This is B.S.

I was once a young man who thought anarchy was cool. (Until I read Ursula K. LeGuin’s marvelously nuanced The Dispossessed.) I get it that young people want to rebel, and get arrested and get photographed and generally express their (justifiable) outrage at a crazy world that makes no sense and which does not seem to welcome their input.

I just wish they understood that this is exactly what conservatives want to happen, because it marginalizes liberals and forces even hippy mayors like McGinn to hand power over to the police. More importanly, it reinforces the fear that the center has of any kind of counter cultural expression of anger, and at least in the current environment, pushes the center to the right.

Some broken car windows, some slashed tires, a few broken bank windows, some minor damage to government buildings is trivial in the long run, but it’s just a huge hassle to everyone in the short run.

So, while they want to be changing the world, what they are really accomplishing is solidifying the status-quo as an increasingly stratified, polarized entity. Given enough time and dedication, efforts like these could even topple our democracy — and replace it with the dictatorship they pretend we have today.

I was really impressed with the occupy movement last year which accomodated the punk anarchist crowd without empowering it to violence. Unfortunately, there was no such moderation today.

1. wscheryl reblogged this from blu3jack and added:

   Word!

2. mcjulie said: Yes. The instant you start smashing windows, you might as well be a bunch of soccer hooligans. And you have done more to discredit whatever movement you think you’re supporting than your enemies could ever dream of.
3. modida likes this
4. blu3jack posted this