From each according to his ability, to each according to his need....

[Saya]

Originally Posted by LaGs sKill

No Saya, property damage and vandalism are not violent confrontations unless someone is injured during their conduct. They are aggressive act promoted to get a response from authorities. They are not proper behavior in a nonviolent demonstration.

You know one of the most successful nonviolent revolutions was in Eastern Germany when people vandalized a certain wall?

[Alan]

Originally Posted by LaGs sKill

What is it about me, my life, my concerns, that you so desperately want to know?

I want to know why you care more about the 'violence' of people rioting and throwing bricks than about the violence of human slavery, incarceration, trafficking, et cetera.

[LaGs sKill]

I celebrate what occurred to bring down the wall dividing East Berlin and West Berlin. No one was injured. The bringing down of the wall was the focus of the demonstration.

When I wrote of vandalism and property damage it was in regard to nonviolent demonstrations.

[Saya]

The government ordered the army to attack citizens, but the army stood down. Is property damage only okay if the police or army don't react?

[LaGs sKill]

Both are a cause for concern though I object most to human slavery and torture. I write letters with Amnesty International. I write letters to our government leaders. I go to demonstrations and marches. And you?

[Saya]

That awkward moment when an American insinuates he does more in his letter writing than a person who is from a country that America has exploited.

[Alan]

Hipsters tend to do that.

[LaGs sKill]

Originally Posted by Alan

Hipsters tend to do that.

Thank you. What do you do?

[Alan]

Let's see: Be on the rank and file with the movements demanding real democracy in my country, funding them or helping friends pay for their school when I have extra money as my standing allows me to be better off than most of them, give seminars and talks when they want me to teach, drive people to the ballots as I can't vote myself, be steadfast when the military points a gun at me, help my friends stay clean and legal, and when Despanan in this site gives me the green light for a project he has, hopefully also teach Americans up north about politics in the third world...

But guess what, the fact that you're trying to make this a pissing contest just shows how little you understand.

[LaGs sKill]

Originally Posted by Saya

That awkward moment when an American insinuates he does more in his letter writing than a person who is from a country that America has exploited.

I never insinuated any such thing. Further I don't understand the statement above. How am i insinuating I do more than a person who is in a country that is being exploited. Do you mean that I insinuate more than a person is doing, or acting in a country America is exploiting? I do what I can within the limits of my funds.

The actions of the soldiers threatening demonstrators in East Berlin ended when no East German government official would take responsibility to order the soldiers to fire on the thousands of demonstrators.

[LaGs sKill]

Originally Posted by Alan

Let's see: Be on the rank and file with the movements demanding real democracy in my country, funding them or helping friends pay for their school when I have extra money as my standing allows me to be better off than most of them, give seminars and talks when they want me to teach, drive people to the ballots as I can't vote myself, be steadfast when the military points a gun at me, help my friends stay clean and legal, and when Despanan in this site gives me the green light for a project he has, hopefully also teach Americans up north about politics in the third world...

But guess what, the fact that you're trying to make this a pissing contest just shows how little you understand.

We are not too different Alan. I work locally to reduce and eliminate family violence. I give lectures on domestic violence and **** at colleges and high schools. I train response people who answer crisis hotlines. My short two year term in the U.S. Navy ended when I tried to revive the Stop Our Ships (SOS) in Maryland and I don't care for pissing contests or cock fights.

[Alan]

Then you wouldn't care about what I have to go through to prove anything. Instead you should have just realized from the god damn beginning that your priorities on what violence is unacceptable are fucked.

I'll prefer someone who knows damn well just how much they give and benefit from the system than someone who performs ritualistic forms of activism to cleanse their soul.

[Versus]

How do you feel about violent demonstrations, Alan? I'm sorry it's a vague question.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by LaGs sKill

What you do is make assertions and accusations like some troll with a senior membership.

Did someone say "Troll with Senior Membership?!"

Despanan is here, what did I miss? Is some hipster being a fucktard?

We are not too different Alan. I work locally to reduce and eliminate family violence. I give lectures on domestic violence and **** at colleges and high schools.

Gothic r@pe counseling? That must go over well.

I train response people who answer crisis hotlines. My short two year term in the U.S. Navy ended when I tried to revive the Stop Our Ships (SOS) in Maryland and I don't care for pissing contests or cock fights.

Which is why you just engaged in one.

Look, sticking "GM" stickers on food in grocery stores may help you feel better, but it's not going to solve the very real problem that our entire agriculture industry is run on illegal labor. There's a difference between activism and being a self-important dick...and "GM sticker layer" is definitely on the "douchebag" end of that spectrum, because in the time it took you to sticker that line of melons dozens of third-world farmers committed suicide after Monsanto drove them out of business.

It's one thing to be unsure of what to do, it's another to criticize the diversity of tactics others employ because you're privileged enough to profit from slave labor as opposed to being subjected to it.

[Versus]

Not relevant, but hilarious.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Versus

How do you feel about violent demonstrations, Alan? I'm sorry it's a vague question.

They have to be understood.
That's the only concrete and specific answer I can give because as you say, it is a vague question.

Riots are like a hurricane. You have to be amazed at the power and force of such a phenomenon. They command a certain form of respect, but you sure as fuck don't want to be the one in the middle of it. And it would be stupid to condemn a riot as it would be to condemn a hurricane. It's a force of nature and it we have to understand what conditions precipitated them.

That said, the real problem of this question is that it treats all violent demonstrations the same. I know you know enough that you wouldn't actually think that yourself, but having left this question as vague as you did still implies this.
Is a violent neonazi demonstration the same as the London riots? Not at all. Is it hypocritical of me to condemn the former and not the latter? Only to the naive anglo mentality that deals with hypotheticals and pseudological 'principles' instead of actual people and social forces.


That's why I reiterate that the only answer here is that violent demonstrations have to be understood. There's no place for morality here, and I'm sure that the people in the higher echelons of society know this, or at least understand it at the visceral level. They must understand violent demonstrations from a detached and objective point of view if they want to control it, to ameliorate its destruction, the same way they would prepare for a natural disaster.
Understanding doesn't mean accepting it but it's a necessary step if you do want to embrace it. Some will understand violence to curb it, some to channel it, some to use it, I myself will obviously understand violence from a Marxist perspective. But we see that it's only the politically blind who would only go as far as point a finger and end it there.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Alan

They have to be understood.
That's the only concrete and specific answer I can give because as you say, it is a vague question.

Riots are like a hurricane. You have to be amazed at the power and force of such a phenomenon. They command a certain form of respect, but you sure as fuck don't want to be the one in the middle of it. And it would be stupid to condemn a riot as it would be to condemn a hurricane. It's a force of nature and it we have to understand what conditions precipitated them.

That said, the real problem of this question is that it treats all violent demonstrations the same. I know you know enough that you wouldn't actually think that yourself, but having left this question as vague as you did still implies this.
Is a violent neonazi demonstration the same as the London riots? Not at all. Is it hypocritical of me to condemn the former and not the latter? Only to the naive anglo mentality that deals with hypotheticals and pseudological 'principles' instead of actual people and social forces.


That's why I reiterate that the only answer here is that violent demonstrations have to be understood. There's no place for morality here, and I'm sure that the people in the higher echelons of society know this, or at least understand it at the visceral level. They must understand violent demonstrations from a detached and objective point of view if they want to control it, to ameliorate its destruction, the same way they would prepare for a natural disaster.
Understanding doesn't mean accepting it but it's a necessary step if you do want to embrace it. Some will understand violence to curb it, some to channel it, some to use it, I myself will obviously understand violence from a Marxist perspective. But we see that it's only the politically blind who would only go as far as point a finger and end it there.

[AshleyO]

Alan hit the nail on the head.

I tend to run into this problem when talking to people on reddit.

They dismiss violence out of hand without regards of trying to understand it. Therefore, they demand a kind of peace that isn't just. They want a world without violence and I kept coming from the direction of trying to understand why the violence happens.

It's surprising to me to see how reactionary people get when you start wanting to talk about understanding violence instead of condemning it all out of hand.

[Saya]

Its taking the effect for the cause, and I think its the reformist's way of denying there's fundamental institutional problems in society that inevitably bubbles over into all kinds of reactionary violence.

[AshleyO]

Yeah, it was weird to see them say that the bully and the reactionary violence of the one being bullied was the same thing.

[Versus]

I really need to take a minute to articulate what I want to say. For now, I'll just say that Alan is awesome.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by AshleyO

Yeah, it was weird to see them say that the bully and the reactionary violence of the one being bullied was the same thing.

The way people think of violence is frightening. If you react to oppression, its wrong. If the state goes to war, we'll probably think its right until later down the road, or the politicians who say violence is wrong when riots break out manufacture our consent for war. If the state commits violence, its heroic and patriotic, if we commit violence, its criminal and wrong, no matter what. Suddenly, then everyone is a pacifist.

[Versus]

Even then, I'd say that people who condem any kind of violence at all probably haven't been exposed to the things that cause reactionary violence in the first place. Nobody is infallible, and it's privileged to say what they would do while in positions that they can't imagine.

[Versus]

Yeah. I can't add anything to Alan's post.

[CuckooTuli]

I'm not against violence in a blanket ideological sense, although mostly because what the law classifies as violence (resistance to unwarranted physical coercion such as the breaking of kettles) are not acts of violence in the same way as seeking out opportunities to do phyical harm to others, to my mind. Leave that shit to the far right.

But then, that's a privileged position itself, right? I have the luxury of deciding not to do what I consider violence, because I'm not under the kind of threat that might render it my only option.

Arundhati Roy said something interesting about this recently here: "I don't condemn [violent resistance] any more. If you're an adivasi [tribal Indian] living in a forest village and 800 Central Reserve Police come and surround your village and start burning it, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go on hunger strike? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation."

In light of this claim, I'm wondering if one of the reasons that we tend to fetishize nonviolent modes of protest in the west is the fact it's actually highly compatible with privilege. It's easy for us to take to the streets with signs and yell slogans that criticize our government; nonviolent protest is something we can understand. But try that shit in other countries sometime... not so much.

Of course, non-violent resistance has been effectively (and famously) used by people caught up in some deeply oppressive regijmes; but I sometimes wonder if westerners are inclined to seize upon this as support for the privileged blanket belief that violence is not only immoral, but unnecessary and ALWAYS counterproductive. Trouble is, as Roy points out, going on hunger strike isn't a luxury that's available to the starving...