I agree with you on this: tis easy to generalize.  Block Bloc could be another generalization as violent. Except I recall, last year at RightsCon, a live feed from Yemen – they showed a demo of hundreds of women in full Niqab -a sea of black – protesting two of their own being shot and killed in that very same spot the day before. They were demo’ing *against* violence.

If you were the woman trapped in her car with your 3 year old as a mob surrounded your car and beat on it with batons, breaking store windows all around you, how would you prefer the situation was handled?

Criticize the strategic appropriateness of tactics, not the ethics of the tactics themselves (the latter being a far more nebulous and subjective a concept).

http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/misc/origins_of_mayday

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.

Doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to your opinion, but you should realize that it may not be a very informed one.

If that isn’t violence, I can’t imagine what violence is. If the indifference with which the government treats those worst off in its country isn’t violent, then we need to make enormous efforts to redefine it. All of this makes a few broken bank or store windows sound like child’s play. Have some respect for the people willing to put themselves out there to fight for your future freedom from state violence. You may not agree, but that doesn’t mean strategic violence is wrong.

Re #1, I dunno what to tell you.  Obviously the vandalism was intended as a political statement against the greed of the banks which are foreclosing on our futures.  It was also an effort to directly affect their bottom line, to make it difficult for their business to continue undisturbed.

Re #2, violence is a slippery term, and is often re-defined to suit the intentions of anyone who wants to condemn or justify an action.  For example: the uprising in Egypt is widely held to be a beautiful example of non-violent revolution.  The Egyptians involved threw rocks at the police, forcefully pushed police out of the square, and burned very many police cars and police stations.  All that was considered non-violent, but taking up guns and/or killing people was seen as violent, and strongly rejected.  The argument over violence is more an argument over legitimacy.  People in Egypt saw destroying police stations as a legitimate and warranted response to their situation, so they didn’t consider it violent.  You see smashing windows as an illegitimate and unwarranted reaction to having our homes, jobs, livelihoods, and healthcare stolen by profiteers, so you call it violent.  Obviously we disagree, but it’s important to see why we disagree.

Re #3, the same caveats about violence apply, but I would also point out that refusing to take action against an oppressor can itself be oppressive, because it allows the oppression to continue.  When we allow oppression to continue by not using every viable tool and tactic at our disposal to stop it, we become complicit in that oppression.  That’s not something to be applauded.

Re #4, that’s just mean, you hurt my feelings!  Even if you don’t agree with the above points, after reading them maybe you will agree that I’m not an idiot.

A dagger to the heart of the plutocracy.

No surprise then that it’s already May 2 and the system still hasn’t collapsed??