Occupy LA General Assembly split up tonight...

[R_P_A_S]

To anyone who is more well informed please add your 2 cents on to this thread. I got there late and I was just trying to collect information by asking random people. Well not so random, people who I felt were involved more than others.

Someone told me that some "Neo-Hippies" who got upset over the General Assemblies proposal of "kicking drugs and alcohol" out of the OcuppyLA encampment. An other thing that people wanted to focus on was discussing the possibility of moving the encampment and the reality that the Mayor has already implied that OccupyLA can't be there "forever". There was a lot of shouting and scuffling. People talking over others and shouting.

I basically got the feeling that some members of the General Assembly are trying to get the group or the movement more focus on a plan of action while others feel that this is a party they can come do mushrooms, smoke weed and have a chill time.

In conclusion 3 hours later after the "break up" both groups decided to reconcile and hold a General Assembly together. I would say that 90% of the people agreed and brought back the two groups but there were some who left pissed of and started to shout insults at some members.

Personally I think these movements need to drop the whole "Love and Harmony" rhetoric... Put your fucking Ghandi pictures away and get real. Nothing has ever been achieved through peace.. Not even Ghandi, Caesar Chavez nor Dr. King achieved progress because they were peaceful... people were repressed, injured and killed during the movements that these "leaders" spearheaded. Some of the Occupy peeps need to understand this.. Nothing was ever given to us. NOTHING!

Get militant!, Get Organized.. Get motherfucking class conscious and drop the hippie shit.

[La Peur Rouge]

As much as I love eating mushrooms, smoking weed, and having a chill time, I agree. Occupations aren't the place to be taking anything, it makes you an even larger target for the police. Anyone who left just because drugs were banned (especially when there were more important issues being discussed) probably didn't really care to be there in the first place.

[x359594]

...Nothing has ever been achieved through peace.. Not even Ghandi, Caesar Chavez nor Dr. King achieved progress because they were peaceful... people were repressed, injured and killed during the movements that these "leaders" spearheaded. Some of the Occupy peeps need to understand this...

Most the present advocates of non-violence don't understand what non-violence entails, much less the actual history of non-violent struggles. Non-violence is aggressive. Since the injustices in society reside mainly in the institutional system even though the personal agents may be innocent or sympathetic, it is necessary to prevent the unjust institutions from grinding on as usual. It is necessary not to shun conflict but to seek it out. So Gandhi, A. J. Muste and King were continually inventing campaigns to foment apparent disorder where things had apparently been orderly.

One must not suppose that no one will be hurt in a non-violent action. Naturally, aggressive massive non-violence is not safe (hundreds perished in the Civil Rights struggle and Gandhi lost thousands.) If only mathematically, when there is a big crowd, some will be hurt There will always be frustrated people ready to overturn some garbage cans and smash a few windows to express their outrage. But it should be noted that attacks on property are not the moral equivalent of attacks on people. Non-violent resistance will produce fewer casualties because opponents can’t easily justify the use of violence against people who are not threatening them with deadly force. In the present climate of cold violence armed with lethal technology this is a major concern.

[Spetsnaz]

I agree that some people you have to fight bitterly to the bitter end.

The Nazis were not going to give up peacefully and likewise the corporate states of America are not going to give the people freedom without a good violent fight. Get real. Pacifism is for hippies. We did not initiate the violence since the state already has sent its agent of represion against nonviolent demonstrators. We should fight back tit for tat. :(

[R_P_A_S]

anyone who has been going to Occupy LA.. have any updates?

[Ocean Seal]

The Occupy movement, isn't the place for drug use plain and simple. We don't need to give the cops an excuse for their brutality.

[Le Socialiste]

If it wasn't the drugs, the cops would be using the old "concern for property" to evict the occupiers. Drug use has its place - but demonstrations against social and economic inequality isn't one of them. People who come to these things expecting to have a "good time" are just going to cast these occupations in a bad light. It's just one more way for the police to intervene (not that they need an excuse anymore, the ones they're already churning out are pathetic at best).

[x359594]

...Get real... We should fight back tit for tat. :(

When the people have body armor, riot guns, flash grenades, automatic weapons, humvees, helicopters, a coordinated communications system, then they fight back "tit for tat." Get real indeed.

We are far from armed struggle, very far. Until then, non-violent confrontation is the best way, including strikes, sit-ins and occupations.

If you take a shot at the LAPD I'll send flowers to your funeral.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Unfortunately there comes times when one must square the notion of what the movement should be, with the reality of what the movement is. We may want it to be a movement where hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets and clubbing cops over the head with anything they can find, but the reality is that most Americans, even the disenfranchised, have a rather unhealthy support for authority. This is not like some other countries...a report from Void Network on Greece mentioned the fact that Greeks are shocked to learn that some people in the USA actually hand their wanted relatives over to the cops, for example. The point is: while directly attacking the state and it's minions may be satisfying (I myself admit to an irrational fascination with insurrectionist tactics), it will most likely make your popular support take a disappointing turn.

[Ocean Seal]

Unfortunately there comes times when one must square the notion of what the movement should be, with the reality of what the movement is. We may want it to be a movement where hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets and clubbing cops over the head with anything they can find, but the reality is that most Americans, even the disenfranchised, have a rather unhealthy support for authority. This is not like some other countries...a report from Void Network on Greece mentioned the fact that Greeks are shocked to learn that some people in the USA actually hand their wanted relatives over to the cops, for example. The point is: while directly attacking the state and it's minions may be satisfying (I myself admit to an irrational fascination with insurrectionist tactics), it will most likely make your popular support take a disappointing turn.
Yes, its true, I can't tell you how many times I've read that the protestors don't have the right to interrupt business, or to be an eyesore for the citizens who aren't protesting. And that even after posting a picture where people were hit by rubber bullets that they "got what they asked for". That the people don't have the right to intimidate the police. Seriously, intimate the fuckers with guns and riot shields? And of course I mean middle class internet losers who are saying these things because they don't have to worry about anything.

[x359594]

...I can't tell you how many times I've read that the protestors don't have the right to interrupt business, or to be an eyesore for the citizens who aren't protesting. And that even after posting a picture where people were hit by rubber bullets that they "got what they asked for". That the people don't have the right to intimidate the police...

This is precisely where non-violence enters. What to do when some people are hurting and others who have power don’t care? How do we make narrow, busy, and self-righteous people understand that other people exist?

It was exactly for this problem that Gandhi and his followers in the United States A.J. Muste and Martin Luther King devised and experimented the strategy of active massive non-violent confrontation, both non-violent resistance and aggressive non-violence. In my opinion, this is the only strategy that addresses all aspects of the situation. It challenges unconcern; it attacks institutions and confronts people as well. It personalizes the conflict so that habitual and mechanical responses are not easy. It diminishes strangeness. It opens possibilities for the narrow to grow and come across, instead of shutting them out. It interrupts the downward spiral of the oppressed into despair, fanaticism and brutality. Most important, it is the only realistic strategy, because it leads to rather than prevents the achievement of a future community among all the combatants. We will have to live together in some community or other. How? In what community? We really do not know, but non-violent conflict is the way to discover and invent it.

And by non-violence I'm talking about stopping business as usual with blockades, sit-ins, sit down strikes, work stoppages and strikes, particularly the general strike.

Violent resistance only becomes meaningful when a significant portion of the security apparatus turns against their masters. When the order for repression comes down and half the cops turn their weapons on the other half, that's the time for insurrection, because then we'll have a fighting chance.