******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ********************
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*****************************************************************
On 1/23/17 3:28 PM, Jeff via Marxism wrote:
On 2017-01-22 21:34, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
Black bloc tactics now have very high risks for the perpetually low
payoff.
I think Louis' remark introducing an article about mass arrests was
unfair (in that context) and wasn't very well thought-out. Although some
property damage took place in Washington, I doubt that the police
actually have evidence of such actions by most of the 230 they arrested,
or that anywhere near that number were directly responsible whether the
police had evidence on them or not.
Actually, the idiot Natasha Lennard crowed about property damage in a
Nation Magazine article titled " Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer Got
Punched—You Can Thank the Black Bloc":
The “anti-capitalist, anti-fascist bloc,” Friday’s black-bloc march, was
just one among a number of direct actions called by organizers of the
Disrupt J20 Inauguration Day protests. Unlike Saturday’s vast Women’s
March, Disrupt J20 aimed to directly impede, delay, and confront the
inaugural proceedings. This message was delivered with human blockades,
smashed corporate windows, trash-can fires, a burning limousine, “Make
America Great Again” caps reduced to ashes, and a blow for Richard
Spencer. The police responded with fountains of pepper spray, flash-bang
grenades, and the mass arrest of over 200 people, most of whom now face
felony riot charges. Along with the Women’s March’s joyful scenes of
togetherness, the disruptions of J20 should be celebrated as an opening
salvo of resistance in the era of Trump.
The black bloc I joined met at Logan Circle, some two miles north of the
inauguration parade route. We peered through bandanas to find friends.
We gathered in bloc formation behind wood-enforced banners, filled the
street, and began to march. The bloc takes care to stay together, move
together, and blend together. Within minutes, bottle rockets were
shooting skyward and bricks were flying through bank windows. You don’t
know who does what in a bloc, you don’t look to find out. If bodies run
out of formation to take a rock to a Starbucks window, they melt back to
the bloc in as many seconds. Bodies reconciled, kinetic beauty. If that
sounds to you like a precondition for mob violence, you’re right. But
this is only a problem if you think there are no righteous mobs, or that
windows feel pain, or that counter-violence (like punching Richard
Spencer) is never valid.
_________________________________________________________
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at:
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
