Isn't it interesting how a few articles by a handful of card-carrying 'progressives' has completely derailed any positive achievements by OWS, and now the entire conversation is about 'violence/non-violence' and who uses force and when?

Isn't that just a little bit... convenient... at a time when the evidence of the crimes and abuses of the Capitalist/Corporatist system is growing ever more blatant?

Americans really should not have any great difficulty understanding the attitudes of the so-called "one percent" toward the other self-proclaimed "ninety-nine percent" of the population. In the vast majority of cases, it's not much different from their own attitudes toward the rest of the world's lesser inhabitants: somewhere below the status and significance of the American family pet.

I think that Tom Englehardt's analogy is extremely well taken. Violent actions committed by the state are either ignored or condoned while other types of violence committed by civilians against their fellow civilians with guns and sexual crimes are given little focus and attention. The few acts of violence that have been committed by the Occupy movement have been roundly committed while perpetual acts of slaughter done on behalf of the United States and Israel are claimed to be justifiable by its advocates.

What is most irritating about all this is that while Englehardt's piece is most persuasively argued it will end up being basically ignored and this is because the forum that should be used to make these views known is where most Americans get their information and that, of course, would be from that vast wasteland known as television. Unfortunately news and information such as the caliber of this fine article will in all likelihood rarely be heard on the small screen these days as the corporate media will be probably be quite loath to allow another Edward R. Murrow to invade their airwaves and expose Americans to things which appears to be in limited supply these days and that would be intelligent opinions laced with truth. It would appear that the last thing that the corporate media would desire would be for Americans to bother themselves with any kind of critical thinking such as the analysis that has been put forth by this well written article.

"The world is drenched in mutual slaughter... Held to be a crime when committed by individuals, homicide is called a virtue when committed by the state."-Saint Cyprian [3rd century], Carthaginian bishop and early Christian writer

Of course, violence is hierarchical. From the top down it is lauded, accepted, or at the very least excused. From the bottom up it is unthinkable.

As an aside, check out the song "Welcome To Your Wedding Day" by The Airborne Toxic Event.

Violence does impact, but in the scheme of things it rarely matters for long. It's a momentary impulse usually spurred by gonads and notoriously short in lived in real outcomes. It's not solely the male that creates life. His contribution is valuable, but he's neither the caretaker or the nurturer. Left to incubate or raise the young alone few would survive.

Another form of violence completely ignored is economic violence, such as that which brought down our economy and made so many people jobless and homeless, and which is now being inflicted on the 99% of Greece.

As Naomi Klein called it, the Shock Doctrine, or Disaster Capitalism, IS a form of violence perpetrated by the powerful (corporations and the rich) on the rest of us, but especially on the most vulnerable.

The Occupy Movement has, at least, put a spotlight on the economic violence inflicted on the 99% by the 1%. It is time we started viewing such violence as nearly as destructive as drone strikes on weddings and funerals, and worked to end both kinds of violence.

we need to reach our conclusions much faster...

our government has been usurped by criminal organization, global in nature...
they do as they wish via the violence of military and justice systems...
they are enabled by the psychological manipulation of education and belief...
their underlying power lies in their possession of all land and resources...
we comply with planetary destruction that we not be murdered individually...

our only hope: respond in unison, free the land and cease industrial activity...

we don't have time to 'figure things out' anymore...
no more articles about the 'pointlessness of Afghanistan', or 'money in politics'...

politics is a lie...voting is a lie...working is a lie...products in stores are lies...

half of China's rivers are unfit for human contact...right now...
there is a triple nuclear meltdown burning in Japan...right now...
the arctic seabed is releasing methane in huge amounts...right now...
the Gulf seabed is covered in oily chemical goo...right now...
General Dynamics is rolling drones off the production line...right now...
technology and energy align in oppressive horror...right now...

we no longer get to purchase everything we have from someone else and pontificate on tangential issues that we might appear concerned while we continue...

we no longer get to substitute education for responsibility...surrender for fighting...

we must sacrifice our ownership of everything from cell phones to property, and must fight those who would force us to continue purchasing...

we must remember that we are of the planet...
the planet is not disposable, yet we dispose...
we must cease...

catch up, and quickly...

violence neither requests, nor requires, the permission of the victim...

When does violence matter?

First of all, when it's inside the home.
Trylon

"we’re talking about several sexual assaults in Occupy camps"

Apparently Tom didn't catch Olbermann's complete debunking of that exaggerated claim by the right wing, most notably the crazed Brietbart.

"It had been a mistake."

I doubt it was a "mistake". Obliterating entire villages in Vietnam was a common war crime practice.

So now "drug use" is "violence" too? I'm not advocating drug use, but come on now...

I'd like to direct readers to CounterPunch where today's big scoop is presented by Israel Shamir: Documentation of how the 1973 War was contrived and for what reasons. Violence, in this particular case, mattered greatly, as its results still plague the region and the planet, http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/22/what-really-happened-in-the-yom-kippur-war/

The history being revealed provides an opportunity to overturn its result. I hope CD republishes it as it's a very important revelation.

The issue of violence within Occupy is well worth discussing, even though it can't compare to the violence inflicted on Occupy and on the 99%.

I have been to demonstrations where some people decide to do some violence -- minor violence, no doubt -- thereby assuming a kind of leadership of the demo which no one ever granted them. Many activists are committed to non violence; others are frightened or upset by it; others regard it as counterproductive. These folks have as much right as the window breakers to have a say in what happens at demonstrations whose risks they share.

I am not so upset by violence against property in which there is no likelihood that any person will be harmed. But who knows who might be harmed by a fire started in one building that spreads to other buildings? Who knows whether a car set on fire might explode and injure someone who happens to be standing nearby?

if the movement for social change is to be democratic, it will have to evolve ways of ensuring that democratic strategies are adhered to; and that the movement is not harmed, physically or politically, by the violent actions of some participants. Discussion of violence is important in doing that.

America is a society in which violence is pervasive. Any manifestation of that society will have some tinge of violence, even movements for social change. If we want a society in which violence is less pervasive, in which domination is replaced by democracy and mutual help, then we have to deal with violence -- not only the violence of our adversaries, but our own as well.

Tom Englehardt's article, like Rebecca Solnit's, both place movement "violence" in context, and show how marginal and minimal it is compared to the massive violence of the surrounding society. That's important to keep in mind.

But it doesn't solve the problem of violence that comes from within the movement, which -- aside from the use made of it by our adversaries -- can also discourage many supporters. If the gains delivered by such violence outweigh that discouragement, maybe that's OK. But so far I haven't seen convincing evidence that it does.

Leezasky attempts to convince of this mental virus = meme :

"The issue of violence within Occupy is well worth discussing, even though it can't compare to the violence inflicted on Occupy and on the 99%."

And I agree wholeheartedly on both issues, except truth forces me to INVERT the insinuated meaning.

The actual reason why BB violence (against seemingly mere property and burning flags) is far worse than any physical police violence on the peaceful demonstrators, is that although deceptively framed (another meme) as coming from pro-occupy anarchists, much of this violence is a pys-ops champaign to discredit and undermine the occupy movement.

Especially its increasingly beneficial alignment of ever more people against the rapacious malevolent corporatist usurpation machinery, instead of passively supporting it (and thereby giving power to it).

This is really about breaking OCCUPY's soulful identifications, heartstrings, and deep bonds to the sympathetic USian population, directly inflamed and galvanized by the public's innate abhorrence of peaceful innocents being attacked unmercifully.

Once an innocent takes up the perversion of violence, the propaganda machinery is easily made to exaggerate and accentuate that domestic terrorist meme, that the peaceful protestors are really attacking heartland America's core existence.

That propaganda can then fallaciously invert OCCUPY's intentions, as no longer fighting for freedom, but fighting against the general population's common interests and needs.

Yes, that's right the :

"violence within Occupy …can't compare to the violence inflicted on Occupy,"

… because essentially they're two strategies of the same PTB that are dedicated to thwart the public's alignment with the criticality and inevitability, of our united, immediate, persuasive, and pervasive demands for overall social change.