Stop Me Before I Vote Again

excellent post on the oakland oak street
kettle dance

"In the holding tanks of Santa Rita, we discussed these questions. Many of us were coming to grips with the recognition that we went into Saturday thinking that there was a crew of radicals in Oakland who had it all figured out. All we had to do was show up at their event and things would go off without a hitch, which is how it had worked at the general strike and the port shutdown.

This logic broke down on Oak Street. Saturday clearly demonstrated the limits of a mode of organizing that has thus far been successful. Up until now, Occupy has involved a contradictory and unstable mixture of liberal and more radical elements held together by a thin tissue of stories of injustice and violated “rights.” This fact has led to endless unproductive disputes about the role of “violence” in our movement, of which Chris Hedges is just the most recent and banal example. The problem is that if our unity can be reduced to our shared victimization, we are reliant on police and civic officials to continually give us these stories. As police tactics adapt, and as the demands we make of the system become more radical, this will become increasingly difficult. The basis of the connections we make within the movement must involve a deeper sort of radicalization. The central antagonism is not between the police state and the people, but between labor and capital. The anti-police repression marches that are now happening weekly in Oakland, while focused on a crucial issue, tend to sideline this larger point. To the extent that this discourse dominates our practice, we are operating with exactly the same limited and moralizing conception of our movement’s unity as our liberal critics. The romanticized picture of the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrators that Hedges fetishizes is on a continuum with the images of victimization in many of our own actions. We need to tell a new story."

http://viewpointmag.com/2012/02/06/santa-rita-i-hate-every-inch-of-you/

Yer lad is a very perceptive guy, Owen, and he is definitely onto something big here. Very helpful to me.

Cancer? CANCER?

Huh. Antibodies, more like.

http://sinkers.org/stage/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ftaaNov03_600w.jpg

Looks like Hedge's "I was wrong" shtick was the b.s. I (and others) knew it to be.
http://dirtygreeniehippie.blogspot.com/2009/08/apology-not-accepted.html

And Alan Smithee needs to start blogging again.

Like it or not, violence by the BB will probably get the whole movement crushed.

par 4 or bogey 5 ??

so you contend a non self limiting
non violent struggle path for the OCC
wouldn't lead to a movement crushing
set of counter moves
by THE STATE ??

explain

i agree about the smithee

used to liven this coal mine on occasion
back in the salad days

when father posted at certain high profile sites
to draw clouds of pink flies over here

btw

the site could.. you could ..... electric Al could ...
use some more exposure no ??
flap the angel wings monsignor mike

I have to chuckle at Chris Hedges' article. Here are my highlights:

"The Black Bloc anarchists ... are the cancer of the Occupy movement."

"There is a word for this—“criminal.”"

"The Black Bloc movement is infected with a deeply disturbing hypermasculinity."

"It is the same sickness that fuels the swarms of police who pepper-spray and beat peaceful demonstrators. It is the sickness of soldiers in war. It turns human beings into beasts."

Gimme a break. The so-called Occupy movement was last year's fad. It has gone out of style. Pontificating about its deviants, as Reverend Hedges is wont to do, is even more out of style.

Either Hedges is really stupid (which I doubt) or he's just trying to write some faux-incendiary diatribe to be used as fodder for his next book.

pied one

let me suggest we simply let chris splutter away

so long as we ignore him when he goes mahatama on us

he's now quite harmless in his ahimsa gig

again
long as we gently ignore
his prescriptions and proscriptions
for "right" action

now he's publically ..for now...
anti Dembot
and pro
popular struggle movements

leave him be in his yoga politics

we need to focus on the pwogs
that have not yet "crossed over "
left the humanist empire club

-----------------------
look i know chris is grade A
holy joe ignoramous

to me its his poitical economy that most cankers the spirit of collaboration

that wedge assed know nothing cock sure crap
i rarely can abide

why i'd like to set his hair ablaze

all that hysterics about uncle going broke etc etc

but my saner side recommends

we button it

even though i know exactly where smithee
in the link above is coming from

we need a broad front pinkster kids

OCC has not turned its back on
the likes of hedger
in fact they seem to welcome the support of non Dembot pwogs
like him

we best not scorn him too much either

maybe we mock him ever so lightly
in spots obscure ...like here

while encouraging hisborn again "socialism "
in the broad sunshine of the commons

"The so-called Occupy movement was last year's fad."

oh pied spirit
so so world weary you are

OCC still lives its heart still beats

no one not even you my friend
ought to consider the next chapter
all that obvious to anticipate

the OCC may have a spring freshet for all we can know or for that matter need to know

got another bigger faster moving movement to surf on?

if so do tell

if its just
"back to the sour mash and the hammock "

i beg you
resist that reflexive move
with all you got
don't you have a soul to ignite inside you eh ?

par4 sez on February 8, 2012 9:47 AM
Like it or not, violence by the BB will probably get the whole movement crushed.

Uhhmmm... excuse me...?
http://www.sinkers.org/posters/oakland/oakland650w.jpg

Hey op,

No, I don't have another movement to surf on, except perhaps for the yet-to-be founded "Sit Quietly With My Hands Folded" phenomenon.

Perhaps I should call it the "Sloth Movement" because it has a certain fashionable ring to it.

Even if Occupy were to come out of its torpor (which no one could be sure of even if it happened), all one can say for it is that it's a decent opportunity for white kids from the upper-middle class to skip college for awhile and to stand around with friends.

But insofar as my being reflexive or not having a soul, heaven forbid! I just think we're fucked because we're a bunch of self-admiring sheep whose primary task is to delude ourselves into believing that being active in some respect is morally superior to being inactive.

Any fool can see, however, that the only way out of our present morass is to resolve to do nothing and let the system fall upon itself.

But the likelihood of that happening is even less than the likelihood of change as a result of standing around in a park waiting for the revolution.

pied

u have a solid credo
there

like troy i suspect a ten year siege
by heros
would still require a dirty trick at the end
to get inside your walls

another pov

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/08/a-bustle-in-hedges-row/

invoking doc ml king is a move on both sides of this hopefully transient cleavage

" the Black Bloc IS a tool of the fascist state ....what kind of anarchism re-enforces, re-validates and re-energizes the state it is supposed to attack ?
its not anarchism, its a left fascist cult
which is sadly not self-destructive,
instead it sabotages
the broader institutions of the left"

that from a pink cyclone over at
the pinkos dougout

I tend to agree that violence on the part of demonstrators is likely to bring the full force of the American Military-Police State down on the heads of OWS. On the other hand, I honestly don't believe that real change--as opposed to the kind of Change that you Hope for--can be accomplished without violence. So, I'm left in a psychologically uncomfortable position in which I secretly believe but am unable to admit to myself that change is impossible. But hey, if it's all doomed anyway, I'd prefer to see some bank windows smashed and pigs get their just desserts.

"real change--as opposed to the kind of Change that you Hope for"

u only drink the REAL STUFF ... eh trover ?

nice if you can get it

"if it's all doomed anyway, I'd prefer to see some bank windows smashed and pigs get their just desserts."

you have arrived at the circus my friend
enjoy the show its a spectical indeed

but to be really fun to watch

some body has to throw that paving stone

why not u ??

i'm a sedent pedant
with a world class yellow streak
plus i'm in my 65th year
and on the treasure coast of florida
for the winter and spring