BCCLA Executive Director David Eby interviewed on his misunderstanding of diversity of tactics.
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Commentaires
This isn't news. This is
This isn't news. This is editorial. At least say so in the title.
Chris Johnson
I think that it is true that the last statement is controversial , but if you analyze it, it is not untrue. We as journalists are covering what we consider to be a war. By all definitions, valid definitions, we know this to be the case. It's controversial, sure. But as journalist we have a responsibility to decribe things as they are, and frame them for what they are. That mainstream media does not acknowledge this war is bad journalism.
The editor of this piece declared a bias. That's a good thing, and doesn't always happen in any form of media. It is ok to be conservative media, liberal media, radical media, whatever. The idea that there can be a all-around appeal to anyone media is false.
As far as I can see, this kind of reporting is grounded in a certain philosophy, just as FOX news is grounded it's it's philosophy. And that's ok. We need a diverse media landscape. What I would expect of any news source is to provide me both sides of the story. The editor of this piece did that. That the reporter had his own opinion was fine. Eby said what he felt and the editor showed us the most powerful points of Eby's arguements. She could have easily made him sound stupid.
As a media publisher myself I respect that journalists can declare a bias and still present a balanced story. You know what she believes, and she is providing you with what she saw and asking you to make up your own mind. Regardless of the narrator's comments, you still have fair comment from both sides, and that's what's important.
Douchebaggery at its finest
This piece is infantile middle-class dribble.
I am an anarchist but I am not part of the so-called "anarchist community" that was "betrayed" by Eby. I don't necessarily embrace the BCCLA and civil liberties discourse in part because I know where a lot of its money comes from and I recognize that in order to maintain a greater degree of legitimacy in the public eye that it will have to distance itself from certain forms of politics and take a more moderate stance that does not appeal to me. Why would anyone be shocked about that the BCCLA would take a moderate position? You would have to be a clueless dipshit to be angry about that and feel "betrayed." The fact is Eby and a lot of other people (not necessarily the ones constantly in the spotlight) stuck out their necks so that we could march against the Olympics without getting beat down. You can bet that bullshit sid-vicious pad-lock hanging on Thorpe's neck or the circle A t-shirt you bought from that avant-garde boutique that if the cops did not know in advance that there would be an incredible amount of scrutiny of them by different groups; not only the media but by people like Eby who understand the law and can indicate when the police are clearly breaking it; they would have had us all fenced off like chickens in a coop or just stomped us right out. Judging by the physical size of these psuedo-anarchist middle-class snots twisting their heads off would have been as easy at twisting a chicken's head off. Look at the video and how pathetically weak they are. I mean it took 3 snots in black fleece from MEC to lift 1 newspaper box and even then they could barely throw it through a window. If you think that the reason you did not get stomped was because the cops were afraid you are incredibly fucking stupid. The fact that someone would even throw a pie in Eby's face for such a predictable difference of opinion because it conflicts with the elite squad just proves how stupid some people can be. So much for diversity let's self-cannbalize now.
Also, Thorpe sucks so f*%$ing bad for cloaking Vandalism with "diversity of tactics." Why don't you just get big balls and say it, "Vandalism." Sure, you are a super anarchist and Its cool and edgy but as a tactical manuoevre was poorly timed and worked against building a mass movement. The only thing b.b. did effectively was provide a form of therapy for a few middle-class snots who can't even articulate their theories in their own minds. All this talk about tactics is as if the whole parade was just to showcase our diverse "talents" without acknowledging that in the word "tactic" itself is a tacit admission that some are better than others. For all the supposed attention to the history of colonialism, nationalism and capitalism there has been very little historicizing of what tactics work and what tactics don't. A grade 12 social studies student could have told you that the black bloc would suck as bad as it did not only because its totally cliché but its ineffective. How far did the weather underground get the radical left? There is a problem when a few self-proclaimed elites promote themselves by hiding behind a valorized "diversity" for its own sake and refuse to entertain the idea that they are wrong. I agree with Dawn P though. We need to stop looking to the corporate media to gauge our success. So that's my feedback for the snots.
If the history of left politics, social movements and cycles of protest tells us anything its that this two-bit stuff does not work in the long run. At least a few people get to be rock-stars though. Meanwhile, the real issues get washed out.
Pathetic
So..
Are you commenting from London, England? Or from a cave in Vancouver?
Either way that's a pretty pathetic excuse for a working-class critique of "vandalism", when carried out by a Black Bloc in Vancouver. There I said it, Vandalism.
I agree with you that anyone who felt "betrayed" by David Eby's comments, must have been living in one serious fantasy world.
But as far as everything else is concerned, arm-chiar revolutionaries will stay stuck in their arm chair, as long as they can find an excuse to do so. We weren't able to create a large-scale open revolt out of a 5 day convergence, against a two-week party. But at least we are learning from our experiences, and building relationships aswell. The same can not be said of your pathetic overt display of machism that likely wouldn't be welcomed in the mass movement where the Black Bloc's tactics were very welcomed.
One particular working-class male's only concern with middle-class dominance is that he can't control the movement himself! Who's the Anarchist snot?
That same grade 12 social studies student might very well be finding himself uncomfortable with the world around him, where he is treated like shit at school, and the only alternative for him is the work place which has some oddly some familiar qualities. The local government is making massive cuts to welfare, and other social programs, and is having a very negative effect on him and those he love's. He goes to a demonstration against these legislative measures and finds that the people speaking are his enemies as much as the other political parties are. He also feels disgusted with the passive acceptibility that the organizers of the demonstation have for the police presence at the demo. What is he supposed to do? Stay bitter? Do nothing? Go to the pub? Find somewhere he can go to beg for reforms? Grab a gun and head for the hills? What the f### is he supposed to do?
What did the Weather Underground do for the radical left? They would have done alot less if they had just joined PL!!!
Depending on where you look, the black bloc tactic has been extremely valuable in claiming and defending countless spaces for movement building (squats etc), destroyed institutions of the state, and limmited arrests in the process. The Black Bloc on the 13th knew perfectly well that if the pigs were willing to have all the tourists see a brutal show of force then they could have. Regerdless, a billion dollars spent on security means they think someone's a threat.
And get out of your cave and stop lumping us all together.
Your's truly,
- A Working Class Participant
Diversity of Tactics.
If radicals want others to support a diversity of tactics, then they should realize that condemning their idiotic actions is a legitimate tactic.
Why should other social activists, including Eby, have to witness years of trying to build credibility with the public go to waste for not disassociating themselves with such nonsense.
Olympic Resistance network not only failed to get their message though, 5,000 canadian flags to every activist in the streets each day, but they prevented other activist from being able to get their message out.
The fact is that most social activist felt absolutely betrayed by OLR actions.
Don't worry
David Eby will have many more years to come "sticking his neck out" at his $50000+ a year job, "building a movement" so we could "march"
When your done masturbating to your rhetoric, I'll inform you that what gives people a right to march is that they take it. Not David sell-out Eby. No One Is Illegal? The Anti-Poverty Committee? Groups that take the street without asking the fucking pigs and never got "beaten down" in the years prior to the olympics. You know, the people who were doing it "for free". I guess that's lost on social liberals who make a career out of selling out, running for vision vancouver, and failing at that because they didn't sell out hard enough.
I hope the position at the BCCLA works for your David, you tipped your greasy hand a bit too early. You poverty pimps make me sick.
poverty pimps?
by "poverty pimps" are you referring to the people here who disagree with you? No? How about the people working at InSite? How about the people working at the Downtown East Side Women's Centre? What about the folks working at United We Can? Or the people who now have work as reporters at W2? This divisive language is invariably used by people who are themselves middle class.
Making a living while working in the cause you believe, or in an area where there are few jobs, does not qualify for poverty pimpdom. You want poverty pimps, why don't you talk about the bloodsuckers who own the hotels, the nice rich folks in West Vancouver who profit from a $750 M annual drug trade in the DES, the nice doctors and pharmacists who skim a profit selling prescription drugs on the side?
And by the way, running for Vision (although I disagree with Eby's choice to seek that nomination) hardly qualifies for pimpdom either. I'm just listening to a doc about the women who chained themselves to chairs in Parliament in 1970 to fight for women's right to safe, free therapeutic abortions. Two of those women were former Vancouver City Councillors.
What is the validity of a statement like "diversity of tactics"?
If, as Eby points out, you can legitimize an action (however criminal or morally repugnant it may be) by filing it under "diversity of tactics" then what (if any) standards does this movement have?
I guess Eldridge Cleaver had his own version of "diversity of tactics" to carry forth the American civil rights movement:
"Born in Wabbaseka, Arkansas, Cleaver's family moved to Phoenix and then to Los Angeles. In the book, Cleaver infamously acknowledges raping several white women, which he defended as "an insurrectionary act." Cleaver was released from prison in 1966, after which he joined the Oakland-based Black Panther Party and served as its Minister of Information (spokesperson)."
And why is there a big premium placed in maintaining "solidarity" when one clearly disagrees? It is my understanding that, just as Eby did not show solidarity with the black bloc members that allegedly engaged in vandalism, the Heart Attack organizers did not show "solidarity" with the tactics of the Pivot/BCCLA Legal Observer program when it was accused of not doing its job by not attending the Heart Attack protest.
As usual, there is something missing. Perhaps a statement along these lines would indicate true "solidarity" between the BCCLA and the HA organizers:
"We, the organizers of the HA protest, asked the BCCLA not to be present and conduct its mandate to monitor the state security forces (for the benefit of all present) because we thought it pretty likely that some of those marching in the protest were going to engage in criminal activity. Therefore, we thought it appropriate to jeopardize the civil rights of all those present by foregoing the option of having someone present to hold the police accountable. Our reason for doing so was to cater to the desires of a minority of marchers who wanted to carry out acts of vandalism and assault."
To those who condemn Eby's decision to speak out, please answer me this:
1. By what logic would you expect him to keep quiet and tacitly associate himself with an incident which (in his view, at least) threatens to seriously harm the reputation of social justice activism?
2. Why should he additionally keep quiet when the BCCLA is being criticized for not monitoring the police, given that a) this is (in part) due to the request of the HA organizers to abstain from coming and that b) the HA organizers were not immediately forthcoming with an explanation about this?
Looking forward to your response.
The hypocrisy of this "news"
The hypocrisy of this "news" is incredible. Useing violence, fear, and "diverse tactics", then later on playing the victim is so, so old. Tearing down David Eby is only most recently example of how this group eats its young.
Consider the police beating down demonstrators, maybe shooting a few. Consequently they are interviewed by CTV. "Well Mr. Reporter, we decided that we needed more diverse tactics to get our message across."
Cleaver was a part of the
Cleaver was a part of the Black Liberation movement, but I don't think this movement as a whole and the Black Panther Party particularly was supportive at all of rapes of womens. Rape of women is something that the anarchists are oppose to and many of them fought and fight against directly. Cleaver was an authoritarian and not an anarchist. The Black Bloc is known to be an anarchist tactic.
I think we can have our critics about Harsha, but this voice of somebody not involved directly in the black bloc tactic it's a good answer very deep to your reactionnary comments that maybe you can understand if you are not completely sell-out to the right, to the left side of this state of exploitation as Eby, to the system as a whole...
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/video/2916
and this one by a lawyer said very well why David Eby should not speak with the medias to denounce people in struggle
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/video/2779
But it was not a big surprise, this guy is a leftist sell-out not a revolutionnary at all.