Natasha Lennard argues that it’s harmful to acquiesce to the state’s determinations of violence, while David Cortright writes that violent acts prevent mass resistance movements.
Funny how it only focuses on political violence from the left. I mean, yeah the government is completely owned by the right at the moment, but it seems odd to completely ignore the other side
If political violence is out of the question, Americans would be British.
Well obviously fucking yes. Pick a random successful political movement and there’s a 99% chance it had a violent wing. I know that Americans are only taught the sanitized versions of many of this stuff, but come on.
That’s really the issue. Americans have been brainwashed to think civil disobedience is what won their civil rights. The violence, often initiated by the state against the people, is whitewashed as small skirmishes rather than being prevalent in most protests and the resistance to it needs to be prepared.
I mean, open up a history book.
The Revolutionary War.
The Battle of Blair Mountain.
Even MLK’s mostly peaceful actions only had teeth because Malcom X was showing people what a non-peaceful protest would look like.
Sadly, violence usually has to be the answer.
As we saw from the peaceful protests in Hong Kong, playing nice gets you absolutely nothing. And as those protests and the Cabin Creek/Paint Creek protests showed, even those who try to be peaceful will find violence inflicted upon them.
Furthermore, left to fester, the racists trying to run the show will start inflicting violence if not put down quickly; see the Tulsa Race Massacre as an example.
Even MLK’s mostly peaceful actions only had teeth because Malcom X was showing people what a non-peaceful protest would look like.
MLK even says something similar in A Letter From A Birmingham Jail. Essentially he responds to criticism of his methods by saying (among a whole lot of other things) “this? This is the nice option. If these protests were violent the South would turn into a sea of blood”.