Black Bloc, Fascists, and WTO Protests

In today's Detroit News, there was a story about the police breaking up protests at a recent World Trade Organization meeting. The WTO is a group that is determined to make a more peaceful and prosperous world by lowering tariffs and removing barriers to trade, and there are people out there that do not like peace and prosperity, instead preferring anarchism and nationalism, and so every time the WTO has a meeting, there are protests.

These protesters typically pull themselves into what is called a Black Bloc. A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, ski masks and motorcycle helmets with padding, steel-toed boots and often carrying their own shields and truncheons. The clothing is used to avoid being identified, and to theoretically, appear as one large mass, promoting solidarity, and creating a clear revolutionary presence. Tactics of a black bloc can include vandalism, rioting and street fighting, demonstrating without a permit, misleading the authorities, assisting in the escape of people arrested by the police, building barricades, and attacking police.

In Geneva, these 'peaceful protesters' set fire to cars, broke shop windows and committed other acts of violence. An 80-year-old women was knocked over and fell and had to be hospitalized, police said. These are the tactics of these 'far left' or 'far right' or 'middle way' groups who demonstrate against the WTO.

You can tell the quality of a person by the company they keep. These Black Bloc groups oppose lower tariffs, oppose capitalism, oppose the war in Iraq, and support Earth Day. Do you?

These anti-WTO protester's are an interesting mix of left-wing groups ranging from the outright communist (Autonomism) to the clearly fascist (National-Anarchism). Many of the issues and causes these groups promote are very close to the causes and issues that the Democrats support today- the main difference is in the methods used, not the goals. These left wing fascist and communist groups blame the United States for being at the root of most bad things in the world, want the US to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and let the terrorists win, want to have the government play a larger and larger role in 'combating global warming' and 'supporting gay rights,' and even believe in free state-provided healthcare for everyone.

Yes indeed, there are many similarities between these Black Bloc groups and the Democratic Party. What there isn't is any similarities between the goals, methods, and agenda of this blog and those who support Black Blocs. We are clearly different in our agenda's, as I am a conservative teacher who supports lower tariffs, loves capitalism, supports the War on Terror, opposes government control to fight the myth of global warming, and loves freedom and liberty more than violence and revolutionary zeal.

Change might live on the left, but so does the Black Bloc. Pick your side.