Black Bloc Tactics Contaminating Occupy Oakland

[sandinista]

Sandinista seems to view them as impotent neo-liberals, whose (relatively) peaceful protests achieve nothing; the only worthwhile thing being, it seems, the tearing down of the capitalist state and replacing it with...

Close JimC. Instead of "tearing down the state"...whatever that would entail, I would be more impressed if the "movement" directed their protests against capitalism itself. I'm still not convinced that that is not happening. I've recently listened to a few interviews from people in the "movement" and they are claiming that it is, in fact, a movement against capitalism. If that is the case, I am all for it. I'm not expecting everyone to get together and start a violent overthrow of the corporate oligarchy, but I would expect the primary focus of the movement to be aimed against the capitalist system itself.

We don't need a revolution

Yes, "we" do.

Greed and excess power has distorted the current system...

No it hasn't, not at all, that's an ideological view. Greed and excess power IS the capitalist system.

I suppose it is remotely possible that there are a tiny group of true Marxists who think they have a chance to use the protests for their own political purposes. If there are, then they are living in a fantasy world; the whole "let's tear up society and rebuild" thing just ain't going to happen. Seth needn't fear it, and sandinista can only dream it...

The only fantasy world, the only utopian thinking is that the present system will last indefinitely. That is nothing but purely ideological thinking. That the present system will change need not be dreamed about or feared, it will happen. There is no doubt.

What does worry me more is the likelihood of the movement being infested with the street anarchist thugs who are there purely for the thrill of violent and destructive behaviour, with no real interest in serious political change, Marxist or otherwise. They won't succeed in any serious way, but they will leave a trail of damage and injured people behind,

If any thugs leave a trail of damage and injured people behind it will be the police. I would never support violent behavior with no interest in political change. The vancouver riots come to mind.

I suppose sandinista will regard them as "the vanguard of the people" or some such twaddle, but adrenalin-junky thugs is more accurate...

Depends who they are and what is attacked.

We have a small percent of our population that sympathizes with those views but that's all it is...prolly a fraction of a percent. Because Marxists are more likely to ally themselves with a liberal movement the movement then gets associated with them.

any stats on that? Not sure I understand the second sentence above?

At heart, is a reformist movement, not a revolutionary movement. In that, sandinista and I are in complete agreement. However, he would prefer it otherwise; not me...

I haven't been convinced that that is the case. From conversations here and there, different sources, some interviews, I have heard from as many people that it is a revolutionary movement as a reformist movement. There seems to be a split.

[Seth]

Tolja.

Violence is counter-productive. Thanks for fucking things up. /sarcasm

/occupy

"protests" are non-productive.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the eventual end of the Vietnam War, and increased rights for women and the poor came about because of protest...I don't consider any of those to be non-productive.

As for the violence...

Pregnant teen, elderly woman among pepper sprayed at Occupy Seattle

In an email to The Stranger, 84 year old Dorli Rainey writes:

Something funny happened on my way to a transportation meeting in Northgate. As I got off the bus at 3rd and Pine I heard helicopters above. Knowing that the problems of New York would certainly precipitate action by Occupy Seattle, I thought I better check it out. Especially since only yesterday the City Government made a grandiose gesture to protect free speech. Well free speech does have its limits as I found out as the cops shoved their bicycles into the crowd and simultaneously pepper sprayed the so captured protesters. If it had not been for my Hero (Iraq Vet Caleb) I would have been down on the ground and trampled. This is what democracy looks like. It certainly left an impression on the people who rode the No. 1 bus home with me. In the women's movement there were signs which said: "Screw us and we multiply."

Fuck, yeah Dorli! You ROAR woman!

You think little old ladies who thought they should "check out" a riot in progress ought to get a pass? Please. Little old Marxist ladies and men can take the same medicine as everyone else who defies lawful police orders to disperse. The same applies to the fuckwit parents who bring their kids, in utero or not, to use as shields, hoping that their presence will prevent the police from running illegal protesters out of the park. THEY should be arrested for felony child neglect and endangerment.

The Occupy protesters had their say. Their right to free speech was carefully respected in quite literally every case. Indeed, it was tolerated far longer and with greater reluctance to enforce the law than most protests. But, there's a time, place and manner for lawful protest, and they have exceeded the budget and now it's time for them to move on because their protests are now unlawfully disrupting commerce and the peace and order of the community.

Just because most of America and the world are ignoring them does not mean that they have gained the right to break the law. If they want to stand in the park with signs and peacefully protest and petition their government, fine. But the problems with the camps are obvious, and have become a public health hazard and a safety issue, so they will have to go home each night and come back each morning to continue their protest. That's not an unreasonable regulation of the time, place and manner of their exercise of free speech.

And if they don't agree, well, the police have the authority to enforce the law by using tear gas, pepper spray and riot-batons.

[Seth]

Is it not possible that they are a group of very disparate people, somewhat romantic and foolish perhaps, but generally with a leaning towards improving and humanising the current system?

It's possible, though the high violent crime rates would suggest otherwise.

It's also possible that both Seth and sandinista are correct: that they're ultimately motivated by Marxists, as Seth argues and sandinista does not deny, and that they're ineffective as long as they're peaceful, as sandinista argues and Seth does not deny.

You are absolutely correct. This has all been very carefully planned by the Marxists behind the scenes, and it mirrors every attempt at Marxist revolution ever seen. First they find a message that resonates with the proletariat. It doesn't matter in the least WHAT that message is, so long as it's fundamentally anti-government in nature. Then you propagandize the people to gain popular support for the anti-government sentiment. You start out slow and try to sound reasonable because, as the Marxist dialectic says, you can't foment a revolution quickly, but you must always be prepared to exploit political and social dissatisfaction with the status quo in order to get the revolution going.

As we see, eventually the rhetoric becomes more radical, the demands less reasonable, and the actions of the protesters more offensive and disruptive. This prods the government into using force to maintain order, which is used to whip up the proletariat even more. This cycle repeats until the entire society explodes in an orgy of revolutionary rage, created by the Marxist elite behind the scenes, and lead and driven by agents provocateur who whip the proletariat to violence, and then aim them at the government and turn them loose to rage. This causes the rest of the people to become alarmed at the disorder and to demand that the government "do something" to put an end to the violence, which the government does by using increasing force and violence. This cycle continues to escalate until the government essentially collapses because it's not able or willing to do what is necessary to restore order, which means killing large numbers of violent seditionists and Marxists, and the public begins begging for anyone to restore order. And that's when the true hard-line Marxist cadre strike. They say "we have the answer and can stop the violence, all you have to do is throw out the old government and put us in charge." And the public, weary of war and disorder, very often do just that.

It's all part of the well-known Marxist revolutionary dialectic.

[Seth]

Warren Dew wrote:

...a tiny movement with little popular support in the U.S...

If you wre referring to a true marxist revolutionary movement, I'm sure you would be right, and not just in the US. What makes me think that the whole Soviet style mass move into marxism won't happen again is simply that enough people know enough history to realise it is a dead end. Back then, it seemed like a new deal, worth trying; its almost ineviatable decline into authoritarian rule was yet to be seen...

Correct, but hard-core Marxists are delusional, so they never give up hope that what's been tried time and time again, and failed each and every time, will somehow succeed this time, if they can just do it right.

But as for the Occupy movement, I would disagree. Many might be disparaging about its anarchist trappings, but the more sober message articulated by its more responsible proponents resonates with more people around the world than you think. At heart, is a reformist movement, not a revolutionary movement. In that, sandinista and I are in complete agreement. However, he would prefer it otherwise; not me...

The problem with Occupy as a "reformist" movement is that it proposes no "reform" that can actually be achieved by anything short of Marxist revolution. It has no center and no clear message. "Corporate greed" is not a resonant message with most people because most people understand that corporations are comprise of people working and investing together to create wealth, and most people, except for the very bottom of the socioeconomic scale, are heavily invested in the markets and corporations, which produce wealth FOR THEM. Getting that dividend check in the mail brings home the immediate benefits of capitalism on a regular basis.

When Marx was fomenting rebellion there was no such thing as a stock market that the average working person could or was invested in, so it was easy for him to point to the hereditary aristocracy and the protected merchant class and create a resonant message of disenfranchisement that was actually morally justifiable.

But today, if the vast majority of the people rage against "corporate greed" and seek to take down corporations, they are actually taking themselves down and are destroying an important part of their financial security, because most people are heavily invested in corporations as part of their retirement funds.

This means that the Marxists have three groups who are actually supporting the Occupy movement: idealistic, impressionable unemployed youth, the genuinely poor who aren't invested in the markets, and ideological socialists. And that's just about it.

And that's why it's being marginalized and will eventually fade away and be forgotten. The Marxists will fail because they have once again (as Lenin himself did) miscalculate the willingness of the people as a whole to shoot themselves in their collective economic foot by dismantling the system that is actually bringing them wealth.

[Seth]

The Occupy movement clearly needs a slick marketing company to come up with good soundbites, talking points and buzzwords.

Actually, first it needs an actual complaint, which it doesn't have at the moment. "Corporate greed" is not resonant because most people in the US see substantial economic benefits from corporate greed because they are invested heavily in the capitalist corporate free markets. That is why, in point of fact, corporate CEOs of successful companies make such huge salaries, which represent but a FRACTION of the wealth that their leadership has created for investors, aren't being fired by those same investors at annual shareholder meetings.

[Seth]

Sandinista seems to view them as impotent neo-liberals, whose (relatively) peaceful protests achieve nothing; the only worthwhile thing being, it seems, the tearing down of the capitalist state and replacing it with...

Close JimC. Instead of "tearing down the state"...whatever that would entail, I would be more impressed if the "movement" directed their protests against capitalism itself. I'm still not convinced that that is not happening. I've recently listened to a few interviews from people in the "movement" and they are claiming that it is, in fact, a movement against capitalism. If that is the case, I am all for it. I'm not expecting everyone to get together and start a violent overthrow of the corporate oligarchy, but I would expect the primary focus of the movement to be aimed against the capitalist system itself.

But your expectations are dashed because the Occupy movement isn't about dismantling capitalism, it's about FIXING capitalism. Most of the Occupy protesters understand that capitalism is the best economic system ever devised for creating and spreading wealth, but they are unhappy with, in particular, the taxpayer-funded bailouts of capitalist corporations that should, according to free-market capitalism, have been allowed to fail, but instead were bailed out at taxpayer expense. In that regard I completely agree with them. But what they are not proposing, except for the radical Marxist fringe, is to dissolve capitalism in favor of Marxism, it's simply to make capitalism "more fair." Unfortunately they don't really define what they mean by "more fair" or how they intend to achieve it without themselves committing economic suicide by destroying the very capitalist markets that they are invested in.

We don't need a revolution

Yes, "we" do.

The delusional belief of Marxists everywhere. When will they learn....

Greed and excess power has distorted the current system...

No it hasn't, not at all, that's an ideological view. Greed and excess power IS the capitalist system.

Marxist claptrap.

I suppose it is remotely possible that there are a tiny group of true Marxists who think they have a chance to use the protests for their own political purposes. If there are, then they are living in a fantasy world; the whole "let's tear up society and rebuild" thing just ain't going to happen. Seth needn't fear it, and sandinista can only dream it...

The only fantasy world, the only utopian thinking is that the present system will last indefinitely. That is nothing but purely ideological thinking. That the present system will change need not be dreamed about or feared, it will happen. There is no doubt.

Delusional Marxist propaganda.

What does worry me more is the likelihood of the movement being infested with the street anarchist thugs who are there purely for the thrill of violent and destructive behaviour, with no real interest in serious political change, Marxist or otherwise. They won't succeed in any serious way, but they will leave a trail of damage and injured people behind,

If any thugs leave a trail of damage and injured people behind it will be the police. I would never support violent behavior with no interest in political change. The vancouver riots come to mind.

The police are just doing what the rest of society is demanding they do: enforce the law. No protester needs to get hurt, all they have to do is obey the law and their free speech rights will be respected.

I suppose sandinista will regard them as "the vanguard of the people" or some such twaddle, but adrenalin-junky thugs is more accurate...

Depends who they are and what is attacked.

Not really. Marxism is sedition and treason, and should be punished as sedition and treason.

At heart, is a reformist movement, not a revolutionary movement. In that, sandinista and I are in complete agreement. However, he would prefer it otherwise; not me...

I haven't been convinced that that is the case. From conversations here and there, different sources, some interviews, I have heard from as many people that it is a revolutionary movement as a reformist movement. There seems to be a split.

Of course there's a split, between Marxists and their useful idiots.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

But today, if the vast majority of the people rage against "corporate greed" and seek to take down corporations, they are actually taking themselves down and are destroying an important part of their financial security, because most people are heavily invested in corporations as part of their retirement funds.

A statement full of hyperbole. For a start, only a small minority "rages" against it; a much larger number of people regard it as simply excessive. They have no wish to "take down" corporations, they simply want a more effective system of financial regulation that reduces their obscene profit levels, and reduces their excessive grasp on the political processes in many parts of the world. It may well be that elements of the very broad Occupy movement wish to do some tearing down, but if they do, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

The current version of free enterprise is not some form of perfect system, and wanting to reform it without damaging its positive aspects is not creeping Marxism.

[sandinista]

Anyone who thinks that neo liberal capitalism is the end of history is living in cloud cuckoo land. I should commend you on your commitment to your ideology though.

They have no wish to "take down" corporations, they simply want a more effective system of financial regulation that reduces their obscene profit levels, and reduces their excessive grasp on the political processes in many parts of the world.

any proof of that? You speak for the whole "movement" now?

[JimC]

Anyone who thinks that neo liberal capitalism is the end of history is living in cloud cuckoo land. I should commend you on your commitment to your ideology though.

They have no wish to "take down" corporations, they simply want a more effective system of financial regulation that reduces their obscene profit levels, and reduces their excessive grasp on the political processes in many parts of the world.

any proof of that? You speak for the whole "movement" now?

If you had read my reply to Seth in context, I was speakng of a broader context than purely the Occupy movement. They have no monopoly on concern with the current system. However, I know that the whole concept of reform, compromise, and democratic decision making is anathema to the extremes...

As for what might replace the current system, one thing is for sure; it won't be the doctrinaire Marxism of the past, since too many people know where that leads. It is possible, of course, that the whole shebang will collapse because of environmental failure. In that case, we will be in a rather unpleasant Hobbesian domain...

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

But today, if the vast majority of the people rage against "corporate greed" and seek to take down corporations, they are actually taking themselves down and are destroying an important part of their financial security, because most people are heavily invested in corporations as part of their retirement funds.

A statement full of hyperbole. For a start, only a small minority "rages" against it; a much larger number of people regard it as simply excessive.

"Excessive" as compared to what? Those that object to corporate profitability generally do so because they aren't invested in corporate profitability but rather are invested in the dependency culture. If a corporate CEO makes a hundred million dollars a year, it means that he's earning shareholders BILLIONS of dollars a year, which is his job. Why should anyone (who is rational) think that it's "excessive" that he's paid according to his productivity? Every socialist worker on the assembly line expects the same thing, don't they?

They have no wish to "take down" corporations, they simply want a more effective system of financial regulation that reduces their obscene profit levels,

"Obscene" to whom? The dependent class? Who gives a fuck what they think? They are dependent-class proles who want what others have without having to work for it and who, if they are taking government largess, should not even be allowed to vote, much less speak on the subject of free-market capitalism and corporate profits.

and reduces their excessive grasp on the political processes in many parts of the world.

Well, since it is corporations that create the wealth that provides jobs for the proles, and since in socialism it's government's job to look after the proletariat and make sure there are plenty of jobs available, it seems perfectly natural that government would be influenced by the very organizations they need in order to provide largess to the dependent class, so what's the problem?

It may well be that elements of the very broad Occupy movement wish to do some tearing down, but if they do, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

Indeed.

The current version of free enterprise is not some form of perfect system, and wanting to reform it without damaging its positive aspects is not creeping Marxism.

Nobody says it's perfect, just that it's the most perfect economic system ever devised and that meddling with it through government redistributionist regulation always makes things worse, not better, in the long run.

This is not to say that police-power regulation to inhibit force and fraud and ensure fair and honest trading are not an appropriate use of government power. It's the "fairness" redistributionist aspect of socialist and progressive politics that's the problem. That never works and always makes things worse, especially for the poor.

[sandinista]

If you had read my reply to Seth in context, I was speakng of a broader context than purely the Occupy movement.

Even then, I'm not convinced that is true.

I know that the whole concept of reform, compromise, and democratic decision making is anathema to the extremes...

You should know because all you do is deal with extremes.

As for what might replace the current system, one thing is for sure; it won't be the doctrinaire Marxism of the past

I agree. It will not be like anything from the past.

too many people know where that leads.

Too many people know where capitalism leads as well, which is why it is in it's death throws.

[Seth]

Too many people know where capitalism leads as well, which is why it is in it's death throws.

"Death throws" (sic)

If capitalism is in its death throes, please explain why Raul Castro just opened Cuba to capitalism and why every Marxist regime on earth has failed miserably, only to be eventually replaced by capitalism.

[sandinista]

ooooh a typo, the shame the shame.

[Schneibster]

Is it not possible that they are a group of very disparate people, somewhat romantic and foolish perhaps, but generally with a leaning towards improving and humanising the current system?

It's possible, though the high violent crime rates

Lie. You were challenged to provide statistics on this and failed.

[Schneibster]

So now we've got kiddie marxists to go along with the kiddie anarchists.

That's all you can say, sad little troll.

The children need to be spanked when they act out.

Sorry you're feeling butthurt from the spanking.