit. I still have several more installments of "The Peril of Fascism" to post. (It takes me a while because I'm transcribing...)

Cockburn's piece struck me rather like Chris Hedges' ill-advised and ill-informed denunciation of Black Bloc participation in Occupy. This is someone from the "old-guard left" who literally doesn't know what he is talking/writing about and is so gutless and full of himself, he has no wish to find out. I run into these kinds of people all the time; they know not, they don't know they don't know, and they have no interest in knowing. They simply blow hard. And claim they are right because they say so. When they are shown to be wrong, not just factually but fundamentally, they blow it off. Because they are who they are, they have to be right. It's that simple.

Hedges declares the immanent demise of the Occupy, unless the "Black Bloc Anarchists" -- whatever they are, and he, obviously, doesn't know or care -- are purged forthwith. Cockburn declares the Occupy Movement "dead" not because of the Black Bloc -- which has only been actively present at a few Occupy events (for a long time, it was only the one, in Oakland on General Strike Day last November) -- but because it hasn't turned out like Cockburn, in his reverie of Teh Revolution, imagined Occupy was saying it would.

Again, ignorance and arrogance go hand in hand.

There's a strong class element in this ignorance and arrogance as well. Occupy was never really amenable to take charge experts, highly educated fools, business school hucksters and the like. In fact, I would say most if not all Occupys rejected the leadership of the well-connected and well-to-do, the would be High and the Mighty. Even Occupy New Haven seemed to reject the Yalie overlay of "expertise," and focused much more on the needs and issues of New Haven's growing underclass. This wasn't the well-off directing the activities of the underclass, it was the underclass itself taking charge of its own interests and affairs.

Once the underclass took charge within Occupy, I would argue, the layers of experts and and "directors" withdrew. Part of that process, of course, had to do with the increasing intensity of police suppression of the Occupy nationwide. When the police truncheons and the gas and the grenades and the mass arrests intensified, the middle class and the bourgeoisie and their offspring in their strollers departed. After all, they can't afford a day or a week in jail, and how would they explain the lump on their noggin at the club? Won't somebody think of the children? (This was, of course, Hedges' supposed point: the children in their strollers made Occupy a mass movement, and the Black Bloc ruined it. But it never was a mass movement, Chris. Real revolution never is.)

Cockburn misses the mark because he didn't do even a minimal autopsy on the "corpse" of Occupy before he launched his Epitaph.

Occupy has evolved into something quite different than the marketing campaign it started as. Yes, it was a marketing campaign initially. It isn't that any more. And that's one reason why it doesn't have quite the public or media presence it once did. It's much deeper rooted now, more dispersed, far more integrated into communities than when it began. Occupy is much more closely aligned to the growing underclass in the United States and around the world, and it is much less overt in its calls for Revolutionary Change -- in part because of the need for building the structure of such change before actually undertaking it or attempting to.

The Mic Check and the General Assembly process have become integrated into a whole range of activities going on all the time whether or not under the Occupy banner. The notion of "democracy" is undergoing a remarkable transformation among the People, while at the same time, it is being institutionally disempowered by the Ruling Class. While the institutions of democracy crumble all around us, the People themselves are taking up the cause and preserving and reactivating the essence of democracy.

The fight against foreclosures, economic extraction, police misconduct, public education privatization and so much more have established a kind of baseline that even the dumbest of Our Rulers seem loathe to cross. We'll see whether it holds.

At any rate, I would remind Cockburn that the Occupy never was the Left, and it isn't the Left today. It transcended political categories from the outset. From an Occupy perspective, the constant tug of war between the "Left" and the "Right" that characterized our political institutions is bizarre. What are they constantly fighting over? They're on the same side!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Back to "The Peril of Fascism." Another excerpt later today if all goes well.

On Violence and Resistance

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.

The Fall-Out From the Occupy "Nonviolence Debate"

Nathan Schneider has posted a heart-breaking interview with two of the people Chris Hedges smeared in his outrageous polemic against the "cancer" in Occupy (he has since revised his characterization of those who favor diversity of tactics from "cancer" to "parasites." He keeps digging this hole and I don't know why.)

I took the picture above at the first "public" event for the local Occupy. At the time, I was only vaguely conscious of the anarchist roots of the Occupy Movement, and it was all still very much an abstraction to me.

But when I met this woman and talked to her briefly and took her picture, it occurred to me that I was conditioned to believe certain things about anarchists and anarchism that simply weren't true. I had pretty much the same images of Black Bloc violence in my mind when I heard the word "anarchist" that many people do. I knew some anarchists from my work in the theater, and never saw them as particularly violent people, but who knew what they might do in another context??? Not I. Some, I decided, were simply unpleasant people, regardless of any affiliation or ideology they might espouse.

I was brought up short when I met the young lady above (sorry, I don't remember her name!) and several other anarchists associated with the local Occupy. They were some of the kindest, most open and dedicated people I think I have ever met or worked with. Even when things got very tense, as they did from time to time, I was struck by how sincere and deeply committed practically all of the self-identified anarchists were, and by how much they really cared about the well-being of others.

I've been writing rather enthusiastically about anarchists and anarchism, and I've been fiercely defending them, ever since.

Now, possibly too late to repair the damage done by Chris Hedges and others in their zeal to purge the Movement of the anarchist taint, Nathan Schneider posts an interview he conducted with two of the diversity of tactics advocates at Occupy Wall Street, women who have been with OWS since virtually the beginning, but who are now being harassed and told to get out of "someone else's" movement -- which they are said to be ruining.

The real pain and the anger they feel comes through loud and clear in the interview. As does their frustration at the continuing focus on incidental acts that barely register on the "violence" scale.

From the interview:

Suzahn: You know what I’d like to see that would be constructive? Some actual internal anti-oppression work, rather than this false conversation about violence within the movement. Because, when you think about it, we have never had an action that was more militant than taking the streets.

Sparrow: No.

Suzahn: Anything that people perceive as violent has been an individual’s actions, and we don’t all have to take responsibility for anything individuals do, ever. It has been so rare. On the other hand, I spent the first three months of the occupation talking to other female-assigned people who have been so hurt and have left the movement because of patriarchy and—and racism, I might add, and national privilege. All of those three things, especially in combination. People have left the movement because of that, and their voices are not being heard, and that is violence. For me, it would be constructive if we actually talked about the violence that does exist, and is happening and has happened and has actually hurt people and disenfranchised people, and hurt the movement because we lose those voices. That might be a constructive thing to start doing. I’d be willing to have that debate.

A cri de coeur to say the least. There are so many layers and levels of real systemic violence in our society that the continuing focus on the incidental acts of individuals who have thrown things or broken windows strikes me as absurd, and I've said so more than once -- not that it's changed any minds.

The good thing is that not everyone is so rigid in their thinking. Minds have been changed through the kinds of personal experiences I've had, and new forms of solidarity are being cobbled together.

Because of that, I remain an eternal optimist.

The fall out remains, however, and it is troubling...

David Graeber Explains It All To The Shade of Chris Hedges

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:

Against Hedges on the Black Bloc

Witness -- The Defenestration of Chris Hedges, KPFA Radio, February 8, 2012

Letters and Politics - February 8, 2012 at 10:00am

Click to listen (or download)

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.





The fun never stops.

"We Can Chaa-aaange The World"

Editorial comment about the video above:

I witnessed some of the events documented in the video on television as they happened in 1968, and I've seen many retrospectives that focus on the Chicago Police Riot since then, but I have never seen anything that puts together the footage from the streets and the parks near the Democratic Convention site so comprehensively and comprehensibly. It's quite moving to see it in that fashion. It is extraordinarily evocative given what's been happening to suppress the Occupy Movement. It's not the same thing at all. Motivations are very different now, as are, I believe, the intentions of both the authorities and the demonstrators. It's a different world, people are not fighting the same battles for the same things, and I sincerely doubt that the outcome will be the same.

"Rearaaa-aange the World."

-- Chicago (We Can Change the World), 1971

After stumbling around for several days in total WTF? mode, I seem to be gaining some kind of clarity regarding intense assault on "the anarchists" (Black Bloc or no) that has been taking place throughout the Occupy firmament and in many of the corners of the intertubes as well.

It's about Chicago. Well, "Chicago" and "Tampa" and "Charlotte" as well. This year's three big National Special Security Events where the American and global rulership will be gathering for pageants, schmooze, and decisions about the Future Pain the rest of us will be enduring.

And it is about preserving something of the Occupy spirit in the aftermath.

After the J28 events in Oakland, I saw the pressure to expel "the anarchists" increase exponentially. People weren't just saying this, they were deeply passionate about it, fierce, angry, scared. "The anarchists" had to be tamed or be gone, no two ways about it.

And as I explored the issue of Nonviolence with people online and in some of the trenches, I found more and more rigidity of thought about it, to the point where even confrontation with or defiance of authority was being lumped into the "anarchist-bad, no-can-do" category. Cooperation with authority and an absolute commitment to total nonviolence, that went even beyond the Gandhian Principles, seemed to be required.

From my perspective, this was getting completely insane. WTF? No "movement" is possible with those kinds of absolutist requirements, pledges, vows, declarations, expulsions, purges and so on. It struck me as a national, coordinated effort to "kill the Occupy" by remaking it into just another NPO or lobbying front and be done with it once and for all.

And the kill switch was being flipped mostly from the inside. The pressure from the outside, of course, is always there, a fact of life, background noise that sometimes gets way in your face, and much worse, but the Occupy Movement in all its moving parts has been coping with that pretty well. The Occupy doesn't fit America's standard pattern of political advocacy/social service, and there has always been a strenuous effort from the outside to make it fit, whether through police aktions or, shall we say, civic "persuasion," or infiltration and take over by the more established political activist communities. That effort still goes on, the point being to neuter the Occupy as a change agent and make it into a version of every other ineffective NPO -- and possibly giving it A Seat at the Table. Yadda, yadda.

The neutering effort, in my view, has been relatively successful; in many cities Occupy has more or less been integrated into the fabric of city living, there is very little or no conflict with the Established Interests, and a good deal of productive -- primarily social service -- action is taking place. These Occupys are not hotbeds of change, they're hotbeds of service and innovation, at least that's my impression of them from a distance (Santa Fe and the Erie Canal cities of Upstate New York are the primary examples I'm speaking of, but there are plenty many more). They've either been transformed into or they always were community based volunteer service organizations, often run by people I call "Club Women" (though it's meant to be a gender neutral term) whose lives revolve around service to others. The Occupy provides them with a unique organizational and operational structure that eliminates a lot of the overhead of traditional service organizations and provides a means to engage in direct democracy at the same time. What's to object to, what could be better?

There were Occupys that formed temporarily then dissolved, either in dissension or -- hate to say it -- boredom; it just wasn't what people wanted or needed to do. The intensity of the Occupy framework for action isn't for everyone, and if it isn't clear what the action is for or targeting is vague or its off kilter then the whole thing can seem like a complete waste of time. If you don't feel like you're doing something productive and Occupy can't or won't function toward productive ends, that's -- to me -- a perfect reason not to do it.

There is no Requirement To Occupy.

I saw the Winter Hibernation period as a reassessment and shake out period -- hopefully leading to metamorphosis and re-emergence into something different than its initial period last year and even more "beautiful."

Well.

After what I have recently experienced, I am taken aback by what's taken place. It's not at all what I -- or perhaps anyone -- expected.

Occupy Oakland has been up and running all along, it never ceased or went into hibernation, though it did slow its public actions over the winter. Occupy Oakland became the Energy Center for the Movement as a whole after the now-legendary police assaults of October 25 that culminated with the severe wounding of Scott Olsen from police fire into the crowd.

Oakland's energy is not necessarily a good fit everywhere, nor are the methods and tactics employed in Oakland adaptable to every situation. Oakland is Oakland. The Oakland Model is vital, but I doubt it is the right one for widespread adoption. I don't see how it could work without the strength and history and commitment to overcome adversity of Oakland's people.

What happens in Oakland is an inspiration to others. The persistence, the militancy, the stunning bravery when under assault, the innovative tactics, all of these things about Occupy Oakland help to give courage to everyone fighting the good fighting the good fight against entrenched and sclerotic power. And it works.

That's the thing "they" don't want you to know.

And it's fascinating to me to piece together who constitutes "they" in the current effort to flip the kill switch on Occupy.

Nearly all of them are either inside the Movement or just outside it yammering away like Chris Hedges. Their antagonism toward "the anarchists" has taken on a distinctly nasty and threatening tone, dehumanizing and scapegoating, and violent rhetoric toward "the anarchists" has become the standard way of addressing the issue of Nonviolence as it relates to Occupy.

At one time there was a relatively rational debate about tactics going on. There was a general commitment to Nonviolence throughout the Occupy firmament, but with the proviso that Occupys were autonomous as were their working and affinity groups.

There was no Politburo, so there were no directives from the Politburo.

Each Occupy formulated its rules for itself.

So far as I know, there's never even been a suggestion of veering from the broadly defined Nonviolent path. If anybody has made such a suggestion, I'm sure they were shouted down and isolated or... expelled.

Occupy is by definition a Nonviolent Resistance Campaign. It does not engage in, advocate or endorse armed struggle of any kind. It's simply always been out of the question. For good reason too, though this somewhat rambling installment is not about those reasons.

When I point out the inherent, indeed definitional, Nonviolent character of all of Occupy, including its more militant outposts like Oakland, and yes, including "the anarchists," and yes even including Black Bloc, I am often met with a barrage of what I think of as nonsensical rejoinders about a rock thrown here, a bottle thrown there, and a few broken windows in November, "What about those, ya crumb? That isn't VIOLENCE???"

Cue the Sturm und Drang and the rending of garments.

Yes, whatofit? In the overall picture, the minor vandalism and mischief that's taken place is nothing. So?

Let the screaming fits begin. As they have. Ohmigod. I've never experienced these levels of extreme ignorance combined with such extreme rigidity of thought and such extreme rhetorical violence before, and I didn't think I'd led a particularly sheltered life. I have certainly never experienced it within a so-called Nonviolence context, and not at all among people who profess to follow Nonviolent Ethics. It just doesn't happen. Vigorous disagreement and disapproval, certainly, but never in a disrespectful or overtly hostile manner.

Well, the masks have come off, although I will say that there never was a "mask" among Nonviolence believers and practitioners in the faith community. They are what they are, they have never deviated from the Path, nor have ever felt the need or had the desire to act in the manner that so of those DEMANDING strictest adherence to Nonviolence OR ELSE are doing.

Instead, they do what they have always done: they listen, they respect divergent points of view, and they use persuasion -- very effectively. Most understand the Big Picture, too: a broken window is not the End of the World. Really and truly, it isn't. Taking up a gun and instigating an armed insurrection could be, though.

That's the essence of my point of view. Not always my practicve, but we do what we can... Unfortunately proportion and perspective have been lost among the Nonviolence Purists who now appear to be in a titanic struggle with the Phantoms of their Fear: "the anarchists". Black Bloc, eeeeeee! Somebody threw a bottle, OMG, we're melting!!!!! Black Bloc! Anarchists! REDS!"

Because of the consistent violence of their rhetoric and their assaultive behavior toward any question or challenge to or deviation from their absolutist demands, I disbelieve their purported devotion to Nonviolence. If you sincerely believe in Nonviolence, you do not demand or stamp your foot or hold your breath until you turn blue, and you do not threaten others with calamity if you are not obeyed. That's the behavior of children and tyrants.

Have events conspired to infantilize key segments of the Movement?

Maybe.

"Chicago" looms large this year; the NATO/G8 summits take place there in May; the potential for evil is high. And then there's Tampa in August (RNC Convention) and Charlotte in September (DNC Convention). This is a very fraughtful year for tumult in the streets.

All three of these Confabs of the Rulership are National Special Security Events. We've had some experience with them in the not-so-distant past, in such cities as Pittsburgh, Denver, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Boiled down to the essence, what happens outside these events matters just as much as what happens inside if not more so. The Constitution and legal protections therein are effectively suspended in preparation for and for the duration of the Festivities and Events.

Bluntly put, during a National Special Security Event, you have no rights the authorities are bound to respect; you may or may not have "permissions" which can be arbitrarily revoked without notice. In fact, the random and arbitrary imposition of State Authority, often in an outrageous and brutal fashion, is one of the chief characteristics of these events.

People taking to the streets are bound to get hurt; mass arrests are all but guaranteed; intense surveillance is routine. Tactics employed by the authorities against protesters are intentionally disruptive and disabling.

People who are thinking ahead expect things to get really, really nasty. Potentially what no one alive has ever seen in this country. Occupy is expected to be in the center of it all. Occupy has become The People's Voice. The People are expected to speak up loud and clear through Occupy at Chicago, Tampa and Charlotte. And it is expected that there will be violence from the authorities.

Making clear that "Black Bloc anarchists" are not part of Occupy is likely seen as essential to mitigating the harm that the almost inevitable official violence will cause. Black Bloc cannot be prevented altogether; but clearly separating Black Bloc tactics from the Occupy Movement actions may be seen as helping to mitigate the effects of official violence.

That's my charitable read of the situation, putting as positive a face on it as I can. There's another way to look at it.

It goes back to Oakland's J28 festivities (yes, it was billed as a festival). What really took place was a series of skirmishs in The Revolution. This is really going on; this is not play acting or sport; it's the real goddamn thing, and Oakland is the center of it.

Much of it was very dramatic, such as The Battle of Oak Street and the Escape from the Park. I've written many times about Storming the Winter Palace as a metaphor, but this was the real thing. In the course of the events of J28, the legitimacy and authority of the civic government dissolved as did that of OPD. None of the stated objectives of the day's events were achieved, but something else was. Delegitimizing the Tsar's authority is an essential step in a Real Revolution.

OK. Now what? And did anyone really know that's what was up and that's what was going to happen? Did they really believe it was about taking possession of the Oakland Auditorium?

It was obvious to me as soon as the confrontation on Oak Street was in place that the building seizure was window dressing. Confronting illegitimate authority was the point, and that was astonishingly successful. Taking the building can wait until after the Revolution is consolidated.

Delegitimizing authority has to come first, and that took place in a manner we haven't seen in this country for many years.

Here's another video of the aftermath -- the Seizure of the Sound System:



This is a police force -- and a city government -- with no real legitimacy at all. Their "authority" is a sham.

This was the outcome, but it was not the intention of the anti-Revolutionists among Oakland's activists. Not everybody wants a Revolution; realistically, hardly anybody does most of the time. Most people don't want to delegitimize authority, either. What happened in Oakland was a victory for The Revolution but it was a betrayal of people of good will who have no intention of participating in Revolution.

That's the source of much of the internal struggle going on over Nonviolence and "the anarchists" and it is the source of much of the vehemence on the part of Nonviolence advocates as well. They never wanted a Revolution. They were never told this was a Revolution. They did not set out to confront, delegitimize and overthrow authority. "That isn't what Occupy is about!!"

Except that it always has been about that -- at least in part and to many of its most ardent participants.

"Nobody expects the Spanish Revolution!"

But that's what we've got, at least in some key cities, and Oakland is at the center of it all.

So I think it is fair to say that the anger and hostility toward "the anarchists" in the Occupy Movement is based on two factors:

1) fears that "the Black Bloc anarchists" will "ruin the brand" at the Global Rulership conferences by acting up and causing everyone else to suffer needlessly;

2) fears that The Revolution is really under way and it is succeeding -- at least in Oakland, where the model for more widespread Revolution is being worked out as we speak.

What of those who didn't sign up for a Revolution? Hmm?

In the comments to my post at dKos yesterday denouncing Hedges' bullshit denunciation of "the Black Bloc anarchists" a number of people commented that if there a Revolution going on, and it succeeds, what of basic infrastructure like water and sewers and trash collection?

This is for the Clean Up Working Group and the Water, Sewer, and Trash cadres organized into Affinity Groups to handle and present reports about at their Operational SpokesCouncils which will then send their Spokes to GA to make Proposals to be agendized, considered thoroughly and consensed on.

Obviously.

"The Power of Nightmares" -- Scapegoating Edition

The Power of Nightmares, Part 1, 2004

Part 2

Part 3

[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!

Truth Addict's take:
A Reply to Chris Hedges' 'The Cancer in Occupy': Stop Scapegoating Black Bloc, Look Within

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!

Solidarity Some Day! Yaaaaay!

Chris Hedges' Very Public Meltdown

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.

Chris Hedges Fights The Good Fight

(h/t Cuchulain in comments)
Chris Hedges, outspoken polemicist and prolific author that he is, doesn't just talk the talk on matters important to the future of the American Experiment in liberty, he walks the walk.

He's been arrested numerous times protesting the creeping tyrannies and indignities that have accompanied "the death of the liberal class" -- a term he used to title one of his recent non-fiction books. He's been arrested at the White House, he's been arrested at Goldman Sachs headquarters, he's been arrested at Quantico, and so it goes.

He has made clear that he believes civil disobedience is the only practical course left open to Americans struggling to restore dignity and justice in their lives and the lives of others; the political system is broken, captive to a tiny segment of the "1%", and it cannot function on behalf of the People in its present state.

"Stand up, fight back; resist."

Earlier this month, he took it a step further by filing suit against the President and the Secretary of Defense "to challenge the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as embedded in the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by the president Dec. 31."

It's not necessarily clear what that means, so he helpfully explains:

The act authorizes the military in Title X, Subtitle D, entitled “Counter-Terrorism,” for the first time in more than 200 years, to carry out domestic policing. With this bill, which will take effect March 3, the military can indefinitely detain without trial any U.S. citizen deemed to be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism. And suspects can be shipped by the military to our offshore penal colony in Guantanamo Bay and kept there until “the end of hostilities.” It is a catastrophic blow to civil liberties.

Well. Isn't that special.

Now of course these objections to the NDAA were raised time and again prior to their passage and the assent to them by the President. These objections were dismissed on several levels. First, according to some analysts, there is no such authorization for domestic military policing; it's just not in the bill. Second, even if there were, it wouldn't apply to American citizens, only to foreigners deemed "terrorists." Third, even if it did apply to American citizens, which it doesn't, there is always habeus corpus so ultimately nothing has changed at law.

You see.

Besides the which, the President issued a signing statement setting forth the following:

Moreover, I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law.

So there.

But Hedges is not satisfied with airy promises from the White House press office, oh no:

I suspect the real purpose of this bill is to thwart internal, domestic movements that threaten the corporate state. The definition of a terrorist is already so amorphous under the Patriot Act that there are probably a few million Americans who qualify to be investigated if not locked up. Consider the arcane criteria that can make you a suspect in our new military-corporate state. The Department of Justice considers you worth investigating if you are missing a few fingers, if you have weatherproof ammunition, if you own guns or if you have hoarded more than seven days of food in your house. Adding a few of the obstructionist tactics of the Occupy movement to this list would be a seamless process. On the whim of the military, a suspected “terrorist” who also happens to be a U.S. citizen can suffer extraordinary rendition—being kidnapped and then left to rot in one of our black sites “until the end of hostilities.” Since this is an endless war that will be a very long stay.

When he wrote, the Occupy Movement was still in a kind of suspended animation, but over the weekend, as we know, it came out of its shell in Oakland -- with dozens of cities marching in solidarity after the Oakland demonstrators were violently assaulted by police and hundreds of peaceful protesters were arrested.

As we may not know, however, more and more officials are suggesting or are blatantly declaring the Occupiers and the Movement "terrorists." It's only a matter of time, it seems, before the designation is officially determined and the round ups begin.

We could see it as soon as this summer when the G8 and NATO hold their joint summits in Chicago. Or even before.

The City of London declared the Occupy Movement a "domestic terror organization" back in December to much outrage and denunciation, but the designation stands. In the United States, there has yet to be a designation of "domestic terrorists" as such, but members of the Oakland city council and other elected representatives have had no qualms using the term "domestic terrorists" to characterize Occupiers and the Movement, and a press release issued by the Oakland Police Department yesterday claimed -- in passing -- that the protesters used "improvised explosive devices" (pdf)against the police, which of course is a not-so-subtle means of classifying the Occupy demonstrators in the same category as armed insurgents abroad.

Just as a side note, the Oakland Police Department, as usual, was lying. One of the things that needs to be made clear as crystal is that the Oakland PD is notorious for issuing public statements that are blatant lies, and nothing whatever that they say should be taken as truthful without extensive evidence and investigatory follow up.

There were no "improvised explosive devices" used against the police in Oakland over the weekend. None. Zero. The police, of course, fired numerous tear gas rounds, flash-bang and smoke grenades, and rubber bullets at the crowds -- some of which were thrown back, as they tend to be in these confrontations. The police also fired tear gas against the wind which had the salutary effect of blowing back in the unprotected faces of the officers. Oops.

But that aside, Hedges, by filing suit against the President and Defense Secretary over the NDAA provisions for domestic military policing has taken the matter well beyond polemics. In a sense, he is directly challenging the authority of the White House and the Pentagon in these matters, and further, he is daring the President and/or the Secretary of Defense to order his arrest and indefinite detention in military custody because he may well fall under the provisions of the act regarding "support" of individuals and organizations deemed to be "terrorists" by the President due to his work as a writer of books, articles and essays that deal with such people and organizations previously designated or yet to be designated.

A lawsuit is not exactly The Revolution, of course, especially when Hedges would be among the first to acknowledge the corruption and practical uselessness of the courts to protect the People. Nevertheless, by taking this action, Hedges demonstrates once again what it means to be a citizen rather than a subject and I applaud him.

Chris Hedges Explains It All for Lawrence Lessig

Occupy the Courts -- and other things.

The hostess takes her own sweet time getting in gear for this episode of OccupyTVNY, but once the guests pick up the scattered threads, the whole turns out pretty well...



Lessig is a very nice man, but he can't seem to understand the fact that there is a Revolution going on, something that Hedges has known since seemingly forever.

Not only is a Revolution going on, it is a necessary thing.

Lessig is advocating an Article V Constitutional Convention, something that was bruited about in some of the chat rooms of the Bushevik Era but which has largely been superseded, in part because it was recognized that state legislatures are equally as captured as the national legislature, thus check-mating the idea some time ago. Nice that Lessig is picking up on the idea. I guess.

Meanwhile, Hedges is saying -- as he's been saying for years -- that civil disobedience is the only path (barring armed rebellion) remaining to the people in the face of our obdurate failed public and private institutions. He sees Occupy as perhaps the last great hope for the People -- or perhaps whatever emerges from the chrysalis of Occupy in Metamorphosis.

Or maybe it's too late.

But even if it is, you still have to stand on some kind of moral principle as you're cut down by the Tsar's Cossacks.

It's interesting that they both seem to recognize that we are very close to a February Revolution moment.

Though I don't think we'll really get there till June!

Chris Hedges Explains It All For You At Harvard Yard

November 28. This is part 2 of 3:



This is part 3 of 3:



-----------------

Oh. Part 1:

Chris Hedges Explains It All For You -- at OccupyWallStreet Times Square

And ... bursts into tears.

//sniff, < not a tear of sadness, those are tears of joy... whoever thought we'd see the day? > sniff //

Chris Hedges Explains All About the Occupations to Some Canadian Twit

Chris Hedges Explains It All For You -- Again. And Slaps the Naysayers Silly

Heh.

You know, throughout this nascent revolution -- yes, that's what it is -- there has been so much denigration and contempt for the actions -- even the presence -- of the #occupywallstreet demonstrators and all their many, many offshoots around the country and the world.

Sometimes the vehemence of it is a bit startling. But then, when you realize, as Ian Welsh among others realize, that the very existence of this action is an existential threat to the powers of the comfortable elites of every stripe, not just the Wall Street elites, you may begin to understand why it is being subjected to such full throated denunciation from... those who see their only future among the 1%.

Chris Hedges, of course, has been a rabble rouser, a polemicist, and an outstanding moralist ever since he left the New York Times and threw himself, literally, on the Gears of the Machine. I don't know how many times he has been arrested for direct actions at the White House, in New York, and wherever else he finds himself in conflict with the Powers That Be -- which is usually.

The screed linked above is just brilliant, one of his finest, if not his finest, efforts to date:

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

Yes, well. One of the filler videos used by the #occupywallstreet activists when their Livestream is down -- which is more and more often these days, and I'll have more to say about that in a while -- starts out with a disembodied mouth saying, "Greetings, runaway slaves." It's terrific. I like it.

It's really come to this. You are a rebel or a slave. There is no room for apathy any more, no time for the flat screen and the take and bake, no relevance to the Game. No point to the endless political maneuvering. All that, for now at least, is Over.

To be declared innocent in a country where the rule of law means nothing, where we have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no longer exists, where you, as a citizen, are nothing more than a commodity to corporate systems of power, one to be used and discarded, is to be complicit in this radical evil. To stand on the sidelines and say “I am innocent” is to bear the mark of Cain; it is to do nothing to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet. To be innocent in times like these is to be a criminal. Ask Tim DeChristopher.

This is what it is about. We are the 99% who the 1% just can't help themselves screwing over, exploiting, destroying, ignoring. You cannot see what is happening and stand quietly on the sidelines for then you are complicit. Silence = Complicity. I and others have said it many, many times.

Choose. But choose fast. The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged. Today they run the state and the financial markets. They disseminate the lies that pollute our airwaves. They know, even better than you, how pervasive the corruption and theft have become, how gamed the system is against you, how corporations have cemented into place a thin oligarchic class and an obsequious cadre of politicians, judges and journalists who live in their little gated Versailles while 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a number soon to rise to 10 million, where a million people a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care, where real joblessness is spiraling to over 20 percent, where the citizens, including students, spend lives toiling in debt peonage, working dead-end jobs, when they have jobs, a world devoid of hope, a world of masters and serfs.

That orange netting used by the NYPD to "kettle" the activists (and whoever else happens by) is turning into a real symbol of the frustrations of the Power Elite in controlling this nationwide, indeed global, uprising. The mesh itself should be seen for what it is -- a symbol of authority. It has no power of its own except that which the demonstrators themselves agree to. It's like the rope line at affairs at the Palace. Your Rulers, by convention, stand on this side, you, the proles stand on that side in groveling admiration, and that's how it is. Always was. Will forever be.

In Albuquerque yesterday, there was a solidarity march down Central Avenue that's gotten some attention for... the boldness, I'd say, of the activists. They took to the street, they took over the street, one of the busiest in town, on the opening day of the Balloon Fiesta, one of the biggest public events in the Southwest. They defied authority quite openly, with no qualm at all. "Whose streets? Our streets!"



http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s2309634.shtml

I contrast that with what happened here in Sacramento. There's hardly any comparison. There may have been about the same number of people involved in solidarity both cities, a hundred to two hundred, but the contrast in their behavior could not be more acute, and one of the reasons why, perhaps, is that there are so many lawyers in Sacramento, so many legislative staffers, so many lobbyists, so many... bureaucratic types.

There were a few people at yesterday's gathering in Fremont Park in Sacramento who stood on the street corners holding big signs, "Stop Police Brutality!" "End the Wars, Tax the Rich!", etc, getting quite a lot of support from drivers passing by if the honking of horns was any indication, but the vast majority of those in attendance were holding a meeting. That's the industrial product of any Capital City after all, and it sure as hell is the product here!

So. The Meeting, which lasted altogether about 3 hours, and was dominated by the legal types (though not overdominated) came up with a... plan... to meet again next week, Thursday morning, for some trainings. "Leadership." "Legal Affairs." In solidarity, of course, with the October2011 events planned in Washington DC. There was no march, not even a guarantee that there would be one in the by and bye, though of course it is being considered. There was no occupation. There was merely an agreement to meet again, in solidarity, which is basically how things work here. You don't actually do anything, especially if it might negatively affect your business or public sector career. Priorities.

In Albuquerque, on the opening day of the Balloon Fiesta, a couple of hundred activists (according to news reports) took over the main street of the city, in solidarity with the demonstrators in New York who were at that moment preparing to get on the Brooklyn Bridge, if they weren't already marching.

I kind of doubt that is going to happen in Sacramento. At all. Ever. Of course, I could be wrong. I helped to organize a march a number of years ago that turned out 25,000 demonstrators (who symbolically "crossed the bridge" by the way). But we had permits to use the space, and traffic was controlled by police during the period of the march and the rally, all very proper and dignified, and then everybody went home. I have seen even larger events, involving a hundred thousand or more in the streets locally, but again, all very dignified and with the proper permits in hand. I've been to I don't know how many demonstrations and rallies at the Capitol, a seemingly endless number, and I have organized some of them, filling out all the paperwork for the permits and liaisoning with the state police and on and on and on, all very proper and dignified, the way nearly everything is here.

Doing something "improper" or "forbidden" is almost unheard of around here. It's not polite, and so it is just not (usually) done. Even at the height of the anti-Iraq War protests here, the participants would not break the law by, for example, interfering with traffic. Even so, some were arrested or cited for doing just that, even though they hadn't. Drivers who expressed sympathy by blowing their horns were cited as well!

The point of this digression is the contrast between a city like Albuquerque that is full of activists on all kinds of issues (oh, my yes) and a place like Sacramento where that kind of action is simply not done.

I think we'll see the contrast on a much bigger scale in this coming week when the October2011 activities get under way in Washington, while a nascent occupation action is also being contemplated there. I will predict that every effort will be made by the October2011 coalition to... let's say "tame"... any "occupation" action in DC, while the activists in New York and elsewhere ratchet up the action a notch.

It's a structural difference in approach and intent that is built in to our society, and as this revolutionary process continues, we'll see the contrast more and more. Hopefully, we'll think long and hard about it, too.

Back to Chris Hedges:

The only word these corporations know is more. They are disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security, because they want that money themselves. Let the sick die. Let the poor go hungry. Let families be tossed in the street. Let the unemployed rot. Let children in the inner city or rural wastelands learn nothing and live in misery and fear. Let the students finish school with no jobs and no prospects of jobs. Let the prison system, the largest in the industrial world, expand to swallow up all potential dissenters. Let torture continue. Let teachers, police, firefighters, postal employees and social workers join the ranks of the unemployed. Let the roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, rail lines, subways, bus services, schools and libraries crumble or close. Let the rising temperatures of the planet, the freak weather patterns, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding, the tornadoes, the melting polar ice caps, the poisoned water systems, the polluted air increase until the species dies.

Exactly. Given the assault we're under from the 1% -- for that's what it is, an assault -- it is no longer sufficient to be polite about it. Hedges is articulate but rarely polite.

Who the hell cares? If the stocks of ExxonMobil or the coal industry or Goldman Sachs are high, life is good. Profit. Profit. Profit. That is what they chant behind those metal barricades. They have their fangs deep into your necks. If you do not shake them off very, very soon they will kill you. And they will kill the ecosystem, dooming your children and your children’s children. They are too stupid and too blind to see that they will perish with the rest of us. So either you rise up and supplant them, either you dismantle the corporate state, for a world of sanity, a world where we no longer kneel before the absurd idea that the demands of financial markets should govern human behavior, or we are frog-marched toward self-annihilation.

Here we see the Bourbon parallel again: "They are too stupid and too blind to see that they will perish with the rest of us" (and I would add, too greedy, smug and self-satisfied.) Rising up should be a natural response to such bone stupidity, but the United States always comes late to that party, believing that the American Revolution hundreds of years ago somehow settled that matter. Huh. Not quite.

Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us.

Indeed. They are the best among us. That's what the naysayers and the swells hate about them. It's the source of their contempt.

I haven't posted links to the kind of vitriol and venom that's been spewing from the supposed "left" in opposition to the #occupyeverything movement, though I've been assembling some of the examples proliferating on the web. Some of it is intended to be a provocation, but most is just unfocused fury that somebody is doing something without the approval of those who know what's best. In that regard, this is ultimately a moral contest between the comfortable and the indignant.

Chris Hedges clarifies the matter.

I will close this post with an old Union fight song: "Which Side Are You On?"



[How many times have I sung that at the Capitol? Jeeze. The Wisconsin action has been an objective failure, but it had to happen, in my view, along with all the other actions around the country and around the world, to get to the point where this Occupation action could have any hope for success.

To repeat Hedges here:

Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith.

Faith and Solidarity!