Why OWS Needs to Denounce Violent Tactics on Display at Occupy Oakland

[Scootaloo]

36. Did you know not everyone enjoys the luxury of wagging fingers?

Last edited Wed Feb 1, 2012, 02:45 PM - Edit history (1)

Know why people are getting violent? Decade after decade after decade of being shit on, followed by being brutalized whenever you dare to speak up.

How very nice that all of us have the luxury, and the self-granted authority to say "don't be mad, bro. Don't hit back. It makes ME look bad! Fuck you, think about my image, and what you're doing to ME!"

I'm sorry people, but Occupy IS an armed conflict - it's being attacked by men with weapons, chemical arsenals, vehicles, armor, and unlimited authority over your life and limbs. And contrary to the well-wishers, these men are NOT going to lay down their batons in shame, if only you take enough of them being rammed up your ass.

The Author brings up a point - Gandhi had journalists with him on his salt march. Where are ours? Where is the sympathetic media for OWS? Where are the muckrakers, the story-breakers, the shit-shakers? Where is the representation of the Occupy point of view? This was, frankly, a luxury that Gandhi had that we no longer have. Really? it's a PR move? PR disseminated by who? By the media outlets that are owned and beholden to in total to the people you are speaking against. 3,000 people not breaking windows will become 3,000 people setting cars on fucking fire. Or perhaps it'll be "three people marched today." You cannot rely on bought-and-paid operatives.

So what now, the people in Oakland "don't count" because they kicked some shit back? They get disowned? Oh, I'm sorry. The term the author uses is actually purged.

THOSE PEOPLE need to be purged

Because they "made me look bad."

Maybe rather than beating your breasts in self-righteous, "look at me I'm so motherfucking Gandhi right now" indignation and calling for everyone in occupy to drop what they're doing and waggle their fingers at the very very naughty people of Oakland, and then, you know, excommunicating them entirely, maybe some consideration should be given to why this happened in the first fucking place.

Am I saying everyone should go out and, ahem, "stab a cop?" Of course not. I'm saying that it's really nice to have the privilege to tell brutalized people to not defend themselves. It's nice to have the authority to tell the victims of theft to respect the property of the thieves. Must be nice, is all.