The guys in black were trying to provoke the police to violence.

As I understand the Berkeley situation, the police only started to try to disperse the protest after the vandalism and looting started. The Black Bloc guys started throwing things like bottles and bricks at the police.

When I observed this at the Oakland Occupy march, these guys would run up really close to police officers who were just standing there and observing: they would spit, shout curse words, and throw stuff - do anything they could to get a rise out of the police officer. They were trying to CREATE police violence.

when there's something to fight back against.

All I'm saying is in these cases there weren't. This is an area famous for public protest. The police go out of their way to be circumspect.

I wouldn't put it past law enforcement to actually *plant* some anarchy, though...

that often the police plant the anarchists so that they can then have the excuse to move in on the demonstration

In my "helicopters" thread someone noted how the nightly sound of helicopters creates the impression of living in a war zone. If government agents and/or off-duty police officers are inserting themselves in these protests as "anarchists" just to create a pretext for shutting the protests down, city leaders need to know that THEY are the ones who need to be billed for the damage caused to their city. THEY are the ones getting in the way of what their citizen's actually want. THEY are the "looters and the vandals", not the protesters in general.

And THEY are bringing down these helicopters onto the city.

They've caught cops in Oakland (as well as everywhere else) instigating trouble. Their goal is to get the police to break up the protest. If there's an announced protest anywhere, there will be cops posing as protesters. Guaranteed!

So these guys could indeed be "professional activists" from "out of town"...but they could actually be law enforcement officials bent on making the protests look bad. Good catch!!!

Someone should tweet this at the Berkeley Police Department.

Their helicopters just started circling again. It's after 1am. Geez.

How is it what while "regular" protesters are arrested with surprising regularity, these violent vandals... never are? Ever heard of "Black Bloc Anarchists' standing trial for the harm they cause?

Nope. Apparently they are magical elves, able to turn invisible, dodge every police line and "kettling" action, never land in handcuffs, much less face charges or prison time...

As we speak, the Berkeley police, and all the area law enforcement they called in to assist them, seem to be going after a group of peaceful protesters on Telegraph avenue. I haven't seen yet that the "anarchists" are even with these folks. Yet now the police feel at liberty to come in with truncheons waving and tear-gas flying. A Unitarian minister intern was hit over the back of the head with a baton! WTF!

Stuff like that tends to lend creedence to the idea those "anarchists" might have been inserted by someone as a pretext for later action.

They are also buzzing Berkeley residential neighborhoods with helicopters again at 1:30am.

I'm wondering if it would be feasible for activists everywhere to organize volunteers willing to somehow (using peaceful means) stop these criminal elements in their tracks? Have say, a group (or groups) of trustworthy fellow activists who will keep an eye out for any mischief these folks may be up to? Iow, beat them at their own game? This of course, being worked out prior to any sort of protest action. Easier said than done, I'm sure, since I suspect that trying to thwart them, even in a peaceful way, would be a dangerous undertaking.

But I'm convinced that these black bloc forces do what they do because it works for them in turning public opinion against the cause. If somehow enough people would be willing to volunteer, maybe they could create a kind of human shield that would propel these folks away from whatever criminal activity they are trying to do?

Has anything like this ever been attempted before? Do *you* (as in anyone) think it might be do-able?

A guy at the Berkeley protest did attempt to take pictures of him, but they bullied him into deleting his pictures:
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/12/06/breaking-post-ferguson-demo-in-downtown-berkeley-march-continues-to-berkeley-police-hq/

Uh, one of the few people arrested was one of the violent vandals.

If you squint, you can read it off their shoulder patches.

More info: http://imgur.com/a/tsgAB

And it says he was arrested. S'not much information.

If you follow the full image, the shoulder patch is legible. The other illegible ones are the Oakland PD.

If you click on the pics, they enlarge.

Not that it wouldn't have been better to just say that in the post.

Or was he released the minute the cops had him out of sight?

However, you could say the same of any protester who was ever arrested from a group. The arrests incite the crowd in general and show that the police are taking action. An undercover police officer doesn't have to be a violent agitator, so if you believe there is a conspiracy, why not treat all arrested protesters with suspicion?

There were thousands of people in the streets protesting Bush. Bus after bus after bus of protesters from around the country were arriving on that cold day and I swear I saw many more protesters than I did Bush supporters.

When my friend and I went into a restaurant to get something to eat, however, all we saw on the headline news that was on TV was one Black Block person scuffling with DC police on the street.

Can someone please tweet that info here:
@BPDOffcWhite

Before the Berkeley police department starts unleashing the laser cannons at the peaceful protesters...

Along with naive edgy teenagers encouraged to be violent by said infiltrators.

The Berkeleyside comments show that most believe that they are "anarchists"

The police seem to have a clear mandate to "stop" the protest by any means possible now, since they are even dispersing the "peaceful" groups. The dispersal is still going on, if the low-flying helicopters are any indication...

To discredit the Vietnam Veterans Against the War FBI provocateurs performed very similar functions attempting to escalate non-violent protest into confrontation and mob violence.

It seems rather obvious that the so called "black bloc" anarchists would far more likely be agents of some kind, perhaps hired from one of the 3rd party security contractors like Blackwater by right wing NeoCons to provoke the kind of confrontation which discredits legitimate protest.

No I don't wear aluminum foil headgear and yes there is an unusual consistency to "black bloc" anarchist activity and the lack of arrests of the same people.

There are plenty of private interests that would like to stop a revolution against the police state that's protecting the castles of the modern feudal lords, not to mention the forces of white supremacy. Buying a few kids to stir up trouble would be a drop in the bucket.

It's not always the case, but sometimes it is. Just never discount it.

for groups or individuals on the "periphery" who might engage in FU activities. We would point them out and massage the main body of the demonstration around these guys, and tag along with them so they wouldn't crop up elsewhere. Some were yee-hah "anarchists," though.

You don't know who they are.
so you can speculate all you want.
But do not presume that you know who they are.
or what their motives are.

off-balance, away from others who could be harmed.

They do cost the city a lot of money, they do damage local businesses and property, and they do create hostility in the community instead of support: they get away with what they set out to do.

Saying "peaceful protest" as you pass by doesn't do a heck of a lot to stop them.

In the comments in Berkeleyside, there were various remarks (possibly planted astroturf from the very people who planted the anarchists) that the protesters should have "stopped" the anarchists. How? These guys are violent. "Stopping" them would have manufactured more violence, creating a pretext for the police to intervene and disperse the protest. i.e. - exactly what they want.

The police need to step in and stop them, but apparently the police are afraid of bad photo ops now. The anarachists are TRYING to catch police "engaged in violence" against them.

Most of the people arrested in Ferguson were outsiders. In other words people were coming in from outside the community and causing problems with the police, triggering a clamp down on everyone else.

The reality is that there really are anarchists out there. They hate the government. They hate the police. They hate how the world is organized. They hate any authority in general. And they will take advantage of any opportunity to create havoc and mayhem. They start the violence and misguided teens and college kids begin to join in with them.
There are also others that join in with them because they think violence is the way to solve the problem. They don't believe peaceful protests force any changes. They think you have to cause destruction to the system to get people to listen.

Maybe they don't have to.

The police will also infiltrate even if they don't have to, however, so it's kind of a wash.

spittle-flying shit about "running dog, counter-revolutionary" blah-blah because they couldn't throw a brick in a demo they glommed on to.

I keep hearing that the anarchists are "outsiders" or from "outside the community". How do we know if they are wearing masks?

If your theory is correct, and this is just 4Chan erupting in real life, then it could easily be any kid from WITHIN the community, and their parents would be appalled and humiliated to find out.

But there is another possibility in here, too. They might not be payroll police/government agents. They could be privately paid provocateurs or off-duty police pursuing their own vendettas.

In any case: they aren't a part of the protest, and they don't represent the protest. They are there to sabotage the protest, raise the hostility of the local community, and draw police intervention before the protest can become a movement or a revolution.

lot of myths.
it's people like you who got saccho and venzetti killed. but I guess you're all for that.

But it's amusing given your choice of avatar that you'd believe in "anarchist outsiders causing trouble."

cops behind the barricades. I had to leave the protest to catch the train back to virginia, and watched a couple of them hop into a van and pull off their garb, back slapping other cops in the vehicle. Cops undercover causing destruction to discredit the protest. That's what they were.

I heard similar happened at Occupy protests, but NYC is where I witnessed it.

I'm sure they were "just a couple bad apples"...

I was at that protest and I can provide proof. As to the title of my post, how do I know? Because another student and I noticed that some of them were other students we recognized. Sad but true.

UC - Berkeley. The peaceful protesters were also from the school too.

see your proof you said you can provide, that's all.

...is hardly worth the efforts of discernment.

Both have roughly the same effect, and they reinforce each other.

Were the World Series rioters all police? How about the Pumpkin Festival rioters?

To assume that everyone who breaks something is working for the police is a bit paranoid, IMO.

the armed, roof top Oath Keepers actually fire on some looters, smashing windows, shoot a couple of cops actors dressed in black with faces covered.

The problem with a conspiracy theory like this is, every on duty cop would have to know about the plan to keep the actors safe. If they all know, there will always be that one honest cop that would expose the whole thing.

They could be hired "private provocateurs" - by private interests who are trying to prevent social change. The Canadian cops who were caught as "anarchists" were off duty.

Some anarchists take the position that police and other authorities are always violent, whether their violence is explicit or not; that their principle is violence. (I find it difficult to argue against that point.) They then adopt various illegal tactics in order to force the police to make their violence explicit and obvious to everybody, in the belief that this will make an anarchist revolution more likely. (I think, and experience proves, that they are utterly wrong on that score.)

These ideas are easy to find using "the googles."

http://www.infoshop.org/Blackbloc-Faq

This link is ten years old, though.

Black bloc tactics have been controversial among anarchists.

http://struggle.ws/rbr/rbr6/black.html

This is also old. Recent stuff is harder to find, but here is one:

http://anarchymag.org/tag/black-bloc/

For those who (like me) advocate a disciplined nonviolent direct action in the tradition of MLK and Gandhi, Black Blocs do present a dilemma. And it is not clear the extent to which they are the dupes of police agents, although I personally doubt that the authorities are that smart. But speculation about whether they exist or not is not necessary.

Has this tactic ever inspired a large protest to revolution against the police? It seems to regularly just inspire complaint about people undermining a great protest by bringing in the police too soon and forcing dispersal. It also may prevent older people from joining for fear of the tear gas and rubber bullets.

Since this I saw this going on (ineffectively) at Occupy, and people in this thread are mentioning a long history of provocateur tactics going back to the Civil Rights Movement, I have a hard time believing this is an actual ongoing belief/political strategy. At this point it's magical thinking!

At the risk of sounding paranoid - but I believe some of the NSA tactics Edward Snowden exposed gives me some latitude to do so - perhaps some of those web sites are honeypots to try to attract "like thinkers" or perhaps they are out there just to create the impression that such a political position exists in order to "explain" the protest behavior when it occurs?

Nevertheless -- people believe a lot of things despite experience to the contrary, and persist for generations. Free market economics, for example.

Further, there are some clues that (at least some of) the black blocers really believe that stuff. For example, there is some distinction made between property destruction (sabotage) and aggressive violence. Agents provocateurs would make no such distinction.

So what? Well, they might be persuaded. They like to talk about anarchists "tolerating" a wide range of tactics. However, black bloc intervention makes a tactic of disciplined nonviolence impossible. They are not "tolerating" the tactics we choose to make use of.

But argument probably won't work, so nonviolent demonstrators need to develop some strategy for dealing with them. If their motives are misunderstood, that will not be successful. As Hagar the Horrible said, "It's important to look at things from the other guy's point of view -- that way he can't pull any surprise moves on you."

The peaceful protesters try to ignore and march around them. They announce and state "peaceful protest" as they do. They try to avoid creating situations of violence that would give the anarchists what they want.

When a guy tried to take pictures of them at the Berkeley protest he was surrounded and bullied into deleting the pictures.

It is the job of the police to deal with looters and vandals, not the job of the protesters.

And it is the job of alert citizens to recognize the difference between peaceful protesters and these "anarchists" who may or may not be planted provocateurs.

and look, I don't have the answers. To suggest tactics I would have to know the ground, and I don't, wasn't there.

But if "it is the job of the police," that seems to call for the protesters to coordinate with the police to suppress the anarchists. That does not seem a promising idea for a lot of reasons.

For the peaceful protestors to take violent action to suppress the anarchists also does not seem promising, besides being inconsistent. As I said, a dilemma.

What this line of thought leads me to -- and remember this is just speculation, not knowing the ground -- is that the peaceful protesters might be able to take some nonviolent action to exclude anyone wearing a mask. In the right situation, one of the Black Bloc tactics, linking arms, might be used against them.

As I say, this is not an answer. Only a conjecture. But if the protesters are to make a difference, they will have to think strategically, and strategy in turn demands discipline and leadership. Building in that direction seems at least the first step toward an answer.

I happened to be on the periphery last night, as I left a performance on campus about 10:30pm. Due to where my car was parked, I had to snake back toward Telegraph, a few blocks from where police had just unleashed tear gas and sound grenades. Students were running away southbound on Telegraph, and as the crowd thinned, I saw 3 young white males dressed in black bloc attire, faces covered, also walking southbound on Telegraph. Two were together talking, the other was across the street texting on his phone. They reminded me of the exact same types of young people who caused all the vandalism and acts of violence during Occupy Oakland demonstrations. I did not attempt to photograph these three, as they were not causing any violence at the time, and I didn't want to risk my safety (these guys do not like to be photographed).

While I have no evidence of who these young men were last night (and I'm very familiar with the subversive tactics of COINTELPRO), my sense is that these young adults are coming from the same group of like-minded agitators who were so disruptive to Occupy Oakland. Sadly during OO, there was also a larger group of activists who either directly supported the Black Bloc tactics, or who refused to denounce vandalism and other acts of violence, because they believed the system was inherently violent and therefore warranted being addressed as such, or at minimum left that option open should it be deemed appropriate. There were heated debates and panel discussions about it, but these folks were very firm in their beliefs (which appear to be a distortion of anarchism) and also very controlling when it came to dominating the open mike discussion around calling for an end of violence. This issue proved one of the main reason that many long time political activists (myself included) chose to distance ourselves from the local OO movement, even though we felt strongly that the message of Occupy Wall Street was so crucial to bring to a larger forum.

From my perspective, these folks - and it doesn't take many of them – will insert themselves into any demonstration or movement that gives them an opportunity to cause a disturbance, because that's what they like to do. They are cowards and bullies. I've wanted to ask them directly, "if you believe what you are doing is so important and justifiable, why are you hiding behind the mask of anonymity and hijacking a demonstration with goals other than your own? Why not do your own action publicly and take full responsibility for it?"

Addressing the question of how to respond to black bloc and similar acts of provocation, vandalism and violence, since currently so much protest activism is driven my social media - it's both how people find out about protests to attend, and also get in-the-moment information of what's happening, which brings more people out whether to participate or act as witness – what I'd suggest is using that forum to develop a simple protocol for peaceful activists to use in any type of protest demonstration where a splinter group engages in violence.

One idea might be to adopt a simple chant, the moment that any vandalism or violent action occurs along the lines of: "Peaceful protest, turn around, sit down. Violence out!". Then act on that chant by turning around and sitting down in place. If the protest is large, it would take a bit of time to ripple out, also time for folks to stop in place.

What this action would do: 1) send a clear message to police and public which demonstrators supports peaceful action and who supports violent action; 2) it would separate out violent black bloc type protestors – they would either become visible (and arrestable), or dissipate into the surrounding observer crowd rendering them less disruptive; and 3) it would hopefully diffuse tension with police as seated protestors are generally not considered threatening or harmful.

Once the protest has calmed down, if protesters chose to continue a march – and it's important that protestors have the democratic right to exercise their free speech – they might actually do so with police escort ensuring safety for all present. A very different type of engagement than being behind a line of police in riot gear. Granted this kind of action would only work in communities like ours in Oakland, Berkeley, and SF, where there's generally government support for public protest and respect for first amendment rights.

Remember, yesterday's protest started as a 5pm die-in at an intersection near downtown Berkeley where police had shut down traffic to enable the protest to take place, safely I might add. Once the protestors decided to get up and walk/march, Berkeley police followed on bicycle patrol. It was only after protestors walked to Berkeley Police Station and became confrontational that things escalated. While there is no way to evaluate yet whether there was any excessive use of force used during the course of the demonstration, it was hardly not a case of riot-wielding police tactics from the get-go attempting to shut down free speech.

While I agree there have been and continue to be egregious actions by individual police officers as well as some police departments (Cleveland PD was just placed under federal decree) that definitely need to be addressed, it behooves us to work toward engaging police in a positive manner. They are community members too. (Along those lines I had some very positive and illustrative moments engaging with SF police while getting arrested in civil disobedience immediate following the start of the Iraq war.) We build community and public support when our actions clearly follow our principles.

I think the peaceful protesters are at a loss here. In the video they are trying chanting peaceful protest, they are willing it not to happen. The guy that gets too close was hit in the head with a hammer. The people video-taping were harassed and threatened.

Really, these guys are criminals, and the police have to take care of it. This is not a matter for the peaceful protesters to take care of in order to prove their protest is really a peaceful protest. That's the same as saying the citizens of a town have to confront dangerous criminals themselves in order to prove they live in a peaceful town. It's dangerous for the protesters to confront these guys. For one thing - they could be regular thieves just pretending to be anarchists. This time it was a hammer - the next time it could be a knife.

The video is in this live blog:
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/12/07/ferguson-garner-protesters-take-to-streets-of-berkeley-for-second-night-running/

Agreed, there's no way peaceful, non-violent action protesters can successfully or safely engage in with these provocateurs. The latter want to incite violence, and will use violence to stop anyone who stops them. Their modus operandi tactics are expressly designed to make it very difficult for police "to take care of it" before violence happens, because these people hide out and take cover within a larger peaceful protest until such time as they can do their dirty work, at which point they slip out of sight as quickly as possible. They're cowards and bullies.

What peaceful protestors can do is develop a pre-agreed upon protocol how to respond once any vandalism or violent provocation occurs. This can't be figured out in situ. If there were some agreed upon protocol to immediately stop, sit down (which would stop forward momentum becoming non-threatening), and begin a calm peaceful protocol chant, then it would isolate violent protestors without putting anyone in jeopardy, and/or it would send them off into the surrounding shadows, where police could more readily take care of it because non-violent protestors would be sitting down. Any agreed upon non-violent response protocol could be readily disseminated through social media, and this protocol would also become recognized by police, who would understand it's intention and make them more able to focus their attention of locating and arresting violent perpetrators. The police will be far more successful with help, and they will also be far more positively positioned to help facilitate peaceful protest. Activist movements will gain far more respect and credibility when law enforcement by it's mere existence isn't seen as an inherent evil, but instead as a part of the community whose responsibility is to engage and protect all within the community.

It behooves us all to find ways to isolated those that seek to hijack peaceful protest and distort the message to fit their aims. Otherwise, any crucial message inherent in any social justice cause peaceful protestors bringing to the forefront will be drowned out in the media rhetoric of "more violent protests" message.

There were those within OO who refused to consider any type of internal violence suppression protocol, or from the perspective even worse, turning black bloc vandals into the police, because they steadfast claimed that the system was violent so turning people into a violent system was unjust.

I don't know if other areas of the country are experiencing this type of black bloc hijacking of protest causes, but given that it's now a fixture in the Bay Area protest movements, we need to work internally to help solve the problem and retake our protest movements.

The key point -- that strategic foresight, self-discipline and leadership are needed -- is confirmed, I think.

The report from inside OO confirmed my impression that OWS was dominated by an anti-leadership view that really is anarchistic. The anti-leadership view is quite common among the Americans I encounter -- somewhat a generational thing, but broader. This made OWS vulnerable to the BB and more generally ineffective, IMO. But, just for that reason, it is important to engage with the anarchists, to build enough trust to put together a movement that can change society.

One further note. In Philly, the report was that the Oakland protests became violent, in that some demonstrators threw back smoke grenades. Nothing about a BB. I guess it is not so much matter of "what message you send" (except to those present, including police), since the message that gets our will be the one that the MSM choose to transmit. It is a matter of changing the behavior of BB anarchists by eliminating the vulnerability of the demonstration to their disruption. They are not irrational, just confused, and will change their behavior if they perceive a reason to.

and how to "force the hand" of the authorities to break up a movement while turning public sentiment against it. Every government has a copy-- it's how they use it that makes a difference.

We'll never know for sure unless something goes very wrong and maybe the wrong person gets shot and they can't cover it up, but the people doing this are very good at what they do. And I would assume they believe they are doing the right thing.

It is notable that the aggressors seem to have magical ways of not being caught by the enormous police presence. As noted already, a few might be caught for show, but then the story ends.

professional provocateurs courtesy of DHS or whomever to sway public opinion, and that, is so easy where many people in the US don't think but just react siding naively with those oppressing them.

His protests were stage with an intent to provoke. The goal was to get responses that would give him and opportunity to bring a lawsuit. I feel sure that another goal that would be worthwhile to the haters would be to make the protesters look bad.

and yes you are correct

They're bored kids and assholes who thrive on chaos.

Look, this happened in my neighborhood. (And you haven't lived until you've tried shuttling disabled people through that shit show). The chaotic types were the usual array of bored students, fantasy anarchists, and local layabouts who were taking time away from smoking weed and begging for cash on Telegraph and Shattuck.

I know the employees of that Trader Joes and speak with them multiple times a week. They didn't deserve what they got.

And the protesters attempting to go on 80? To what purpose? That "expressway" is shut down on a normal day because the Bay Area couldn't engineer a functioning highway if they had civil servants genetically modified by NASCAR.

The locals are pissed. Students were ending up tear-gassed in their apartments because the protestors started flying down residential side streets.

It's unnecessary to lay every misdeed at some shadowy government group. This happened because some assholes can't control themselves. (And many protestors were getting upset as hell at their antics and doing their best to undo what was being done).

It easy to conspiracy theorize from afar. I was there. It wasn't the secret government agitators. It was assholes, plain and simple.

is the cost of living in revolutionary times.

I don't suppose it can be anticipated when the mob will reach a "Battleship Potemkin" moment. In every revolution, it may be "the assholes" who tip the scales. This is probably what scares the authorities the most. There is no way to predict what spark will light the fuse.

Spoken like a true online armchair activist.

Wanna come by and help clean up?

No, no. You're not going to, are you? But please, tell me all about the glorious revolution that is coming. It's been coming for decades. Any minute now, right?

but I can understand anyone giving up on this system. Can't you?

Protests are only tolerated if they are entirely peaceful with no unruly elements that might disrupt day-to-day consumer lives.

We're like China, in other words.

Check out what EVERY OTHER FREE COUNTRY in the world does when it comes to protests. By NON-left groups like unions, farmers, etc.

Are most black blocs infiltrated by provocateurs? Sure. Most black blocs (that were composed of actual anarchists, which is pretty scarce these days) don't do anything more to vandalize / attack cops than YOU do. But people dislike their politics, so they don't want them to have the right to march. The fact is that most anarchist groups these days have dropped the whole black bloc concept as singling out certain protesters for persecution by both the gov't and the center-right (er, left). And the concept of masking yourself only works if you're being tear-gassed or if everyone does it.

So the groups you see tend to be kids who are behind on the times and looking for a fight (which would be understandable but it's not since it's pretty much the same impulse behind looting) or provocateurs, nevertheless, the fact remains it's considered unacceptable to be a left-libertarian in the modern day US left -- to the extent that there is a left. So you get concern posts attacking other factions because fundamentally Americans aren't fed up with the system and would be perfectly satisfied if these issues were cosmetically fixed and just went away. After all, we've got the best economy evar!

Sorry but that is pretty delusional.

but you just keep your eyes shut tight...

Hong Kong protests, Ukranian Revolt, Egypt-Arab Spring, Greek protests against austerity...

The "revolution" is a side show in a handful of large cities.

My point is that we can't know what will light a spark.

And the fact that you are unaware of wide scale demonstrations and protests in America speaks volumes about your actual knowledge of events at street level. Calling the building anger and frustration with the system a side show insults those with legitimate grievances who have taken to the streets.

Black lives matter. The people who say so are not freaks.

Of course black lives matter. And no where did I say that people who think so are freaks. Your implication that I don't think black lives don't matter is disgusting and uncalled for - disagreeing with you does not make me a racist.

Do I really need to point out all the towns and cities that are not having demonstrations and will likely never have demonstrations? Occupy put more people in the streets and we can see how that amounted to nothing.

This implies freaks.

I participated in Occupy. At street level there is anger and frustration simmering. I think it is dangerous to dismiss the feelings. A lot of Americans are fed up. And things aren't getting better for them.

You are the one who's jumping up and down and yelling.

To paint me as an uncaring racist. It takes a lot of effort to do that.

Why do you think I am upset and yelling - unlike you I have not turned to personal insults because you disagree with me.

You labeled protesters as part of a "side show." I took exception to the use of such a term to characterize people's legitimate protests.

I don't know who said you were an uncaring racist. Certainly not me.

you have no way for certain to know whether these 'assholes' were actually agents provocateurs? Indeed, the fact that you exhibit such animosity -- "the locals are pissed -- toward them now testifies to the effectiveness of the tactic in demoralizing and dividing what should be the movement's natural base (disaffected middle class students and urban proletariat).

The protest was largely peaceful. A few rogue elements created this reaction.

But how can you call them the "kids smoking weed" on Telegraph when the same uniform-wearing anarchists show up at the other protests to commit vandalism/looting, and they showed up at the Occupy marches as well. This is not a "local" phenomenon. Do you think there was some kiosk where local kids could sign up and get their black uniforms?

The "anarchists" (in quotes because I doubt that's what they actually are) wanted to sabotage the protest. They wanted you to have the reaction you are presenting here. They wanted you to go posting it on the Internet. They probably have an army of astroturfers to post similar "reactions".

I think the Berkeley police failed last night by focusing on breaking up the protest instead of zeroing in on these fake "anarchists".

Move that Overton Window to the right, people.

it's not like the cops and FBI haven't been caught instigating violence at peaceful protests enough times

and then you expect the rest of the population to be sympathetic...sure makes you pathetic. Black blox, anarchists are out there for one reason destruction. I love how you think it the cops putting them out there. Its the same assholes from various other protests we have seen in recent years busting up the place while trying to provoke the police. Hopefully they got enough pictures to start targeting them. I loved some of the Twitter photos of them and then people complaining about people snitching, when they were posted showing thme breaking out windows etc.

Primarily they're young teenagers. They aren't anarchists any more than you are I are. They just like to take advantage of any situation where they can destroy stuff without the likelihood of getting caught. They just discovered anarchy and blak bloc on the intertubes and used it to hang their hats on in order to give themselves some sense of legitimacy.

Some people here like to think they're "agents provocateurs". Pfffttt. They're kids. Stupid, criminal kids that like any excuse to cause damage to anyone's property not their own and are too cowardly to do it while not taking advantage of a crowd that provides them a sort of cover. Police know who they are (as a group anyway) and what they're about... they've arrested plenty of them over the years and had to call their mommies and daddies to come bail their crybaby asses out.

There really isn't much of anything one can do about them. They're bound to show up regardless just as they've been doing for ages. The only thing I can think of that might help is to always be on the lookout for them, and when seen making mayhem sit on them until the police show up. The only way they'll go and stop showing up is to make them so uncomfortable about being stopped and caught the entire reason for showing up at all becomes more trouble than they think it's worth. Of course, doing anything about them can bring unwanted problems to peaceful protesters, but I'm not seeing how ignoring them does anything but embolden them either.

to be anarchists rather they just pose as regular protesters. They were quite a few groups trying to f with the Occupy movement.

Aside: I recommend daylight marches, myself.

On topic: beware of infiltrators and outside agitators; they are insidious.

people like to use a convenient Conspiracy excuse.

Crowds attract assholes.

So is he a supporter (anyone, including cops, are allowed) or an infiltrator? And was he seen making any trouble or was he just there to observe?

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Cops on official duty, on the clock, plain clothes.

Cops who are just "interested", plan no action, off duty.

Cops who are there to sincerely support the cause.

Cops who don't want to be recognized and are there to make trouble if they can and then get out, but they also know that if they got caught up in it their brothers will cover for them.

Additionally, however, are elements from other agencies, or organizations, who can and will make trouble and then get out of dodge.

back before ANSWER got wrecked. They'd drag dumpsters into the intersection and light them on fire, while the cops watched. Weird huh? Also on the Ferguson livestreams I saw them drag that big white tent into the middle of the street, and the tent looked like it was set up for the purpose. Hmm.

They are authoritarian leftists who were started as a front movement with "official permission" to host all the antiwar permits because the gov't knew they were too "out-there" and obsessed with overseas guerilla causes for the average American.

They were grossly mischaracterized and vilified, I know that, but so was ACORN. Anyway here's how currently describe their origin which as far as I know is accurate:

http://www.answercoalition.org/who_we_are

In the absence of any indication of grassroots support (ANSWER clubs, ANSWER offices, that sort of thing). It's unclear to me where their money comes from, or why they would insist on including all sorts of old-left hobbyhorses into every protest platform, or hog all the permits. I assume they could simply be part of a Trotskyite coalition and the primary activity of anyone who's a Trotskyite in this day and age would be to help plan ANSWER marches? I dunno. I am not an authoritarian left. As a leftie friend of mine once said "in my day and age we had something called 'democratic centralism' which means we took a vote on it and the people that lost, if they didn't like it, they had to live with it." So maybe they're simply better organized than more broad-based groups.

I was surprised at the lack of cops around given that the news said cops had been preparing.

So it would make sense if the cops were there, but in plain clothes, to just monitor the protest to see if things got out of hand.

Ever since the 2007 economic crisis, extremism is on the rise, especially in Europe.

I imagine it must have ripple effects in the US.

I went to a total of three anti Iraq war protests during the Bush years and the anarchists were there each time. I didn't get the sense they were government provocateurs but I wouldn't be surprised if they themselves weren't infiltrated by such. Hell, remember when they infiltrated the Quakers against the war? LOL

The anarchists looked like kids dressed in black with a scarf over their faces, and they meandered through the peaceful protesters with a loud and obnoxious presence. I never saw them do any sort of vandalism but I did see them participate in a flag burning ceremony. Wish I thought to take pics.

True, true.