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Response to the recent critique of Black Bloc spearheaded by Chris Hedges and other "pacifist" liberals?

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Hedges published an article calling "Black bloc anarchists" the "cancer of Occupy". In it, he mistakenly calls the Black Bloc a movement and claims that it gives OWS a bad name, alienates people from joining, encourages police brutality, etc (as he does this, he offers praise to the protesters and rioters in Greece, who do considerably more damage than any Bloc here ever has). Thoughts on the Bloc? Thoughts on OWS? Comments on Greece?
by (1.2k points)
This doesn't seem appropriate for a basic Q&A site. You've really asked four questions but all of them are just requests for general comments.

It would be better if you had asked questions that could be related back to the specificity of Anarchy101 itself. Like, "What is the black bloc?", "How are journalists, and other middle class officials, harmful to those radicals who are lower in class?",  "Is property destruction violence?", "Does property destruction encourage police brutality, or were the police brutal to begin with?", 'Why is resolving irreconcilable differences (alienation) in favor of recruitment important for some anarchists?", "Is media exposure and the limelight really to the benefit of radicals?".
by (2.8k points)
i'm also curious why this question is here.
 there are tons of responses to the hedges article (more every day, it seems), and madlib is right that there are so many questions, both implicit and explicit, in your paragraph that i'm not sure why you want them all on the same page?
by (53.1k points)
I can see the utility in posing such a question hear. There are numerous responses to the hedges article, yes, and some are rather decent even. However a few of the anarchists that answer questions in anarchy101 are quit a bit more concise, knowledgeable, and articulate.  

Similarly,  I wonder if anarchists think it is necessarily undesirable that a mass movement like occupy wall street should become split. Are there not elements within the occupy movement that are disruptive or detrimental to anarchist goals as such?
by (4.0k points)
edited by

1 Answer

+1 vote
As stated, there are an abundance of anarchist responses to the Chris Hedges' piece. We're not supposed to link, so I will try to summarize:

Hedges turns himself into a cariacture of the frightened "Not In My Backyard" liberal at the first whiff of a little repression. Previously, he had published articles calling for much stronger tactics than those the Black Bloc in Oakland were using.

He demonstrated ignorance of the situation in Oakland and the role the bloc played.

He employed an extremely inaccurate and dishonest argumentative structure to build a strawman of some mythic black bloc ideology, based on an old article reprinted in Green Anarchy magazine.

He left much of the argumentation to a transparently bitter Derrick Jensen, who bashed anarchists in what is apparently a personal grudge against his former readership and fan base.

He inaccurately claimed the black bloc anarchists attack the Left more than they attack capitalism or the corporations, through his underhanded insults opening the way for anarchists to explain again the merits of a criticism of the Left and of journalists like Hedges.

His advocacy of nonviolence is hypocritical and incoherent.
by (1.0k points)
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