Barbelith Underground > Switchboard > Violence at the summit

ynh

I think I've lost count of how often people bring up Nazis in response to my posts. Maybe I should get fitted for jackboots. I'd make a real sexy Pink.

Harry:
1. Don't they train your cops to shoot for the legs? I know y'all can afford it.
2. See above. Unless you're shooting to kill, you aim for the legs. Last I checked, bricks didn't penetrate riot gear.
3. Unless your Social Democrats are bloodless vampires, they probably considered the "retreating" angle before passing out the roses.

My minority of protestors are engaged in all out war to extermination with oppressive forces defiling ecosystems and sanctioning murder and slavery. remember, we're trying to relate to all parties involved. Are you suggesting it would be okay if they were a disorganized mob hell bent on tearing up everything in sight out of simple frustration? You wouldn't, I'm sure. You've already internalized the media line that these people are nothing more than armed, trained soccer hooligans. I know they fucked up part of your town and scared some folks, but give them some credit, They have an agenda. They have targets. I'm willing to start backing down once you start showing me bystander casualty statistics and the like.

Kirk, I'd like to thank you for attending so voiciferously to my aside. It does my heart good that an ounce of vitriol is worth more than a pound of well reasoned speech.

But, owing to my love for you, I'll respond in spirit, if not kind.

You were, as you say, talking to Dao. I'm sure, however, that you're lack of enthusiasm for a third generation discussion that nonetheless made it to three pages, is less than excusable given your passion here. And the bastard better come back: he owes me a pint.

quote:As we all know, it was well thought out ideas, good hygene, and attempts to relate to their oppressors instead of just throwing bricks at them that doomed people like Martin Luther King to failure, right?

You come on like you actually have a pretty good handle on both the mechanics of Dr. King's philosophy and its actual practice. But your addition of "as we all know" shakes my confidence in you. I'm willing to bet we don't all know, and that some of us aren't willing to go find out. Moreover, bringing up someone else's well thought out ideas doesn't make you an equivalent thinker. Nor does making assumptions about the success of a movement based on one of its participants. Civil Rights succeeded in the US because of a multifaceted, loosely networked groups. Violence was a prevalent tactic at the time. It got the movement coverage and attention, and consequently provided exactly the forum Dr. King and his allies needed to express their more 'acceptable' positions to the population at large. Finally, Dr. King was not interested in relating to his oppressors: Mississippi, Alabama, the KKK. Rather he was interested in getting the attention and support of sympathetic individuals who previously had no idea they could affect change.

quote:All sarcasm aside, if we can't even discuss the possibility of these protests being innefective, if the idea that there might be a better way is so vile to you that we can't even discuss it without imediate decent into name calling AMONGST THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ON YOUR SIDE, then you are just as much a part of the problem as the globalists you're fighting.

I have a lot of trouble not reading this as a simple-minded retort to Jackie's post veiled in an attempt to sound more learned. The discussion has not been about the ineffectiveness of the protests, in fact. It has been about the variant perceptions of the employment of violence on either side in Sweden. The only allusions made to the effectiveness of the protests occur in posts by Instantiated Noun. And these occur solely within the immediate, local frame of population response at ground zero. Beyond that, they ammount to quoting local media.

Sure, we can talk about a better way, but be prepared to offer one, and support your assertion with real world examples. I'll reopen the violence discussion in th Head Shop so we can jabber on about the possible long term effects, ala Dao, of deploying violence as a tactic for change.

There is no fear of discussion in the anti-globalisation movement. Or did I miss something. Non-violent protestors are not boycotting protests on the grounds that violenet elements will be showing up. Each and every group involved willingly accepts message polysemy and tactical divergence as part and parcel of activism. Just like Dr. King.

Finally, Kirk, violence is an act of communication. Or are you unable to parse that particular message? If you're going to put up a front off well-reasoned, pacifist intellectualism, perhaps you'll consider using well cosidered, coherent arguments rather than sarcasm, simple allusions to hero-figures, and rhetorical questions.

[ 19-06-2001: Message edited by: [Your Name Here] ]