The Cancer in the Occupy Movement: The Black Bloc anarchists represent no one but themselves

[Better Believe It]

The Cancer in Occupy
By Chris Hedges
February 6, 2012

The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement. The presence of Black Bloc anarchists—so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass, seek physical confrontations with police and destroy property—is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state. The Occupy encampments in various cities were shut down precisely because they were nonviolent. They were shut down because the state realized the potential of their broad appeal even to those within the systems of power. They were shut down because they articulated a truth about our economic and political system that cut across political and cultural lines. And they were shut down because they were places mothers and fathers with strollers felt safe.

Black Bloc adherents detest those of us on the organized left and seek, quite consciously, to take away our tools of empowerment. They confuse acts of petty vandalism and a repellent cynicism with revolution. The real enemies, they argue, are not the corporate capitalists, but their collaborators among the unions, workers’ movements, radical intellectuals, environmental activists and populist movements such as the Zapatistas. Any group that seeks to rebuild social structures, especially through nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, rather than physically destroy, becomes, in the eyes of Black Bloc anarchists, the enemy. Black Bloc anarchists spend most of their fury not on the architects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or globalism, but on those, such as the Zapatistas, who respond to the problem. It is a grotesque inversion of value systems.

“The Black Bloc can say they are attacking cops, but what they are really doing is destroying the Occupy movement,” the writer and environmental activist Derrick Jensen told me when I reached him by phone in California. “If their real target actually was the cops and not the Occupy movement, the Black Bloc would make their actions completely separate from Occupy, instead of effectively using these others as a human shield. Their attacks on cops are simply a means to an end, which is to destroy a movement that doesn’t fit their ideological standard.”

The Black Bloc’s thought-terminating cliché of “diversity of tactics” in the end opens the way for hundreds or thousands of peaceful marchers to be discredited by a handful of hooligans. The state could not be happier. It is a safe bet that among Black Bloc groups in cities such as Oakland are agents provocateurs spurring them on to more mayhem. But with or without police infiltration the Black Bloc is serving the interests of the 1 percent. These anarchists represent no one but themselves. Those in Oakland, although most are white and many are not from the city, arrogantly dismiss Oakland’s African-American leaders, who, along with other local community organizers, should be determining the forms of resistance.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_cancer_of_occupy_20120206/

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Crossroads. I will leave it at that.

[Rex]

2. Times like that you need Blue 5.

nt

[TheWraith]

11. What is "Blue 5"?

I can't tell if it sounds like a revolver or a food coloring.

[WingDinger]

3. Heres how we should deal.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=12301

[Starry Messenger]

4. k&r

[FarLeftFist]

5. The Occupy movement must be more assertive in shunning the Black Bloc.

Black Bloc is the opposite of what the Occupy movement stands for.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. "The Black Bloc movement bears the rigidity and dogmatism of all absolutism sects."

Irony alert.

[SidDithers]

9. Heheh...

it's those rigid, absolutist anarchists you hear so much about

Sid

[MineralMan]

7. Rarely do I recommend one of your posts.

I did recommend this one and commend Chris Hedges for seeing this clearly.

[Better Believe It]

8. The Black Bloc anarchists are infantile leftists playing "revolution in the streets"

We've seen outfits like this before engaged in "Days of Rage" and other tiny acts of vandalism during the anti-Vietnam war movement.

That's how they get their kicks.

These ultra-leftists were isolated by the real left in the 60's and 70's and were not permitted to capture and lead mass anti-war protestors into their super, duper revolutionary breakaway actions such as breaking windows, starting fires and stealing stuff from small shopkeepers.

Oh my! It looked just like a real revolution when they started a fire in a dumpster!

Fricken idiots!

These game playing Black Bloc clowns always try to substitute themselves for the "masses" since they are unable to lead and build authentic mass movements that will actually challenge the economic and political control of the ruling class.

So many engage in such isolated small violent actions out of that political frustration and lack of patience.

Some actually claim their recent antics prove they have triggered and are now leading a huge "revolutionary wave" across the United States!

Sure they are.

Anyone else .... who is sane and not delusional .... notice that revolutionary uprising across America?

[TheWraith]

10. Rare, but I actually agree with everything you just said.

Of course the catch is, I see the delusion as spreading farther than just the anarchist types, but also to the belief that protest alone can change and reform the economy without being paired with legislative action.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

15. Concur. They'll drag down the rest of honest progressives' agenda and work

in a feces-covered flaming wreck with them. If they have to be disincluded, so be it. Sometimes just being the 98.9% is good enough.

[madrchsod]

12. they are riddled with provocateurs and agents of law enforcement

any movement has to rid their ranks of these people.

[mike_c]

13. not everyone has the personality to deal easily with victimhood....

Lots of folks seem to misunderstand that point with regard to black bloc anarchists and street fighters. Nonviolent resistance movements depend upon their members accepting victimhood quietly and with dignity, but accepting victimhood regardless. Nonviolence achieves its moral authority through the suffering of its victims. It requires victims in order to be victorious. By inflicting suffering, indignity, and expense on nonviolent resisters, oppressors are shamed and diminished.

Not everyone has the stomach for being a victim. Nonviolent resistance is not for everyone-- many folks CANNOT accept suffering and harm with dignity, and must fight back. Black bloc activists don't besmirch non-violent resistance-- they don't participate in it. If they fight alongside nonviolent resistors, that is all that's happening. They're not a cancer in the nonviolent occupy movement-- they're a parallel movement that struggles in a different way. That doesn't make them inherently any better or worse, it just means that it's ridiculous to judge them by the same standards as nonviolent resistors, because they aren't them.

Finally, it bears repeating over and over again: the main instigators of violence in the Occupy movement have always been the police, who thug for the 1 percent, NOT OWS protesters, not even black bloc street fighters. The real pigs are the cops. Same as it ever was.

[dana_b]

17. well said, mike

and that's how I see it too. I have friends who practice non violent resistance however they have said that if push came to shove, they would pick up that rock. It is not natural to NOT defend one's self. It takes a lot of control and patience. Are there provocateurs? I'd bet money on it but I've seen some in the Black Bloc without their masks and they did believe in what they were doing.

[unionworks]

18. Utter nonsense

I watched the video of Occupy Oakland trying to stop Black Bloc from vandalizing Whole Foods. The Black Bloc then started assaulting legitimate protesters. Think the "Pig Cops" are the enemy? I sinccerely hope that in future Occupations, protesters can work with the police to isolate, identify and arrest these little pricks.

[Better Believe It]

23. I think we need to monitor and control our own demonstrations and actions so that ultra-left ....

sectarians and police can't disrupt them.

However, we should not be calling upon the government to interfere in and control our protests and movements and that's exactly what "working with the police"means.

[Uncle Joe]

19. If those people don't have the emotional strength required for being martyrs of injustice,

Last edited Mon Feb 6, 2012, 05:10 PM - Edit history (1)

they should seperate themselves from the people that do.

[mike_c]

28. why? just because you don't like them?

They are part of the struggle too. I'm sure they have as much disdain for nonviolence as nonviolent resisters have for them. Who is right? Why does anyone have to be wrong? Nonviolent resisters and black bloc street fighters simply struggle in different ways, but if we're all seeking the same changes, why would we want to exclude compatriots?

[Uncle Joe]

30. Because the overwhelming majority and foundation of the OWS movement was/is non-violent and

this is the source of their power.

If the Johnny come lately Black Bloc vandals were "seeking the same changes," they wouldn't work to undermine the moral power of the non-violent protesters and play in to the hands of the status quo.

Their actions betray any notion of them "seeking the same changes" at least in regards to any indepth, fundamental level, perhaps they just want to be the new top dog on the heap, "new boss same as the old boss."

War will never end war and violence will never end violence.

If the Black Bloc truly has disdain for non-violence as you claim, they should have the integrity to seperate their protests from the non-violent protesters, thereby making a distinction between themselves and that which you claim they abhor. To hide behind the non-violent protesters movement is either and/or cowardice, subterfuge or an attempt at undermining the OWS Movement.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

20. Seriously?

When did Rev King ever accept victimhood? Near as I can tell his refusal to accept victimhood is what lead to the CR movement. And I don't get this part --

Nonviolence achieves its moral authority through the suffering of its victims. It requires victims in order to be victorious.

The fact that people were being vicitmized in the first place was the reason for the civil rights movement. There was no reason to gin-up victims, the laws and the racists in power were doing that already.

That people NEED to act-out violently when they feel oppressed is just so much Timothy McVeigh wannabe hogwash. The Black Bloc is a detriment to OWS because they give the authorities an excuse -- a very legitimate excuse -- to scrub the entire protest unless OWS kicks out the Black Bloc for being blockheads.

Finally, if a bunch of Tea Partiers were violently ransacking your neighborhood/jobsite the police would be the first thugs you called. Same as it ever was. Let's not make cheap excuses to incite violence just because we think those acting-out might be on our side of a political issue. Sauce. Gander. Some assembly required.

[mike_c]

27. you need to study the history and practice of nonviolent resistance a bit more....

In fact, MANY people suffered during the nonviolent civil rights protests. MLK was jailed, beaten, threatened, and ultimately killed. Read what Gandhi says about nonviolence-- it shames the oppressor, but only after harm has been done to nonviolent resisters. It's power comes from people accepting oppression without responding violently, i.e. becoming public victims of oppression. Hunger strikes work the same way.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

29. Yes, I know these things but they didn't need to manufacture victimization

They simply accepted to themselves wat was already the order of business for others. No need to be victims, the victims were being created by the oppressors already.

And giving license ot political violence is a bad idea. Making excuses or alibis for violence is bad. Every aggrieved party feels cheated. The purpose of society is to channel those grievances so they do not become destructive to the community as a whole. If we excuse the black bloc then the same rules say patriot militias can act-out as well. Unless we claim there is some sort of political litmus test and accompanying exemption in which case any party not so exempted is denied equal rights.

The reason Rev King and others were beaten and went to jail is because their oppressors were acting just like the Black Bloc: using violence to impose what they could not gain by the consent of free people.

[TheWraith]

22. Neither victimhood nor random violence grants you moral authority.

It's irrational to the point of borderline insanity to claim that trashing a coffee shop just because it was there is somehow struggling against oppression. It's random, pointless acting-out, trying to react to a perceived hurt by hurting someone else, even if they had nothing to do with it. It's as if I got fired from my job, and then went out and beat a random man half to death.

[Brickbat]

14. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

16. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Better Believe It.

[unionworks]

21. K&R

Here's to peaceful nonviolent protest in 2012

[arikara]

24. The black bloq are nothing more than provocateurs. Period.

They run around in their stupid masks and provoke violence giving the cops their excuse to bust heads. The public is angry about the destruction and violence, and sides with the cops. The message is lost as the powers want, the news reporting pans around on broken store windows and kids with dreads being arrested and the entire protest is successfully discredited.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

25. Isn't the point of Occupy that none of them represent anyone but themselves? N.T.

[backscatter712]

26. What is the "Black Bloc"?

Last edited Tue Feb 7, 2012, 03:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Are they a specific organization? Are they a 501c?

Do they have an ideology? A manifesto?

Do they have a Black Bloc Song, or a Pledge to cause Violence and Mayhem against the Man?

C'mon.

Black Bloc is a tactic, not an organization, not an ideology.

Often in protests, the cops will photograph people, identify those "ringleaders" who do things like leading chants, making speeches, recruiting bystanders... Those terroristic troublemakers guilty of exercising First Amendment rights...

Then they send in the snatch squads - a half-dozen or a dozen linebacker-sized cops, in riot gear, who charge into the crowd, batoning and pepper-spraying people right and left, zero in on target "troublemakers", grab them, beat the shit out of them, arrest them, throw them in jail, and charge-stack them.

So what's the tactic that protesters use in response to police surveillance and snatch-squad tactics?

Cover your faces.

That's that origin of the black bloc. That's why people wear masks - the general idea is that if you have a large group of people all with bandannas or Guy Fawkes masks over their faces, the police can't single out the organizers/chant-leaders/recruiters/speakers.

And masks are vital for certain roles, say the Occupy Oakland protesters who erected shields and blocked the cops while the medics treated injured protesters and dragged them out of the melee. Remember, the Oakland Pigs fired flash-bangs into a group of medics that were treating Scott Olsen after he got shot in the face with a tear-gas grenade. Having a group protecting the medics and injured protesters is just self defense.

Who's in the black bloc? Anyone who can put a mask on their face. Could be radical loonies, could be ordinary protesters, could be police or paid agents provocateurs.

But maybe if the police weren't using tactics of repression such as surveillance and snatch-squads, people wouldn't feel the need to wear masks...

[Old Union Guy]

31. This is so right. Thank you. n/t

[killbotfactory]

32. The authorities didn't need any excuses to crackdown on OWS. nt

[Bruce Wayne]

33. Thank you for posting. Those are the flag burning anarchist shits.