It’s interesting how the corporate press is covering today’s action in New York. I’m reading the Bloomberg coverage right now, and they say, for instance, that protesters “appeared to number in the thousands.” While technically correct, I think you’d agree that “thousands” doesn’t quite carry the same weight as “32 thousand,” which is the estimate given earlier this evening by the NYPD. But, I wouldn’t expect anything different from the news agency owned by the millionaire Mayor of New York.
I also like the headline of the Bloomberg article – “Wall Street Protesters Cross Brooklyn Bridge After Failing to Disrupt NYSE.” Can’t you just picture the protesters, making their way sadly across the Brooklyn Bridge in defeat, after having failed so dismally at their goal of shutting down the stock exchange? Of course, I don’t think they ever stated that their goal was to keep the stock exchange from opening, and, having seen the live footage, I’d say they seemed anything but defeated. But that’s not the image that readers of this article will take away. The image they’ll have in their mind is of maybe 2,000 dejected hippie losers who can’t find jobs, taking to the streets, motivated by “the politics of envy.”
To their credit, the folks at Bloomberg did note that the protesters were well-behaved… Speaking of which, I heard earlier today, while listening to the live narration on the Ustream channel, that protesters had, on several occasions, foiled the attempts of masked individuals to destroy private property, set things on fire, etc. I’ve yet to see confirmation of this elsewhere, but I’m looking… At any rate, I bring this up because a few negative comments were left on the site today, in response to my having ended last night’s post by saying, “Here’s hoping the Anarchists stay home, the cops don’t act out, and the message continues to spread.” It would seem that a few folks didn’t like that I singled out Anarchists for criticism. Here, in the spirit of fairness, are their comments.
J: Well that’s obnoxious. Could we at least accomplish something, anything of substance, before we sell out everyone more radical the Clintons? If the communists and anarchists can cooperate for a couple of months, surely the liberals can stow their daggers for a while.
cmadler: Yeah, I came here to gripe about that statement too… I’ll make sure to skip your next event, Mark, now that I know I’m not wanted.
David Gomez: The anarchists that show up and start shit in these crowds, they’re cops man. The media and the establishment is playing us for fools. The OWS people are non violent. They sneak undercover cops in too start shit so they can justify beating up the non violent protesters… GO look it up and you’ll see what im saying. It no BS and its an old tactic.
OK, so maybe I should have been a bit more nuanced. I’ll admit that. I should have probably said, “Here’s hoping the Anarchists that want to smash stuff and be assholes stay home.” It’s true that I’ve got some issues with Anarchists – like Libertarians, I think they’re a bit naive – but, as long as they don’t smash shit, thereby setting the movement back, I don’t care where they are. For all I care, they could set up a little anarchist village at Zuccotti Park, dress in black and circle A’s all day long on their notebooks. I’d be fine with that. It’s when they start doing shit like they did in Oakland that I have a problem. And it’s not that I necessarily love chain stores, and want for their walls to remain pristine. I just don’t want to see the Occupy movement derailed. I don’t want the negative perception that comes along with news coverage about assholes throwing garbage cans through the windows of Gap stores so that some guy making $7 an hour can spend his day cleaning it up. I’d rather have a movement that attracts 82 year old grandmothers, our veterans, and men like Ray Lewis, the retired Philly policeman who was arrested this morning in New York.
And, as for David’s comment about agent provocateurs, I know that they exist. I’ve even written about them here on the site. With all due respect to David, though, I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that the only people who want to smash things are those being paid to do so by rich, old white guys that want to preserve the status quo. As someone who was once an angry young man, I can assure you that it’s a natural impulse. I’ve wanted to bust shit up, just walking through a mall on a regular day. I can’t imagine how strong the urge would be if I were behind a bandana, emboldened the anonymity of a mob. So, yeah, I know that some of the violence is being perpetrated by people who aren’t really Anarchists, but I suspect a lot more is carried out by young men who just want to exert their power and feel as though they have some degree of agency in a world where so much seems to be out of our control.
OK, now I’m going to say something that will probably get me into trouble with a whole new group of people… While I don’t think these self-identified Anarchists (at least the ones that want to break shit up) should be anywhere near the Occupy protests, I won’t go so far as to say that there’s no place for them at all. While I’m hesitant to promote any kind of illegal activity, I believe that, under certain circumstances, it might not be such a bad thing if a window or two gets smashed. When weighed against the number of people who are dying due to lack of health insurance, and risking their lives in foreign wars so that oil companies can pay bigger dividends, I think a little property destruction is pretty inconsequential. I think, however, that it needs to remain separate and distinct from the Occupy movement.
To give you an analogy, I don’t think that Martin Luther King would have been anywhere near as effective without the looming presence of Malcolm X in the early 60’s. Granted, Malcolm didn’t, to my knowledge, engage in any violence himself, but I think the fact that it was known that he was out there, telling black men to meet violence with violence, made white folks all the more receptive to the path laid out by King. Like I said, it’s not a perfect analogy, but that’s my way of saying that I believe fear can be a mighty motivator for people to do the right thing… All I ask is that the fear be generated somewhere else, far away from Occupy Wall Street, and under a different name.
As for Anarchy, maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how it would work in practice. If someone would like to try to explain it to me in the comments section, I’d welcome their thoughts. Based on what I know, though, it seems incredibly naive to me. I feel the same way about Libertarianism. It sounds OK in theory, and I can see the appeal, but, if we were to experience it in the real world, I just know that it would mean having soot-covered kids with lungs like raisins, working 14 hour shifts in the coal mines again.
So, yeah… I admit it… My opinion hasn’t chanced much in the past 20 years, since I performed the anthem Anarchy is Stupid with the band Prehensile Monkeytailed Skink.
As I don’t want to end on a negative note, however, here’s something pretty cool. These photos come from New York a few hours ago, as those 30,000 or so people gathered around the Brooklyn Bridge. They’re of the Verizon building.
Now, isn’t it more beautiful than spray paint?
39 Comments
I can’t find the link to the page where I got these photos. I’m sorry about that.
Well said, Mark.
millionaire Mayor of New York
Next you’re going to call him an esshole.
___
It isn’t nice to block the doorway,
It isn’t nice to go to jail,
There are nicer ways to do it,
But the nice ways always fail.
It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice,
You told us once, you told us twice,
But if that is Freedom’s price,
We don’t mind.
Latest polls show 63% of Americans are opposed to the small group that calls itself the 99%. The Occupiers are associated with deaths, rapes, disease, and violence while the Tea Party crowds do not even litter.
It won’t work, EOS. I admire the fact that you keep trying to peddle this shit in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but the game is up.
Edward,
Why don’t you share some of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary so that we can all evaluate the facts?
The “circling As on their notebooks” thing made me blow tea out my nose.
Last night’s Occupy UM teach-in was well-attended, fun, and informative.
Consider coming out to Occupy Ann Arbor’s next General Assembly, this coming Sunday:
http://occupya2.org/?q=node/50
From the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/31/black-bloc-anti-cuts-protest
Who cares if people are against OWS? The goal isn’t to build a unanimous front. I don’t think the Tea Partiers had any illusions that they would suddenly convert the entire American electorate.
There are people out there expressing their political voice and getting involved. No one has to like what’s being said.
I think after what seems like decades of complacency and cowering in a corner, this is a welcome change for the entire political spectrum.
As for anarchists, I don’t know any, personally. I have known narrow minded young kids with misguided and anger-fueled opinions who don’t bathe. I think though, that anarchist kids are well preferable to the complacent consumers that you see walking shopping malls and college campuses.
Senseless and stupid violence, however, is, well…. senseless and stupid.
Excactly Pete, it’s not like the majority of Americans were clammoring for desegregating schools or expanding voting rights to minorities. But like what many occupiers have begun saying, You can’t evict an idea who’s time has come.
Amen.
Rebuttal from the anarchists?
J? Cmadler? Gomez?
Or have you stopped visiting the site?
JC, can you share any more about what was covered last night? I’m not finding anything online.
I love that half this post is spent bashing Bloomberg, and the other half is spent demonstrating that you understand anarchist philosophy about as well as, say, Bloomberg.
Sure, the field of so-called “anarchists” includes angry teens using white-out to draw circled As on their notepads, but defining anarchists and anarchism based on that sensationalist sample is to buy into the divisions and in-fighting that weaken the movement. (Next time you see George Orwell, ask him what lost Spain to the fascists, and.)
But we don’t have to hash this out now–I’ll wait and remind you of your scorn next time I see you in the food co-op, or when the topic of community-owned business comes up on this site. Granted, these are pretty “soft” anarchist institutions, but they are your examples of how it works in practice. Another local example would be Maggie’s Organics, which sources from worker-owned cooperatives in Nicaragua: Maggie’s may not see themselves as “an anarchist company”–and they aren’t–but by purchasing from worker-owned manufactories, one of the most significant types of anarchist economics in practice, they provide proof of how this can work.
The irony here is the folks at OWS who call themselves anarchists and smash windows while wearing bandannas and masks mostly aren’t–it’s the folks quietly cooking up food in the camps and serving it to all comers who are a much better example of anarchism in practice.
Mr. X: it was a smorgasbord, but the most compelling presentation of the night was by Brian Whitener, on student debt, The Michigan Model (roughly: how U of M is in the avant guard of universities who strategize cunning ways of extracting cash from the student body and staff), and the burgeoning movement of students to have a debt default direct action: basically, if at least a million students nationwide sign on by a certain date, they’ll all default on their debt in one coordinated move.
The hundred or so participants, w/ the remaining half hour, broke into groups to brainstorm very broad “problems” the global Occupy movements/ 99% are faced with, and then their possible solutions.
My selfish favorite moment of the evening was spotting Peter Linebaugh in the audience, and having a chance to shake his hand.
Going into the meeting I’d assumed it was an Occupy Ann Arbor event; in fact, it was an Occupy UM event. The offshoots proliferate.
I don’t think that Mark would disagree that the guys smashing stuff probably don’t have an understanding as to what anarchy really is. I believe the term “self-describe anarchists” was used, or something along those lines.
I believe there are two things being discussed here. One concerns the tactics employed by these people who call themselves anarchists. The other has to do with the system of governance referred to as anarchy. My sense is that we agree on the first point, Murph, which is that the Occupy protests are no place for self-described anarchists who are intent on destroying property. The issue seems to be with whether or not anarchy would work in the real world, at a federal scale. (I don’t think Mark was saying that they co-op didn’t work, or should be run out of business.) Are you suggesting that the United States could operate under a system of anarchy? If not, I think you are in complete agreement with this post.
(And, clearly, there’s plenty of room for more hard-core anarchists to criticize my rather tepid, mixed-media version — but they can do it without blindly screaming “Property is theft! Smash the state!”, or whatever your corporate media-fed image of anarchism is.)
Isn’t Bloomberg a billionare, as Ray Lewis noted of the 1%?
“I just know that it would mean having soot-covered kids with lungs like raisins, working 14 hour shifts in the coal mines again.”
And you “just know” this how, Mr. “I think they’re a bit naive”? I doubt that you’re just projecting (or do you have some little ones you’d sacrifice in order to keep warm?)
Maybe, if we wish really hard, Linebaugh will drop in on this thread and straighten us all out on anarchy. I just read a little about him, and he seems like a bright fellow. In fact, I’ve made a note to myself to read his work on Thomas Paine. Thank you for the tip, JC, and the notes on last night’s meeting.
http://libcom.org/history/peter-linebaughs-new-introduction-works-thomas-paine
This piece is among my favorites.
Mr X – You seem to be taking a very charitable reading of Mark’s post. The original post, yes, uses the phrase “self-identified”, but only after spending several paragraphs sneering and demeaning. Maybe it wasn’t Mark’s intent, but I’m going to give him shit for giving the impression of outright dismissal.
As for the question of “whether or not anarchy would work in the real world, at a federal scale” — why is that the question? If you’re hoping the Senate comes up with some package of banking reforms that converts the country to an economy run on anarchist principles, you’re probably missing the point. But, more importantly, why do we have to discuss this as an all-or-nothing option, where we can’t have “all”, and therefore have to have “nothing”, and it’s not even worth talking about anything in between.
The national economy is never going to be any kind of “pure” system, whether capitalist, socialist, anarchist, or any other flavor. It’s a matter of what balance of the elements, at what scale — and I think you’ll agree that the problem right now is, grossly simplified, that the capitalist component has run amok, and un-balanced the system. We’re never going to get rid of the capitalist component, but should be looking at what elements need to be mixed together to get the right balance.
On the other hand, a large-scale anarchist economy is not unheard of–I’ll reference the Spanish Civil War again, during which parts of the country had predominantly anarcho-collectivist economies. The tradition continues today in the Mondragon worker cooperatives in the Basque region, which employ around 100,000 in a democratically-owned and -operated fashion. It’s not perfect–nothing is–but it has plenty to learn from. this Telegraph article points out the relatively flat wage scale–no person can earn more than 6 times what the lowest-paid member earns, as opposed to the multiplier of 1000s in the US economy, and the fact that member-owner-workers can’t be fired, while also recognizing the “subtle forms of peer pressure and worker stress” that can arise when you’re a co-owner of your workplace with all of your neighbors.
I tried not to comment. I really did.
“For all I care, they could set up a little anarchist village at Zuccotti Park, dress in black and circle A’s all day long on their notebooks.”
Either an epic troll or a display of exceptional ignorance. I’ll presume the latter, and just direct you here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_schools_of_thought
It’s not too surprising that there is such ignorance amongst liberals since the liberals sold out everyone to their left a couple generations ago. We aren’t welcome at your cocktail parties, so your only familiarity with anarchists are the loud and frequently obnoxious crimethinc kids. Anyway, even if we deserved to get sold out, the result is the liberals getting squeezed by the Overton window.
“As for Anarchy, maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how it would work in practice.”
I know, right, it would be a complete disaster. People living on the streets! Kids going hungry! Millions out of work! Thousands dying of preventable illness! Grove Street would never get paved! I kid, I kid.
As for me, anarchism is as much an ethical position as a political or economic ideology. When a slave demands freedom it would be ludicrous to ask them “but how would we run the plantation?” We all have ideas, some proven and some untested, but that’s not really the point.* The anarchist ideal is surely unattainable, but I refuse to believe the state and capitalism are the best we can do. After all, the state as we know it is only a few centuries old. The nation-state is not the pinnacle or the inevitable of social organization we so often assume it to be.
Also, Obama voters probably shouldn’t accuse others of being naive. Even libertarians. Who knows, they might have money?
*I think we see the effect of this thinking in the OWS movement. They have identified the problem, and are allowing the rest of us to figure out the solutions.
Images of police violence from yesterday.
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/732520/the_two_most_shocking_images_of_police_violence_from_yesterday%27s_day_of_action/
Now read what the officers are saying:
http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?172693-Occupy-Wallstreet…-Why-are-we-celebrating-these-arrests
A discussion between NY cops on Facebook:
http://i.imgur.com/B2KmB.jpg
Speaking of lies in the press, the following is from the Wall Street Journal’s site:
It’s late and I’m tired, but I want to try to respond. If it’s not coherent, I apologize. And let me preface this by saying that I’m not a scholar of anarchist history. I’ll be the first to admit that my knowledge of how well anarchy either worked or did’t work during the period before the Spanish Civil War is limited…. OK, since I’m tired, I’ll just give you this stuff in bullets.
• My main criticism, as I thought that I made clear, was with the individuals who, imagining themselves to be anarchists, go about destroying private property. My intention wasn’t to demean any scholarly anarchists in the audience who actually know what they’re talking about. And, if it sounded as though I was “sneering and demeaning” the folks at the Ypsi co-op by saying that the guys smashing windows in Oakland were assholes, I apologize. It never crossed my mind that anyone would make that wild of a leap.
• Maybe I’m stupid, but I don’t think we’re actually that far apart on this. J, you yourself referred to these black bloc folks as “loud and frequently obnoxious crimethinc kids,” right? As I said before, I could have chosen my words more artfully when I said that I hoped the anarchists stayed home, but all I meant was that I hoped the “loud and frequently obnoxious crimethinc kids” who self-identify as anarchists, would stay home. And, Murph, I’m sorry that I didn’t use “self-identifying” every time I referred to these folks as anarchists. I didn’t think it was necessary, as I thought people would understand where I was coming from. I now know better.
• I don’t think I’ve ever hidden the fact that I believe in capitalism. I believe that it needs to be reigned in and controlled, for the greater good, and I believe that there needs to be a robust safety net for those who, for whatever reason, fall though the cracks, but I’m not prepared to give up on our form of government, or capitalism, just because we allowed our checks and balances to erode under the heavy flow of corporate money these past 30 years. I want significant reform, and I want people prosecuted, but I don’t want to get rid of the system that brought us the internet, put a man on the moon, gave us the 40 your work week, served as a beacon of democracy for so many years, and all the rest of it. That doesn’t mean that I’m adverse to the input of socialists, or anyone else for that matter, though. I think they should be involved in the democratic process, just like everyone else.
• And, J, for what it’s worth, if I were the kind of guy that had dinner parties, I’d happily invite socialists… just not the window-smashing variety.
OK, I really do have to go to sleep now… You people exhaust me.
More later.
Love,
Mark
I think what Murph, J and others are forgetting is that you had a hand in writing the seminal “Anarchy is Stupid.”
“How many of you out there think the system sucks?”
(people yell back in agreement)
“How many of you think anarchy is better?”
(people yell back in agreement)
(long pause)
“You’re stupid!”
(long pause)
“Yeah, you’re stupid!”
(music and screaming begins)
Although Mark posted that very sincere response, I think that the his feelings are best expressed through his musical skills:
http://markmaynard.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/24-anarchy-is-stupid.mp3
What’s so bad about Crimethinc?
Great, we have snobby anarchists dismissing a different class of anarchists, generalizing them as violent and unworthy, all the while overlooking that there are many classes of anarchists. So this Daily Show report is on the mark: ‘The Daily Show’ Divides and Conquers Occupy Wall Street
Thank you, Pete, for adding fuel to the fire. I look forward to a renewed wave of hate mail.
Again, for what it’s worth, the song Anarchy is Stupid, was not directed at the folks at Maggie’s Organics, or the People’s Food Co-op. It was directed at stupid kids who feel as though, without laws, we’d be living in some kind of utopia. And I get that’s not a very sophisticated view of anarchy, but it was based on the views of the self-described “anarchists” I knew at the time. It’s also worth nothing that I was seven when I wrote and recorded that song.
Are we talking about the same thing? Capitalism right? The system that allows for a small percentage of the world’s population to waste 50% of the worlds resources is something to be saved? A system that depends for its continued existence on turning the entire rest of the planet into a slave paddock so we can sustain the pleasure of throwing away cheap consumer electronics? The system that makes you pay corperations for the honor of becomeing walking advertisements for them while the actual clothes are made by slaves? The system that treats the world like a private warehouse for its morbidly obese and militantly anti-intellectual people, at the barrel point of enough nuclear weaponry to reduce the whole earth to particulate matter?
The ultilitarian nostalgia for a kinder machine gun is long dead Mark, its a different ballgame now. The corperationists and the “religious” fanatics are the ones trying to create a utopia, not the anarchosyndicalists, and the utopia they have envisioned is more like Terminator 2 then Walden. Apperently-human machines supporting a technological totalitarianism dominating a purely materialistic/completely unautonomous world that they are not only willing, but relish the opportunity to use indiscriminate violence to uphold their power, just like the indiscriminate violence they use on the earth to maintain the position. Mark, the internet is nice and everything, but let’s get real; the cyborgs are out for blood, and no one is safe.
“How many of you out there think the Gap sucks?”
(people yell back in agreement)
“How many of you think Maggies Organics are better?”
(people yell back in agreement)
(long pause)
“You’re stupid!”
(long pause)
“Yeah, you are stupid!”
(music and screaming begins)
Mark, did you read about anarchism on a government website? There is nothing the people in places of power fear more than anarchism because they are made irrelevant by the emphasis on local control. They want you to be as afraid of it as they are. Powerful people will accept communism first, with it’s central authority and positions they can quietly move into. And anarchists aren’t about no laws, but rather laws made by consensus. The ruling class doesn’t like consensus either because they know their plans to enrich themselves aren’t popular.
Um, EOS, here in NYC many people associate violence and rape with the police, not with OWS. Please Google “NYPD” and “rape.” There has also been an escalating corruption scandal in the past few months, involving gun smuggling, drug dealing, fencing stolen cigarettes, ticket fixing, and more.
Meanwhile, several churches here have opened their doors to OWS.
It’s up to you to decide where your sympathies lie.
You might know that, in high school, I subscribed to anarchy. (In fact, I spent my first college work term at the headquarters of the YIP.) I renounced it the night John Lennon was killed (she said anciently), and, like you, now regard the ideology as naive. But I’d be careful about tarring any one group with the same brush. (Good times…)
Tee-hee-hee.
That is classic. Being called naive by a man who gave his money to John Edwards.
“Vandal spray-paints anarchy symbols on homes, cars, school in Ann Arbor”
I guess they didn’t get the memo that Anarchy is all about thoughtful consensus building.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/crime/fourteen-anarchy-symbols-spray-painted-on-homes-cars-near-pattengill-elementary-school-saturday/
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