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Post by Knight0440 on Feb 27, 2005 1:27:52 GMT -5
can seemingly "violent" actions and "nonviolent actions" work together?
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Post by ZeroSaidSadly on Feb 28, 2005 17:00:43 GMT -5
well regardless of how "effective" they were togeather, that would be counterproductive and pointless in the long run. you cant utilize what youre trying to destroy, thats why its stupid to use the means of war to create peace.
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Post by Knight0440 on Mar 1, 2005 20:35:09 GMT -5
What about getting out of the "nonviolence/violence" dichotomy? By looking at it in that way aren’t we still trapped in the idea of violence?
For instance:
“When People’s Global Action, an umbrella group that links global justice actions around the world, met in Bolivia in September of ’01, they changed one of their hallmarks of unity from “PGA supports nonviolent direct action” to “PGA supports actions that maximize respect for life.” “Nonviolence” meant too many different things. In Europe, it mostly meant not attacking people. In the U.S., it was often interpreted to mean not attacking property. In Chiapas, the Zapatista rebellion began as an armed struggle that attempted to minimize the use of violence, and then turned itself into a political struggle.”
From Starhawk’s Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, page 210.
I really think you should take a look at Webs of Power. It’s fan-freaking-tastic.
Anyway, another point of Starkhawk's is that within the history of nonviolence you find a lot of authoritarianism. You don’t see democratic action taken to decide tactics or solidarity with those that prefere different tactics, but rather, guilt complexes, hierarchical structures, and leaders dictating the tactics. Ghandi and King are two fabulous examples. That’s not to say that nonviolence doesn’t have a place now or that those leaders should be disregarded. They absolutely should not be disregarded. But honesty and criticism is necessary in dealing with present situations.
But compare the atmospheres of then and now. Then you had, for instance, lunch counter sit-ins, where those in authority would be forced to act, either, by serving African Americans sitting at their counters, which inadvertently destroys racism and segregation, or acting through violence by beating up the people at the counters nonviolently reacting, instead absorbing those blows, which in effect, generated a lot of press and at the same time cut the authority of the state, showing the cops as racist pieces of shit. Now look at events today. Prisons are profitable and are being privatized everywhere. It doesn’t make sense to only do symbolic actions, which will lead you to jail thus making you prison fodder, which inadvertantly justifies the system. At the same time it is harder and harder to get mainstream press to cover anything nonviolent let alone a peaceful demonstration. So there are those that advocate property destruction because that’s the kind of news that the media will cover and thus bring some much needed light on the larger event. That’s not to say that that is the only reason to destroy property but just one thought on the matter.
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Post by ZeroSaidSadly on Mar 2, 2005 17:29:03 GMT -5
i dont think that nonviolence has no room for criticism and honesty, but nonviolence really is not designed as a way of dictating other people. it is a means of change and i also do not believe past nonviolent strategys are or should be the only means of change, but ill get to that in a minute. like i said, nonviolence has no intentions or even acknowledgments of democracy, but nor does it fundamentally exclude democratic means. in fact i believe a society through nonviolence would be a democratic society in its absolute deepest sense. it would be centered on the power of the individual rather than modern functional terms of democracy that we use today, that exploit the individual and supress it to further capatalist agendas. movements and organizations (such as the one king led) usually have leaders, its no more "authoritarian" than charity organizations. sitins protests and demonstrations are not the only actions qualified as nonviolent action. when you live in an age when millions of people listen to the comedian on tv talk, there are infinite ways of reaching people, not just appealing yourself to the press to get covered. im imagining if every person wanting to get a message out, bowed to the gods of capatalism and did something to appeal themselves to the media so that they could get some coverage. it would just be an awful thing. if you dont like the way the media works, become a journalist. make the news. there are already many newsources that do not just cover murders and violence.
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Post by Knight0440 on Mar 6, 2005 4:04:38 GMT -5
I guess my point was to show that nonviolent movements in the past have been dominated by authoritarian, charismatic, male leaders (King and Gandhi were both part of various authoritarian religions) and just because that is the history does not mean that nonviolence is only dictated to people by a minority or that it can't be democratic.
But there are those within the nonviolence movement who do not want to hear other tactics and instead demand other people conform to their beliefs instead of standing in solidarity with tactics that “maximize respect for life.” (The converse is also true of those against "nonviolent" tactics. It goes both ways.) So while I agree that this peaceful future that we envision without violence is something to strive for, I don’t know if it can be achieved when the work of other people is discredited because it is not “nonviolent” enough for the standards of various groups who identify as nonviolent protestors. That’s not very democratic and it is a criticism that needs to be brought up when these kinds of arguments arise, which needs to lead to a compromise. As far as King and “charity organizations” I disagree with your assessment that they are equally authoritarian. King was the vital head of a movement dedicated to ending segregation and racism as well as showing the hypocrisy of the State through nonviolent direct actions. When he was assassinated it hurt the movement because a lot of the direction and tactics (the authority/authenticity) came directly from King. Let’s not forget King was assassinated because he was a direct threat to the status quo, whereas leaders of or organizational structures of charities are not leading the charge for social change and do have hundreds of thousands following them and are not seen as a threat to the current system of economic/political exploitation and are rarely (if ever?) assassinated.
I agree that sit-ins/protests/demos are not the only actions that can take place. I also agree that we should become our own media (Indymedia anyone?) and create a culture that chooses to cover important aspects of life and community rather than the "If it bleeds it leads" pieces that corporate press come up with.
However, lots of people are turned off to the left, don’t know their history, think that nonviolent direct action is a thing of the past and died with people like King. Indymedia, a citizen’s collective of journalists that has a world wide network, is there so anyone can report their news. But Indymedia doesn’t own billions of dollars worth of satellite/radio/television/cable/broadband/ISPs/newspapers/magazines/music companies—media firms and can’t reach the kinds of people that the mainstream news is able to attract for the local/national audience. So sometimes, and this was just one example, it is not the underlying philosophy of the Black Bloc, the Bloc will destroy property in order to get the news trucks out there. Mass convergences seem to be another venue where mainstream news trucks are most likely to show up because of the threat of violence, which means that even with all the distortions and piss-poor analyses, they are still able to reach a lot more people and possibly get some of them off their asses and find out more. I don’t think it’s a matter of bowing to the media moguls. The media have their own stereotypes and are going to inaccurately report the news because it’s not in their advertisers' interests to, as they say, "rock the boat."
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