Anger and Angry People

[marmar]

Published on Wednesday, November 9, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
Anger and Angry People

by Thomas S. Harrington


If you poke around a bit in the emerging body of literature on the Occupy Wall Street movement, you will find that one of the more oft-repeated elements of advice from well-wishers concerns the need to avoid being, or even appearing, overtly angry. As celebrity occupier Mark Ruffalo said, echoing the frequently repeated words of others, “We must be peaceful”.

There is, of course, a deep, compelling and proven logic to the idea of non-violent resistance, one that I generally embrace.

However, I can’t help but thinking that there may be a much more craven subtext to these repeated calls to “be peaceful” than most pro-OWS activists would care to admit. Though I cannot prove it, my sense is that this obsession with appearing good-humored and positive is not only about wanting to follow the noble examples Gandhi and King, but also to avoid being tarred as “angry” by the country’s right wing media machine.

“What’s wrong with that?” I can hear many of you saying. “Every movement must choose its tactics. In this case, avoiding frontal confrontation with powerful forces out to sink us is simply a matter of common sense.” ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/09-5

[patrice]

1. One of the first clues that I had sailed into tricky waters was on my occupation day

< 7, being approached by a rather well-kept but angry person I had never seen before, having a camp chair removed from my hands, and being told, over his shoulder, that my anger was ruining everything as said individual marched off never to be seen there again, as far as I know anyway.

[Vincardog]

2. Having read the complete piece I am in agreement with with the premise but would like to add 1

thought. Aside from internalizing "you have to be nice to be taken seriously children" message; the be nice and NON-violent command is asking us to unilaterally disarm.
How much violence do the PTB do to us on every given day?
Psychological, emotional and physical just watch the police response to "peaceful protests" much less their actions toward unarmed civilian "suspected drug traffickers.
My point is that they reserve the use of force and threat of violence at their option.
POWER CONCEDES NOTHING without a DEMAND.
Gandhi was not the only actor on the stage in India at the time. Some of the people were getting violent.
MLK Jr. Was speaking truth to power and asking for peaceful resistance.
The Black Panthers were walking around with guns, and SOME people were breaking into and bombing recruiting offices.
I am not and would not advocate violence. Certainly not on a public message board (see that Agent Mike?) but
Why should any movement deny itself any tool?

[BiggJawn]

5. Is Agent Mike still around?

I would have thought he'd been re-assigned by now.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. I love this part:

"Walk into a room of middle-of-the-road Democratic voters and point out what is undeniably true: that the US is, to paraphrase King, far and away the biggest purveyor of death, destruction and terror in the world. Even if you do so in the most affable and breezy of tones, I guarantee that within a few minutes at least one, and probably several, of the people hearing your exposition will assail you with charges about your being pathologically “negative” or “angry”."

I, for one, am sick and tired of liberals pussyfooting around everything, and am SO GLAD, we're finally angry! OWS being a peaceful movement does not mean we're not violently angry. It only means that we're choosing civil disobedience as a method of spreading a message. This movement will not cease until things change.

[MisterP]

4. 1 concern troll is worth 20 provocateurs

resiliency can fight police crackdowns by coming back, turmoil isn't fatal; physical problems take a few days to resolve

but internal suspicion is an incorporeal devil

by blowing the fear of "violence" out of proportion it lets Bloombergian views in to weaken the movement

[snagglepuss]

6. Excellent piece however I think part of the problem is that liberals place too much

importance on cool. After witnessing how Obama's cool has played out in favor of a corporate center right agenda, every person left of center needs to reassess the significance placed on "cool".