• PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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    2 days ago

    Yeah I’ll get around to it, although I’ve heard that claim before and I don’t disagree with the need for mass mobilization, some of which is going to be nonviolent. But IMO the nonviolent parts of the revolt need to collaborate with the violent parts of the revolt!

      • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zoneM
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        2 days ago

        This honestly smells like the white washed “civil rights era” mentality that pretends nonviolence is the only strategy for positive change. MLK Jr. was inspired by Gandhi’s nonviolent movement, but he was well aware of the violent side of that story. After Gandhi was ignored and imprisoned, his mass movement turned violent, accomplishing the actual change.

        Dr. King’s strategy was to be a “reasonable black person” with the unspoken promise that white lawmakers would have to deal with “unreasonable” black people should they ignore him. It’s why anti rioting legislation was passed hand in hand with civil rights legislation. They capitulated, but also looked to set up barriers to violence in the future.

        The militarization of the police over the past half century can be seen as an extension of those anti rioting measures. Liberals want us to believe that nonviolence is our only tool, because that allows them to ignore our nonviolent efforts without fear of reprisal. The people we should direct our ire to aren’t just the fascists, but the pro-police politicians in general.

      • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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        2 days ago

        Okay, I watched their Ted talk. The red flag for me is the clean separation of revolts into either strictly violent or strictly nonviolent. It is my view that a more careful study of the history of all the revolts labeled successful and partially successful would reveal that many if not all of those revolts succeeded because of the complementary (if not collaborative) efforts of both nonviolent and violent protests. History glorifies the nonviolent protesters because they’re easy to lionize, without any of the ethical complexities that violent protests invite.

        IMO it seems like they went in looking for a hypothesis and managed to spin the statistics to justify it. I’ll look into their research as I’m sure it goes into more detail, but I’m so far not convinced.