The problem is that violent revolutions rarely produce anything other than more and worse chaos, and are usually settled by the biggest despot in the room who is often worse than the guy being deposed. The vast majority of actual social progress made in history was due to peaceful, not violent revolution.
fighting evil by moonlight
Submitted 3 weeks ago by bearboiblake@pawb.social to [deleted]
https://quokk.au/static/media/users/FS/c4/FSc4aeQwm01vPaq.jpg
Comments
realitista@lemmus.org 3 weeks ago
bearboiblake@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
I agree, but every non-violent movement needs an underlying threat of the willingness to escalate and ultimately become violent to succeed. We need people who are willing to use violence.
realitista@lemmus.org 3 weeks ago
I disagree . The moment violence happens, the whole movement loses its credibility and high ground and opens the road to despotic overthrow of the movement. This is why it’s so important to guard against the tactic of your enemy installing agitators to discredit your movement and open the door to violent suppression of it.
zikzak025@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Exactly. There needs to be a stick to accompany the carrot. But if the carrot is refused, then the stick does its job.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Bullshit. Once all the dark tetrad are helping grow sunflowers, there is no one left to take over (that won’t end up the same).
You just need a willingness to commit constant, never-ending violence that would make the Nazi camp guards faint.
Keep giving the bad guys CPTSD, the one reason a despot took over after, was that people stopped fighting, believing they had won.
They believed that things will be good because they “earned” it.
No, safeguarding humanity requires eternal vigilance, and the tree of liberty to be constantly watered with the blood of psychopaths.
wabafee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What if I just want violence in general there is no end goal?
Objection@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
how_we_burned@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Yet 20 million Chinese had to die to achieve that life expectancy.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
bearboiblake@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Thank you, fixed!
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
A diversity of tactics is worthwhile, but indiscriminate violence or even insufficiently targeted violence is fucking stupid. The state will demonize us, but that’s an opportunity to be openly and visibly in the right and to reduce trust in state narratives
bearboiblake@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Absolutely right, violence by itself solves nothing and only creates more problems, but a completely non-violent movement is also doomed to failure because they will be violently repressed and victimized by the establishment if they show any sign of succeeding.
A successful movement must contain elements willing to escalate and threaten violence, and also elements who disavow that same violence and seek a peaceful resolution. We’ve seen this time and time again throughout history, but a few recent examples which would be familiar to most are the LGBTQ+ liberation movements which turned the tides with the Stonewall riots, and the civil rights movement, which had a whole spectrum of activists - MLK, the Black Panthers, and Malcolm X.
sailormoon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
This whole thread is why I’ve been enjoying reading Peter Genderloos “Failure of Nonviolence”
bearboiblake@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
If anyone is interested, here’s a link to read The Failure of Nonviolence by Peter Genderloos at the Anarchist Library.
Samskara@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
How to ensure to remain on the unpopular fringe.
It’s the same mindset as: „someone called me racist once, so i will become a full on Nazi now“.
If you want actual revolution, you need to appeal to a wide audience for support.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You need to pick your fights, but always avoid becoming the “liberal cuck” as the alt-right likes to call people who fall to their “we go low, you go high” tactic.
Samskara@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The mistake here is to think you have to fight your political opponent directly. You have to fight to gain popular support.
bearboiblake@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Yes, of course, but that wide audience needs to be willing to use every tool available to effect change. Non-violent protests simply do not work if the protesters are unwilling to escalate. This is ultimately a shitpost so that nuance is intentionally excluded, but that’s the truth of it
Samskara@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
That’s ahistorical.
The far left terrorist groups in the 1960s to the 1980s in Europe (Germany: Rote Armee Fraktion, Italy: Brigade Rosse, France: Action Directe) were largely unsuccessful. Meanwhile civil protests and peaceful popular movements were successful at changing society. Their history demonstrates really well how your kind of thinking fails.
To pick a different example: Greenpeace are pretty hands on with their direct action, but don’t directly destroy their targets. They have been very successful overall. Far more than any more violent group.
The IRA in Ireland was unsuccessful for decades until they gave up armed struggle.
There’s always a lot of context to consider. What society does the movement happen in? An open democratic society is different than an authoritarian one. Even an authoritarian government can have limits on how much force they are willing to use to suppress a popular movement. A nationalist independence or freedom movement works differently than one that wants to replace the type of government.
Non-violent protests can be very effective in the form of strikes. A general strike needs wide support among the population, but can force governments to negotiate and compromise.
The movements for revolutionary change in the former Soviet block were largely non violent and successfully toppled an empire and dozens of governments. That’s the biggest historical change in recent history. Of course leftists tend to ignore these.
willingness to escalate
There are many ways to escalate, that don’t involve violence.
There’s also a pretty big scale of violence. Breaking into a building to occupy it, throwing stones at cops, shooting a politician, hijacking an airplane, and blowing up a crowded market are not in the same league.
every tool available
It’s good strategy to purposely and consciously select the tool to use. Using the wrong tool can lead to less popular support, internal division, marginalization, tougher state reactions, etc.
Una@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
I just meow at them, it makes people go crazy meow :3
bearboiblake@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
Image