Thoughts on Violence, Property Destruction, and building a revolutionary movement.

I just finished watching “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.”   Seeing the interviews from all sides really helped flesh out a lot of the details and paint a deep picture that I’d really like to see out there in the public eye.  It’s a really great film and I strongly recommend that ya’ll watch it.   It also helped me crystallize a few things I’ve been thinking for a while about tactics.

As some of you know, I took a hell of a lot of heat a few weeks back for a post I wrote about property destruction at the first #OccupyOakland general strike.  Now I’m used to getting hate mail, I’ve been getting a steady stream of death threats and hate mail for most of the last decade, ever since I released my first album.  In the past, most of that hate mail has come from neo-nazis calling me a race traitor or “patriots” who think I’m a traitor to the United States and should be shipped off to Guantanamo.  I’ve also gotten shit from Celts for identifying as an Anarchist (apparently anyone who opposes the ongoing brittish occupation of North Ireland but doesn’t think the government of the Republic of Ireland is much better deserves to get their kneecaps broken), from Anarchists for identifying as a Celt (because apparently having a deep appreciation for the struggles, history, and culture of my ancestors automatically makes me a racist), and from people who just generally don’t like my music and don’t understand why songs recorded in my living room don’t have the same production values as corporate pop music.  (1)

As of a few weeks ago you can add the insurrectionists to that list in a big way.  After my article “To my Fellow Anarchists” got reposted on anarchistnews.org I got deluged with hate mail claiming I’m not actually an anarchist, that I’m a counter-revolutionary, that I’m a sad old man screaming at the sky, that my music sucks (because that’s obviously relevant to a political debate), that I’m an authoritarian, that pacifist hippy fucks like me are getting in the way of real change (apparently they’ve never listened to my music if they think i’m a pacifist or a hippy) and so on.   I also got some great letters of support and appreciation from friends and comrades involved in the local movement and in #occupy around the world.  Thank you to everyone who took the time to do that, I appreciate it.(2)

At first I was really bothered by all the hate.  But as I read the letters and comments something struck me – most people who were writing weren’t actually replying to anything I’d said.  They were replying to what they thought I was going to say.  I suppose that’s common.  Most people read what they expect to read and see what they expect to see.  It’s one reason why both democrats and republicans think the corporate media is slanted towards the other party when in fact it’s really slanted towards the people that own both parties.

So this is where I stand.

1. I support using any and every effective tactic to destroy capitalism and the state and replace them with a political and economic system based on collective self-governance at the level of the local community.  That includes leafletting, letter writing, community organizing, setting up anarchist credit unions to help working people buy their workplaces and convert them into cooperatives (Proudhon’s idea, not mine, but a good one), protests, marches, rallies, strikes, general strikes, boycotts, communes, occupations, sabotage, property destruction, and even assassination and armed revolution if and when those are the only viable options left to us.

2. I think violence must always be a last resort, but when it comes down to kill or be killed I’d rather let the other guy be the one to die for what he believes in.  I think most people – though not necessarily most radicals or activists – have a roughly similar attitude.  Americans aren’t pacifists, if we were we wouldn’t watch so many violent films and the military wouldn’t be able to recruit soldiers for its endless wars of domination.  Most people understand that there are things worth fighting, killing, and dying for.

3. I think that building a revolution is about convincing a large enough percentage of the population that freedom is one of those things AND that joining the revolutionaries gives them a decent chance of survival and a good chance of improving their lives and their children’s lives.  That means we need to care about what the majority thinks of us and adjust our tactics accordingly.   There are times and places where smashing things is a great way to send a message and demonstrate strength.  There are also times and places where it alienates more people then it radicalizes and isolate us.  Knowing the difference is critical if we want to build our movement and win.

4. To me, the real question we need to ask ourselves when considering a tactic – any tactic – is will it help us build the power of the working class and weaken the power of the State in the specific time and place where we are considering using it.  If it does, we should support it.  If it doesn’t, we shouldn’t support it.  In my experience using militant tactics such as property destruction in the middle of a larger action full of people who haven’t signed up for that militant action damages our cause because it erodes the bonds of trust and solidarity that tie a movement together.  It’s not the tactic of property destruction that’s the problem, it’s the fact that all the other protesters who are not involved in and didn’t sign up to be part of an action of that type are forced into the position of being unwilling human shields.  That leaves the larger group feeling used, betrayed, and resentful and splinters movements apart.

5. I think people need to feel like they know what they’re signing up for when they come to an action.  If the parent with kids or the undocumented or precariously employed person who can’t risk arrest knows in advance that an action is going to use militant tactics they’ll know to stay away and come to the peaceful march earlier or later in the day/week/whatever instead.  THAT’s Diversity of Tactics.  One of my favorite sets of guidelines for Diversity of Tactics is the St. Paul Principles.  Put simply, the principles were an agreement between different factions in the anti-globalization movement that said people should be free to organize autonomous actions using whatever tactics they felt were most appropriate as long as they made it clear that those autonomous actions were not representative of the larger group by separating them in time and space from the larger group’s actions.   When put into practice these principles allow everyone to take the actions they feel are appropriate and find a level of involvement and risk that feels  right to them.  It allows for cooperation across ideological lines and unity in diversity and makes us stronger.

That’s why some years back when the Liberals and Socialists were gearing up for their big anti-war marches against the invasion of Iraq here in the Bay Area some of us got together and came up with the strategy of breakaway marches.  Some of you might remember that during the form up for the first breakaway march in SF I did a set over the mobile soundsystem to gather the crowd so we could pass out fliers explaining the tactic and split off.  We separated ourselves physically from the larger slow-moving explicitly nonviolent march and did our own fast-moving snake march winding our way through downtown for several hours before ending at an army recruitment center.  Someone had apparently leaked the plan because when we got there we were met by a line of riot cops with shotguns.  Later breakaway marches were more successful and found their targets less guarded.  But I suppose the people sending me hate mail and calling me a hippy pacifist liberal traitor didn’t stop to consider why I didn’t write blog posts condemning the property destruction at those marches.

6. We need to have actions that undocumented people and people on parole and single mothers who can’t afford to get snatched away from their children and working class people who could lose their jobs if they got arrested can come to.   If you show up at that low-risk action and smash things you’re not attacking the banks, you’re attacking all of those other people in the street with you.  How in the world can you act surprised when they respond with anger and denounce you?  And how can you expect them to come out next time we ask them for support?  Is anyone at all surprised that the second #OO port shutdown action was so much smaller then the first?  At the same time, we also need to have actions that are militant, dangerous, and inspiring – that video on youtube that shows a black block of thousands in Greece storming the downtown and laying waste to the banks and corporate storefronts in their path is a great example that I found really inspiring.  What’s key is they did it as an independent action where every one of them knew what they were there for and what to expect, a bit like our breakaway marches only on a much larger scale.

So that’s where I stand.  I’m not a pacifist and I’m not interested in defending the banks or chain stores that had their windows broken.  I do think that attacking business that had gone along with the strike and shut down for the day was a mistake (after all, why should they meet our demands if we’re going to break their windows anyway?).  I also think that even though Whole Foods richly deserves to be attacked for more reasons then I could possibly list here, doing so in the middle of an #Occupy event was a mistake because since the first tents went up in Zuccatti #Occupy has been an explicitly “nonviolent” movement that has not used or condoned property destruction and so the people in that crowd were not expecting it.  If their windows had been smashed and their walls graffitied the next day (preferably with graf that didn’t mention #Occupy so the media couldn’t use it to attack the Oakland Commune) no one  would have objected.  Same economic damage, same message sent, no negative blowback or hurt feelings.  An even better scenario would have been if no property destruction at all happened the day of the general strike but over the next week all the chain stores – not just Whole Foods – that refused to shut down for the strike had had their windows smashed in.  No graff needed, the message there would be perfectly clear, but it would have been impossible for the media to blame the actions on the folks at Occupy.

The point of all of this isn’t to demonize anyone or stir up a fight.  The point is that we’re human beings and we’re going to make mistakes but if we want to succeed long term we need to be self-critical and learn from those mistakes.  That can’t happen in an environment where anyone who dares to speak out and suggests doing things differently next time could lead to better outcomes gets pilloried and treated like a pariah.  Frankly, I’m disgusted at the way so many people who claim to value independent thought and dissent have acted during this whole debate (and yes, I’m talking about people on both sides of the debate here).  Personal attacks and threats are not productive and don’t help anyone.  It’s time to grow up and start acting like Anarchists instead of marxists who can’t stand someone not towing their party line.  I am not the vanguard, and neither are any of you.  We’re all going to be wrong about stuff, hell I’ve been wrong about a lot of things over the years and I suppose it’s possible I’m wrong about this.   Maybe future historians will look back on the smashing of Whole Foods during the Oakland General Strike of 2011 as the turning point that got America on the path to revolution.  I doubt it, but anything is possible.  My previous post was angry and took an overly aggressive tone which is undoubtedly part of why there were so many negative reactions to it.  I’m sorry for that, yelling at people isn’t productive. Let’s all try to talk to each other with a little more humility going forward.

(1) Yes I know the mix-downs on most of my albums suck.  Sorry.  I’m not a recording engineer and I don’t have a professional studio. I’ve done the best I can over the years and I’m happy to say the sound quality on Anarchitecture is much better then my older records.  I’m doing the best I can but, as I said, people make mistakes and there’s been a learning curve as I’ve tried to learn from them and experimented with new things.  Considering that I’ve made all of my albums up to the most recent one available as free downloads I don’t think folks really have much room to complain.  There’s something absurdly amusing about anti-capitalists claiming they didn’t get their money’s worth from a free download…
(2) I also got quoted by a Socialist writer who’s article was widely picked up saying that folks like me who were encouraging our fellow anarchists to think strategically about tactics marked a “turning point in the maturation of American Anarchism.”  While I appreciate the compliment, I think he’s drastically over-estimating my influence.  I am not the leader and I don’t want to be.  I’m just some guy who writes songs and occasionally posts blogs about what I see going on.  My opinions are my own and I can’t speak on behalf of anyone else.

Posted: January 2nd, 2012 under culture war, ecology, political theory.
Comments: 4

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