Anonymous speaks out on Black Bloc

Also published on The North Star

Like many of us in the Occupy movement, Anonymous has had it with the Black Bloc. Recently they posted this video to YouTube #Occupy #Anonymous Warning to #BlackBloc

First, Anonymous posted this video warning and this week Chris Hedges' critique of the black bloc has been getting a lot of attention. Like Anonymous, he sees the black bloc as The Cancer in Occupy. I too feel like piling on the black bloc and getting them out of the occupy movement. They have done far more harm than good.

I was on the city liaison team for Occupy LA (hated by the black bloc) and helped to negotiate the arrangement by which we were able to have a peaceful, legal encampment for 2 months on city hall park and get a resolution of support from the city council. The black bloc was always opposed to any such negotiation and arrangement, but that didn’t stop them from moving in once it had been obtained.

That first night, Oct. 1st, the city wanted us to move the tents to the sidewalk between 10:30p and 6:00a to comply with park laws. Since our forces were still limited, the GA voted to comply for now. It was a tactical decision. I said at the time that once we had a couple hundred tents we could do differently and we did. The black bloc disagreed. It was a question of “principle.” Please preserve us from such “principles.” When security insisted, they tried to have security disbanded, saying we didn’t need “police” in the movement. Later they refused to move their tents to make room for a farmer’s market that happened every Thursday on city hall park. Still the city was accommodating, moving the farmers market across the street for 7 weeks even though the vendors complained they were losing money. (Are farmer’s market vendors a part of the 1%?)

I tried to teach these young “radicals”, using the experience of “legal” Marxist in Russia, that such compromise and the peace it allowed with the city would enable a tremendous growth of Occupy LA in a very short time, and it did. Within the first month we had over 400 tents, 500 occupiers staying over night, many more during the day and the largest encampment in the country.

If the black bloc had had their way, there never would have been a legal encampment in Los Angeles, because they certainly weren’t going talk to police or city officials and make it happen. If they had their way that first night, it most likely would have been scuttled then. I told them that first night. “You want to keep your tents on the grass? You want to make park laws the issue? Diversity of tactics? Fine! Los Angeles has many fine parks. You want to do, that just pick another park and you’ll have our blessing.” They didn’t go anywhere.

Why? Because they are a parasite. They are a cancer. They need a host to survive and that host today is the occupy movement. Before the encampment and the city liaison team was undermined and overthrown by their continuous assaults, the city’s time table didn't have us entirely off of city park property until Jan. 31. That was the city’s time table, still open to negotiation.

This video has drawn a very interesting response. I have long been posting my critique of the black bloc to the Occupy LA list serv and have gotten called every name in the book by black bloc supporters there. I posted the Chris Hedges article. That got a yawn. I posted this piece by a black activist in Oakland Boots Riley on black bloc tactics, they could care less.

But after the Anonymous video was posted, black bloc supporters got concerned. One list member said:

I thought it was somewhat interesting that Hedges calls black bloc a “cancer,” because so did Anonymous.

The last thing they say is, “Read rule 6″ – right here:
6. Anonymous can be horrible, senseless, uncaring monster.

Knowing Anon, I’d say this warning shouldn’t be taken lightly. Just sayin’…

and here is another:

I don’t want to see Black Bloc folks accidentally on the other end of Anonymous’ wrath. I work I.T. and I know the collective power they have.

Anons message to the black bloc?

Expect Us!

I have written much more on the eviction of Occupy LA and the role of these “radicals” in “helping us out.”

1 of 5 essays on the eviction: Did 1st Amendment protect OLA encampment @ City Hall Park?
2 of 5 essays: Was DHS behind the eviction of Occupy LA?
3 of 5 essays: What's the real reason Villaraigosa kicked us out?
4 of 5 essays on the eviction: The Demonization of Mario
5 of 5 essays: How Occupy LA got itself evicted