Eikon eikonoklastes

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Mon Nov 6 08:52:09 PST 2000


Chip Berlet wrote:
>> I was just at a meeting on legal defense of protestors and the discussion
>> turned to demonstration vandalism.
>>
>> The younger discussants called the question "to brick or not to brick," thus
>> the reference to Starbuck's windows (and even what to do with the brick) is
>> now not even considered needed but is merely implied.

Chuck0:
> Yup, property destruction is taken as a given now among most activists.
> I did a panel discussion on this topic several weeks ago at American
> University with Nadine Bloch of DAN and Michelle from the Plowshares.
> The audience seemed to be mostly into PD, but several had qualms about
> the black bloc. This wasn't surprising given that the event was
> sponsored by the Washington Peace Center.

This is interesting, but I was mostly concerned with the way the incident was so rapidly iconofied by devotes of the _ancien_ _regime_. Among radicals, it may be a term of art, but among conservatives, who already have a very elaborate vocabulary of violence, it must be something else. What is it they see and fear? Why is breaking one store window so important to people who shrug off the breaking of whole cities? It might be useful to know -- even if it's merely more propaganda.



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