I only worked with Clara for a brief time but was struck as many people were by her energy, focus, drive and intelligence. My thoughts are with Jake, her family and loved ones.
That's a very astute comment, Ivan. I don't think looting really depends on the intentions of the looters. It has the same perverse relation to the commodity form no matter what the looter him/herself thinks about it. Of course reversing the commodity relation doesn't change the nature of the thing itself, as you rightly point out.
Over here: I think that's a great observation about statements made to police and courts. And who knows what residue the experience of a riot leaves with people. I think the best evidence is what people end up doing later on in their lives.
The thing about Sartre is that there's really only two modes of organization: seriality and fused group. I think there's a much richer array of group experiences. On which see Elias Cannetti's classic, Crowds and Power.
It occurred to me after I wrote this that there's another side to the arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge. Whatever other motives might have been involved, I'm guess that arresting 700 people creates a great data sample set for police intelligence. I'm sure they were very curious to know what kinds of people showed up: from which boroughs, with what kinds of jobs, etc. They would now have the best information on this. While most attention has been on a certain pepper-spray-wielding police officer, there's another, more modern side to the NYPD. Since Bratton it became more "data driven". The police know the power of abstractions also.
As the Situationists used to say, "our ideas are on everybody's minds." That turns out to be the case also with the occupation, which is now spreading elsewhere.
The best one can do is negative action, which reveals the gap between what one can do and what needs to be done. That gap is where critical thought finds its energy.
@Boston Joan: I agree that "the way that the localized problems of inclusion get addressed between the physical space of the occupation and the social media vector needs drastic attention."
Its also an interesting question as to what kinds of spaces have symbolic meaning in particular places. Wall st has global resonance. What would one occupy in Buffalo or Cleveland? There's still centers and peripheries to that abstract space.