An excerpt from Rabbi Michael Lerner, followed by an account of the general assembly discussing violence.

1. Michael Lerner

” I have been participating both in Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco, and I feel that the Occupy movement nationally has made a tremendous contribution to our society. By formulating things in terms of “the 99%” it finally did what many other progressives have failed to do—namely, identify us as having a common interest in protecting ourselves from the class war that has been waged against us, all of us, for the past 30 years by the 1% and their representatives in the government, media, academia and military. So I remain a passionate supporter of this movement.

Yet some of the strengths that exist elsewhere are notably lacking in the core group that led people into the struggle in Oakland. Let me be clear, however: I know that at least 90% of the people who marched on Nov. 2nd during the General Strike and marched to the Port of Oakland are people who agree with you. But there is a determined group of violent self-described “anarchists” who ideologically believe in violence and seek it out. They correctly note that destruction of property is not the same as destruction of human beings, and they correctly note that the amount of violence against human beings built into our global economic and political systems makes any violence that they do pale in comparison. Moreover, the violence of the Oakland police has been a central reality in the lives of people of color in Oakland, and only stays in the attention of the media for more than a day or two when the victims are white (or in this case, a former US soldier back from Iraq and Afghanistan). So there is a built in hypocrisy when the media makes the story “the violence of the demonstrators.”

But those arguments are, in my view, not good reasons to allow violence or provoke violence or property destruction by demonstrators, for two reasons: 1. We should be non-violent because it is the right way to treat other human beings created in the image of God, and should not seek to create circumstances in which police violence is inevitably triggered unless we do so by ourselves being totally nonviolent in action and words. I’m in favor of non-violent disruptions of oppressive institutions (e.g. a sit-in in the Bank of America or in a Wall Street firm or in a corporation involved in illegitimate foreclosures or in producing military equipment or at the State Dept or the various offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Services given their vicious processes) as long as we keep a 100% non-violent stance. I do not think people need to sit down and get arrested–though that works in many cases; it is also legitimate to do nonviolent disruptions using mobile tactics in which demonstrators disrupt and then withdraw to disrupt somewhere else–as long as the demonstrators avoid destruction of property or creating a situation in which violence is inevitable. Non-violence does not mean passivity, but it must mean a fundamental respect for human life and for the dignity of human beings, including those with whom we strongly disagree. Our actions must reflect that sense of respect for the humanity of the Other–because that is precisely what is absent from the policies and practices of the 1% and those who do their bidding. 2. Though breaking windows or destroying property is not the same as breaking bones, it is perceived by much of the American public as a wrongful act, and a movement that engages in that activity quickly loses public support and isolates itself no matter how much the American public agrees with its goals. That is why the FBI and other elements of the “security apparatus” of the US government have consistently planted their youngest employees inside social movements with the goal of trying to encourage acts of violence so as to provide an excuse to repress those movements with public approval.

But non-violence has not been the stance of the inner core at Occupy Oakland. I was deeply disturbed, and have withdrawn from active involvement with, a group of clergy who were meeting to discuss how they could assist in Occupy Oakland. At the third meeting I attended I proposed that we urge Occupy Oakland to officially endorse non-violence, train monitors to non-violently restrain violence-oriented demonstrators, and appeal to the majority of demonstrators to support these monitors to restrain the violence-oriented ones. To my shock, the clergy voted that down. They were only willing to endorse a resolution saying that they themselves supported non-violence, but they objected to the notion that they should call upon OO to share this same orientation.

Not surprisingly, then, a few days later when one of the participants at OO suggested a resolution for non-violence, without the active support of this clergy group the people who agreed with him felt silenced after some part of the crowd actively booed when he mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi’s commitments and teachings for non-violence.

The dominant reason given by the clergy for their cowardice was that “we have no right to impose our view on those who are taking the risks of sleeping outside at Occupy Oakland; we should respect their process.” But advocating is not imposing, and a movement that claims to speak for 99% of the population ought to have some mechanism to pay attention to the sensibilities of the people whom they claim to be speaking for! If those of us who have been in the movement, marched with the movement, and publicly advocated for the movement, do no have a legitimate voice in that movement, it seems transparent that such a movement cannot claim to be fighting for democracy. It thus undermines itself.

I watched this same thing happen in the 1960s and early 1970s when a small group of violence-oriented Weathermen, and the FBI agents who infiltrated the anti-war movement and a few of their more suggestible followers, managed to play an important role in undermining support for the entire movement by demeaning people who weren’t ready to “prove their commitment” by violent or property-destroying acts. Not only did the violence provide public justification for an increase in repression of the anti-war movement, it also soured the millions of people who were attracted to the possibility of building a different kind of world based on love, kindness, generosity and caring for others. The mass of participants in our movement abandoned it once the violence-prone got the attention of the corporate media, and I fear that the same thing is happening now.

There’s yet another twist in our current situation. The Occupy movement is meant to challenge the class war being waged against the 99% by the 1%. Sitting in front of a particular building to make that point was a useful tactic. But the people who are there have turned the tactic into a fetishization of the encampments, as though the movement was really about their right to set up tents and stay their all night, rather than about challenging the materialism and selfishness of the global marketplace and the lack of democracy in a society that allows the wealthy and the corporations to give endless monies to elect people (in both major parties) who in turn support the corporate agenda and the tax benefits for the rich. I personally believe that the city governments should actively help the demonstrators find a place to demonstrate in an area adjacent to the forces they are demonstrating against. But if they don’t, we should not make that the center of the struggle, because there are a myriad of other tactics to keep the issue on the front burner.”

2. Oakland Assembly does not condemn violence:

“Gan Golan, a 37-year-old former Bay Area resident who still has an Oakland cell phone area code but no permanent residence, led much of the discussion. He’s been traveling between occupation sites across the country and heard about the general strike and subsequent rioting while in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. He said his phone had since been lighting up with text messages from New York occupiers curious for his take on Oakland’s events.

“People are very much in awe of what is happening in Oakland, so I felt the need to come witness it myself,” Golan said. “But that awe is very much about the nonviolent direct action at the port. There was a tremendous amount of disappointment about the use of ineffective vandalist tactics that did not seem in keeping with the ethos of this movement nationally. And that concern is very widespread through the occupations I’ve seen.”

Earlier that night, 599 Occupy Oakland voters rejected a proposal intended to distance the movement from black bloc tactics. Golan found the proposal’s language confusing and contradictory, calling for those employing black bloc tactics to be “responsible” in their actions and think twice about vandalizing property, but also supporting the movement’s right to ill-defined “all-inclusive tactics.” One skeptical general assembly speaker complained that the proposal was open-ended, and wondered whether it might force Occupy Oakland to green-light the “kidnapping and torturing of families of corporate executives.” The black bloc proposal, said Golan, “was completely unclear, and this movement needs to be emphatically clear.”

After the black bloc proposal failed, 63-year-old Allan Brill preemptively withdrew a separate nonviolence proposal that was unlikely to pass. Later, several speakers at the assembly questioned the short-lived occupation of the former Travelers Aid Society building, which led to a police crackdown with tear gas and “less lethal” projectiles in the wee hours of the morning following the port shutdown. One middle-aged man sympathized with a proposal to march to a different foreclosed building in the city and occupy it, but said, “I just think it’s a real tactical mistake to do it as Occupy Oakland.” (In the 1980s and early ‘90s, a campaign to occupy foreclosed buildings led to relatively peaceful confrontations with police.)

Ultimately, while many Oakland occupiers might empathize with the frustrations driving black bloc fans to bold statements and shows of force, the fear of alienating mainstream sympathy for the movement looms large. As Oakland union organizer Jeff Duritz put it: “It’s nearly impossible to change the country. The only way that that could possibly happen is if that’s a mass movement. If my mom can’t come, we’re not going to change the country. That’s the bottom line. We could spend days debating what ‘violence’ means, but when we boil it down, when someone smashes a window that means no one’s mom is coming, and we need the moms to come.”