I Can't Believe it's Not Murder!

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Aerozord

so is saying violence is the inherent solution. I would never claim that total pacifism is the only solution to an issue but there are plenty of issues with violent approaches. The biggest being the large risk of replacing one form of oppression with another.

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

Non-violence for the sake of nonviolence or some sort of perceived liberal or middle-class ideal is ineffective. What get's results is a diversity of tactics and strict non-violence is often a way for certain people to monopolize the power in a movement and render the movement essentially ineffectual.

You quoted Osterbaum saying that diversity amongst the tactics of the oppressed is the best solution, and seemingly presented a counter argument that involved citing the Civil Rights movement. A thing that is basically a case study in the exact thing he was talking about.

The people who were racist in America and basically uniformly across the world, who wanted African Americans and other minorities to drink inferior water and live substandard lives for being born who they are didn't wake up one morning totally reformed and ready to fight for the rights of others because they'd heard the absolute perfect argument the night before and had come to realize the error of their ways. Sure, some people change their ways! Good on em! But most really, really. Didn't. Don't, even. They were still down there, fighting and screaming and hollering that they deserved to shit all over other people because it was their god given right, and the thing that stopped them wasn't posters, books, TV or music. They thought that way all up into the grave and some even still continue to live and breathe that way right this freaking second. The thing that stopped them from acting on those thoughts was law, action and fucking fear. They couldn't count on the Sheriff to cover for them when they lynched someone as openly because federal bureaus and the media were breathing down their necks. They couldn't chase a civil rights group out of town because like Bitviper quoted those groups became willing to defend themselves. They couldn't fucking get away with it, and even that didn't actually change the "Culture". That culture still exists! It can't be educated out because the people who propagate it will separate from the rest of the society that tries to teach them otherwise, and take their children with them. You can't show them some masterpiece media or art related to these things and expect them to change because they don't stop and think about how it applies to their perspective! They literally could not care less about it!


End of the day what changes society and motivates people who are bigoted or racist or what have you to not act on those beliefs is fear. The British government didn't have a happy ending change of heart and give control of India to its rightful owners and populace out of kindness or a cultural change on their part, they did it because they feared what would happen if the Indian populace got fed up of their shit right in the middle of World War 2. Controlling the situation, one way or another was no longer possible. The Republican party of today is torn between the fear of losing their core constituents and totally being eclipsed in the next generation. Andrew Jackson didn't fear the Cherokee, so their nonviolent attempts to prevent him from removing them from their lands were totally ignored. He literally didn't give a damn. Fear fear fear fear.

[Amake]

K-Resh: At this point I'd usually point out that a world governed through fear could hardly be ideal. I mean that's what NRA wants, for everyone to be armed all the time so that no one can do anything against anyone else out of fear of being shot. I don't think either of us wants as an end goal a world where people go around thinking "I get along with my fellow man because otherwise they'll hurt me" if we can have "I get along with my fellow man because I recognize them as my equals" instead.

Sure it's an easy way to change society, but I think as a rule the easy way is not the best way. Aerozord has a point, which you ignored by taking "education, art and media" to mean a silly idea where a single magical piece of art would change the way people think about everything forever. (Maus gets pretty close, though.) Education works slowly, over generations, but it works, you can try to resist it but past a certain point you'd just be completely closed off from the rest of the world and never let your kids outside the bunker where they'd learn not racism and this unsustainable bubble society would collapse eventually.

And the usual disclaimer: I'm not in any position to tell anyone actively being oppressed to tough it out and wait for society to change the hard way. I can only say I think it would be worthwhile in the long run.

[Osterbaum]

Yea I mean just look at Martin Luther King or Gandhi and how their non-violent protests failed to accomplish anything.

Contrast that to China and North Korea and how their underclass revolution resulted in fair treatment for everyone

What Bit and K-Resh said. Also there's a lot more behind the link I posted earlier (not in my previous post, but the one before that).

And as to Gandhi, the Indian independence movement was not exclusively non-violent! Gandhi might have been, but that refusal to a diversity of tactics is what led him, among other things, to denounce and refuse to support groups of strikers or protesters because they were causing property damage and defending themselves against government troops and police. And hell, even Gandhi is quoted as saying that violent resistance is preferable to no resistance at all.

Originally Posted by Amake

And the usual disclaimer: I'm not in any position to tell anyone actively being oppressed to tough it out and wait for society to change the hard way. I can only say I think it would be worthwhile in the long run.

This part is very important, because it is so easy for those of us who are relatively privileged and less oppressed to denounce violent tactics as counter productive or morally wrong. It's easy for us because we are not directly being targeted by the system in this case. It's easy for the system, because strictly non-violent movements are less of a threat and often easier to appease. They may even act as a counter against elements of the movement that use a more diverse set of tactics, including violence, by driving these elements out of the movement and marginalizing them. A diversity of tactics is the best way to get results, and art, education and media as well as non-violent resistance are all valid tactics to use but so is violent resistance.

I feel like I'm advertising, but the link in my earlier post really does talk about all of these things and goes into quite a bit of detail.

[Magus]

I wasn't quite sure of the racial undertones of this case until I heard about the black Florida woman who got 20 years for firing a warning shot at her abusive husband and was denied self-defense under the stand your ground law.

So apparently if you actually shoot somebody and kill them the law applies, but in this case, because she had to go back into the house (because the garage door was jammed), the law didn't apply, because the implication was she could have retreated (not sure how retreated applies in a state with stand your ground, but anyway), despite the fact that according to her she could not, she was convicted of attempted murder and given 20 years. If she had accepted a plea deal she would have gotten three, but because she was so sure she was in the right (what with having a restraining order against her husband and all that), she went ahead with the trial.

So apparently the stand your ground law only applies if you are white looking.

[Red Mage Black]

Fair enough? Did he need to draw his gun on a couple of teenagers just breaking into a car, much less need to shoot the remaining kid twice? This didn't even make it past local news.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Just because other awful things don't make big headlines doesn't mean we shouldn't be furious about the things that do?