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here's a couple. Maybe they were emotional at the time? Jeff Crosby of the AFL-CIO is one, Henwood the other.
as Carrol said: it's always contextual so no blanket statements can be made about 'black bloc'.
"Vanguardists have this distressing habit of trying to take over movements that they had no role in starting; I'm reminded of the American poet A.R. Ammon's line (which I'm quoting from memory, so I may not have it exactly right) that the way to look like a leader is to get in front of a moving crowd and start waving your arms. That's not very helpful, and it will give Marxism a very bad name at a
moment when its prospects look better than they have in a very long time. Much better, it seems, would be for Marxist intellectuals to talk with the protesters, to engage them in conversation with some modesty and even a touch of awe.
... Bhagwati recalled a chat he had with a masked young woman in Seattle. He asked her if the mask signified she was a Zapatista. She said no, she's an anarchist. He just didn't know what to make of her, or the crowd she was part of, but he was quite unnerved. The ruling class is rather unnerved by this new generation of protest, and that can only be a good thing. I'm almost tempted -- especially given the lack of a female presence on this platform throughout this conference -- to nominate the anonymous masked woman as the Lenin of our time. That wouldn't be quite accurate, I know, but it's still mighty tempting.
http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-nyc-audio/2001-February/000158.html
and
"Some union folks were pissed off about the anarchists breaking windows downtown, feeling that it was getting all the media coverage and our message was getting lost. I heard nothing but respect for the direct action folks.
Denouncing the violence of the protesters, in my opinion, only plays into the media game of putting the blame on the demonstrators.
...
Perhaps most important, any focus on the alleged "violence" and "rioting" of the protesters takes the focus away from on the corporations who are trashing continents, not a few plate-glasswindows."
http://www.ainfos.ca/99/dec/ainfos00189.html
Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
[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.