Authored by: ScavengerType on Sunday, February 28 2010 @ 02:37 AM CST

I do not understand why people portray vandalism as violence.

I mean, firstly it is chump change to these companies. I recall when the first stink was made about this from the BC Civil Liberties director I wrote a short satirical rant about how the literal cost of a single window for them is in time that it cost to make that money not much more than the direct cost in time that you as a person have to be advertised to without permission on what is for some a daily basis.
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?...0174543159

Then secondly, nobody gets hurt, there is a huge disconnect here being made between violence and people getting hurt. Violence is violence and vandalism is vandalism, they are not the same unless the rock you are throwing through a store window hits someone in the face on the other side. It is the media that has been trying to call the use of vandal tactics "violence" for since before this debate has been going on and it is disheartening to see people whom are at least speaking under the auspices of the fact that they are anarchists, regurgitating this ad hoc position to the community. In fact as others here have said "violence" is actually something that happens to you after you do this sort of thing and get caught.

I think this is a good bang on article, that portrays a developing problem in the radical milieu. I think that over previous years the anarchist movement has become preoccupied with anti-war issues and has forgot largely to mention class war issues and class war outcomes. A new generation has come of age without fully understanding these things. Perhaps they really can't see why the anti-Olympic gatherings should have and did attract a sort of vandal reprisal against profiteers that you likely won't see on your international woman's day demonstration or whatever. There is a huge difference between the two sorts of gatherings. The anti-Olympics movement is the tale of a movement that was doomed from the start (wasn't never gonna stop the Olympics). The main complaint of the movement was that many social programs were being axed while the government was wasting money on the Olympics. There was a lot of anger directed toward these companies supporting the Olympics in the lead up and yet still when it comes, a few people smash some windows and some anarchists have a fit. I do not get it, when exactly do these people think is the appropriate time to smash windows? Does there have to be a fire in this building with some trapped puppies inside?

Further it is funny that anarchists have this odd belief that anarchism is so opposed to violence (real violence). Sure, it is an undesirable outcome, to be avoided when possible. However, on the other hand it was an anarchist who invented the car bomb and I think this was back in the day when it was actually a horse drawn carriage. Where did this ridiculous notion come from?

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