Chris Hedges and Kristof Lopaur of Occupy Oakland debate black bloc, militancy and tactics

Ho hum. Can we talk about something relevant now, I am so sick of hearing advisers explain the right way for the occupation. The truth is that in every significant resistance setting in the past there have been people who threw rocks and the like. There's going to continue to be.

The violence against occupy nationwide is due to goon squads with guns and a police badge beating and arresting people who are not there to protest but are there to occupy. Occupy is direct action. Not lawful obedient protest. BIG FUCKIN DIFFERENCE!

If you want to blame the black bloc for violence, I think you are blaming the wrong side because the violence inherent from with in the system is the only violence that i do see. Families who lose their homes to forclosure and fathers and mothers who have their children taken away from then bythe government for being labeled unfit mother or unfit father. This governments got to go into HELLFIRE!

Since we have people with in the 99 % coming from all differnt class backgrounds i think it is fair to say some of us in this movement are not fighting for the same interests. others are fighting to protect their middle class interests while others are fighting to end the capitalist system and government. Just because we're the 99% does not mean we all want the same thing. many want reform of capitalism and government while others want violent revolt and not all revolutionaries want anarchism and not all anarchists want violent overthrow but slow transition fromgovernment to anarchy through education. not all anarchists and black bloc and not all black block are anarchists. blackbloc is a tactic nit group.. that is where cris hedges gets mixedup.

You assume that Chris Hedges began with the idea of the article in good faith. The result shows clearly that he did not. He is not "mixed up"; he is deliberately muddying the waters in order to demonize a particular segment of Occupy that threatens him (and that fucking asshole Jensen). He deserves all the abuse being hurled at him by everyone - and more.

I just want to point out that the claim that Occupy Oakland has been hijacked by violent protesters is a claim emphasized continually by the mainstream media, that diverts the reality of who it is that are actually perpetrating the violence against occupy. Further, the mainstream media tries continually to pull a fast one, and have people believe that hostility toward police repression is comparable to violence. This is an old distortion. A woman who spoke on Sunday, Jan. 29 (the night after Occupy Oakland's attempted building take over at Oscar Grant plaza) described how, during one of the marches, she was told to shut up by the police, when she refused, and retorted that she was going to speak her mind, the OPD threw her, face down, on the ground. The woman was a non violent protester. It's interesting, I was watching the local mainstream news , and the sound bite said that the occupy actions that Saturday had turned violent. As the newscaster spoke, the TV displayed two images: one of a broken window, and the other of some graffiti. Those who were beaten and teargassed went unmentioned.

Nor had mainstream media made the very decisive clarification that the second occupy march that night--in which hundreds were kettled and arrested in front of the WMCA--was totally peaceful. Not only that, but they were marching back to the plaza. I am sorry to find so many people calling themselves radical, buying into the hocus pocus of the popular media. I am continually hearing and reading about how we need to present ourselves in such away that the media can't as easily distort us. As long as occupy is a threat to the 1%, it's going to be distorted no matter what. As for the black block, they're not going anywhere, but people love to fixate on, and stereotype them. Whatever you might think, or dislike about black block activists--some of whom are non--violent I might add--reality is not as simple as the mainstream news portrays it, and it's testament to the manipulative hold it has over much of our thinking.

Why is Derrick Jensen seen as some kind of ally or in agreement with Chris Hedges? They are philosophically miles apart!

Derrick Jensen hosted a Green Resistance conference at UC Berkeley a few months ago, and one of his guests was supposed to be Hedges. Due to being sick that day, Hedges wasn't able to attend. Elsewhere I've heard Jensen claim that although he doesn't agree with him, that he respects Hedges, and the same has likewise been conveyed by Hedges toward Jensen as well. In the article "The Cancer in the Occupy Movement", Hedges sites several quotes from Jensen critiquing black blocks, but as Hedges specifies in the interview above, he doesn't totally see eye to eye with him on this subject either. I am not exactly sure where the Jensen quotes in this article are derived from, but I've read similar things said by Jensen elsewhere, and he clearly thinks that Black Blocks are pretty much pointless, but I am not exactly sure if Jensen's critique extends all the way to claiming Black Blocks are a cancer. Either way, I don't agree with him, and I think the issue is far more complex.

this is probably what Jensen visualizes when you say black bloc, just to point out. And so... if you look at his specific quotes, he could accurately say that he both is *not* as pacifist and does not oppose most anarchist action, yet has problems with the strategic choices of *some* black blocs and/or direction action cliques. Perhaps he might say that he accepts the diversity of 75% of tactics, but doesn't accept absolute diversity of tactics, because he finds some tactics to be counterproductive, or not the best choice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPayTWlAQ0k