Article "In Defense of Looting"
I read this article during the "Berkeley Protests", and I thought it was interesting:
http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/in-defense-of-looting/
During the Berkeley protests, where the "looting" was penny ante to say the least, there were many aspects to consider:
1) The looters could not be pinned down to a particular "culprit": mixed in with the protesters were provocateurs, anarchists, and people who just wanted to get some free beer.
2) The looters targeted corporate/chain stores over local businesses - the type that tend to exploit people for minimum wage and on-call shifts. This might have only been a phenomenon in an area with a heightened awareness of issues of corporate power, though.
3) The police were playing political games. But, of course they had to, since they couldn't do much enforcement: they had screwed up community relations to the point where they didn't have enough community behind them to safely do their jobs on the street.
4) Property owners got outraged and complained "protesters aren't doing it right" to "get people on their side" as usual. Protesters, in reply, cried back: "where were you before we started breaking your stuff?" Blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, I was fascinated that someone took a shot at philosophically/politically justifying what is normally depicted as mob violence and "thug behavior". If thug is the new "N" word, how do you explain that in Berkeley it was a lot of white people? This is a political practice, and people do start screaming "Diversity of tactics!" when you try to stop them - and in Berkeley some people were injured when they did make a citizen's attempt to stop the vandalism and looting.
In another DU thread a politician is suggesting withholding food stamps from parents who don't stop their children from protesting. Perhaps one way to view vandalism and looting is as the natural response to this genuinely oppressive, downward-pounding political power that is always there for the poor, but rarely so openly placed in plain view.
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