Where Whole Foods used to be, there was, for many years, a crumbling Cadillac dealership. It took a few years, and they built the Whole Foods there, and now, where there was blight, there is a new supermarket. Now, I do heartily hate Whole Foods and only shop there under duress, but that BB action made no sense to me. In that neighborhood, it's a good thing. The place is across the street from a middle school, which means that parents can stop and grab some groceries when they pick their kids up from school. Because of shoppers going in and out, it makes everything within its radius safer.
And, as I said, it was quite a distance (about a mile) from Oscar Grant plaza, which means, anything done there would not even be visible to anyone except the hundred or so people around there.
I completely fail to see what was radical about this action. The point of this revolution is not to destroy the goodies, it's to take them over. Because on one level they are already ours: we make it all work. For everybody to understand that is far more radical than smashing a window. The bolshies did not destroy the Winter Palace, they did not destroy the Kremlin.
There is this unspoken assumption that violence = radicalism and that someone who questions the automatic appropriateness of violence is not a serious revolutionary. This assumption persists despite activists writing in and attesting to the fact that violence/vandalism is a sure way to thin the ranks. It persists despite Julio's eloquent citing of Marx. It persists ....despite the obvious fact that violence/vandalism is an act that betrays a lack of faith in the future and is clearly dangerous for one's comrades.
This is the third and last go round on this subject. I've said what I've had to say. I'm going to stop here.
Joanna
----- Original Message ----- without the slow motion which shows the yellow helmet guy tackling the black bloc'r, being dragged away by people telling yellow helmet guy to stay out of it and respect DoT and then the rest of the non-violenters protecting whole foods. i'm starting to think the non-violenters were the paid assholes. but cops are too dumb for that kind of craftiness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3HvGV3D1VU&feature=player_embedded#!
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
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