>________________________________
>From: Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com>
>To: Marxist Debate <marxist-debate at googlegroups.com>; Lbo Talk Lbo Talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>; pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu
>Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2011 3:28 PM
>Subject: [lbo-talk] On vandalism and violence
>
>My 2 cents and what I believe it's going to happen:
>
>If the problem persists or grows, OWS will firmly distance itself from
>those actions and take organizational measures to ensure basic
>discipline in its protests and prevent people of this kind to derail
>them. Because it will become an obligation to itself, to those
>involved in the movement, and to the bigger promise it represents.
>It's clear that the widespread support and involvement OWS has
>elicited from working people in the U.S. and abroad (its most positive
>and lasting outcome) owes much to its commitment to nonviolence. This
>approach -- in the context of our society and culture and under
>current historical conditions -- has gained for the movement the moral
>high ground in the ongoing political conflict against the powers that
>be. This is the association people should have in their heads:
>Violence: them! Peace: us!
>
>IMO, OWS should be matter of fact about it, avoid moral grandstanding
>and condemnatory language, let alone ask for law enforcement to
>intervene. Instead, without justifying or denouncing in the abstract
>the use of violence, it should made clear that these are also
>manifestations of the alienated nature of social life here and now,
>and that -- consequently -- they belong entirely with the debit side
>of the status quo. Contrariwise, OWS should be viewed as an attempt
>to eradicate the conditions that foster all forms of violence in our
>society. All OWS needs to do is insist that its approach is
>nonviolent, re-affirm its absolute commitment to it, and refer that --
>to date -- the movement has, if anything, been on the victim side of
>police violence; that if we are to talk about violence, then top of
>the agenda should be the wars our state wages abroad, the rates of
>incarceration, the impoverishment of millions, etc. The message to
>those who support the movement, to those it seeks to attract, and to
>its adversaries in the 1% is that OWS will remain a peaceful movement,
>that this peaceful approach is in the DNA of OWS, and that any attempt
>to derail its commitment to nonviolence -- by provocation and/or by
>repression -- will be the sole responsibility of the system itself and
>its 1% beneficiaries.
>
>Internally, OWS should not give these people much more attention. The
>movement is much bigger than these absolutely marginal manifestations.
>Let the media try and amplify them. But let's not add to their
>exaggeration. The powers that be are very disturbed by the ability of
>the movement to focus the attention of people on social inequality and
>the system ills of our society. Let's keep it there.
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