Still the words have a melody and it gave us MLK. Still non-violent resistence is not pacifism and is in fact the inverse tactic of terrorism.

We have choices.

How about targeting high schools? The recent protests in Greece were driven by high-school and university students. I believe that any plan should involve these people, who are more inclined to question authority than a life-long church-goer is.

Youth respond to visual messages, as they grew up on advertisements. Message presented well will have a strong effect on these people.

Recently unemployed are also a good group as they are angry, and have free time. the unemployment rate in the U.S. reached 7.2 at the end of 2008 and will likely reach as 9.5% by the end of this year. 30,000,000 unemployed Americans hold a lot of organizational potential.

Curious as to your thoughts.

In no way did I compare my action of writing on DV boards to the breaking of the window.

In no way did I suggest that writing will bring about change.

In no way did I suggest that the people who broke the window were acting strategically to bring about change.

Nor would/did I ever suggest that the way forward is through a series of “symbolically” rebellious acts carried out by independent actors.

I won’t address the other ridiculous statements made in those posts, which are completely unrelated to the meaning of my post, and only serve to make the posters look immature, inarticulate and ignorant.

What I can say is that I would rather work towards change with a group of people who aren’t afraid to break a shop window just because the owner happens to be black, than people who spend their whole lives following orders for the sake of self-preservation… namely because the former involves dissident action (the basis for change), whereas the latter does not.

Opening and operating a business that doesn’t even portend to have anything to do with social justice or “change,” (but rather sells hair extensions) is the exact orthodoxy of thought for the sake of self-preservation that can be contrasted to a rebellious, passionate desire to make something different… How to harness that passion and utilize it effectively is a different question, and obviously not one that I can answer completely.

The fact that I’m attacked so viciously for such opinions only serves to demonstrate how confused “progressives” actually are.

with equal respect, the unraveling of empire is what my remarks are premised on. The fork in the road is one of fascism or a turning toward a deep living democracy with an aligned sustainabile economy built on local communities.

These communities are human scale. They are happening, in some cases intentionally. I am mindful of the power of empire, and that that power is not simply force, but the media and corporate elite who have usurped or coopted every movement in the US.

We know that, but that should be our lesson as we move forward, not an obsticle to achieving our journey/ends.

Of course, such a transformation would be in solidarity with non-empire inclusive of the Palestinians and peoples throughout the planet.

The choice is ours.

The economic and cultural changes needed will change the political schism.

That work needs to be local. Thinking that national transformtion is 1) going to happen 2) be real and effective; is, in my opinion, a delusion.

A little US history brings us directly to this time and place. The militia/police were one of the first things created. Once the “state” of 13 colonies had been put in place a corporate charter of governance – the US Constitution was drafted and ratified. Giving the power of governance to an elite structure. The use of these forces (militia/police) to keep “order” was one of the essential priorities of the “Founding Fathers” (at least most). And the forces were used frequently to arrest uprisings by citizens.

Ruling the expanisionist United States was the first order of business. Today we see it as it is presided over the corporate media, institutionalized hierarchical empire structures and local militias and police departments. As most here now we have a massive privatized penal system with the most incarcerated human beings in the world.

It is not so much the “wild west” that creates this situation, but a hierachical imperial empire with its faux democracy. The police ‘state” is an arm not to “protect” citizens as much as to protect the state and provide order. We witnessed (those of us old enought to remember) this most flagrently in the early 70s with Nixon and the confluence of the War in Vietnam and Civil Rights.

This is a legacy that rules today. To change it, I submit you cannot go head to head with it. Force has ruled and will continue to do so. Also, violence simply begets violence. Real change needs to happen where there are chincs in the empire’s armor. Local change is possible. It is human scale and at first does not threaten the larger status quo. Once communities change, bridges of solidarity can begin to take deep root within and outside of continental North America. That is how you negotiate peace, justice, and fair trade.

To underestimate the power of local is to forgo any chance of progressive change.

That work needs to be Thinking that national transformtion is 1) going to happen 2) be real and effective; is, in my opinion, a delusion.

A little US history brings us directly to this time and place. The militia/police were one of the first things created once the state of 13 colonies had in place a corporate charter of governance – the US Constitution. The use of these forces to keep “order” was one of the essential priorities of the “Founding Fathers” (at least most).

Ruling the expanisionist United States was the first order of business. Today we see it as it is presided over the corporate media, institutionalized hierarchical empire structures and local militias and police departments. As most here now we have a massive privatized penal system with the most incarcerated human beings in the world.

It is not so much the “wild west” that creates this situation, but a hierachical imperial empire with its faux democracy.

nowhere here has anyone said that India’s independence from Britain was won without any use of violence. Gandhi believed that resistance to evil/oppression was best accomplished non-violently, but if that was insufficient to overcome the evil, then violence would have to suffice…he wasn’t about absolute pacifism by any means, that’s understood.

Part of the cause of the riots were that not every individual was on the same page, nor was each individual prepared to make the same level of suffrage, and thus the discrepancy in the degree of ideological commitment brought on different reactions and mass scale riots.

You are correct though that reading more on Gandhi to attempt to better understand his ideology would be beneficial. I’d say sorry for boring you with our discussion, but I’m not.

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Tree,

it’s not about reading comments correctly, it’s about individual interpretation and perception. Interpretations can be correct or incorrect, in other instances they’re just different. And of course, Western interpretation differs greatly from Eastern.

I didn’t know that we were discussing this in the presence of experts, nor that we’re being evaluated.

Regardless,
Best to you both

thanks for the reply, we may be getting somewhere with this.

What you mention about equal footing is relevant, but I’m not talking about calls for peace, I’m talking about people simply changing the way they treat one another, one person at a time. A rich and powerful (wo)man has the same opportunity to demonstrate kindness, compassion and grace as a poor and weak (wo)man — wealth or power, oppressed or oppressor has nothing to do with how we treat one another. It’s about choice at the individual level, not the group level.

I’m responsible for my actions and my treatment of the people around me and those that I encounter in life, regardless of anyone’s position in society. It’s your choice to treat people how you do, and your neighbor’s choice to treat people how he/she does. It’s about individual responsibility, which isn’t being met, obviously. By each individual living up to their social/human responsibility, the footing would eventually reach equilibrium. We’re not on equal footing as individuals and the circle is perpetuated because of man’s poor treatment of one another…every man for himself has created the disparity between us.

We could say that the world is the way it is, or, we could realize that the world doesn’t have to be this way. If every single person on the planet would simply take others into consideration more than they do now, our conditions could change almost spontaneously. Unfortunately, we are so divided because of religion, politics, nationality, race, social status, etc, that we are impaired from seeing our commonalities, and hence the cycle is perpetuated.

Best to you.

Cheers

I didn’t say I see morality as cowardice or helplessness….I indicated that invoking it was the last defense of cowardice and helplessness.

Say a man walking with his family sees another man across the street start punching people who come out of the bakery. To the man with the family, the man doing the punching is larger and seems more capable of handling himself. The man with the family is scared, scared for what the other man may do to him and maybe even more afraid of what the other man will do to his family. His little girl says, “Daddy do something”. Fear overcomes his concern for anyone other than his family but showing them he is afraid is out of the question so he lies to himself and lies to his family and talks about Jesus and Gandhi on the way home. My problem is the dishonesty of it, not the fear.

I suggest that everyone who has too much to lose or is afraid, not condemn the angry actions of the people rising up and concentrate instead on what they are angry about…otherwise one is doing the hall monitors and ruling class a huge favor (and your ego will see through your attempts to fool it eventually).

that final question should read; Which will NOT bring humanity more prosperity quicker?

Thanks.