Occupy's anarchists seen as both divisive, crucial [View all]

[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.