> So last night I went to an incredibly energizing Occupy the DOE (Department
> of Education) event, where 3,000 young, very diverse teachers and students
> tried to stop a vote to close dozens of schools...what if black blockers tried to
> do their criminally stupid acts at an ODOE event?!
> I guarantee you if they ever try that at an event I'm at where there's
> masses of workers and their families, you'll see a response from THIS
> member of the Peace Police (to use Graeber's phrase) like you've never seen
> before.
> PPS: Below Jon's comments are my own, which nobody yet took up.
>
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 10:17 PM, Jonathan Flanders <
> jonathan.flanders at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> If its a tactic, ie, wearing black and masks, then I'm against this as a
>> tactic, period. It splits the people into two groups, the black clad and
>> everyone else.
>>
>> It smacks of some sort of Batman superhero posturing. Here comes the
>> Black Bloc to save the day! As the benighted masses look on stupidly or
>> cheer. Or get "educated" by a cop's nightstick after the superheroes run
>> away.
>>
>> If you think the the role of the working class is to liberate itself, as
>> itself, as a class for itself, there is no place for this sort of thing.
>>
>> It will have to be outgrown as an infantile disorder, as class
>> consciousness makes headway.
>>
>> Jon Flanders
>>
>> Andrew Pollack
> 1:12 PM (19 hours ago)
>
> to
> Some comments I made on this to another list:
>
>> http://nplusonemag.com/concerning-the-violent-peace-police
>>
>> Graeber's piece continues some of the predictable problematic arguments of
> other mainstream anarchists in defense of black blockers. But it also goes
> further and makes clearer how their moralistic arguments and poor tactics
> flow from rejecting any notion of strategy, which in turn comes from not
> having a class analysis nor a perspective of seizing power. Partly it does
> this by sins of omission; like other anarchist defenders of the BB, its
> argument revolves completely around the impact of "violence" on the
> movement's image, unity and diversity. Not a word about its impact on
> building a social base that can be at the center of a movement which will
> ultimately contend for power.
> 1. The repeated references to "peace police" are an explicit rejection of
> the right of protest organizers to provide security for actions or to
> maintain order. (He also claims such "peace police" have violently attacked
> black blockers; this needs to be verified.)
> 2. He, like some others defending the BB, explicitly equate violence with
> "revolutionary" or "militant" politics, and nonviolence with reformism.
> 3. He completely misrepresents the "violence" in Egyptian demonstrations.
> The ultras and others fighting the cops with rocks were a mass force of
> hundreds, perhaps thousands, preventing the army and cops from attacking
> rallies of hundreds of thousands in Tahrir Square. That is, they had a
> legitimate tactical purpose, and were not a venting of spleen (the latter
> being, in Graeber's eyes, a perfectly appropriate response to cop
> violence). And in a REAL example of "diversity of tactics," these mass
> actions and their militant defense in Egypt prepared the way for what will
> likely be a huge general strike and civil disobedience actions on February
> 11th.
> 4. The discussion of "nonviolence" vs. black blockers never mentions
> Malcolm X, the Deacons for Defense, Robert F. Williams, etc. -- i.e. Black
> revolutionaries who protected others in the movement, and NEVER engaged in
> puerile vandalism. (Can you even imagine any of these Black revolutionaries
> encouraging a Black black block?)
> 5. Finally, I have to remind comrades of the incident at the end of "1905"
> where Trotsky urges members of the Soviet, which is about to be disbanded
> by the military, to lay down their weapons, and he declares for the police
> and all other witnesses to hear that no-one would fire unless they are an
> agent or provocateur. This from the man who would later lead the Red Army.
> The point being that "nonviolence" is a meaningless concept unless it's
> discussed in the context of a strategy for taking power.
> Andy