[lbo-talk] On vandalism and violence

123hop at comcast.net 123hop at comcast.net
Sun Nov 6 15:15:46 PST 2011


Fuck violence. This is clearly a testasterone laden discussion.

I'll say it again. If the 99% agree on a program, no violence is necessary.

The Russian revolution was almost bloodless (until the civil war and the intervention of the western powers).

You think violence makes you radical? real men? sincere? fearless? Think again.

I think Doug made an excellent point about how our culture celebrates violence and why that might be one of the bad ideas some have internalized.

Joanna

----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Smith" <mjs at smithbowen.net> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Sunday, November 6, 2011 3:06:49 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] On vandalism and violence

On Sun, 6 Nov 2011 17:38:48 -0500 Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com> wrote:


> it seems to me
> that what you are actually meaning to say is that the BB's actions,
> while apparently counterproductive, are actually for the good of the
> Occupy movement.

Not exactly. What I'm trying to say is that all the hair-tearing on the subject is misplaced; and the intensity of the response, as well as the discouragingly conventional and unexamined character of the categories deployed ('violence', 'vandalism') cries out for some serious self-analysis.


> I think that an outright argument in defense of the
> BB's actions in Oakland would help make this whole discussion more
> productive.

It would. But I'm not the one to make it. It's not clear to me that the BB's actions are a Good Thing in any strategic sense -- apart from occupying an unoccupied building, which I really do think is a Good Thing.

But it's also not clear to me that these actions are such a very Bad Thing either. We should certainly reject the backlash argument, which we've seen deployed all our lives to cripple social movements.

What is clearly a Bad Thing -- I think -- is the Pharisaical horror of 'vandalism' and 'violence' exhibited by some of our lefty comrades. When it comes to vandalism, the Oakland desperadoes aren't even a patch on Cromwell's soldiery, or the French revolutionaries who smashed off the noses of the carved kings at St Denis. And as for violence...!

-- --

Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com

"I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President, and I think I will go along with them."

-- Barack Obama

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