Violence or property damage at protests II

I'd be the last to lie down and let them walk on me, FM. I was one of the better sharpshooters in Ontario in my teens, and I think that we need a navy several times the size of the present one. Not tanks, but a damned good defensive force.

But I don't think that has anything to do with maintaining a democracy where we have to bring a majority onside by logic, persuasion.  And as it becomes clear that the media is finding it difficult to deny our position, Judy Rebick's position is the only rational one.

Don't go Apocalypse Now just yet.

radiorahim wrote:

Did I say that the only response should be to wave banners and chant?

There are plenty of militant but  peaceful ways to challenge authority.   If folks are being evicted I see nothing at all wrong with a community taking collective action such as staging a blockade to prevent eviction.

There may be tactics that can be used to deal with situations such as happened today.

There are no doubt repressive actions taken in western capitalist countries.   But in no way is it in on the level of fascist terror unleashed in the death squad states of Latin America a decade or two ago.   People are not systematically being tossed out aircraft doors over the ocean as they were in Argentina.   There are no "mass graves" as was commonplace in El Salvador.

As Tommy_Paine pointed out, we have not yet examined the thousands of unmarked and mass graves of Indigenous children in Canada, who suffered their fate for the 'advancement' of capitalism in Canada - ie, the theft of Indigenous land and resources.

The conflicts in South America were/are of the exact same type - corporate greed for natural resources resulted in mass displacement of peoples and in some cases, mass deaths. In many cases, Canadian companies were the corporate entities instigating these pogroms against Indigenous Peoples, supported by propped-up right-wing regimes.

This is still true, still happening, here and abroad. (See miningwatch.ca)

As we finally begin to examine Canada's unmarked and mass graves, South American technical expertise may well come into play.

It's easy for us to pretend that we know nothing of these atrocities committed in Canada and abroad in our name. That's what our corporate governance wants us to know ... nothing.

Our governments, our economy, and we ourselves benefit from these atrocities.

Sure our governments want us to parade through the streets in protest like dutiful sheep, without causing any real discomfort in the halls of power. Doesn't mean it accomplishes anything.

A few well placed bricks, on the other hand, can quickly alert the powers that be that we are onto them, and we are serious.

For this reason, I don't judge those who engage in such tactics.

In fact, I'm quite sure that the attack on the British banker's home will change the behaviours of similar arrogant corporate mucky-mucks.

As for supporting window breaking as a prelude to occupying a place of business, etc. ... well ... if you occupy, you will be arrested (as was pointed out) and possibly charged, detained or jailed. If you smash-and-run, you are much less likely to be arrested.

Getting arrested does not gain you anything, and could get you beat up by cops, so I understand why young anarchists these days are choosing not to stick around for that (and good for them, I say).

It isn't the '70's anymore. The worldwide environmental and human destruction being wrought by our corporatist societies is now threatening human existence itself. It's no longer 'just' some isolated Indigenous people somewhere up north or in South America or Africa (Congo). However, we collectively have responsibility for those events because we exist in the economy that thrives off their pain and the destruction of their lives.

I think the anarchists have a much better awareness of these issues than many of us. I know I have learned a lot from them.

I think it is quite naive to dismiss them as "yahoos" and "assholes".

Remember: They were throwing bricks through bank windows before the economy started imploding. Think maybe they knew something we should have been paying attention to? I think so. With accompanying press releases, the media had no choice but to report their purposes clearly, which they did.

 

George Victor wrote:

But please, tell me about all the violence. History I've obviously missed out on.

Are you familiar with Canadian union history George?

If (as one example) the Stelco workers of 1946 had not used aggressive tactics against the scabs, they would not have been able to interfere with the production of steel and would not have won concessions from the company.

Does the 'Farmers' Rebellion' of 1837 ring a bell at all?

Violence has a long history in the social movement in Canada. You have some googling to do.

Mind you, it is difficult to learn the truth about history in Canada, because we have been programmed to not look too deeply into our past, and the history we are taught is whitewashed.

 

 

My masters degree was taken studying the history of economic theory and the history of labour from its origins in the medieval crafts.

 

A big brother was a CIO organizer in the late forties and early 50s...used to go to sleep listening to the debates after some babysittting as a teenager.

 

Walked around in the snow one bitter winter myself in defence of a valid journalism under Thomson of Fleet.

 

Always, you ignored public sentiment at your peril (or you had a particular masochistic bent).

 

 

It only elects government, and can do the National Socialist thing in a dumb heartbeat.

It only elects government, and can do the National Socialist thing in a dumb heartbeat.

But seldom socialist sans nationalist, eh George? If only they had a public broadcaster ...

As much as I see your point, George, mine remains that public sentiment has never signed a contract.

George Victor wrote:

It only elects government, and can do the National Socialist thing in a dumb heartbeat.

You mean it hasn't already?

It is a noble profession. Too bad about the industry.

You are begining to sound like Kubrik's Jack D. Ripper... "our biological fecundity." OBF is that the three digit prefix for the recall code?

George Victor wrote:

Stopping a CN freigh or passenger train to make the point that it is passing over stolen land is a lauditory and necessary act and is a challenge to the status quo by brave people.

ya got that right! umhm youuuu betcha!

Throwing a brick through a bank window reinforces the public's image of radicals who certainly  could not repair the damned thing. They only break stuff, in the mind of a public that wants to know how to keep up mortgage payments, feed and school the kids and maybe take a holiday on a beach on Lake Huron.

I'm not saying mistakes haven't been made ... rampaging without discriminating and without a clear message being delivered ...  claiming a cause not your own (when that group may not appreciate your tactics) are two big mistakes that anarchists in Canada have sometimes made ... but as an observer (I want to make that clear ) I see the movement maturing too:

Hypothetically speaking (This is a US example.) I would see these targeted attacks as reasonable:

Kansas City police are investigating whether the same person or group is responsible for breaking windows, damaging statues and spray-painting anarchist symbols at 11 locations in recent months.

The vandal or vandals have made targets of Roman Catholic churches, banks, political offices and wealthy neighborhoods clustered in and north of midtown.

Police released a map of the locations Thursday but have taken 16 reports. Some locations were hit more than once.

Police also released a photo of a possible suspect taken at U.S. Bank, 1 W. Armour Blvd., when it was damaged Thursday morning.

The bank also was vandalized Oct. 19 when someone broke four windows with concrete bricks. “No bailouts for the rich” had been scrawled on one brick.

http://columbus.indymedia.org/

Hypothetically speaking, the best of these are well designed, very effective acts of large scale communication, imo.

Look how clean the message is in the media report ... and it is reported, and it didn't cause personal harm, and it is a popular message these days that many can identify with. Someone may be arrested - that's the risk they run and I am certainly not encouraging anyone to do these acts, you understand. But apparently a lot of us have come across the issue in our peaceful protesting, and confronted our opinions about it. I'm just musing on mine.

So ... I guess those are parameters I would consider before I judged someone's action as absolutely wrong: no personal harm, and effective message on your own topic.

Well ... that's one perspective anyway, playing 'anarchists' advocate' as I seem to be, for the sake of discussion of course.

I do sincerely think that a lot of British bankers got a clean, clear message from the anarchists' purely vandalous attack on banker-home. It's not my preference of location, but apparently he wasn't at the bank anymore to get the message.

Hypothetically speaking, of course, from my aged perspective.

 

It's just a fact of these times, perhaps.

Direct action communication occurs way faster than large scale organization.

It's the 'twitter' version of social justice movements.

 

FM:

Why would prostitution be necessary?

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The intellectual variety. Keeps them working, employed. A reason why strong drink has always been necessary.

"You are begining to sound like Kubrik's Jack D. Ripper... "our biological fecundity." OBF is that the three digit prefix for the recall code?"

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Never saw Clockwork Orange, Cue. It was about that time that violence at the flicks was becoming a bit too gratuitous.

 

I know that some get off on that.

That was from "Dr. Strangelove",  George.  It doesn't have the graphic violence of "A Clockwork Orange",  centering instead on a more sanguine nuclear obliteration of the world.

Like I said way, way up there, there's little point in the kinds of violence Rebick was talking about, in fact it's counter productive.  I'd rather the protestors had confronted police with placards illustrating what the bankers have done to the investments of police officers, and their pensions.

The bankers, probably not smart enough to ensure the economic security of their bulldogs, would have shit bricks.  The turning point of any revolution is when the police and military changes sides. They are not to be fought, but wooed.

I must part, I think, with the philosophy of my name sake, and take up the example of his friend and mentor Benjamin Franklin, who did not take up the armed revolutionary cause untill he saw for himself every peacefull avenue closed.

That's the excersize we should be currently engaged in, and that's the excersize everyone should understand we are engaged in.

 

 

 

 

A reply to Statica on the three types of Thug. I can agree to some extent with your grouping, my comments apply mostly to your group 3, "3: These "thugs" are some individualist idiot who decides to use the rally as an excuse to break things. I don't believe in collective punishment. It would be unfair in any other circumstance".  I see a significant difference between organized protest that includes group use of force and the single, or small group of individuals that hijack a peacefull protest and turn it into a war against police and private property.  They have little or no interest in the issues protested and come prepared with disguise and weapons.  Unfortunately crowd mentality can get others swept up in the action and we have police reaction, damage to businesses, looting and other actions unrelated to the original protest.  The original thugs instigating actions are the people I refer to.

I agree with statica that people should stop trying to equate property damage with "violence" (Cueball).

Nobody is supporting violence against people.

Damage of propety is the issue under discussion.

I maintain it can bring about effective, high profile communication when carried out in isolation.

However, I don't agree with attaching it to an issue or a demonstration belonging to another group.

So I'm rethinking my stance on Rebick's article because that was a case of hijacking another's demonstration.

I think anarchists messages are most effective when they act on their own.

Good point.

No one 'owns' dissent.

 

Quote:

Nobody is supporting violence against people.

 

I mentioned workers taking managers hostage in the previous thread, but I guess I missed the unanimous agreement that that's kidnapping, and that it's not OK.

I wouldn't call property damage violence, but it's usually not useful. It's often either public property or insured property that gets damaged, meaning everyone else has to pay to repair whatever it was. Whatever good publicity you got for your issue by, for example, trashing a bank branch kind of gets canceled out by the reaction of people who are just disapproving of the damage rather than thinking about the issue and by the fact ten bank tellers (who can't be said to be overpaid) aren't going to get paid for the week or two their workplace is being repaired.

I imagine Snert doesn't mean the kind of vigilantes who would hover in and around demos ready to pick off anyone who might detract from the overall good image of the crowd (in the eyes of those - media, cops, politicians - who seek it to discredit anyway).

Quote:

But for the record? I'd have been a "vigilante" against King George the III, if chance would have put me in one of the 13 Colonies. I'd have been a "vigilante" against the Confederacy, if chance had put me there at that time. And, yes, I'd have been a "vigilante" meeting at Montgomery's Tavern right here in Ontario, again, if chance had permitted.

 

Okay. You'd join entire populations in throwing off the rule of a distant colonial monarch.

 

But I'm talking about, for example, employees in France kidnapping managers and holding them hostage.

 

Insofar as it's pretty tough for anyone to go back to 1776, I guess it's present-day vigilantism I'm referring to. Would you join in holding the manager hostage? Would you put your support behind that?

Quote:

I'm not sure if that constitutes "kidnapping"

 

There's an easy way to tell. Were the other parties in the negotiation free to get up and go home, or did you physically prevent that?

 

My understanding is that holding someone hostage in France is most certainly illegal, but many companies don't immediately call in the police, for fear of escalating a dangerous situation further.  But the fact that the companies often choose to "settle" rather go in with guns blazing really shouldn't have much bearing on whether you believe it's acceptable to hold someone hostage over a severance package.

Given that you know what kidnapping is, and you know that nobody is fighting a colonial army for their freedom, do you support what has come to be known as "boss-napping"?  That's really a "yes" or "no" question.  And to be fair, I'll start:  I don't.  I can't think of a single situation in which I would or should have the right to physically restrain someone "so they have to listen".

Does that have something to do with property damage at protests?

And if so, are you saying that it's only "the State" that defines kidnapping as a crime -- the rest of us wouldn't, and oppose the criminalization of kidnapping??

Hey "Snert", you're the one who derailed this thread to discuss instead what you call "kidnapping", remember...

My position is that the boss is the boss and he can take naps whenever he damn wants.

 

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Do your part for the environment by ignoring straw men and shoulder chips.

Quote:

Hey "Snert", you're the one who derailed this thread to discuss instead what you call "kidnapping", remember...

 
Actually, it was in the previous thread that a (useful) distinction was made between crimes against property, which I'm not discussing, and crimes against people, which I am. And when it was stated that

Quote:

Nobody is supporting violence against people.

I thought I'd see, just to make sure.
And just so that we're on the same page, holding someone against their will and issuing demands isn't "what [I] call 'kidnapping'". It's what any normal person calls kidnapping. Your use of scare quotes answers for you, though I'd bet a year's earnings that if some guy held his ex-wife in a room and wouldn't let her leave until he got the concessions he wanted, you'd call it kidnapping too.

Quote:

My position is that the boss is the boss and he can take naps whenever he damn wants.

 

If you lack the courage to answer a simple yes or no question about your own beliefs, that's fine. Cowardly, but fine.