Goodman Grey
11-17-2020, 06:00 PM
https://crimethinc.com/2014/12/10/why-break-windows
From the initial revolt in Ferguson last August to the demonstrations in Oakland and Berkeley last week, property destruction has been central to a new wave of struggle against police violence. But what does vandalizing businesses have to do with protesting police brutality? Why break windows?
First, as countless others have argued, because property destruction is an effective tactic. From the Boston Tea Party to the demonstrations against the 1999 World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, property destruction has been an essential part of many struggles. It can pressure or punish opponents by inflicting an economic cost. It can mobilize potential comrades by demonstrating that the ruling forces are not invincible. It can force issues that otherwise would be suppressed—we would certainly not be having a nationwide conversation about race, class, and policing were it not for the courageous actions of a few vandals in Ferguson. Finally, it conveys an uncompromising rejection of the prevailing order, opening space in which people may begin to imagine another.
Shop windows represent segregation. They are invisible barriers. Like so much in this society, they simultaneously offer a view of “the good life” and block access to it. In a polarizing economy, shop windows taunt the poor with commodities they cannot afford, status and security they will never attain. For millions upon millions, the healthy food, medicines, and other goods they need are the breadth of an entire social class away from them, a gulf they will not cross in a lifetime of hard work—a gulf represented by half an inch of plate glass.
To smash a shop window is to contest all the boundaries that cut through this society: black and white, rich and poor, included and excluded.
One reactionary argument goes that vandals are wrecking “their own neighborhoods,” but this is a disingenuous way to speak about those whose names do not appear on any deeds.
“But some poor worker is going to have to clean that up,” sanctimonious liberals charge whenever they see a protester making free with the avenues of the wealthy. Anyone who has worked a blue-collar job knows that this is pure bunk. Replacing windows or scrubbing graffiti off a façade is no worse than any other kind of work one can get in that pay bracket—it’s not as though the workers in question would be doing something pleasant and fulfilling otherwise. If anything, vandalism creates jobs, offering additional work opportunities to service industry employees and construction workers whose labor would not otherwise be required. This means you can’t smash capitalism one storefront at a time—but trying to might at least redistribute a little wealth downward.
In the final analysis, sabotage and arson are the strategy of a retreating army—of those who know they will not hold a given terrain for long. A movement strong enough to retain the territory it seizes from the police wouldn’t need to break or burn anything, only to transform it.
Anyone who truly desires to see an end to property destruction should hasten to bring about the end of property itself. Then, at last, the only reason to break windows would be thrill seeking.
It's all starting to make sense now.
I'm going to break all of the windows in my house. I'll be back in a few minutes.
12893
In a way, I actually appreciate how the anarchists and antifas are doing at least one job for the human supremacists: they are making niggers look like dumb, stupid criminals that want to destroy everything they touch.
We only say that niggers are dumb, stupid criminals that want to destroy everything they touch. The anarchists and antifas are making a point of showing that niggers are dumb, stupid criminals that want to destroy everything they touch, by imitating the behavior of niggers.
From the initial revolt in Ferguson last August to the demonstrations in Oakland and Berkeley last week, property destruction has been central to a new wave of struggle against police violence. But what does vandalizing businesses have to do with protesting police brutality? Why break windows?
First, as countless others have argued, because property destruction is an effective tactic. From the Boston Tea Party to the demonstrations against the 1999 World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, property destruction has been an essential part of many struggles. It can pressure or punish opponents by inflicting an economic cost. It can mobilize potential comrades by demonstrating that the ruling forces are not invincible. It can force issues that otherwise would be suppressed—we would certainly not be having a nationwide conversation about race, class, and policing were it not for the courageous actions of a few vandals in Ferguson. Finally, it conveys an uncompromising rejection of the prevailing order, opening space in which people may begin to imagine another.
Shop windows represent segregation. They are invisible barriers. Like so much in this society, they simultaneously offer a view of “the good life” and block access to it. In a polarizing economy, shop windows taunt the poor with commodities they cannot afford, status and security they will never attain. For millions upon millions, the healthy food, medicines, and other goods they need are the breadth of an entire social class away from them, a gulf they will not cross in a lifetime of hard work—a gulf represented by half an inch of plate glass.
To smash a shop window is to contest all the boundaries that cut through this society: black and white, rich and poor, included and excluded.
One reactionary argument goes that vandals are wrecking “their own neighborhoods,” but this is a disingenuous way to speak about those whose names do not appear on any deeds.
“But some poor worker is going to have to clean that up,” sanctimonious liberals charge whenever they see a protester making free with the avenues of the wealthy. Anyone who has worked a blue-collar job knows that this is pure bunk. Replacing windows or scrubbing graffiti off a façade is no worse than any other kind of work one can get in that pay bracket—it’s not as though the workers in question would be doing something pleasant and fulfilling otherwise. If anything, vandalism creates jobs, offering additional work opportunities to service industry employees and construction workers whose labor would not otherwise be required. This means you can’t smash capitalism one storefront at a time—but trying to might at least redistribute a little wealth downward.
In the final analysis, sabotage and arson are the strategy of a retreating army—of those who know they will not hold a given terrain for long. A movement strong enough to retain the territory it seizes from the police wouldn’t need to break or burn anything, only to transform it.
Anyone who truly desires to see an end to property destruction should hasten to bring about the end of property itself. Then, at last, the only reason to break windows would be thrill seeking.
It's all starting to make sense now.
I'm going to break all of the windows in my house. I'll be back in a few minutes.
12893
In a way, I actually appreciate how the anarchists and antifas are doing at least one job for the human supremacists: they are making niggers look like dumb, stupid criminals that want to destroy everything they touch.
We only say that niggers are dumb, stupid criminals that want to destroy everything they touch. The anarchists and antifas are making a point of showing that niggers are dumb, stupid criminals that want to destroy everything they touch, by imitating the behavior of niggers.