chaos or victory, you decide

The willingness of so many sincere and dedicated oakland occupiers to defend the actions on jan 28 demonstrates a lack of experience and a potentially fatal misunderstanding about the political dynamics involved in our struggle. The unwillingness of those participating in and subsequently attempting to justify the chaos indicates a lack of understanding of our enemy and the seriousness of our struggle. This is not a game, it is real war, and unless we fight our war non-violently (198 tactics ) we give our power back to the enemy and loose our public support. There are many people who have been engaged in this struggle for decades, waiting for the moment when the young people would join them on the front lines and enough people stood up for change. Unfortunately, the rapid growth of the Occupy movement made it impossible to explain the basic dynamics of political struggle to all of these new activists. To be quite honest, I am new to the knowlege myself. If you have not availed yourself of the information provided by the Albert Einstein Institute for non-violence or the current tv documentary on gene sharp, please do. The Tunisians did, and the malaysians. If you think our people are less repressed, and deserve less than revolution, please, continue to break things, throw stuff at cops, and take out your uncontrolled emotion on whatever. If you want to win, follow the lead of earlier successful movements. Only discipline and order in the face of violent repression wins the hearts and minds of the 99% we are supposed to lead and represent. What % of the 99% can comprehend explanations of vandalism, justifications for flag burning? If you can’t control yourselves, why would the 99% trust you to make change? Chaos feels good, but it doesn’t work, and i would hate all of our efforts so far vanish into a melee of mindless disorder. What’s done is done, hopefully we can pick up the peices and move forward, it is up to you.