Forum Post: Chris Hedges And Occupy Debate "Black Bloc" Tactics
Posted 11 years ago on Jan. 12, 2013, 2:21 a.m. EST by TrevorMnemonic
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Info from video
- With the escalation of police tactics at many Occupations, some Occupiers argue for more active resistance. Chris Hedges and Kevin Zeese are questioned by DC Occupiers over future tactics at a seminar sponsored by a Ralph Nader group.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SoXWuQPrrI
Found this to be very interesting.
Discusses the strategy of nonviolent change and nonviolent movements.
East Germany. Exquisite example.
How to grow the movement is what counts. Isn't it?
Yes it is. I think Hedges has lots of great ideas in that regard.
Hedges is incredible. His clean concise delivery is something to behold.
Sensible and truthful reporting will inevitably outweigh the falsehoods that are allowed to pass as informative. It will become increasingly difficult to suppress such sensible and direct truths, regardless of the MSM that attempts to do so. I cannot wait.
Excellent video that everyone should watch. I've been thinking, recently, that the Blackbloc, which I was not so familiar with last fall, perhaps did have the negative affect on this movement that was predicted by say, one of our more famous trolls.
Hedges is right on when he says this is a mainstream movement. It must remain non-violent. All police violence against Occupy must be unjustified. The movement must preserve transparency, honesty, and a rigid adherence to non-violent civil disobedience and respect.
Hedges says Blackbloc anarchism is a gift to the security state. I would agree, and if you think about it there are three big negatives to a. performing any violence, even petty acts and b. being threatening by covering faces with black hoods even if no violence is performed. They are 1. the police state will react with violence and 2. mainstream Americans will stay away because most people do not want to risk being arrested, or worse, hurt and 3. violence is not productive for a mainstream social movement.
Thanks for this great post, Trevor. Very interesting and important. If we want to get this movement back to having direct actions with big numbers we have some work to do.
Thanks for the good words bw!
Personally I think the FBI might have had something to do with riling up prone-to-be-violent protesters to do the actions that became Black Bloc. Like how they set up those people at the bridge. Black Bloc could have been the people they couldn't get to go full extreme, and of course it grew from there. It's speculation, but seeing how the FBI responds to these types of movements in recent history and even the past, I think it is more than reasonable speculation.
As you and Hedges stated, Black Bloc was a gift to the police state to get public support for a crack down.
Instead of the news focusing on 10,000 peaceful protesters, Black Bloc gave them a few broken windows to focus on and associate the 10,000 peaceful people with and gave the public a reason to justify the police response.
Why didn't Black Bloc operate on it's own? Why did it always try to hijack Occupy's peaceful protests with violence? Why were they trying to sabotage the message of non-violent civil disobedience? I think Black Bloc is what took the momentum away from Occupy and they played right into the elite's plan.
Great points, Trevor. Agents provocateurs, perhaps? Tiouaise, (remember Tiouaise?) used to say that the movement was at risk of that all the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur
I don't remember that username, but if they were suggesting there were "agent provocateurs" they were right.
For fun, here is an old post from Tiouaise:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/agents-provocateurs-posing-today-as-the-oakland-li/
That is a very wise post!
From the link
The "Oakland Tribune" published this morning an article on the city-wide general strike which may bring thousands to downtown Oakland.
The last two paragraphs tell me that there are rogue elements in Occupy Oakland or "AGENTS PROVOCATEURS" who may do untold harm to the "Occupy" Movement as a whole :
"Some demonstrators, calling themselves the Oakland Liberation Front, have distributed fliers condemning pacifism and calling for "the complete annihilation of capitalism." "Are you a pacifist?" the flier headline says. It goes on, "How dare you even ask for nonviolence, when violence has already been used by the police?"
This call to violence is madness and would NOT serve the Movement at all but, on the contrary, only play ito the hands of the 1%!!!!!!!!!
DON'T FALL FOR THIS, OWS!!! This is an obvious PLOY. Please condemn in the strongest possible terms this phony group and tell the media that they have NOTHING to do with OWS.
NOTE : The full text of the article may be found here :
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_19239859
I think it was more prescient than we realized at the time.
I agree wholeheartedly!
http://billmoyers.com/segment/paul-krugman-on-recessions-and-recovery/