Regarding the black bloc and throwing bricks through plate glass windows: I’ve read the anarchist tracts. I’ve listened to the black bloc types try to explain why their tactics are useful. None of it makes any sense at all in the real world, where the majority have no problem with the violence inherent in the system as long as it's directed against people who do things like, well, throw bricks through plate glass windows. It’s like a cobbled up philosophy thrown together to attract alienated kids who want to feel powerful, sort of a cult now that I think about it, a cult that’s amazingly similar to Ayn Rand’s cult of perfect freedom without responsibility. And as with the Rand cult, it has absolutely nothing to do with leftists or left-wing causes, and black bloc in the midst of a protest should be treated the same as teabaggers in the midst of a protest — i.e., as a hostile force with a philosophy and goals completely incompatible with our own.
-- Badtux the Left-wing Penguin
I like the smell of spent gun powder in the morning.
ReplyDeleteUsing the word cult in respect of Teabagers, Randroids and Black bloc anraxhists is close but not quite there!
ReplyDeleteI came from Berkeley in the 60's.
ReplyDeleteGraduated Berkeley High 1971.
The standing joke for the school population was what to do today, well "let's go up to Telegraph avenue and throw rocks at the B of A till the cops show up. And, they were only half joking.
Bored city kids looking for excitement, and they were plenty of causes and joiners.
Nothing like the smell of the gas to get your adrenalin running.
Not my life but I was there to see it.
w3ski
I'd sort of like to see the peaceful protesters gently swarm the black bloc and remove it from the crowd like a macrophage surrounding a bacterium. You'd need a *lot* of macrophage-humans, though, and they'd have to be more physically fearless than I.
ReplyDeleteJust love the Randian comparison, BTW. I am gonna steal it every chance I get. And since I'm a hopeless pedant, I will attribute it to a snarky penguin.
ReplyDelete