> That the Reluctants gather and march at least part of the way, even
> occasionally getting themselves peaceably arrested, can’t distract
> from the conflicts that emerge when they encounter anti-capitalists in
> the street. The communist invariants put the two goals at risk,
> publicly shaming Reluctants for their bourgeois attachments and
> threatening to occupy then burn any possible bridge to party politics.
> Desperate to manage a non-violent mob, they find themselves yelling,
> shoving, even throwing a punch or two. When it comes down to it, the
> occupations’ violent ideologues are the ones who define themselves
> through their rejection of ideological violence. Is there any doubt
> that if they had the police’s weapons and badges that they wouldn’t
> use them just as brutally as the cops have?
> http://jacobinmag.com/blog/2011/11/people-who-hit-people/
This is my comment at Malcolm's blog post:
Last time you wrote on this topic, I commented: "Over the years I've read or heard many variations on this theme - about 'cowardly' or co-opted organisers trying to repress militant civil disobedience or confrontations with the cops. But I've read very few good statements about what it's supposed to achieve, even though this strategic gap has been a much more common criticism of black bloc or 'insurrectionist' antics than that they are just too militant or radical."
And now here we have yet another displacement of the argument. It's just not true to say that 'Reluctants' are liberals and window-smashers are 'anti-capitalists' or 'communist invariants'. (See para 10.) Many, many socialists are critical of the tactic. And I'm yet to see an argument for how "smashing up a bank" or the window of a supermarket or whatever is objectively 'anticapitalist'. If you think it is, tell us how. It seems to me that if you think a few masked people "smashing up a bank" is a threat to capitalism, or even to the bank, you don't have a good understanding of how capitalism works.
I should reiterate, as I did last time, that "I'm all for standing your ground to defend the right to protest, and I know it's usually the police that start these things." I can also see the logic of occupying an abandoned building in the right circumstances. It's the deliberate escalation of conflict with police that seems stupid.
Mike