I had to laugh when susie cagle pointed to the fact that Hedges rhetoric last May was ALL about the importance of smashy smashy, rioting, etc...
He was all for it.
Because it was Greece.*
There's a serious disconnect on the left, I've observed, because a lot of people are all like, "woah. look at that awesome uprising in Greece or Egypt or wherever. go kids, go! you fuck up some shit in the streets. throw bricks at soldiers and cops. right on!"
The kids with the masks and black clothes are out there throwing bottles and rocks and bricks at police and no one freaks the fuck out about violence! But when it's a bunch of white kids in the u.s. or u.k.... it's utterly hilarious that it's okay for the swarthy, downtrodden, third worlders to throw around bricks... gosh. wonder why that is!
(the reason why is that a large part of the freak out is that people who aren't involve see their "involvement" in the form of translation work: they feel that they "rep" or "translate" the movement to less radical coworkers, colleagues, neighbors, friends, and family. they can't stand it when they feel they have to answer to Uncle Dick at Tday Dinner. Dick was never gonna give a shit about any of this, but you feel compelled to keep on working on Dick, to see if you can bring him around: because you feel that you are there to raise consciousness in this movement. that's you job. nice. safe. secure. working on hearts and minds while the others, over there, do all the marching, protesting, planning, etc. and it really screws things up when you have to try explain this to Uncle Dick. Bummer!
as carrol points out, though even he in his fucking irrationality about weather gets it wrong, is this: it's because they are your comrades. so you may not support or want to engage in smashy smashy, but you support diversity of tactics: because you know the people who engage in smashy smashy are the core of who is making things happen. furthermore, they've sat through all the endless meetings and have realized: there's no chance of controlling what happens in a march, demo, action. It's impossible to do. It's hard enough to keep comms going about what the cops are doing, when to expect their crack down, get a crowd to move this way or that way, etc. etc. The idea that you are going to get military discipline in a march of 500 or 2000, let alone, 10k is laughable.
* "Here's to the Greeks
They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfarethe rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat." http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_greeks_get_it_20100524/
At 10:01 PM 2/7/2012, Marv Gandall wrote:
>On 2012-02-07, at 6:40 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > Hence the endless professorial chatter (Lou is a Professor to the very
> jelly
> > between his toes) has no present or future connection with the existence or
> > non-existence of Black Blocs. Does anyone really think that a young man who
> > enjoys the clatter of breaking glass or the style of masks Black Blockers
> > wear is going to read and learn from Profesor Proyect?
>
>I doubt very much Louis and like critics of these tactics are aiming their
>comments at the Black Blockers. They're aimed at the larger number of
>activists who also deplore Black Bloc vandalism but whose liberal values
>and, in many cases, anarchist sympathies encourage toleration of Bloc
>behaviour under the rubric "diversity of tactics". This was not the case
>in the 30's and even the 60's, when the organizers and marshals of mass
>demonstrations, not a few of them Marxists and trade unionists, full well
>understood how these provocative tactics alienated the public and gave the
>cops a pretext for repressing and intimidating the mass of demonstrators.
>They sought to strongarm them out of the ranks whenever necessary.
>Proyect, I'm sure, would rather see the majority adopt this approach than
>yield to the Black Blockers. The soft muddleheaded professors are on the
>other side of the debate.
>
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)