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anti Seattle
The early May news in Seattle should focus on the amazing clear skies and warm temperatures (and sundogs), but we also have numerous accounts of the "anarchists" wrecking havoc in an "anti-capitalist" observance of May Day.
"17 people arrested and eight police officers injured" reports the Mail Tribune today. The Chicago Tribune picks up the story, describing "demonstrators hurling objects at officers who responded by firing flash-bang grenades and pepper spray". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides more details, including the observation touched on elsewhere that the disturbance took place "after an orderly march by immigration reform advocates and others that was not marred by violence", with more background here.
Photos that accompany that last story depict several scenes of "Black-clad protesters break windows on downtown businesses ...", and it is not like those people just happen to be wearing black, or that they each found something black in their wardrobe to wear that day. The weird thing is they are wearing a black uniform - the same black cut and style for pants, black leather shoes, black socks, black hoodies, black bandannas hiding their faces, and black backpacks. No doubt there are tactical reasons they would claim for such uniformity - I imagine it makes them more difficult to distinguish when the criminal charges are filed - but the facelessness reminds me much of the jack booted thuggery of communists and national socialists throughout history. The police may represent oppressive authority, but at least you can identify their faces to allow charging them with brutality.
It reminds me of an encounter with a similar group several years ago in a peace march preceding the first Iraq war. I happened to fall in along side of them and noted the similarity in attire. Perhaps I sparked some introspection with the observation something like "how do you like wearing your anarchist uniform?"
And the targets "... including American Apparel and NikeTown"are certainly icons of capitalism, but far from the crony-capitalism that supports the bi-partisan war-mongering so popular with leading Republicans and Democrats. If anarchism has anything going for it, a big benefit would be an end to the mass murder perpetrated by the state and foisted on the people in the name of national security or saving face or whatever other limp justification is applied for sending troops and bombs halfway around the world. Purveyors of comfortable and fashionable clothes seem far removed from that.
I have read much political theory over the years, including a lot about the minimal state and anarchism, and these guys are not doing much to make a positive image.
This entry was posted on May 4th, 2013 at 16:12:00 by Adumbrator and is filed under News, Politics, Culture.
1 comment
On Saturday at Folk Life, I came upon a couple people who were attending a display of literature, labeled as if representative of the anarchist movement. If so, on questioning they showed no knowledge of two notable figures in the history of the movement: Lysander Spooner (1808-1887), or Robert Nozick (1938-2002)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner - from that source we have a reasonable summary of the modern regulatory state, as Spooner argued that “no one has yet ever dared advocate, in direct terms, so monstrous a principle as that the rich ought to be protected by law from the competition of the poor.” Spooner’s pamphlet “No Treason” holds a special place in my library (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Treason)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick - Nozick’s book “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” (1974) was one of my early deep reads, and solidified my perspective of acceptable behavior of groups being limited by what is acceptable for individuals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia) - I read it sometime during high school, 1978 or ‘79.
