On 2012-02-10, at 10:35 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> You're not going to get even significant reforms unless people in power are scared, and to scare them, you need some violence.
You are mistaken. Ruling classes are not "scared" by violence, unless they lose confidence in the loyalty of the armed forces. Otherwise, throughout history, they've never shown the slightest fear or hesitation to employ brute force, including against movements much larger, more coherent, and organized than Occupy. If they oppose the reforms being demanded, they will simply ignore the movements or, if necessary, repress them. At this stage, the US political establishment and security forces are simply hoping Occupy will burn itself out, and are not in the least frightened by a few stone-throwing and flag-burning demonstrators. On the contrary, they are quite happy, with the connivance of the mainstream media, to focus public attention on the political vandalism of a few raggedy-ass kids and divert it from the grievances of the many.
I've suppose I've been wrong in assuming that the US left overwhelmingly took it for granted, without much thought or the need for debate, that going out of your way to provoke police violence is counter-productive behaviour which repels many more potential recruits to a mass movement than it attracts. As others have pointed out, neither the trade union nor civil rights movements encouraged assaults on property or the cops, although they recognized that their "illegal" sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience could invite violent repression. Self-defence against police charges - as distinct from provoking them - can, IMO, be justified, and generally were by the more militant wing of the trade unions in the 30's and the black movement in the 60's. But the left wing of these movements never sought, as a matter of ideology, to provoke police charges on peaceful demonstrations by deliberately breaking windows and torching buildings or vehicles. They typically linked such behaviour to agents provocateurs and the less politically developed and undisciplined minority within their ranks, and they unequivocally condemned rather than condoned it.