The Cancer in Occupy?

The headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer told us last week that, on the other side of the country, a brick hit a police officer in Oakland and sent him to the hospital. Civil Rights organizer Jim Bevel predicted headlines like this in the ’60s when arguing about the then-current version of “diversity of tactics.” He said something like: “We want people to talk about our issues, about the suffering of our people from racism and poverty. When you throw the brick, people don’t talk about our issues, or the thousand black people on the streets that day, they talk about the police officer who was hit by the brick.”

The question for all those, whether using black bloc tactics or not, who consider adding to the Occupy movement tactics of either property destruction or violence: Do you want the issues of injustice to be talked about, or your bricks? In my own definition, property destruction is not the same as violence—there can be very significant differences between the two. But in this historical-political situation, the impact of either is similar; they give an easy out for people who don’t really want to talk about injustice.

The Surgeons of Occupy  -  by Peter Gelderoos

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/09/the-surgeons-of-occupy/

"..In sum, Chris Hedges deals with the 'Black Block anarchists' with fear-mongering manipulation and without the slightest glimmer of solidarity. It would be useful to debate the appropriate uses of aggressive tactics in demonstrating and anarchists themselves have often encouraged this debate, but Hedges has passed over the critique and gone straight to the smear.

It's proponents in the Occupy movement have generally protected non-violence from an open debate, instead imposing it through manipulation, fear-mongering, and, when all else fails, turning their opponents over to the police. It's election year. Those who still have faith in the system, or those whose paychecks are signed by the major unions, the Democratic Party, progressive NGOs, or the left-wing of the corporate media, know it's their job to forcibly convert any popular movement into a pathetic plea to be made at the ballot box.

The unmediated, experimental politics of the Occupy movement must give way to symbolic protest and dialogue with the existing 'structures of power' where members must be brought 'to our side.' For the Occupy movement to be sanitized and converted into a recruiting tool for the Democratic Party, [or New Democratic Party?], it will have to be neutralized as a space for real debate, experimentation, and conflict with authority. It's more revolutionary elements will have to be surgically removed.

It is an operation the police, the media and some careerist progressives have been engaged in for months, and Hedge's contribution is just the latest drop in the bucket."

The real issue is control of the movement by the movement, through broad and democratic discussion and decision-making - and isolation of lone adventurers whose effect, if not motive, is to disrupt and alienate and create excuses for ideological and physical repression.

Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results.

But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

Should Occupy Use Violence? - by Kevin Carson

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/10/should-occupy-use-violence/

"I dunno, should the cops?"

Carson proves that the U.S. state is more violent than the Occupy movement.

Is there a Nobel Prize for stating the obvious?

Successful movements have understood that it’s absolutely essential not to fall into the trap set out by the authorities and spend one’s time condemning and attempting to police other activists. One makes one’s own principles clear. One expresses what solidarity one can with others who share the same struggle, and if one cannot, tries one’s best to ignore or avoid them, but above all, one keeps the focus on the actual source of violence, without doing or saying anything that might seem to justify that violence because of tactical disagreements you have with fellow activists.

I remember my surprise and amusement, the first time I met activists from the April 6 Youth Movement from Egypt, when the issue of non-violence came up. “Of course we were non-violent,” said one of the original organizers, a young man of liberal politics who actually worked at a bank. “No one ever used firearms, or anything like that. We never did anything more militant than throwing rocks!”

Here was a man who understood what it takes to win a non-violent revolution! He knew that if the police start aiming teargas canisters directly at people's heads, beating them with truncheons, arresting and torturing people, and you have thousands of protestors, then some of them will fight back. There's no way to absolutely prevent this. The appropriate response is to keep reminding everyone of the violence of the state authorities, and never, ever, start writing long denunciations of fellow activists, claiming they are part of an insane fanatic malevolent cabal.

Hedges condemns property destruction in political protest by condemning black bloc tactics, regardless of the facts. The "local coffee shop" vandalism Hedges contends was committed by black bloc was in fact one window of a corporate coffee chain smashed in that post-strike fog of war - and by someone not wearing a mask, not wearing black. The people who broke into City Hall on January 28, and many of those who destroyed property there, were also largely unmasked. And both of these acts came immediately after, as in within minutes of, violent mass kettling and arrest actions.

Of course, when Hedges and other critics pointed to Occupy Oakland's failures on January 28, they were not talking about black bloc - those torn fences and an autonomous and unfocused city hall melee were the only property destruction Oakland saw that day. No, they mean Occupy protesters who choose to stand up to the police. And for Hedges and others on the left hoping Occupy makes strides toward national change, standing up to the police is a public relations liability and those who do it should be "purged" from the movement - an arguably violent claim in and of itself.

The real Cancer in Occupy is DIVISION. People of Color dividing off from young white Liberals. Anarchists being rejected by Socialists. Native People dividing from Occupy in order to have their colonization addressed. COINTELPRO plants, paid by the CIA and FBI to create discord between the People. It is Move-on trying to make this about Democrats. It is Unionists trying to wake workers versus student worried about loans. The MSM's choice to cover only negative aspects; and not the very functional COMMUNITY-LEVEL co-operation that has successfully fed, clothed, housed, and gave medical care to a once diverse population.

Hedges opines that "Anarchists" do not believe in organization; this is patently false. What they do not believe in is giving personal power away in some subservient form to another human being to be held as superior to you. I am a neophyte in learning about anarchism, yet even I understand this very basic tenet. It was anarchist ideals that created the General Assembly - a true form of Democracy in which EVERY person has equal rights to speak, voice their concerns, give their opinions, and that consensus must be made.

Hedges denounces the group, by calling their actions Criminal, this breaking of Windows, seeks to make it the unthinkable evil... and the fact that a broken window pales in light of all the horrors wrought daily here and abroad sickens me. This is grossly out of perspective.

Considering the amount of very Righteous anger we SHOULD be feeling against our Oligarchs and Abusers, Occupy has done a tremendous job in reining in what could have already become extremely volatile and violent.

Hedges missed the chance to acknowledge that, and missed the opportunity to try and Unite Occupy by talking about the very real Cancer of division. Divide and Conquer is what always kills a movement.

Hedges also critiques the black bloc for its supposed "hypermasculinity," engaging in a gender essentialism that belies his inability to keep up with contemporary radicalism. In Oakland, part of the militant march on Move-In Day was the "Feminist and Queer Bloc." I'm sure they would be quite surprised to learn that self-defense against violent police thugs and petty vandalism is actually a man's activity! Why, those poor, beleaguered women and queers are probably alienated from such militancy, along with the befuddled masses that Hedges seems to be writing for! Rather than a lengthy critique of this already-disposed-of pseudo objection, I'll let Harsha Walia enlighten Hedges on the problems of wealthy white, men like himself attempting to speak for the alienated and frightened "victims" of such "masculine" activities as building a confrontational and militant movement against capitalism and the state. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oesjegD1-Vg

The hyperbole of calling Black Bloc "the cancer," the non sequitur of trying to link their shortcomings to Occupy, and the hypocrisy of saying that "The Greeks" who "riot," and so on, "get it," but not their American counterparts leaves me with a lot of questions on what Hedges hoped to achieve with his article. Does he really think Black Bloc is the reason Occupy is fizzing out? In a society that routinely has no problem with violence are we really to believe that burning cloth and breaking glass offends our sensibilities so much as to be "the cancer"?

While individual members of the bloc have indeed done damage to multinational banks and other predatory businesses, Hedges, like many members of the mainstream media establishment, ignores the fact that strategic property damage is part and parcel of a long history of nonviolent struggle. From the Suffragettes attempting to gain the right to vote, to environmental activists protecting the rights of nature, property damages inflicts financial costs upon entities that only care about their bottom dollar. Martin Luther King Jr. had this to say about the struggle for human rights against the corrupt system of his time:

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Anarchists don't oppose nonviolent methods of organizing. Hedges is engaging in binary thinking that has him convinced that participants in the black bloc don't do anything else. He ignores years of alternative structures like Food Not Bombs, hundreds of Infoshops that provide literature, bike collectives, food cooperatives, and groups that provide services for marginalized groups. Anarchists, like many others, believe in a diversity of tactics. It is this diversity that is our strength. We cannot allow slander and fear to separate us; sectarianism is the real cancer of Occupy. The enemies that we face-fascism, authoritarianism, militarism, and the like-are legion in their attacks; our response should be equally multifaceted.