Property May Not Be Theft, but It's Not NOT Theft

In < a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/blm-looting-protest-vandalism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a recent essay for The Nation, I argued that property destruction needs to be taken seriously as a coherent, intelligent form of political speech. Reframing property destruction as a fully conscious, intelligent form of resistance is important for a number of reasons. It forces us to distinguish between violence against people (often in the name of property protection) and violence against non-living things. It explicitly acknowledges the role of coercion in political struggle that is obscured by a reductive notion of nonviolence as the gold standard of democratic change. And it invites us to examine something so fundamental to the very terms of our political thought that it often escapes scrutiny. Namely, private property. Read Full Article »