Atlantic has a great roundup of May Day pix. Unfortunately, especially in Oakland and Seattle (the pix are international, not just US), a fair amount of them show apparently/likely senseless vandalism.
First, a reetail store, or strip mall (both vandalized) aren't the same as big, bad bankster Wells Fargo (a location of it also vandalized).
Frankly, when I see that, I say we're seeing the same vandals for vandalism's sake that have plagued globalization events since the late 1900s G7 in ... Seattle! That's when this whole (to riff on that city) anarcho-grunge movement got started.
Not all "Occupiers" are of such a mindset; nonetheless, it's prevalent enough that non-vandal leaders of OWS (and, yes, as I've blogged before, it has leaders) should denounce such "tactics." Secularists, after all, call on the more liberal-minded religious folks to denounce the more strident stances of fundamentalists. So, why shouldn't the more left-liberal of us politically call on a movement that has energy and potential to officially, or semi-officially, denounce senseless vandalism?
And, actions deliberately designed to provoke police? Equally stupid and senseless. If you're arrested as "collateral damage" that's one thing; to be arrested for being arrested is another.
I'm not claiming I do know what WILL work, just that this doesn't. And, if a "winter of gestation" after the semi-coordinated "pause" on Occupy's side/semi-coordinated "shutdown" on cities' side hasn't provoked more creativity, what will?
Well, in Greece, voters thumbed their noses at both top political parties just after May Day. As I've said before, political involvement here, including third-party involvement, is part of what I see Occupiers need to do. On the far right, Tea Partiers don't get that they're stooges of the GOP and the big business interests that started class warfare. On the left, Occupiers need to learn that Obama won't help them and neither will political apathy.
In other words, check out the Green Party!
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