We didn’t do it.

Posted on November 10, 2011

So bit of good news, it’s looking more and more like the Black Bloc was not, in fact, responsible for property destruction against small businesses in the Oakland General Strike. Not that small businesses are perfect or anything, but they’re valued by the local community here – especially the ones that are owned by, support, and/or employ folks in communities of color suffering from obscenely high unemployment.

So all the hate mail I got for last week’s post saying smashing small businesses during a mass protest wasn’t a useful tactic? Yeah. Completely irrelevant. Apparently the Black Bloc agreed with me. Or I agreed with them rather, it just wasn’t obvious that was the case until the outcry from the community prompted people to come forward and say they were not, in fact, responsible. Since then several videos have surfaced showing people who were dressed in normal attire[1, 2 - at 2:06 the guy in plaid smashes the window and gets booed by the nearby black bloc.] smashing windows and looting. There’s no way to tell of course whether those people were – as many are claiming – paid provocateurs, opportunists looking to score some free stuff, or strike participants pissed off and lashing out at soft targets. Another video showing at least two cops attempting to infiltrate the bloc has shown up on youtube as well. Which says to me it was probably done in a deliberate attempt to discredit us.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, most property-destruction oriented Black Blocs that I’ve seen and, ahem, read about have been very selective in their targets and specifically gone after institutions which were in some way related to the larger event. The banks were obvious targets at an anti-capitalist march in support of OWS. Whole Foods (a corporate mega-chain owned by a rabidly right-wing union busting asshole who’s made his fortune selling overpriced crap to liberals and refused to shut down for the general strike) was arguably also a valid target, though of course many of our allies didn’t see it that way.

I still think that the issues of accountability I raised on the 7th are very important. Alliances only hold together if allies respect each other and are willing to compromise. Many Anarchists, I’d go so far as to say the vast majority, understand that.

In retrospect the thing that’s left a bad taste in my mouth more then anything else is the tiny minority of people who call themselves anarchists but who thought that the actions of provocateurs and opportunists were good tactics. I’ll save the rant, I don’t think it would add anything. But I do want to say thanks to the folks who came forward to clarify what targets they hit and why and thanks to our allies who’ve stood up for us and defended the Black Bloc and Anarchists in general from others who were ready to purge us.

I’d also like to remind the folks who are currently threatening to withdraw their support from OO because their purge attempt failed, that Mayor Quan who has taken up their call for OO to disassociate itself from “violent” elements is the same mayor who sent her storm troopers to evict us with tear gas, rubber bullets, and beatings. She obviously doesn’t believe in non-violence. Likewise, the biggest act of property destruction thus far was not by protesters or even undercover provocateurs, it was the police in uniform who razed our camp to the ground and destroyed our tents, food, kitchen, and all the other infrastructure we’d all worked so hard to support the Occupation and provide services to the local homeless community. These people give lying hypocrites everywhere a bad name and anyone who seriously thinks that purging militants from OO will stop the police violence is deluded. The State IS violence. It cannot be reasoned with. Remember that.

* Addendum 1: As usual, I’m not the only one posting on this:

• Proof that Black Bloc participants were NOT behind the attacks on our supporters or local small business in Oakland on Nov 2nd: http://www.a-against.com/?p=23