Protests and violence

Good news: great march on the Port, peaceful, diverse, festive; much thanks to the organizers. Bad news: (mostly) after hours knuckleheads undermine the success of the march. The vast majority of the organizers and participants understand that the greatest threat to the success of Occupy is the knuckleheads. Strongly suggest that Occupy Oakland adopt as a principle, non-violence, and that if anyone refuses to abide by that he (because they’re all young {predominantly white] males) be barred from participating. Allowing anyone to participate is a nice idea, but because of the knuckleheads, it threatens to derail the movement. This can’t be allowed to happen, there’s too much at stake. Don’t these naive, acting-out, selfish adolescents know of the Weathermen? How about getting some ex-Weathermen to come talk to them (because in retrospect, they know how naive they were)? Chris Hedges is also a powerful voice of non-violence, I bet he’d come, if we can get the black bloc goons to attend. If Occupy Oakland doesn’t get a handle on this, it’s doomed, and it could have repercussions on the broader movement, and if the movement fails, everyone is toast.