It can be. However I recall the peaceful protests against the Franklin dam, in Tasmania's south-west wilderness, were very disciplined peaceful protests which were not designed to provoke. At least not provoke the police so much. The tactic there was simply to force the police to arrest people day after day, some of them international celebrities who came to the state to get arrested. The strategy was designed to attract massive publicity and keep the political pressure on the federal government. In fact the protest organisers got on very well with the police, who understood exactly what was going on and were very co-operative and friendly.
But Bob Brown and the Wilderness Society were very careful to ensure that there were no unruly incidents which would mar the protests. Everyone who attended had to do compulsory non-violence training. They couldn't afford any mistakes.
> All told, I think the agitators in Seattle did great work in making the
>police go mad and making the letters "WTO" stand for controversy and danger
>in the minds of Americans. However, I think they lost the battle of
>post-demonstration spin almost immediately and the lynchpin issue was police
>tactics and conduct. The public in Seattle have, by and large, forgiven the
>police and that's really unfortunate. Next time there is a big
>demonstration in Seattle, things will start with the weight of sympathy
>tilted towards the police. The cops will show "new" tactics of massive riot
>lines and they will be wrongly credited if there's no violence and the
>protesters will be wrongly blamed if there is (the "logic" being that the
>police changed but the protesters are the same bad eggs as on N30).
You can see here that the police, despite being the aggressors, have managed to create the impression they were too soft. In fact they have come across as the victims. So from now on more force is justified. They have achieved a total and crushing victory over the protestors at Seattle.
The damage is probably almost beyond repair there, people will have to get killed en masse at a demo to reverse the setback. In the meantime, the police tactics of massive force will be approved by public opinion.
Frankly, I don't see what could have been gained by trashing these coffee shops. I understand what you are saying, that it affords a certain satisfaction to see it happen. I appreciate that too, though I've only ever driven past a Starbucks store occasionally while I'm visiting the mainland. But the point of a demo isn't to satisfy personal emotional desires, but to positively influence public opinion.
The public might not sympathise with the multi-nationals who get their stores trashed, in fact the public might even think it serves them right. But that isn't going to translate into support for the idiots who did the trashing. The trouble is that the main message conveyed by vandalism is that the people doing it are vandals. It hardly inspires anyone (except other vandals) to look deeply into their philosophy. You just have to be a bit more strategic than that and as we can see from Chuck, some of these people are incapable of strategic thinking.
Not only do they destroy the coffee shops, they sabotage the larger protests as well. It seems to me there must be a point, there must be at least an unconscious strategy going on here, even if they are incapable of explaining it. Having worked with these sort of people for decades, I think my explanation is as good as any, they want to provoke the police to use repressive force, not to influence public opinion, but to influence the perceptions of other protestors who are close enough to see people being repressed. People participating in the protests are on the spot, they will be more likely to have a balanced view of what is really happening and will perceive it differently to the people watching it on TV. They will be radicalised by seeing and experiencing brutal oppression at first hand.
This will tend to make them sympathise and more likely to align themselves with the extreme radicals who are fighting back against the police. But of course only if they forget that fighting the police and destroying the physical property of the multi-nationals isn't the point at all. The ruling class has plently of police and property, that is where they are strongest, you can't achieve anything by fighting the ruling class on the battlefield of *their* choice.
So the object demonstrations for these anarchists in black is the same as for the other protestors. Except that they aren't interested in public perceptions. The target audience of the black bloc is the other protestors, it is irrelevant to them if the public is alienated, and their interests even co-incide with the interests of the extremists on the other side who want to see battles in the streets instead of peaceful protests.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas