[WS:] I can certainly come up with one. There is no evidence whatsoever of any effectiveness of their tactic beyond showing off chutzpah of the perpetrators, so there is no reason why a rational person should support such self-serving behavior.
Besides, this tactic is way too pedestrian (which is an aesthetic argument, to be sure.)
Wojtek
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 9:28 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> Just a note. Why are we bothering to spend so much time "defending" the
> Black Bloc on this list when actually no one on the list has made a single
> rational criticism of the Black Bloc. Proyect just vomits up old SWP
> slanders against SDS & the Panthers & others shudder at how it will turn
> people off, etc. There is no fucking debate here, and it has switched our
> attention from the task of embryonic theorization of th OW phenomenon, which
> includes but is much bigger than Oakland.
>
> There is a world to win & we are fussing endlessly about one brief period
> on Oaklan.
>
> Carrol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of shag carpet bomb
> Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 7:08 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: [lbo-talk] non-violence is the most powerful weapon we have
>
>
> // ravi ravi at platosbeard.org
>
>
>
> ravi: Violence in such circumstances seems to be well-described by
> what Carrol wrote, an act of elevating violence to a principle.
> Tactics here apply to both to the immediate need of self-defence and
> the larger goal of winning support and obtaining sought after results.
>
> -----------------------
>
> I want to get on to your strategy question also, but for now, I was
> thinking about this.
>
> For instance, during the police raid on the OO camp that eventually
> led to the General Strike, there was certainly a LOT of behavior
> intended to escalate the confrontation. There were people getting in
> their face, lunging toward them, other putting hands on them. The
> first two are considered Assault on a LEO, the last is considered
> Battery on a LEO. Others were trying to pull arrestees away from the
> cops. Still later, they purposefully threw down the barricades and
> taunted cops, etc. etc.
> http://www.youtube.com/user/TomVeeTV#p/u/0/orIqVHA3E24
>
> As Boots Riley says in the video portion where they are meeting to
> plan on what to do next, all that happened and they doubled their
> numbers by early that evening.
>
> So, at least in that instance, responding aggressively toward the cops
> didn't harm anything. The cops had misbehaved so badly it "justified"
> the response or, at least, it allowed the media to focus on something
> else.
>
> Which reminds me of something I think is interesting - the way the
> "black bloc" was positioned at the start of the anti-capitalist march.
> As I already mentioned, they created different marches so people
> didn't have to march with the dirty anti-capitalists.
>
> So, if you are an anti-capitalist and support tactical non-violence,
> why follow 50-60 people who are clearly out to "fuck shit up"? I mean,
> there were fliers being distributed indicating they were going to do
> something like that. And the chant was something like "Shut it down.
> Oakland doesn't fuck around."
>
> So, I can't figure out why people cognizant of the heated debates over
> the issue would actually march behind people dressed in all black,
> wearing bandanas, waving black flags, and toting spray paint? They
> were not there to play tiddly winks.
>
> In the WF incident, the footage shows the black bloc'rs doing their
> thing, separate from the anti-capitalist march. They had to leave the
> march to go after the store. Then, the non-violenters ran after them
> and intervened in the action.
>
> I'd say that the smartest thing to do was to simply keep marching and
> let them do their thing. I mean, seriously, the was more eyeballs on
> that action simply because the non-violenters insisted on running over
> there.
>
> I take your much earlier point, that someone might feel the need to
> defend the property not b/c they care about a building, but about the
> reputation of the movement. However, the context was the commitment to
> diversity of tactics. I suspect a few of the non-violenters intended
> to interrupt the bb action. *shrug*
>
> I think they made things a lot worse. They could have just ignored
> their asses, like you ignore trolls. I mean, that's what people are
> calling them and it's just as stupid to feed trolls at a protest as it
> is to feed them on a debate list.
>
> OTOH, I suspect there was a photo opp going on, no? Nothing wrong with
> photo ops, mind you. This is propaganda man, thank god for some great
> photo ops at OWS in NYC we wouldn't be discussing this! I can see that
> they may well have wanted to be seen, having their photos taken to
> defend the buidings, so they could send a message to the rest of the
> world that OO is about "non-violence."
>
> Which actually ties in to the strategy thing: this isn't a war, it's
> not a revolution. It's propaganda to incite mobilization right now.
>
>
>
>
> --
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
>
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