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Who’s Really Violent? Tips for Controlling the Narrative
Occupy Wall Street is similar to many movements in contending that its opponent—for Occupy, the 1 percent—is maintaining a system whose structural, systematic violence far exceeds any violence exhibited by the movement itself. For example, movements will say that class oppression or sexism or racism hurt people in the daily course of life, pointing to statistics like each percentage point of unemployment resulting in increased suicide, homicide and domestic abuse. However, especially when the movement is still young and only beginning to get its message out, the powers that be in politics and the media will often succeed in dismissing such charges and in blaming every appearance of violence on the campaigners. Reversing this narrative in the public perception is one of a growing movement’s most important challenges.
New York City subway ad for a Diego Rivera exhibition, modified for Occupy Wall Street. By Poster Boy NYC.
For nearly a year, for example, the Syrian government has been sending its tanks to kill demonstrators while claiming that the violence mainly comes from the pro-democracy forces. The Russian government publicly agrees. The reason why defenders of oppression the world over charge activists with violence—even if they have to make it up—is because it’s a potent accusation. The oppressor doesn’t want the “violence” label to stick to its own side. Those who presently are undecided or passive might move to support the campaigners because they don’t want to support “violence.”
In some circumstances, although not all, who wins the struggle depends on who most believably asserts that the other side is violent. Occupy Wall Street got a tremendous boost in the early days when mainstream media were largely ignoring them, thanks to the blatant violence committed by New York City police. Many influential and uncommitted people swung immediately to the side of Occupy and gave it extraordinary momentum.
Those in power, however, are at an advantage in this contest with campaigners. They usually control or hugely influence the media coverage. They start out with some legitimacy won through elections or asserted through authoritarian cultural institutions—often religious ones. In the Global Nonviolent Action Database, we recount dozens of cases in which oppressive regimes have persisted against activist challenge for years, even decades, before the campaigners’ charge of “violence” finally stuck and key middle groups swung over.
After Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize, there was a swell of indignation in many Southern towns and cities. “Our town was peaceful until King came here,” people would say, “and then we had all kinds of trouble and violence, and then he gets the Peace Prize?”
King’s response was to say that those towns had been violent all along. Racism is violence, he said; just look at comparative statistics between whites and blacks of life expectancy, and infant mortality rates, and death in childbirth. He said that the town newspaper didn’t put those statistics in headlines, so (white) people didn’t see clearly the violence of racism. It took an activist campaign that brought out the Ku Klux Klan and police dogs, and blood running in the streets, for people to see that racism equals violence, because racism is a system that, when challenged, must be defended by violence. As we know, once the white people in the middle saw where the violence was actually coming from, large enough portions of them changed sides so that the activists could gain concrete victories.
How, then, did an oppressed people succeed in showing that the violence was actually in white racism, rather than in themselves?
They did it by creating brilliant dramas in which they contrasted their own behavior with that of their opponents. Part of the brilliance was in forcing their opponent into a dilemma in which either choice would put the demonstrators ahead of the game. The story-line for a lunch-counter sit-in, for instance, was: “I want coffee at this whites-only lunch counter. If you serve me, fine. I win. If you don’t serve me but instead beat me or arrest me, fine. I win because I show where the violence is coming from.” (I was privileged to learn this lesson firsthand; my first arrest was in a civil rights sit-in.)
In other words, at their best, the young people avoided doing what could be perceived as mere provocation—like walking into the streets to stop traffic or hassling shoppers. The students were much cagier than that. They carefully set up no-win situations for their opponents, and therefore, against all odds—including the KKK terrorists—they usually won.
Furthermore, because they knew the stakes were high, the students took steps to heighten the contrast as much as possible. They showed up at the lunch counter with ironed dresses and white shirts and ties and polished shoes, with a textbook in hand.
The danger of such contrast is known well to people whose job is to defend an unjust status quo. When activist behavior reveals so clearly the injustice of the state, it results in a loss of the state’s legitimacy. Dozens of dictators have learned this to their sorrow. Smart managers of repression have therefore come up with a counter-strategy: reduce the contrast in behavior between the activists and those charged with repression. Here are some of their tactics:
- Pay or persuade people to pretend to be activists and do something that can be called violence. This might be property destruction (since a lot of people believe property destruction is violence), but it could also mean attacking police or others on the side of the status quo.
- Accuse the activists of violence whether or not there’s any evidence of it.
- Plant the evidence. In Philadelphia during the 1960s, a young, largely-white anti-racist group couldn’t reach consensus to state publicly that they were nonviolent, even though they hadn’t yet planned any acts of violence. They were increasingly effective in their nonviolent campaign, so the police staged a raid on the communal house where some of them lived, herded everyone into the living room, searched the rest of the house and “discovered” explosives in the refrigerator. With that planted evidence they were able to pretty much destroy the group, and the young people were powerless to defend themselves,
Variations of the repressors’ “minimize the contrast” approach have been employed all over the world: provocateurs used in India by the British Empire, in Serbia to hurt the student opponents of the dictatorship, and on and on. There are steps that activists can take, however, to prevent this kind of manipulation:
- Deliberately heighten the contrast. In France in the late 1950s, the anti-imperialist movement did a lot of demonstrations against the Algerian War, and were faced with notoriously violent police who were quartered in barracks to stay “battle ready.” While working in France in 1960, I was told that many of the French activists knew that the smartest way to reduce their casualties was to remain nonviolent—police in so many countries increase their violence when they experience fighting back—and they wanted to win over more of the French public to their side. They therefore adopted the tactic of when in doubt, sit down. They found not only that they sustained fewer injuries, but also that observers (including media) of the confrontations spread the word about the drama: police standing over activists with upraised sticks; activists sitting on the ground creating the largest possible contrast. Their campaign grew as a result.
- Boldly declare that you are nonviolent, as some Occupy groups have done, and by doing so move to the “moral high ground” in the perception of most people. If critics claim that certain tactics—say, locking arms—activists can challenge such claims on their own terms.
- Start again if there has been an activist lapse into defensive violence. Researcher Kira Kern tells us that when the Omanis jumped into the Arab Awakening on February 27 of last year, their protest immediately turned into a clash with the police, with violence on both sides. The movement pressed the reset button and began a nonviolent campaign, taking care this time to heighten the contrast with the police who used arrests, tear gas and rubber bullets. The assessment of the Omani activist leadership was that the sultan was too well-embedded to replace with democracy in one campaign, so they set for themselves concrete goals that looked achievable: better wages, more jobs, an elected parliament and a new constitution. They used a variety of methods: occupation, obstruction, picketing, limited strikes, graduating to a general strike. In a little over a month, they won most of what they demanded.
The student sit-inners, French war protesters and heroic Omanis remind us that, while enjoying our own creativity, we needn’t re-invent every wheel. We can also learn from sisters and brothers that went before us some ways to heighten the contrast and reveal the violent face of injustice.
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Show AllI stopped reading at "the Syrian government has been sending its tanks to kill ..." since this is the same narrative the usual suspects are promoting. The violence in Syria is just another CIA inspired uprising. How do I know it's CIA inspired? Al-CIA-da from Iraq has officially endorsed it.
Mr. Lackey, like many pacifists, re-writes the history of the civil rights movement as a feel good joining of hands of blacks and whites in happy spirituals, when in fact without armed and violent struggle by thousands of people nothing would have change. Same with apartheid and with Gandhi's movement. Similarly, pacifists take great pride in ending the Vietnam war, when in fact the armed struggle by the brave Vietnamese people defeated the the empire's army.
Pacifism has its place, but never has pacifism brought about a change in government or even in government policies to any effective degree.
Who's rewriting history?.....methinks I hear the sound of one nose growing...
The despots in Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Kosovo put there by the Anglo US gang and initially by the US gangsters hiding behind the NATO aggressors' banner.
Otherwise a good article! But let's not repeat the hot air from Slick Willy about "humanitarin intervention" which was all intervention and no humanitarian turning the Balkans into a free fire zone. Just read Lord Owen's account, a very establishment orieted British diplomat and see what silly lies the Western media fed us to get us into that mess. Germany and France on the continent were knee deep in getting us into this as well with the London at least while John Major's Tories were in government pressing for a diplomatic settlement based on common sense cooperation between nations of the type Franklin D Roosevelt would have backed.
This below is violent and obviously so.
Cut Special Forces Funding
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They are squads, and their product is death. The U.S. military calls them Special Forces. Others may see them as “death squads.”
We spend $10.5 billion per year on them, and they operate in dozens of countries. Which countries?
That's none of our business.
Tell Congress and the President that it IS our business, and that we want military funding cut and “special” forces placed under democratic control.
Special Forces operate outside of any declaration of war, authorization to use force, or standard of international or domestic law. They don't ask permission from us or our Congress.
Now, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command wants the authority to move troops into foreign nations without so much as asking the Pentagon brass. What could go wrong?
Blowback. Terrorism. Global animosity. Sabotage of diplomatic negotiations. Escalation of conflicts into wars. THAT could go wrong.
Funding for Special Forces is not cut in the White House budget proposal. Instead President Obama wants big new bases built for them in Afghanistan and in the United States.
Enough is enough. It’s time to scrutinize and cut funding for Special Forces.
Please forward this email widely to like-minded friends.
And please forward this to everyone you can.
David, Aimee,
and the RootsAction team
P.S. Our small staff is supported by contributions from people like you; your donations are greatly appreciated.
Resources:
New York Times: Admiral Seeks Freer Hand in Deployment of Elite Forces
War Is A Crime: 450 Bases and It's Not Over Yet
Tomgram: Nick Turse, Uncovering the Military's Secret Military
Mandela led soldiers who bombed many public places. Gandhi won after a hundred years of armed struggle and after Great Britain had lost much of its military might in WWII. MLK agreed with Malcolm X at the end of MLK's life. The US government liked MLK over the bad blacks like Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael.
MLK didn't get much support from the government until after the race riots in many cities, like Detroit, Watts, Harlem, and Newark. Before the white powers dismissed MLK's demands as radical and premature, but when cities started burning they embraced him as the good black.
Toward the end of his life, MLK moved much closer to armed resistance. In 1967, Charmichael and Brown changed the name of SNCC from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to the Student National Coordinating Committee, almost for sure with MLK's approval, because they were King's campus arm.
As one civil rights organizer said in 1969, "The Black Panthers are just about the best thing that ever happened to the civil rights movement." Pacifism as Pathology, p. 56 (2007 ed.)
I greatly admire George Lakey's philosophy of nonviolent, creative confrontation of the state's power structure, and the whole Quaker approach to grassroots social activism. Lakey's first example - the successful, national consciousness raising 1950's lunch counter sit-ins in the segregated south, notably at national chains like Woolworths which could be simultaneously confronted with economic pressure to desegregate as a matter of corporate policy - caused me to reflect a bit on what is different about the state's response to demonstrations today, contrasted with the way American police tactics were back then, a half century ago.
Refusal to leave the lunch counter upon the proprietor's demand was the crime of trespassing, the same as ordering that cup of coffee in the first place triggered criminal liability for violating state and local racial segregation laws. Neatly dressed, polite, nonviolent would be African American patrons, clutching their textbooks and bibles, were cuffed, rudely roughed up, cursed and carted off in front of television cameras to go straight to jail and face prosecution. Each phase of that patently unjust, institutionally racist process drove home the point about which side was the true fomenter of violence, just as the fire hoses, dogs, and violent white mobs of counter-demonstraters reinforced the same themes later on as the civil rights desegregation movement progressed.
The existence of de jure segregation laws had the effect of tying the tactical hands of law enforcement back then. Crimes were being committed in broad daylight, so physical arrests had to be made, and if in the process the situation got a bit chaotic or completely out of hand, well, sometimes good ole boys will be good ole boys.
Today, the OWS movement arises in an environment of free speech zones, mass media manipulation, and undercover police agent provocateurs. Those were the real "lessons of the Vietnam era" that the system took away and internalized.
If the Bull Connors of Old Dixie had savvy political consultants at their disposal, the counter-tactic (no pun intended) would have been to have a uniformed cop and a store rent a cop calmly carry each of the wannabe diners out to the sidewalk on a lawnchair, leaving each demonstrator sitting there with a complimentary styrofoam cup of coffee in hand. And in the process, for sure one of those demonstrators inside would throw a ketchup bottle, or take a poke at a cop, so there'd be a quick clip ready for the evening TV news broadcast.
Bill from Saginaw
"For nearly a year, for example, the Syrian government has been sending its tanks to kill demonstrators while claiming that the violence mainly comes from the pro-democracy forces."
For nearly 10 years, rich white nations have been killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in poor countries and stealing their resources... while claiming that these innocent people are violent and "dangerous to our way of life."
This is only true if "our way of life' involves killing and stealing with impunity. And it that's the case, it's a GOOD thing that THEY do.
As Ward Churchill points out, American pacifism is racist to a large extent. "In displacing massive state violence onto people of color both outside and inside the mother country, rather than absorbing any real measure of it themselves (even when their physical intervention might undercut the state's to inflict violence on nonwhites), pacifists can only be viewed as objectively racist."
I don't mean to accuse individuals like Mr. Lakey of racism, but rather to say that the structure of pacifism has become little more than a kabuki theater done to appease the consciences of decent people who feel helpless in the face of massive force, but who don't want to risk state violence against themselves. Pacifists go by the motto, "Better to live on your knees than to die on your feet." (sorry Emiliano)
As you said, rich white nations have killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent poor people to steal their resources. We have a duty to protect our fellow human beings, including those from other cultures, religions, and races.
"the structure of pacifism has become little more than a kabuki theater done to appease the consciences of decent people who feel helpless in the face of massive force, but who don't want to risk state violence against themselves"
Yes. Also I think especially with religious people there's a masochistic streak which gets its needs met this way... and when meeting cops with sadistic streaks it takes on the nature of two kinky people meeting each other in a personal ad.
Both sides are very flustered by anyone who doesn't work within the script.
"Many influential and uncommitted people swung immediately to the side of Occupy and gave it extraordinary momentum"
But the movement should have momentum by virtue of its agenda, to support the true better interests of the people in the face of relentless elite onslaught. Let's investigate why its own virtues should stand on their own and how authentic virtues may come to stand on their own.
It seems a question of who to trust. elites have long snookered the people in to believing ekonomic growath, for instance, deserves to be our exclusive ekonomic agenda. Elites simply overfill the media with their bogus ideas leaving no space for the truth. Even worst, much of academia is driven by a bogus agenda, instead of serving the people's better interests.
The author of the article may be suggesting the Occupy Movement learn to play the propaganda game, but playing by conventional rules leaves the movement at a grave disadvantage. The movement needs to focus on credibility, and help the people make the connection between the movement's approach and their own desire for universal enlightenment/solidarity/equity/justice. The people have to learn how to recognize true intentions.
Imagine sitting down to discuss this with someone. Try devoting the whole conversation to making the connection between the movement's obvious lack of affluence with its agenda of universal equity. Be conscious of the art of debate, and influence. Discuss consciously with the person you are trying to convince the question of influence itself, of controlling the narrative. This so the person knows your intentions are to spread the truth.
I'm appalled by what "progressive" has come to mean in the age of Obama: either ineffectual thinkpieces about nonviolence with no practical application (since we've already seen Ghandian tactics fail in the OWS movement) or apologia for state violence, whether by the military or the police.
A quick look at Democratic Underground or Huffington Post will show you the depths to which establishment Democrats have sunk--jokes about cops tasering helpless victims, celebrations of any rise in the stock market, praise of our abominable foreign policy that is practically indistinguishable from most Republican tripe. The only real distinctions are on social issues which should have no place in a secular democracy anyway. The rejection of OWS by the Democratic Party is just one manifestation of this Republican wannabeism. Truly depressing.
They're not real progressives. Because of them we have to work harder to identify true intentions. It's extra work, but the rewards of universal equity/justice are worth it many times over.
Any participation I might continue to have in Occupy or other activism will most definitely NOT be preceded by the kind of "will it play in Peoria?" triangulation for the massive, still-too-complacent idiot middle classes of the US which Lakey advises here. And the tactics of the 60s, Lakey's heyday, don't work well anymore. Occupy essentially constructed non-violent sit-ins across the US, with all the moral force of dispossessed and homeless people, and the business owners and the Democrats still maneuvered and batoned and gassed them out one after another.
The bottom line is that angry, sick, cold, wet, penniless, fucked-over people don't care about wearing nice white starched shirts to put on a good presentation for the cameras. After decades, citizens have evolved in their relationship with the media and learned cynicism towards it, for one thing, but also, many of us don't have nice clean shirts, literal or figurative, to put on for the viewers. Beaten-down Americans making a stand isn't another reality show.
On November 13th in Portland, OR, as the remnant of the big Occupy encampment was being pushed out of the last corner of the downtown parks, there was a short period, maybe no more than 3 minutes, where I found myself at the front of the line facing the storm troopers and getting violently shoved and batons in my ribs. Something, some signal perhaps or some innate impulse, led the 20 or 30 people in the rows behind me to sit down, presumably to make the cops arrest them.
When I turned around and saw this, I urged everyone, with arm gestures, to get BACK ON THEIR FEET and make a stand like human beings with self-respect. They did. We all got violently pushed out of the park by the thugs with sticks. The large crowd of looky-loos saw us and the media took pictures. Images of principled resistance by overpowered, defenseless people were implanted into many people's minds. I think that did a lot more good than a mass arrest would have, which the local media would have played as a bunch of rebellious ne'er-do-well druggie kids getting their comeuppance by authority. But most importantly, that last decision by the occupiers helped us FEEL what it's like to stand up for oneself.
Good work, Wary. Few people have the courage to stand up to authority. Even people in authority suck up big time to those above them.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir de rodillas." "I prefer to die on my feet than to live on my knees." More often translated as, "It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees!" Emiliano Zapata.
The sentiment of the quote was deliberately reversed, "(Sorry Emiliano)."
And...it is necessary that this conversation happen again and again. It is Mr Lakeys' very point that the perception of a crowd yelling and waving its' arms in the face of authority is seen as violent, especially when the views are cherry-picked by the MSM.
I seem to remember that recently an officer was quoted as saying that locking arms in resistance is violence. The only way to portray that you hold the high moral ground and refuse to resort to "violence" is to peacefully resist, albeit strongly. What this means to the individual is of course open to interpretation, but, see above.
Peacefully resisting while sitting on the ground and refusing to move is a very strong form of protest, and I do not see it as "living on your knees."
"I think that did a lot more good than a mass arrest would have, which the local media would have played as a bunch of rebellious ne'er-do-well druggie kids getting their comeuppance by authority"
exactly. i agree w/ tomcarberry - good work.
"The aim is to listen and learn about the struggles, the resistance and rebel movements, support them and bind them together to build a national anti-capitalist, leftist program." - Subcomandante Marcos
the resistance can not be merely sitting in a park and begging for change from the overlords, it must entail self defense and a diversity of tactics.
¡Ya basta!
...peace...
Wow. When I read the pompous, holier-than-thou, "I'll use violence if I fucking well feel like it" attitude of this blog I stop holding my breath about any hope for success in the OWS movement. As proven throughout history, you can always count on the "Left" to cut its own throat.
Like when MLK committed suicide?
Many in the mainstream press of the 1960's were sympathetic to the cause of Civil Rights. The masters of the corporate media of today will not allow too many reports that are sympathetic to OWS.
Many of the elite plutocrats of the 1960's were also sypathetic to the Civil Rights movement, in part because it was not a direct threat to their rule (at least not until MLK started his anti-war and anti-poverty campaigns), in part because it had a chance of defusing a nascent black leftist movement, and in part because the US was in danger of losing the propaganda war in what was known as the "Third World," a world populated by non-whites, because of the extreme racism displayed by whites in certain parts of the country. The plutocrats of today are diametrically opposed to OWS and are not worried about any international repercussions related to this opposition.
I believe that newspapers of the 1960s were still family-owned enterprises not under the thumb of the corporate owners we see today.
My favorite newspaper is England's The Guardian, an employee-owned newspaper with a definite point of view (left) and no tolerance for governmental policies that harm the poor or middle classes. We don't hear much about Cameron's agenda in the US, but The Guardian has been tracking his progress as he works to practically destroy the national health system and to cut so much of the social safety net that those of us from other countries will not recognize his country.
We can watch England become Greece (just as our Right would like us to end up) unless the Liberal Democrats will at last join with Labor to defeat Cameron's proposals, some of which have already been enacted.
How we conceive of the world we live in - how we view the peoples from whom we have been alienated - requires conscious effort. An interesting discourse by engineer Greg Braden:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2116868226384685853
Intense work is needed in becoming aware of our assumptions and opening up to exploring the cosmologies of cultures we know nothing about. United we stand, divided we fall.
"However, especially when the movement is still young and only beginning to get its message out, the powers that be in politics and the media will often succeed in dismissing such charges and in blaming every appearance of violence on the campaigners. Reversing this narrative in the public perception is one of a growing movement’s most important challenges."
- is it a movement in and of itself ? or is it just one episodic moment in the historic struggle against the overlords. OWS seems to have been more of a tactic. a tactic which raised some consciousness concerning the root problem in our society (incredible disparities in wealth and rule by the rich). i doubt the elites (including many democratic mayors and governors) are going to allow the people to re-assemble in the newly declared free speech zones (formerly called city parks) which are going to be open from 6am-10pm.
"How, then, did an oppressed people succeed in showing that the violence was actually in white racism, rather than in themselves?
They did it by creating brilliant dramas in which they contrasted their own behavior with that of their opponents. Part of the brilliance was in forcing their opponent into a dilemma in which either choice would put the demonstrators ahead of the game."
- talk about selective amnesia. lakey ignores the impacts that riots, the words of malcolm x, and the militancy of the black panthers (who adamantly were willing to defend their communities from the police) had in the collective imagination of the american public. all of these elements contributed to shifting attitudes about racism in america. there's another false meme that is air-brushed over in this analysis. racism still is strong in america - it wasn't ameliorated by the peaceful actions of demonstrators 45 years ago (for example examine the racist comments of newt gingrich). racism is still alive in america.
"In other words, at their best, the young people avoided doing what could be perceived as mere provocation—like walking into the streets to stop traffic or hassling shoppers..."
- straight up bull shit. in my mind one of the greatest (best) young persons of that time advocated self defense. he was a panther and his name was fred hampton. he was murdered because of his militant advocacy. of course his efforts and his life are overlooked by white non violent advocates, who also claim to speak for the oppressed black man.
"Pay or persuade people to pretend to be activists and do something that can be called violence. This might be property destruction (since a lot of people believe property destruction is violence), but it could also mean attacking police or others on the side of the status quo."
- after lackey attempts to rewrite history by ignoring key players in the struggle against racism in the 60's - he proceeds to paint those who choose to employ different tactics as cops. the same criticism can be launched against people who claim 'non-violent' tactics as the only means of creating broad social change.
"reason why defenders of oppression the world over charge activists with violence—even if they have to make it up—is because it’s a potent accusation. The oppressor doesn’t want the “violence” label to stick to its own side. Those who presently are undecided or passive might move to support the campaigners because they don’t want to support “violence.”..."
- is mr lakey as cia agent ? i mean he was in algeria in the 60's, he was in guatemala in the 80's and now he's ignoring the fact that the cia and the mossad are destabilizing the govt in syria. or is lakey just an unwitting tool for the powerful who actually have always been afraid of the unruly mob ?
THE MURDER OF FRED HAMPTON (1971)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm-WQZx2oJo&feature=related
"We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."
—Malcolm X, 1965
"You can jail a revolutionary, but you can't jail the revolution."
- Fred Hampton
"I believe I'm going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I'm going to die high off the people. I believe I'm going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle."
- Fred Hampton
"Let me just say: Peace to you, if you're willing to fight for it."
- Fred Hampton
...peace...
Thanks for taking the time to write that excellent rebuttal.
is mr lakey as cia agent ... or is lakey just an unwitting tool for the powerful who actually have always been afraid of the unruly mob ?
----------------------
My guess would be that he's neither. All he's saying, really, is "don't play into their hands". "Don't play their game, make them play your game".
Which has been the basic rule of guerrilla warfare since the stone age: don't do stuff they know how to counter. Do stuff they *can't* counter.
The murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were a benchmark. They told us the lengths to which the ruling class will go to preserve their hegemony. We need to remember that.
So take no chances, risk no lives. Many of my family members died in concentration camps. They didn't resist the Nazis and they died on their knees. A greater percentage of the Jews who resisted in the Warsaw ghetto survived than those who did not resist.
tomcarberry,
your comparison is right on the mark, thank you for your comment. people want happiness, they imagine that there are no costs to social change. they focus on non violent actors and ignore the people who resisted - at their own detriment.
the struggle in america isn't analogous to the civil rights movt or the anti-war protests of the 60's; as much as, it is against a corrupt system of power that dominates the globe. the demand is a redistribution of wealth and a new system of governance that's more responsive to the masses. believe me there will be police and the masses will be placated w/ their cell phones and reality television shows.
"...I believe I'm going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle." ...
hampton and malcom x understood this economic dimension. king was killed when he made the same observation - linking militarism, poverty, and racism to systemic flaws. the powers that exist are not afraid of a fragmented left, they are frightened of an unruly mob that is aware of the roots of oppression. anybody who has studied history (including mr lakey) understands this. the greeks understand this.
...peace...
So take no chances, risk no lives.
------------------------
You maybe know this already: a certain number of people who kill themselves do so in what might be called a "romantic" way. They feel misunderstood and unappreciated, and believe that once they're dead, other people will feel bad for mistreating them and will live more thoughtful, saddened, kindly lives.
Some of them are even confused enough to believe that they'll be still alive while dead and able to enjoy a cachet denied them in life.
And so they kill themselves, or, worse, don't quite and perhaps have to live with serious permanent deficits. And it turns out that those who cared about them to begin with are devastated, while those who didn't appreciate them still don't. So they died or maimed themselves for nothing or even harmed those who loved them.
I bet that your unfortunate family members died in the camps because they just couldn't bring themselves to believe that they should stuff what money they could find into their pockets, grab up the kids and the cats, and go for the border while they still had a chance. They were, in some sense, romantic suicides-by-proxy. They just didn't believe it would ever get as bad as it got. But it did, and they suffered terribly before being killed. Yet to you they're probably no more than names, if that. "Life goes on, Indy."
For a real revolutionary, the question is not whether to take chances or risk lives, the question is whether to take *this* chance or risk lives for *this* gain.
As Alinsky put it: does *this* end justify *these* means. If this game isn't worth the candle, play some other game that is.
Don't risk brain damage to torch a car! The owner can buy another car, but you can't buy another brain. How hard is that idea to grasp, anyway? Maybe it's like "don't bother to wear a helmet if you've nothing to protect": if your brain isn't of good enough quality that you implicitly understand why you should protect it, maybe it doesn't matter whether you risk it to torch a car.
As always, Rebecca Solnit puts it in perspective:
"That night, some kids did the smashy-smashy stuff that everyone gets really excited about. (They even spray-painted “smashy” on a Rite Aid drugstore in giant letters.) When we talk about people who spray-paint and break windows and start bonfires in the street and shove people and scream and run around, making a demonstration into something way too much like the punk rock shows of my youth, let’s keep one thing in mind: they didn’t send anyone to the hospital, drive any seniors from their homes, spread despair and debt among the young, snatch food and medicine from the desperate, or destroy the global economy.
That said, they are still a problem. They are the bait the police take and the media go to town with. They create a situation a whole lot of us don’t like and that drives away many who might otherwise participate or sympathize. They are, that is, incredibly bad for a movement, and represent a form of segregation by intimidation.
But don’t confuse the pro-vandalism Occupiers with the vampire squid or the up-armored robocops who have gone after us almost everywhere. Though their means are deeply flawed, their ends are not so different than yours. There’s no question that they should improve their tactics or maybe just act tactically, let alone strategically, and there’s no question that a lot of other people should stop being so apocalyptic about it."
The whole thing: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175506
Thanks, Rebecca. I think we have to remember, however, that the FBI and others place agents provocateur among peaceful demonstrators to create just those violent-seeming acts that justify police intervention and arrests.
the FBI and others place agents provocateur among peaceful demonstrators to create just those violent-seeming acts that justify police intervention and arrests.
--------------------------
Indeed. Which is why it would be good tactics to not only repudiate the behavior, but thwart and/or capture the perps whenever possible and perhaps even turn them over to the cops in a damaged condition.
"Oh, he's one of yours, officer? What was he doing breaking windows then? Yes, it's unfortunate that he got a concussion and a broken leg, but we were just trying to maintain order and he wouldn't stop resisting. We're sure you understand that we didn't want to be blamed for the crimes he was committing. Maybe he should be sacked as an example, after he gets out of hospital?"
He did forget a prime example...the 'black bloc' - finally given a name.
This group. collective, whatever it is ..has existed as a fixture of all Bay Area attempts at non-violent demonstrating for years.
I find it stretches the bounds of credibility to assume the police have not been able to curb its activities. They commit acts so professionally that one really wonders who trains and finances them...who benefits from their sabotage of the events...hmmmm. Certainly not the 99% of the demonstators who know that such acts are detrimental
Their acronym really could be PEACE - Professionally Employed Anarchists Creating Enmity.....
Actually "black bloc" is a tactic and is out of Europe and has been around with that title since the 1980s.
One might note that at European protests with militant wings that fight back, fewer protestors get arrested and injured.
One might note that most European standards of living are rather higher than here.
If you screw over the French in certain ways with legisaltion, or try to, then the truckers shut the roads down and farmers throw chairs through McDonald's windows. There's a COST attached to screwing over the average person. I'm abundantly sure that this plays into the scheming of capital over there - knowing that attacks on standards of living results in disruption and dispute no doubt lessens the frequency of those attacks.
Here in the US you can pass NAFTA or steal a presidential election of fight a few undeclared wars or end social programs and almost nothing happens as a result. I'm sure that the NYPD didn't mind collecting overtime for beating on a bunch of kids who weren't going to fight back.
How distractingly unaware you are.
Would you like to elaborate on that drive-by snipe?
I presented a series a facts to which I appended opinions. Do you have rebuttal to either? And I'm not the one in this conversation "unaware" that black bloc "finally" (!) got a name.
You avoid the central issue brought up initially by curmudgeon99, and distract us with irrelevant details.
Any honest person, would be able to read and comprehend that, and since I already provided several paragraphs of RELEVANT, appropriate, and responsive details (Feb 22 2012 - 5:11pm), your supposed counter attack, was really the far better example of completely oblivious sniping.
You act as if, the actual name of Black Bloc, and it's vague historical references, were hundreds of times more important than it's likely infiltration and those deceitful attempts to disembowel, invalidate, and destroy the occupy movement.
My terse comment (Feb 22 2012 - 5:13pm), expressed two truths that you cannot ignore, but still attempt to invalidate and indirectly ridicule.
(1.) You are clearly unambiguously a distraction, that obfuscates and essentially deletes relevant meaning, instead of adding to it.
(2.) You maintain, even now, an oblivious disdain for reason, responsiveness, openness, and polite discussion. Most would agree that is quite similar to your being "unaware."
Sure, you did "present… a series a facts to which [you] appended opinions," but the issue to me here, is that you 'successfully' (oxymoron that) did hijack people's otherwise clearer focus, on a subthread related to what curmudgeon99 called :
"I find it stretches the bounds of credibility to assume the police have not been able to curb its activities."
Sure it is plausible to supposedly be interested in just adding facts and history, but then -- you could have INSTEAD created your own subthread to do exactly that -- and thereby isolate irrelevant details, from the clear intent of a key posting.
What's ironic,
… is that you posture and make a spectacle of yourself for nothing of any real significance (similar to BB's property destruction).
Some of us see the parallels or similarity of your actions to likely obfuscate what BB really did (as described in this thread), to BB likely actions being used to obfuscate and invalidate what occupy Oakland really did (using the spectacle of violence in real life).
How odd, that coincidence ?
curmudgeon99,
Well roasted & blackened on all sides -- stick a fork in them -- thank you very much.
The perfect double speak of 1984 linguistic manipulations and inversion, the assignation of such PEACE.ful dissenters, whose hidden agenda is to enhance and even feed the rapacious WAR machinery, with greater fear, divisiveness and seemingly self-destructive yearnings.
Personally, "detrimental" is hardly strong enough of a word for such a leveraged mass media overblown system of anti-democratic deception and a profound violation of everyone's soverign rights and dignity.
These same expert psy-ops warriors, whose target is the USAian public, also promulgate the insanity that violent crimes against property REALLY get the PTB mad at us (so let's do more, as no one gets 'hurt').
In fact, they deceitfully triangulate to purposefully sever the common connections and identifications of the masses, who had seen OCCUPY protesters as non-violent innocent victims -- of state directed and sponsored -- terror, fear, hate, and unrelenting violence.
All he's saying, really, is "don't play into their hands". "Don't play their game, make them play your game".
- actually Mairead, i sincerely got the impression that he said a bit more than that. let's put this in context. this discussion has been occurring since january - but really was catapulted into our prog reality at CD and elsewhere in the 'progressive' / late land/ blogosphere after hedge's caustic article was published (here and elsewhere).
i actually enjoy the discourse here b/c the writers and commentators are excellent writers and honest/objective thinkers. that's why i'm a little dismayed that CD has only published articles that support one side of an argument, that is mentioned in the preface of at least 1/2 dozen essays (and is relevant to every article about police brutality of nonviolent activists).
isn't that odd? the left acknowledges that there is a counter argument with in the left (stand up - fight back / at 'move in' rally, jan 28) - actually articulated by some organizers w/in occupy - but the prog left won't allow a writer to express the argument (you don't have to go to jail w/out kicking and screaming involved, you don't have to get hit in the head w/ a projectile - protect your face, etc...) in a full essay format.
of course the big secret is progressives can use links to these stories, hence if they want to go to the trouble - they can read the argument first. then they can read the counter argument - backwards, with a preconceived bias of both history and tactics.
who does that mairead ? honestly... this dichotomy between good and bad demonstrator is being projected into the movt. the counter narrative (just like the 60's and 70's) is being suppressed. having mr lakey - or mr hedges, frame the discussion w/out listening to a counter narrative (incumbent upon the reader to find - despite being the target of criticism). there have been several well written articles that counter this the official story (w/in occupy and at other sites),
http://www.truthout.org/concerning-violent-peace-police-open-letter-chris-hedges/1328903282
for the most part this counter-narrative has existed beneath the surface, shielded in comment sections at the prog blogs. there is another story, and the people trying to relay this counter narrative are quickly accused of being foolish and/or the police. in fact this message is being beat into the late liberals mind like a hammer - over and over again.
this is disingenuous and sad - just like rewriting history - suggesting mahatma gandhi or martin king can claim exclusive rights to changing their respective societies. it's newspeak, it's revisionist history, it's crap, it's dishonest.
what happened in the 70's after the 'militants' (aim/bl panthers) were decimated ? ronald reagan - bill clinton - george bush jr - obama. the activist component of the left was eviscerated (like cancer) by the fbi and overlooked as more affluent baby boomers - previously anti war activists - embraced reagan's hedonism (obama's ideal). 10 years, 2 wars and a tepid response from the american public (quickly becoming very good germans).
stand up- fight back, resist - don't be afraid. at least read the other opinions (which will never be published by CD, the nation, the progressive, mother jones).
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/08/a-bustle-in-hedges-row/
http://www.truthout.org/concerning-violent-peace-police-open-letter-chris-hedges/1328903282
examine the crowd (not all homeless or dressed in black) in oakland and see what the left is afraid of (not being able to harness the crowd - mind you that's what the police do).
The Battle of Oakland - Mini Documentary on Jan 28
by Brandon Jourdan // Friday Feb 10th, 2012 12:07 AM
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/02/10/18707014.php
- finally, the idea of letting the msm's media perception guide the direction of action is playing their game. their game is for everyone to come along nicely, asap... late sipping liberals are not exempt. they also have to march toe to heal. and they never will occupy a large vacant building in america w/out facing the police. occupy what ?
...peace...
"what happened in the 70's after the 'militants' (aim/bl panthers) were decimated ?"
They were decimated by their own acts. It's hard to believe in their social programs when their leader embezzled funds to pay for his drug habit. It became a case of not trusting the Black Panthers to support and protect, but fear them because of their senseless acts to incite and the infighting and violence.
As to AIM I am not sure the same ends couldn't have be obtained through non-militancy and non-violence.
Who got elected later had little to do with these groups and everything to do with peace and prosperity, people became complacent they got on with their lives. The boomers aged, married and became homeowners. We should have kept pushing to get ERA ratified. My generation did let future ones down then.
I am not sure gun toting groups would have kept Reagan, Clinton or Obama from being elected. We love to celebrate celebrity and pretty people. Think about it: Carter, Dole and McCain, they didn't pass the "pretty" test.
"They were decimated by their own acts. It's hard to believe in their social programs when their leader embezzled funds to pay for his drug habit. It became a case of not trusting the Black Panthers to support and protect, but fear them because of their senseless acts to incite and the infighting and violence."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
excerpts from wiki article on cointelpro....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
{In an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr, MIT professor of linguistics and political activist Noam Chomsky spoke about the purpose and the targets of COINTELPRO saying, "COINTELPRO was a program of subversion carried out not by a couple of petty crooks but by the national political police, the FBI, under four administrations... by the time it got through, I won't run through the whole story, it was aimed at the entire new left, at the women's movement, at the whole black movement, it was extremely broad. Its actions went as far as political assassination."
According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO:
Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.
Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and police used myriad "dirty tricks" to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists.
Illegal Force and Violence: The FBI conspired with local police departments to threaten dissidents; to conduct illegal break-ins in order to search dissident homes; and to commit vandalism, assaults, beatings and assassinations.[3][4][5] The object was to frighten, or eliminate, dissidents and disrupt their movements.
The FBI specifically developed tactics intended to heighten tension and hostility between various factions in the black militancy movement, for example between the Black Panthers, the US Organization and the Blackstone Rangers. This resulted in numerous deaths, among which were the US Organization assassinations of San Diego Black Panther Party members John Huggins, Bunchy Carter and Sylvester Bell.[3]
The FBI also conspired with the police departments of many U.S. cities (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Chicago) to encourage repeated raids on Black Panther homes—often with little or no evidence of violations of federal, state, or local laws—which resulted directly in the police killing of many members of the Black Panther Party, most notably the assassination of Chicago Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969.[3][4][5][25]
In order to eliminate black militant leaders whom they considered dangerous, the FBI conspired with local police departments to target specific individuals,[26] accuse them of crimes they did not commit, suppress exculpatory evidence and falsely incarcerate them. One Black Panther Party leader, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, was incarcerated for 27 years before a California Superior Court vacated his murder conviction, ultimately freeing him. Appearing before the court, an FBI agent testified that he believed Pratt had been framed because both the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department knew he had been out of the area at the time the murder occurred. [27][28]
The FBI conducted more than 200 "black bag jobs",[29][30] which were warrantless surreptitious entries, against the targeted groups and their members.[31]....
Several authors have accused the FBI of continuing to deploy COINTELPRO-like tactics against radical groups after the official COINTELPRO operations were ended. Several authors have suggested the American Indian Movement (AIM) has been a target of such operations. A few authors go further and allege that the federal government intended to acquire uranium deposits on the Lakota tribe's reservation land, and that this motivated a larger government conspiracy against AIM activists on the Pine Ridge reservation.[6][22][55][56][57] Others believe COINTELPRO continues and similar actions are being taken against activist groups.[57][58][59]}
...peace...
It is amazing how many on this thread advocate violence. It is certainly popping up everywhere on all progressive web sites. I think it is a measure of the threat that Occupy and other grass roots movements are to the current system. Those conservative think tanks and other similar organizations are employing a lot of people to blog advocating violence to destroy our grass roots efforts. We must really have the ruling class scared! Well, I am glad that employment is up and I hope that not too many readers will take the paid bloggers seriously.
You're not considering the fact that young people are being fed stories of brave armed "rebels" in Libya and Syria, etc.. NATO even came to the aid of the Libyan "rebels'. Our government wants to arm the Syrian "rebels", as if we weren't the ones that armed them in the first place.
We have young males here in the US that spend most of their time playing violent video games, being fed a diet of violence. At some point a percentage of them are going to want to "get them some of that "glory"". When that happens it's going to be messy. Not having the skills to organize on their own they will seek to co-opt non-violent protests. Media is telling them their "testosterone" charged tantrums are justified and noble.
I see the "chest thumping" more and more here on CD from the young gorillas threatening the silverback. They never consider whether or not they can provide for the pod as well as the silverback, they just resent his authority. I am thinking they're not even clear why.
school teacher,
Your excellent and thought provoking post, is indubitably true, both :
( 1. ) in highly visible paid agent provocateurs' manipulative deceitfulness, bullying, and divisiveness, and
( 2. ) in how that demonstrably proves that the PTB are very scared indeed.
+++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ +++++
The physics of LASERs -- informs us of 'population inversions' -- where there is an ODD "transposition in the relative numbers of atoms, molecules, etc., occupying particular energy levels."
Basically, an abnormal (contrived) and gradual process called 'pumping,' ionizes highly energetic atoms, which once pumped up, can be triggered to release all-at-once massive quantities of AMPLIFIED coherent (single wavelength) radiation, in a very tightly collimated or focused beam.
Such energetic beams, then easily cut through all sorts of crap, for good reason
Analogously, OCCUPY represents an emergent process that stirs up people's attention and energizes them, to a state of awareness that is 'inverted' as compared to the usual arrangements of passive feigned beneficial enslavement.
The PTB hierarchy really REALLY hates inverted pyramids, completely outside of their control and authority -- what kind of outrageous nerve do WE think that we are allowed ?
With some malevolent and excessive police violence -- against clearly innocent and passive free speech and free assembly folks -- the pot is stirred even more, and many more people begin to identify with the protesters, and their issues and less with the status quo and supposed true but clearly oxymoronic 'national security.'
+++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ +++++
There is a 'tipping point,' where enough people become self-energizing & self-propagating peace bunnies, that the status quo is finally revealed -- as fundamentally causing our problems -- deceitfully lying about them, and not at all interesting in solving them.
I doubt that globally, this tipping point overall (imagined as paradigmatically speaking, WWIII), will occur very soon. As far too many are invested in staying asleep with mindlessly numbing denials, rationalizations (our exceptionalism), and repressed feelings and experiences
The good news, is that each and every little battles' tipping points are increasingly evident, in ever growing circles of more aware folks.
My hope, is that discerning and revealing the traitorous provocateurs, will inevitably act as a linchpin force multiplier to accelerate the system even more so, to snap and act as a LASER, for even larger groups of diverse points of view, to become forged by the fires of hell, into one collective and powerful VOICE.
What an irony there, that the supposed force multiplier designed to subvert, distract, and thwart our increasingly threatening coherence and coalescence in solidarity -- might be in fact -- what pushes us over the top.
What happened to OWS really has nothing to do with its philosophy or its tactics. What happened is that, in the end, OWS was only a few hundred people in each town and that's not enough, had there been the 50, 100, 200 thousand people in the streets, permanently, full-time, for months that we have seen in other countries, If there had been a general strike paralyzing the nation or even all of NYC, then there would have been nothing the government could do but make concessions. The reason that did not happen is not anything to do with violence or non-violence or "the narrative". The reason that did not happen is that most Americans are still too comfortable, complacent and cooperative. Things aren't bad enough yet. they will get worse, and when they get bad enough then masses of people who are not "activists" will have nothing to lose and they will go out in the street and stay in the street. It's that simple.
I think that's a pretty accurate analysis.
America runs on blood. That's the sad fact about this "democracy." As long as the rich control the military and the politicians, non-violence will be a useful tactic, but it won't bring down the powerful. Never has non-violence been the only tactic used in successful revolutions. And vying for the middle class isn't the solution when the middle class has been decimated by the powerful. When Americans become serious about their protests, it will be good-bye to theater, heartfelt appeals to the conscience of politicians, and non-violence.
When Americans become serious about their protests, it will be good-bye to theater, heartfelt appeals to the conscience of politicians, and non-violence.
----------------------
Unless the ruling classes are smart enough to think about the lampposts, I'm afraid you're right. The saddening thing about that is that it'll be mostly the innocent who suffer first and worst, while the worst escape to sanctuaries elsewhere before they can be taken.
Sorry, in no way whatsoever, will I fall into the trap of your militaristic obliviousness.
FIRST,
fictional vampires "run… on blood," not real red-blooded Americans
SECOND,
the really "sad fact about this "democracy," is that some people believe the likes of your fear-mongering promulgation of divisiveness and purposeful erosion of the concept of our collective and common decency, interests and needs.
Sure, this corporatist consumptive culture's keenly destructive marketing, has habituated most to our propagandized subservience to ultra "rich control the military and the politicians," but that is entirely separate issue from fallaciously concluding that "non-violence [isn't] a useful tactic, …[as] it won't bring down the powerful."
THIRD,
your attitude & vehement opinions (more likely lies), are an attempt at severely knee-capping what is the MOST effective mechanism that everyone has access to, and requires often nothing more than people showing up non-violently.
FORTH,
you exaggerate & over-genrralize things, by accentuating "never" and "only" regarding historic successes of non-violence, as if such movements could ever be uniform and always directed towards what future is yet to be written.
Of course, a diversity of tactics is mandatory -- JUST as is a diversity of viewpoints, experience, demands, concerns, needs, depth of understanding, breadth of knowledge, strategies, and goals -- are as well.
Sure, "the middle class has been decimated by the powerful," by being bull-dozed and over-whelmed by the likes of you, would be far worse than merely adding insult to injury.
You would destroy the very prospect of social change, by playing into the hands of the violence suffused power structure's best means to invalidate real issues.
FIFTH,
your 'fifth column' approaches to advocate and incite uprisings, intolerance, and BLINDLY misdirected violence -- is completely counterproductive, and is vastly disproportionate and premature, for NOT AT ALL being based on what is actually happening (not what might, fear ALSO like you exaggerates and YELLS to our reptilian survival instincts).
This advocating violence, inflames emotional afflictions, and incites the foolhardy into vicious cycle of escalating adversity, by feeding the framing and use of propaganda to conflate everyone protesting, to being violently in opposition to scant social order and risking everyone's real security.
When the public identifies with the issues and the protestors, there is a synergism of ever growing solidarity, coalescence, convergence, coherence, and most importantly connection. Violence against innocent and non-violent protesters, accentuates what is powerful, good and strengthening of inevitable social change.
In my opinion, it is a traitor's action, to subvert OCCUPY YOUR HEART movement's growing connections with the middle class and all those in the USA and everywhere else, formed via sympathy and compassion of the violence done to suppress and intimidate them.
Advocating violence, normalizes and decreases the moral disparity and imperative (1 vs. 99%; violent police vs. peaceful demonstrators), the ability to connect and align protestors with the masses, and to have WIDELY appreciated empathy and understanding of the movement's common issues with those as yet still repressed, or acting and thinking in denial, or evading the problems that confront us.
Such extremity of viewpoint, is certainly within your rights to speak about (up to a point), but yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is widely viewed as being disastrously worse, then at certain times suppressing so-called 'free speech.'
I don't know donna, why you say and act as you do, but I will not let your VIOLENT barrage of nonsense, deceitfully pummel and drive people into self-destructive, mal-adaptive, mis-perceiving, and counter-productive actions and thinking.