The Black Bloc: The Chron Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

www.chronwatch.com ^ | 1/29/03 | Cinnamon Stillwell

[SeenTheLight]

The Chronicle reported on an Anarchist group known as the black bloc, whose members rampaged and vandalized their way through San Francisco’s Financial District after the 1/18 anti-war rally, but they didn’t tell the whole story.

Bill Hackwell, the spokesman for International Answer, the group that organized the rally, claims that they ''hadn’t known about the break-away marchers in advance and had no connection to them.'' That’s puzzling, because the black bloc had advertised its intentions prior to the rally, on the well-known web site and leftist organizing tool, www.sfindymedia.org. While the pre-rally information is now gone from the site, the moment-by-moment description is still posted and it makes it clear that the black bloc had planned their ''radical anti-Capitalist break-away march'' well in advance.

Indeed, if Deputy Police Chief Greg Suhr, who called ''the vandalism...unexpected,'' had bothered to look at the site beforehand, then the police might have been better prepared for the ensuing violence. Instead, the Anarchists gained the upper hand, as their description on the web site makes abundantly clear: ''Time 4:35: The British embassy has been hit. Wells Fargo has been hit. Black bloc can do anything it wants right now.''

But the real fault lies with the organizers of the larger rally, who espouse pacifism, while turning a blind eye to violence within their ranks. Typically, Bill Hackwell, called the damage caused by the black bloc ''relatively minor,'' and ''refused to condemn'' their tactics. Instead, he tried to excuse their destructive methods by focusing on inflated casualty estimates in a war with Iraq. Beyond the fact that his estimates of ''500,000 casualties and 9 million refugees'' are not attributed to any source whatsoever, his attempt to equate the two types of violence is nothing more than a cop-out.

According to David Graeber, a Yale anthropologist quoted in the Chron article, ''the reluctance of the rally’s organizers to criticize the splinter group stemmed from a desire to avoid exacerbating tensions within the left.'' Anyone who’s been to one of these rallies knows that the left hardly speaks with one voice. The hundreds of different groups represented at these events shatters the notion of a unified movement. Their rallies include virulent anti-Semites, Islamist groups, and Anarchists. This is why the so-called peace movement lacks credibility for many Americans and why it will never achieve mainstream status.

The next anti-war rally on February 16, promises more of the same violence on the part of the black bloc Anarchists and their supporters, especially as the war with Iraq inches forward. John Zerzan, ''an author who espouses black bloc tactics'' states it plainly when he says that ''Things are not going to be stopped with polite and well-behaved marches.''

You can’t make it any clearer than that. Now it’s time for the media, the police, and the public to listen.

[SeenTheLight]

Unpeaceful protesters ping

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

I have an "activist" friend in Oakland who knows some black bloc-ers, although, to his credit, he disavows their tactics. The next time I am out there, I hope to meet some of them face to face.

[CounterCounterCulture]

Good catch! Keep the beacon of truth on these scum, ChronWatch!

[arthurus]

a desire to avoid exacerbating tensions within the left.

The operative idea is that of "no enemies to the left". Liberals seem to believe that the most extreme form is the morally superior form, even if they themselves are uncomfortable espousing more radical ideas. That is why moderate liberals cannot bring themselves to condemn Stalin or Stalin's system. Well he just didn't quite get the hang of it but his heart was in the right place.

[FLAUSA]

"The end justifies the means" is a common leftist maximum. Anything is acceptable if your stated ends are desirable.

[thisiskubrick]

Check out the film "Sunday Bloody Sunday", a recently released feature about the infamous incident in Northern Ireland. Same problem: The majority of marchers want to be peaceful, but they have trouble keeping the "angry young men" in line. The young hooligans bait and taunt the police, commit vandalism, etc. The major difference in Northern Ireland, of course, is that the Brits opened fire on them with live ammo.

[stratman1969]

Of course, the Chron still does not question ANSWER about their ties to the World Worker's Party under the phony cover of "Peace"

[SeenTheLight]

So true. Apparently, a conservative columnist, Kelly, (don't know the first name?) wrote a column criticizing the ANSWER/Workers World Party connection and some leftists wrote a column in return, accusing him of red-baiting! How is simply pointing out that a Communist is a Communist red-baiting? Sheesh.

[bootless]

Check this out, culled from a Google of Black Bloc: http://www.infoshop.org/blackbloc.html

[SeenTheLight]

Very interesting. These people are completely up front about their intentions and their goals. It's time for the rest of us to take them at their word. I would really like to see the cops pull a Rodney King on a few of these masked cowards. The funny thing is, whether the police are tough with them or not, the Anarchists accuse them of "police brutality." So why not give them what they want?