MB Civic

Chris Hedges recently wrote “Cancer in Occupy” after some recent incidents of property damage by members of the Black Bloc anarchist movement at Occupy events (and some idiot who burned an American flag in Oakland .. not sure if that was BB, maybe an undercover cop), writing Black Bloc “is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state”. In response prominent Occupy organizer David Graeber wrote, “Concerning the Violent Peace-Police: An Open Letter to Chris Hedges” .. here’s an interesting passage from Graeber’s letter to Hedges-

As one of the authors of the original [OWS] Gandhian strategy, I can recall how well aware we were, when we framed this strategy, that we were taking an enormous risk. Gandhian strategies have not historically worked in the US; in fact, they haven’t really worked on a mass scale since the civil rights movement. This is because the US media is simply constitutionally incapable of reporting acts of police repression as “violence.” (One reason the civil rights movement was an exception is so many Americans at the time didn’t view the Deep South as part of the same country.) Many of the young men and women who formed the famous Black Bloc in Seattle were in fact eco-activists who had been involved in tree-sits and forest defense lock-downs that operated on purely Gandhian principles—only to find that in the US of the 1990s, non-violent protesters could be brutalized, tortured (have pepper spray directly rubbed in their eyes), or even killed, without serious objection from the national media. So they turned to other tactics. We knew all this. We decided it was worth the risk

I recognize what Graeber says about the incapability of the media to accurately report on OWS, and its a somewhat maddening dilemma. Is it even a realistic goal to win hearts and minds thru our corporate media lens? But then if the only other option is resorting to petty vandalism and throwing rocks at police then that’s pretty fucking useless as well, and has no legs in terms of a sustained movement in this country. Where does that lead? What can these tactics ever gain? It’s a dead end in my opinion. Hedges is right. OWS gained its strength thru non-violence and is losing strength now. Thoughts? – mab