-Caveat Lector-
The present social order is so firmly rooted in violence--the violence of
property, the violence of greed, the violence of racism, the violence of
capitalism--that only a society which totally rejects violence can have any
hope of truly changing anything. Nessie, tell me, what is the essential
difference between the violence of nihilists trashing store windows and the
violence of police beating up demonstrators? And please don't say that
vandalism is not violence--it sure as hell is violence when you pick up a
brick and throw it through a window...or at a cop. Nonviolence doesn't
defend corporate property. Violence defends corporate property. Violence
legitimates counter-violence. It's the old Tar-Baby Principle: you are
attached to what you attack. Remember this:
They nailed Love to a Cross,
Symbolic of their might.
But Love was undefeated:
It simply didn't fight.
When you commit violence, be it against the state, a corporation, or another
human being, you commit violence against yourself. With each blow you
strike, you die a small death...and sooner rather than later you are no
different from the thugs and provocateurs doing the bosses' dirty work. It's
no hypocrisy to stop you from throwing that brick; it's an act of grace, an
effort (not to mince words) to save your soul. *That's* why the nonviolent
demonstrators stood in the way of your violence. If some people succumbed to
the temptation to use your own tactics against you, shame on them; they lost
their discipline. But people truly committed to nonviolence as a way of life
must condemn and oppose *all* violence, no matter who commits it. Forget the
"leftists" and the liberal shills...listen to the voices of the real
nonviolent community, and you won't find anyone defending the police. But
neither will you find anyone defending the nihilists.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nessie [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, December 10, 1999 12:52 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [CTRL] Fwd: violence in Seattle
>
> -Caveat Lector-
<snip>
> Adherents to non-violent protest methods have always preached in the most
> self-righteous of tones against the strategy of targeting corporate
> property. We feel that their "morality" is actually an uncritical
> acceptance of the essence of corporate ideology, which elevates fictional
> corporate entities to the status of human beings, violently imposes an
> identity between these two categories of "persons," and thus demands
> "equal
> protection" under the law for both. Because corporations (only) serve the
> interests of certain individuals, the inevitable result of this "equal
> protection for all" is actually double-protection for corporate "persons"
> and no protection for real ones. The destruction of corporate property is
> the positive affirmation of autonomous human society and its right to be
> in
> control of its institutions, rather than be controlled by them.
>
> But, this time, in Seattle, the "moral" non-violent protesters did more
> than preach to the unconverted: they actually acted like cops until the
> real cops came and took over. Using their numerical advantage, the
> non-violent protesters surrounded, denounced, un-masked, beat up and
> actually turned over to the police the practitioners of violent protest.
> In
> doing so, the "moral majority" among the anti-WTO protesters not only
> helped the police and the National Guard do their dirty work, but they
> also
> assisted in the larger and more long-term effort to criminalize radical
> political philosophies that is taking place all over this country and
> through-out the rest of the world. Ironically, the "moral majority" was
> compensated for its counter-revolutionary efforts with indiscriminate and
> unprovoked beatings, gassings, shootings and arrests.
>
> It is both appalling and quite telling that none of the professionals who
> have denounced the controlled violence of the anarchists -- neither the
> mainstream commentators and politicians nor the leftist activists -- have
> denounced the unrestrained violence against people (not property)
> committed
> in Seattle by the police forces and the National Guard.
<snip>
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