Forum Post: You shall reap what you sow.
Posted 12 years ago on May 1, 2012, 10:47 a.m. EST by TheMisfit
(48)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
You wanted the anarchists in; well now you can be saddled with them and their violence. OWS will be the demise of OWS.
Pander to republicans' over-grown fear center? Awe aren't you sweet! I'll be reaping what I've sowed this season. I got tomatoes, and squash, and peppers, and cucumbers, and broccoli. I'm so excited about having my own garden. I'm going to save up for a rototiller and expand it for a winter garden. Well, that's what I sowed so far. I got a lot of plants for just $20. Sorry, I got caught up by the whole sowing thing. I been looking at greenhouses and heirloom seed, but this far south I can get by without one. I could get a covered shelf set for starting seeds early, that's tempting. I know its terrifying, me not buying tomatoes at Walmart, the world may end!!!
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You may choose to ignore the violence of today, but it only serves to turn more people against the cause rather than bring more people in.
If no one does anything wrong, they'll make it up anyway. Not surprised. Are you? Its something for Fox to jump all over and they of course will, no doubt about it. Oh, well. If everyone was in fact perfect, they'd just pay people to pose as OWS protestors and do something for the cameras. I know that, you know that. DUH!
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/fbi/fbi-informant-infiltrated-occupy-movement-758348
Oops
The movement is not centralized. This is a set back to awakening more of the 99%, but only so much. This movement will grow faster and faster, as long as people do not let into the government and media terrorism. Terrorism in the form of fear propagation and subsequent manipulation.
The movement will grow? Really? When is that supposed to happen, because if yesterday is any indication, the movement is getting smaller and smaller each day. Look at this forum. In October and November there were thousands of posters, now it is a few dozen people trying to keep it alive, but they know it is over. Some people just can't let go.
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Anarchists? Those five guys are homegrown terrorists; and because of their association us, OWS will be seen an associating and harboring terrorists’. This is the worst possible scenario for OWS. Whatever good OWS does will be overshadowed by this.
These five guys may very well have dealt a death blow to OWS. The masses will not support terrorists. Think Timothy McVeigh has many fans? These guys are in the same boat.
Don't jump to conclusions, jb. It's too soon into this story to judge yet. OWS got a lot of flak last year over supposed rapes and murders done by Occupiers, and OWS weathered that storm. This is global. I guarantee there's nothing a few individuals can do to derail this movement.
"Anarchism" has become a very hard term to pin down. Clearly, anarchism is the sum of all human rights. In that sense, however, it is indistinguishable from perfect law. Because anything that can be written as a law can be written as a right - that is true whether the proposed law or right is right or wrong. You can write a "right" for one corporation to "own" the airwaves and prohibit anyone else from having their say, or to own the franchise on cable and censor the internet. You can write a "right" of mice not to be experimented on and burn down buildings where researchers try to cure cancer, while every homeowner sets traps that do much crueler things to them. So anarchism, while a useful perspective on the perfect society, is not actually sufficient to define it, and in an environment like this one, where it is so often used to justify bad things, and where the population is so conditioned to accept things couched in the terms of law, it can actually be counterproductive.
I made my own comment about these idiots at http://occupywallst.org/forum/brecksville-bridge-you-know-youre-an-idiot-when/ - though it is still very possible, like many (most?) other cases where terrorists end up in the news, that it will turn out to be so misrepresented in the first report that the truth is almost unrelated to what we're hearing.
Anarchists created this idea. Your link doesn't mean that all anarchists are going to blow up things.
Quite true, but the ties exist and the perception is held that OWS supports anarchist tactics and the actions, so far, on this days protests are proving true what many people already felt about OWS. Property damage in Oakland and San Fran, New York is on high alert because of intel regarding more black bloc tactics to come etc. This day may be the day that turns everyone away from OWS if they continue with the mindless violence.
Wait a minute; I'm an anarchist and my tactics do not include the violent overthrow of any government.
Anarchism simply means, to most people, that a central government--"the state"--is undesirable, since it automatically creates class distinctions: the rulers and the ruled. Nowhere have I ever seen anarchism defined to mean the violent overthrow of any government, though some people, who call themselves anarchists, may in fact so believe.
We can't help that they so believe any more than we can help the fact that American men and women criminally invaded Iraq. That doesn't make all Americans invaders and barbarians.
Some dictionary definitions (I know, not the best sources. Too simplistic) do, in fact, have violence as part of the definition. Websters New World Dictionary (1986) has one definition that says, "Political disorder and violence." Funk & Wagnalls is a little better, under anarchism, "The methods, especially terroristic ones, of anarchists."
So, the disinformation comes straight from "established" and "reputable" sources. No wonder so many Americans are so misinformed about the world. Blame our textbooks, for one.
F&W does have a definition I do like. Under philosophic anarchism it states, "The advocacy of voluntary cooperation and mutual aid as a substitute for the coercive power of the state." Perhaps we should replace anarchism with philosophic anarchism?
Good point, and I agree. Some people mistakenly include violence in they definition of anarchism. They may derive such a misconception from historical violent anarchists, though some, of course, were wrongfully blamed like Sacco and Vanzetti.
I believe Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted and executed only because they were threats to the state.
Absolutely. The misconception comes from the textbooks and the examples trumpeted out to reinforce those same (biased) textbooks.
Many historians now agree, Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent.
Here's what I never understood: The anarchists are often associated with the left, but the belief that man should exist without a large central government is closer to the right. Why do anarchists seem to fall in line with a statist party while claiming they want to be without the state?
Anarchists generally believe in a communal lifestyle minimizing class distinctions. Historically, anarchists allied with socialists prior to and even into the establishment and fall of the Paris Commune.
After that, they pretty well went their separate ways, since Marx, Trotsky and others blamed the fall of the Paris Commune on the lack of central authority. After that the socialist movement pretty well followed the course of modern socialist and communistic states.
Anarchists today can still be seen with Marxists and socialists more than anyone else. They often run together while having opposite end goals. The anarchist philosophy would seem to be closest to that of (if you had to select a political affiliation) the libertarians. Is it because violence is more accepted, and almost expected, from the left that violent anarchists tend to follow them? I am thinking out loud here, but it makes no sense that the extremely far right would be so committed to today's far left.
Again anarchists generally believe in a communal lifestyle. So, of course, they would gravitate toward people who also believe that way, though left-libertarian ideals and goals could certainly fit into the definition of anarchism.
As for the state, or central government. Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, etc. believed in a strong central government to seize revolutionary victory and hold it. The strong central governments of resulting socialist countries actually proved out anarchist theory that the establishment of a state results in instant class divisions, which only widen as time passes.
I really like the definition of Anarchist that Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker came up with during the Great Depression:
An Anarchist is someone who is entirely bound by the dictates of his own conscience.
Good definition, though I believe in good and bad anarchists. So a good anarchist would be one who strived to cooperate with his neighbors for the common good.
Absolutely, though I think your definition includes many who are not anarchists. (One can have faith in authority and still strive to cooperate with neighbors for the common good.)
The issue is what takes precedence in decision-making, whether it is external authority or internal. Of course, one must actually have a conscience in order to listen to it!
(It's why right wingers generally rely on external authority, and why they are never in the ranks of Anarchists. Dick Cheney, for example, never needed a heart transplant replacement, since he never had a heart in the first place.)
LOL. You are absolutely right, and I believe we have both seen many people with limited or no consciences. That's why I stipulated a good anarchist, since one with little or no conscience would be a bad anarchist.
I heard the heart rejected Dick Cheney, though that could've been someone's idea of a joke.
Not to belabor the point (I'm just having some fun) But there can be no bad Anarchists by Day's definition. One without a conscience cannot bound by something they don't possess. And since they are bound to no conscience, they cannot, by definition, be anarchists. One who simply recognizes no moral authority and has no internal guidance is not an Anarchist, but a sociopath. Many CEO's, Wall Street types, and politicians fall under the latter category.
You're right by Dorothy Day's definition an anarchist would possess a good conscience, but we all know many people without consciences call themselves anarchists, as many people call themselves Christians, though they live contrary to the basic principles of such beliefs. Of course I won't mention any names.
Ah, and there's the rub. We get to call ourselves anything we want, whether we are those things or not.
Republicans, Tea Partiers and Libertardians all call themselves lovers of freedom when they are in fact the very opposite.
How true, sad, but very true. "Conservatives" say they want less government, when they mean that they want more government but in their image. No wonder more and more of us choose anarchism.
Not to bust anyone’s bubble here, but the public’s generally accepted definition of anarchist = terrorist.
Definitions are definitions. Other people have been fed the demagogic right wing propaganda Cool Aid for years and some have swallowed. We don't have to. We are still free to use the words according to what they actually were intended to mean.
Yea, but it matters when the public thinks you’re a terrorist (anarchist). It doesn’t make much difference if you agree with them or not.
True enough, but it changes nothing. There is no solution without mass education.
What!! Education? How in the hell does breaking windows, looting stores, blocking traffic and basically throwing a street party educate anyone? It alienates the very people we want on our side. People will not support those they essentially consider terrorists.
For the record, I’m not a troll. I’m a strong OWS supporter. I just think a lot of the chaos that occurred today is counterproductive.
There has no of zero looting by anyone in OWS. Blocking traffic is OK by me, and most people understand that happens during protests. And I have been reading and watching main stream media reports on today's protests and have not heard one word about one single broken window.
Frankly i don;t know where you are getting your info from. It does not seem accurate to me.
Check the Seattle news links. Breaking into buildings, looting. Tear gas used. Still going on tonight. And, do I need to mention the five guys wanting to blow up a bridge in Ohio. This is not the way Bro.
You think we're so stupid we can't see an obvious set-up when it's in front of our faces? . . . troll!!!
When an oligarchy controls all of the institutions of a society, it isn't paranoid to think that they can work in tandem.
Sigh, Nope not a troll. Just a former OWS supporter who’d like to see OWS grow up a little. Current tactics will fail and just make it harder to recover. Bottom line we need the hearts and minds of the people. OWS needs very badly to re-invent itself and get away from the street parties. Hope that helps.
Joined April 24th. That's a pretty short time to go from a supporter to a detractor here; sorry "gramps."
I was looking at the news about mostly New York. I'll check your sources.
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I don't pin a few's actions on the group, anymore than I would pin those that commit crimes and are registered Dems or Reps on that group.
Here's what happened to a Dem Senator's office a little while ago: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/03/20/Texas-state-senators-office-firebombed/UPI-40951332294425/
Where's the tie to OWS?
Joshua Stafford and Brandon Baxter are listed as members of Occupy Cleavland on their FB pages.
Face Book, eh?
What's that prove? Besides nothing.
Damn, shooz. Didn't you get the memo? We are defined by our FB page.
NOT!! Never had one. Never will. Boycott FB!
Yeah, I'm always missing the memo. I'm still waiting on the one that said I became a bot at 1,000 karma points.
BTW Welcome to that club.
At least I'm in good company. ;-)
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