There’s a lot more to the civil rights era than you learn about in school and read in the average history book.  I respect that you don’t like mess, but advocating for change is inevitably messy.  

That man is probably trying to stay cool and collected, maintaining his ground, in the face of something ultimately brutal and unwarranted.  This is my speculation.  

Nostickgnostic speaks the truth.  I am also involved with Occupy Chapel Hill/Carrboro, and can testify that his or her post is valid.  Regardless of what people may feel is implied by “breaking into” a building, I feel that the excessive force was unwarranted.  I saw the distress of some of the people who were forced to the ground at gunpoint at tonight’s GA, and truly feel that the use of this force has created nothing but pain for those who truly had vision for a building that had been left empty and unrented for 10 years.

In the full photo, there’s a dude at the right edge of the frame not giving a single fuck – he’s just standing there, hand in pocket, bored look on his face (watching the SWAT cops seen in the thumbnail here). It’s hard to tell, but it looks like at least one of the guns is pointed right at him.

So my question is, what are we missing here? There’s obviously more context that we don’t see from this dramatic photo. I can’t find any other source for photos or video (with an admittedly quick search).

We have an anarchist bookstore in town with a long legacy of involvement in good community projects, but they also tend to have their own ideas and discussions and Occupy Chapel Hill was not included in this particular discussion.

I speak only for myself officially, but a lot of us at Occupy are very frustrated by this action in that it was essentially clandestine and not very well planned.  There was a big anarchist book fair in our town the night before, and those who attended it decided of their own volition to take their momentum and go do something direct (and thankfully, nonviolent).  At the same time, the police response was absurd when, honestly, it was eight people in the building at that point, who had issued a statement of nonviolence on their fliers – but up to this point, Chapel Hill police and the mayor had been very understanding and patient with us.   I personally do not like what this has done for our relations and am, like many, working hard to repair it. 

I have to disagree unequviocally, and supported by Occupy Chapel Hill, with the person who said we “endorsed” this group.  We offered sympathy and support to friends (and unaffiliated strangers!) who were traumatized by having assault rifles pointed at their heads / backs as they laid on the ground, and we “stand in solidarity” – a phrase which I don’t really like, but it was held up as being very distinct and less strong than “endorsing.” 

If not, there are lots of tactics (non-violent against people, most violent against property or property laws) that can paralyze a place of business, stop a military supply train, etc etc etc.

I’m not saying that we had enough militant and ready-to-die or ready-to-go to jail people in 2003 around the world to make this happen. It is obviously one thing to march in the streets, quite another to face being bombed or take actions for which incarceration penalties can be 5-50 years. My only point is that if people WERE at they point where they were willing to take drastic actions AND their bottom-line question was not “Am I showing dissent” but instead was “Am I contributing in a material way to stopping this war”, the range of possibilities opens drastically.

As usual, human empathy is such, that until conditions are directly affecting you or your smallest most intense circle of concern, it is impossible to muster the will to really step out of a somewhat-comfortable life and take these risks. I so this with no sense of condemnation, only the reality that when bombs are falling on you and your neighbors, the stakes are completely different then when you are just operating on a sense a moral outrage. (for most of us anyway)

Oh, and keep the anarchists out.  I’m sorry, but joining the Occupied cause with the anarchist cause is the fastest way to turn off public support that I can think of.  No one takes their message seriously, and what little interaction the public has had with them is running into their anarchist symbols spray painted everywhere, or seeing them bust the occasional Starbucks window on TV.

And WTF is this?  What’s with this “secret shadowy society of anarchists” crap?  I thought we outgrew the “mad bomber” rumors back around WWI when the British government was making it all up to promote fascism in the UK.  What is “the anarchist message” according to the guy who posted it and who the hell is voicing it?

The few people I’ve seen who readily identify themselves as anarchists are passionately non-violent and anti-hierarchical.  I think there may be more than one turfer here.

But what the hell? In what world, when the cops know they are dealing with a (primarily) principled, (primarily) peaceful crowd (and the press!) setting up shop in space where no one lives, and no one works, and won’t for the indefinite future, does it make sense to bring armed force into the equation? They immediately changed some bit of exasperated theatrics with a potential for some misdemeanor tickets into a terrific opportunity to splatter the brains of some 20 year old poli-sci student all over the evening news. Patience and engagement seem to be underrated police skills in some necks of the woods.

in portland on saturday, there was an incidence of violence where someone in the crowd threw something at a cop, and the occupiers took the person and shoved him out of the crowd into the police, so they could arrest him.

During one of our protests in the ’60s (well, early ’70s, actually), I once told a guy who was going around picking up rocks and bottles that if he threw any of those at the cops, I’d break his f*cking arm.  

He said if I did, I’d be arrested.  I looked him over carefully, and then said, “Oh yeah?  For what? Assaulting a police officer?”

That was the last time we saw him.  The next week, a completely different undercover infiltrator showed up at our meeting. :-)

 ”…A.J. Muste, one of the great figures of 20th century America, in my opinion: what he called “revolutionary pacifism.” Muste disdained the search for peace without justice. He urged that “one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist” – by which he meant that we must cease to “acquiesce [so] easily in evil conditions,” and must deal “honestly and adequately with this ninety percent of our problem” – “the violence on which the present system is based, and all the evil – material and spiritual – this entails for the masses of men throughout the world.” Unless we do so, he argued, “there is something ludicrous, and perhaps hypocritical, about our concern over the ten per cent of the violence employed by the rebels against oppression” – no matter how hideous they may be. He was confronting the hardest problem of the day for a pacifist, the question whether to take part in the anti-fascist war.”

- from the 2011 City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture by Prof Noam Chomsky.
Just want to point out that anarchists are generally against state optioned violence,  the use of force in society is itself precisely what is at issue.  They are not against “order”, or against society as such.

And your list of outrages? Some links please.

It’s obviously a very partisan site, but they’re probably all listed here: http://www.owsexposed.com/

In fact the sit-ins at lunch counters in the South were precisely like OWS, illegal, but effective ways to show how bad the legal system was.  And the march across the bridge at Selma was put down by the same kind of over-the-top violence described in this article.

And your list of outrages? Some links please.

I’m willing to discuss so called “radical” possibilities– like “why is there an ownership class, anyhow?” & “is profit hoarding a core problem with capitalism?”  & stuff.  I’m all for asking these questions.  That being said, even if it is a building currently unoccupied by a business, it is still a private building.  The police are very much obligated to defend private property.  Given that, what is the best course of action?  I mean, there were 80 people in there; you’ve got to plan for the worst case scenario, or at least entertain the possibility of it turning violent.  They didn’t go in with guns blazing or anything– which I would unilaterally condemn– but rather acted in accordance with the…law?

On the protesters, I don’t think they had an ethical right to be there…& I think an ethical stance needs to underlie any act of civil disobedience.  Protest in a public space & when the police come to root you out, I’m with you.  You’re doing the right thing.  But criminal acts undermine your stance.

It could be considered symbolic – they are taking assets which some distant entity has let sit vacant needlessly and using it to benefit everyone. It certainly raises questions relative to what’s happening globally right now: is it right to deny people from using the excess that (relatively) foreign powers can find no use for? Is it right to protect owners who don’t use their resources, especially in an age where so many are suffering without?