Occupy's anarchists seen as both divisive, crucial

[hack89]

Every time windows are smashed and clashes erupt with police at Occupy protests in Oakland and San Francisco, one group is in the thick of it: masked, black-clad anarchists known as the Black Bloc.

Police say they are pure trouble and point to conflicts at last week's May Day rallies as the most recent example. Most pacifist protesters wish they would go away. Hard-core Occupiers say they like having them around to diversify their movement's tactics.

Bagot said Black Bloc techniques are not tolerated at his group's protests. At one Occupy Bernal demonstration in February at the home of John Stumpf, chief executive officer of Wells Fargo, several local union members operated as monitors to keep in line Black Bloc-ers or others open to destruction.

But Lauren Smith, an organizer with Occupy Oakland, said the notion that the Black Bloc causes trouble is misguided. "The fact that police can single out the Black Bloc as troublemakers just shows that the police are trying to pit us against one another," Smith said. "They are saying the people who use tactics that directly confront police or damage property are bad, and the people who take no action are good.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/05/MNMP1OD850.DTL#ixzz1uCXRhzmg

Interesting discussion about Black Bloc and Occupy.

[ellisonz]

1. A black bloc is not an organized group...

...it is a tactic adopted by anarchist organizations.

A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches whereby individuals wear black clothing, scarves, ski masks, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing items.[1][2] The clothing is used to conceal marchers' identities, appear theoretically as one large unified mass, and promote solidarity.

The tactic was developed in the 1980s by autonomists protesting squatter evictions, nuclear power and restrictions on abortion among other things.[1] Black blocs gained broader media attention outside Europe during the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations, when a black bloc damaged property of GAP, Starbucks, Old Navy, and other multinational retail locations in downtown Seattle.[1]

When used in the plural, black blocs refers to groups who have adopted the tactic.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc

[hack89]

2. Do such tactics have a place in Occupy?

there seems to be disagreement.

[ellisonz]

3. No. n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. Who has the authority to toss them?

When you have an unstructured movement, you get flakes in the mix.

[ellisonz]

19. The police...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. So you want the police to remove people dressed in black from Occupy meetings?

Unless an individual has acted illegally, the police cannot do anything.

[ellisonz]

21. "Unless an individual has acted illegally, the police cannot do anything."

Neither can anyone else on public property...

Can you link me a single Occupy GA or event that did not occur on public property (Zucotti being private open to the public under contract)?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

22. So you are good with them being part of Occupy until they start to smash stuff

[ellisonz]

23. Hah...

No I'm just a public employee who understands the law regarding public usage of space and our Constitutional rights. For someone who is so adamant about the Second Amendment, you seem to have a shockingly poor gasp of the relationship between police powers and First Amendment exercise. Also, thinking that local "Occupy" groups don't have the legal power to expel another group from a public space is hardly being "good with them...until they start to smash stuff." To the contrary, I wish the police would do their jobs and try to uphold public safety rather than molest unarmed, nonviolent protestors. I understand that as a park employee, my legal authority is only backed up by police enforcement (generally failure to obey a park official is a misdemeanor).

[jwirr]

5. Having watched Martin Luther King hold peaceful non-violent protests and then watching his

technique get sabataged by more violent prone leaders in the late 70s I think that any violence within a peaceful protest takes power from the peaceful ideal. The whole idea is that when protesters are peaceful/non-violent then anyone including the police attack then it is the fault of the violent attacker. The violent protester gives the authorities legitimacy and weakens the movement.

Violence has no place in peaceful protests. It does have a place in an actual revolution.

[JDPriestly]

6. No. Black Bloc techniques are unfair, not just.

Therefore they are wrong. You do not make social progress by adopting the brutality of your oppressors. It has never worked. It never will.

"They are saying the people who use tactics that directly confront police or damage property are bad, and the people who take no action are good."

Directly confronting police (part of the 99%) and damaging property ARE BAD in my opinion. Sorry guys, Occupy should not carry on its back people who never got beyond the Terrible Twos.

[IDemo]

4. I find it hard to believe that such tactics are acceptable to some

If it's at least one fundamental goal of Occupy to capture the hearts and minds of the uninvolved 99 Percenters, they couldn't dream of a worse way of doing it than by embracing the idiocy displayed by the so-called Black Bloc.

[randome]

8. Or, worse, doing nothing to stop them.

No leaders equals no restraint.

[msongs]

7. or black bloc = police/government paid agitators nt

[hack89]

9. So all Black Bloc participants are police?

interesting.

[4th law of robotics]

11. Police budgets must consume about half of our GDP

judging by how many paid agitators they have at every single event.

[hack89]

13. Can you imagine what the unemployment rate would be

without this generous economic program?

[4th law of robotics]

14. Oh man, that would be horrifying

The US economy is roughly a half agriculture/manufacturing/media/services/bio-tech/raw materials/finance/and the like and the other half is paid informants, internet shills, and black flag operatives.

I shudder to think what would happen if people started rioting on their own, for free or if the chinese start shilling for slave wages. How can we compete with that?

[snooper2]

15. So are you guys claiming them or not because you can't have it both ways LOL

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. I think they are mocking the notion that all Black Bloc members are provocateurs

And its a valid point. There is an anarchistic fringe out there...and they have been attracted to the Occupy movement. They are not the only fringe group in Occupy

[Jamaal510]

10. I don't intend to sound like a conspiracy theorist,

but it's interesting that we (or at least I) have never heard of any cases of Black Blocs at Tea Party protests.

[hack89]

12. Because, unlike Occupy, the Tea Party does not believe in non-violence?

and they are more likely to be armed?

[snooper2]

16. It's hard to bash the crap out of shit..

While you are walking around with a colostomy bag LOL