Dear Nevermorons,
In February 2012, Chris Hedges wrote an atrocious essay called The Cancer in Occupy, in which he blamed “Black bloc anarchists” for the failure of the Occupy Movement.
The Cancer In Occupy was subtitled:
The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state.
Reading it twelve years later, it’s not hard to see why it pissed anarchists off so much. In it, he engages willy-nilly in rhetorical distortions that would make Amy Goodman blush, flinging accusations like Jackson Pollock flung paint.
Here’s a sample:
Black Bloc adherents detest those of us on the organized left and seek, quite consciously, to take away our tools of empowerment. They confuse acts of petty vandalism and a repellent cynicism with revolution. The real enemies, they argue, are not the corporate capitalists, but their collaborators among the unions, workers’ movements, radical intellectuals, environmental activists and populist movements such as the Zapatistas.
There’s so much wrong with these three sentences that I wouldn’t even know where to start. When a thinker as esteemed as Chris Hedges commits so many intellectual sins at once, anger seems to me an appropriate response.
I won’t be critiquing The Cancer in Occupy today. Others have already done so, and one of those responses, The Illegitimacy of Violence, The Violence of Legitimacy has become somewhat of a classic of early 21st century anarchist literature.
What I want to talk about today is what happened afterwards. Many people took Chris Hedges to task for his demonization of anarchists, who were, of course, heavily involved in every part of the Occupy movement.
Occupy Ottawa, for instance, was started by someone who very much fit the profile of a “Black Bloc anarchist”.
Or, why not use the example of David Graeber, who started the Occupy movement in the first place? He wrote a whole book called Direct Action, in which he describes participating in the famous Battle of Quebec City in 2001. Was he not a “Black bloc anarchist”?
David Graeber responded directly to Chris Hedges in a piece called Concerning the Violent Peace-Police: An Open Letter to Chris Hedges.
He wrote:
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. It is a common fallacy that this is what Black Blocs are all about. It isn’t.)
I was hardly the only Black Bloc veteran who took part in planning the initial strategy for Occupy Wall Street. In fact, anarchists like myself were the real core of the group that came up with the idea of occupying Zuccotti Park, the “99%” slogan, the General Assembly process, and, in fact, who collectively decided that we would adopt a strategy of Gandhian non-violence and eschew acts of property damage. Many of us had taken part in Black Blocs. We just didn’t feel that was an appropriate tactic for the situation we were in.
Subsequently, Chris Hedges clarified his position in quite a frustrating way - by shifting gears to being extremely reasonable without acknowledging that he did, in fact, throw around a lot of baseless accusations in the first place.
For instance, he clarified that he was not a pacifist, nor was he opposed to anarchism. He insisted, in fact, that he comes out of the Christian anarchist tradition, implying that he is quite close to being an anarchist himself.
And that’s the context that brings us to today’s subject: the classic debate between Chris Hedges and B. Traven, a member of the Crimethinc. Ex-Worker Collective, which was the most influential anarchist group in the U.S. at that time.
(Quick note - B. Traven is a pseudonym. He is not to be confused with the great 20th century novelist of the same name.)
This debate represents a recent high-water mark in anarchist discourse. Both debaters make strong points, and conduct themselves admirably. That itself was great to see. Unfortunately, the violence versus non-violence debate, which has been going on for decades, often degenerates quickly. There are many people in both camps who think that they know best, and aren’t particularly interested in the finer points. A recipe for shouting matches, to be sure.
This face-off between Chris Hedges and B. Traven is as good of a debate on this subject as I’ve heard, which is why I’m posting it.
I’m not going to comment on the debate right now, because I want you to watch it and decide what to think for yourself.
After you’re done watching it, I want you to ask yourself a very simple question: Who won the debate?
Then I want you to share your thoughts in the comments.
After I’ve given people a fair amount of time to watch it (say, a week or so), I plan to make a post using your comments… so please make them good!
I’ll quickly note that you don’t have to watch the whole two hours. The last part of the video includes a town hall segment with questions from the audience. That part is interesting, but not as interesting as the debate itself. Also, you can skip the first 10 minutes without missing much.
In the meantime I’m going to switch to writing about other aspects of the Occupy movement, because the violence debate was just one aspect of Occupy, and wasn’t even necessarily the most important one. Eventually, I’ll get around to sharing my thoughts, which may have changed by the time I’ve thought about yours.
We’re all in a period of political reorientation right now, and I encourage people to approach this debate with a willingness to change your mind.
Anarchists tend to be very stubborn people, but guess what? You can’t learn if you’re not willing to change your mind.
Looking forward to your comments!
Solidarity,
Crow Qu’appelle
I remember when Hedges wrote that piece of trash. The irony that Hedges was supporting the people in Greece to fight back the austerity measures after the rich collapsed the world economy in 2008! I read articles/heard him cheering on the people who were homeless living in the streets due to the corruption of the Greek govt. and supporting their courage to fight back against the repression of the state. But....Hedges who never bothered to travel to Occupy Oakland to see what was actually happening there decided that the people there had no right to stand up against the repression of the City govt. incl. the OPD which was SO corrupt it was facing federal receivership control -which eventually happened.
And what IS violence? According to Black's Law 4th Ed. dictionary, "Unjust or unwarranted exercise of force usually withe the accompaniment of vehemence, outrage or fury." Smashing a window is not violence, it is property damage. And someone who has a tear gas canister thrown at them and the item thrown back to the owner is not engaged in violence. 1st- he/she is a good person for returning the item and 2nd- he/she is acting in self-defense.
Hedges can't have it both ways. Undoubtedly, he has a family to feed and he is not going to shit where he eats. However, he didn't have to comment on the matter in Oakland at all. I think he should shut the fuck up on topics he has no proper knowledge of (black bloc) and/or first hand, on the ground awareness of (Occupy Oakland). We had a child-care (tents or an area), free clothes, gardening area, arts/crafts area, free food (24 hours a day), media tent, retired professors or educated people were giving talks on various topics in the plaza on any given day, GA's every night. It was truly amazing. Too bad Hedges didn't see it for himself.
Since I was in Oakland participating in the occupy daily activities on the plaza until the cops kicked out the occupiers out of the plaza the second time. The people living in and around Oakland, the working class, were actually attracted to OO and came out to evening GA's, actions like the port shutdowns and "Move In Day" (which failed and was extremely violent by OPD....who launched tear gas onto parents with children - some in strollers who were in the midst of young people some anarchists, some students, and many people over 40, 50 yrs of age who were used to police tactics over the decades). It was the police that destroyed OO with backing of both the City Council and Chamber of Commerce.
Chris Hedges can't think outside the box because he can't risk losing his connections to well-paid gigs.
Occupy Oakland was still going strong well into 2012 until the stupid selection (Hobama's re-election).
We had all kinds of undercover cops trolling the plaza or events -agent provocateurs and I knew when one was approaching me....stranger calling me by my first name and asking me questions during a march down the streets (WTF?). Until you have taken part in something as big and well-organized as OO, you'll never understand the complexities or appreciate the heart and soul of such a mass organized movement and stop focusing on "violence" especially when the state is well armed and well funded and the media has their back!
I remember watching the debate you shared back when this event happened. It still makes my blood boil. And clearly B. Traven won the debate!