The Cancer in Occupy - Chris Hedges' Columns

The Cancer in Occupy Posted on Feb 6, 2012 By Chris Hedges The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement. Black Bloc adherents detest those of us on the organized left and seek, quite consciously, to take away our tools of empowerment. Because Black Bloc anarchists do not believe in organization, indeed oppose all organized movements, they ensure their own powerlessness. In Zerzan’s now defunct magazine Green Anarchy (which survives as a website) he published an article by someone named “Venomous Butterfly” that excoriated the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN). “Of course,” the article went on, “the social struggles of exploited and oppressed people cannot be expected to conform to some abstract anarchist ideal. Solidarity becomes the hijacking or destruction of competing movements, which is exactly what the Black Bloc contingents are attempting to do with the Occupy movement.

Concerning the Violent Peace-Police I am writing this on the premise that you are a well-meaning person who wishes Occupy Wall Street to succeed. I am also writing as someone who was deeply involved in the early stages of planning Occupy in New York. I am also an anarchist who has participated in many Black Blocs. While I have never personally engaged in acts of property destruction, I have on more than one occasion taken part in Blocs where property damage has occurred. (I have taken part in even more Blocs that did not engage in such tactics. I was hardly the only Black Bloc veteran who took part in planning the initial strategy for Occupy Wall Street. This is why I feel compelled to respond to your statement “The Cancer in Occupy.” Let me just lay out a few initial facts: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. All this is secondary. I am appealing to you because I really do believe the kind of statement you made is profoundly dangerous. 1) they are not part of us 2) they are consciously malevolent in their intentions 3) they are violent 1. 2. 3.

The Psychopathology of a Liberal OWS! Baiter [Since Chris Hedges, a columnist at the website truthdig published the provocatively titled, "The Cancer in Occupy" four days ago, there has been boocoo Internet debate and some vigorous responses, for example, this one at Counterpunch. Occasional Fire on the Mountain essayist SKS, who wrote a widely read piece on this blog on the problems of infiltration and provocateurs in OWS!, posted this angry reply to Hedges on Facebook. FotM republishes it with his permission to help it get the wider circulation it deserves.] The Stockholm Syndrome of Occupy:Chronicle of a Death Foretoldby SKS I do not want to repeat what many have said, more eloquently or timely. Ever since the Oakland Commune came into national consciousness with their successful strike in November, liberals who initially became infatuated with Occupy Wall Street! Naomi Wolf launched perhaps the first notorious salvo of the liberal commentariat, when, going all in with her arrest cred, she called OWS! So why Stockholm Syndrome?