Michael Smith wrote:
> Any upheaval is going to attract window-breakers. Seen in that light, the appearance of window-breakers is a sign of the Occupiers' success.
These two sentences are correct.
> Whether in fact they help or hinder the movement isn't actually so easy to answer -- though the answer clearly seems so self-evident to so many of us.
WTF? Violence isn't something our side does. Violence is what the other side commits against us. Lenin and Trotsky didn't grasp the storming of the winter palace as an act of violence; it was a necessary act of self-defense to protect the democratically legitimated soviets.
Now, to be clear, I think violence is something committed against people. As such, I think it's really bad. Smashing bank windows isn't violence, but it is douchebag behavior.
Also, it's just terribly vanguardist. Michael, after the revolution, a tribunal is going to force you to read some Hal Draper and August Nimitz. Black bloc dipshits are acting outside of democratic legitimacy. It's not fair to the people who don't want their heads staved in by police nightsticks.