People love to use examples like MLK and Gandhi as the poster children for peaceful protest achieving results, and years ago I’d have naively agreed.
But the reality of it is that they could not have succeeded without the threat of violence from more militant alternatives, such as Malcolm X/The Black Panthers or the Ghadar revolutionaries/Babbar Akali Sikhs.
It’s the carrot-and-stick metaphor. The powers that be will ignore any nonviolent attempts for reform until a violent movement makes the nonviolent alternative more appealing.
Capitalism has long asserted that there are checks in place to protect people. Consumer protection laws, industry regulations, collective bargaining, and voting with your wallet are some of the myths that capitalism says are supposed to stop bad businesses from hurting people. But when we see these systems failing en masse, and the powers that be refuse to do anything about it, what recourse is left?
You live in a country that couldn’t elect Bernie as a president. There’s no peaceful protest happening. And yet you claim violence is the only option.
In reality, half of your country simply disagrees with you. Start your violence, get a civil war, and maybe you’ll finally settle things somewhere somehow.
But don’t bullshit about effectiveness of peaceful protest.
Trump won a majority vote in the most recent election. Peacefully, your country chose corpos over moderate middle (there’s no left in your politics). Their peaceful protest works flawlessly. You’re just not on the winning side of the protest so you call for violence. You will lose this fight too.
I understand why people are upset but its a sad reality, that you just don’t have the masses on your side. I think your point is the crux to all of this. If a majority doesn’t get behind your conviction then violence will not solve your problem.
People love to use examples like MLK and Gandhi as the poster children for peaceful protest achieving results, and years ago I’d have naively agreed.
But the reality of it is that they could not have succeeded without the threat of violence from more militant alternatives, such as Malcolm X/The Black Panthers or the Ghadar revolutionaries/Babbar Akali Sikhs.
It’s the carrot-and-stick metaphor. The powers that be will ignore any nonviolent attempts for reform until a violent movement makes the nonviolent alternative more appealing.
Capitalism has long asserted that there are checks in place to protect people. Consumer protection laws, industry regulations, collective bargaining, and voting with your wallet are some of the myths that capitalism says are supposed to stop bad businesses from hurting people. But when we see these systems failing en masse, and the powers that be refuse to do anything about it, what recourse is left?
You live in a country that couldn’t elect Bernie as a president. There’s no peaceful protest happening. And yet you claim violence is the only option.
In reality, half of your country simply disagrees with you. Start your violence, get a civil war, and maybe you’ll finally settle things somewhere somehow.
But don’t bullshit about effectiveness of peaceful protest.
Trump won a majority vote in the most recent election. Peacefully, your country chose corpos over moderate middle (there’s no left in your politics). Their peaceful protest works flawlessly. You’re just not on the winning side of the protest so you call for violence. You will lose this fight too.
I understand why people are upset but its a sad reality, that you just don’t have the masses on your side. I think your point is the crux to all of this. If a majority doesn’t get behind your conviction then violence will not solve your problem.
It’s a point that’s impossible to get across in this echo chamber. But it’s also why this echo chamber will never achieve anything.
Via democracy or violence, for a regime change you first need to figure out a way to get the majority to agree with you.