>Yoshie Furuhashi:
>> It is not the case that the Left prefers an association with violence
>> to non-violence. The Left -- or _any other political force_ for that
>> matter -- makes a cause out of *martyrs* (in the case of Leonard
>> Peltier & Mumia Abu-Jamal, martyrs of criminal "justice" as well as
>> of state repression of radicalism, especially radicalism of people of
>> color). Non-violent martyrs have been celebrated as well: Salvador
>> Allende, a socialist who died defending constitutional democracy, to
>> take just one example.
>> ...
>
>Allende was reputed to have died defending his share of State
>power with a machine gun. Indeed, his chances might have
>improved had he become a sort of anarchist gun nut, armed the
>workers, and gone into the streets.
It's not Allende's chance but Chilean workers, peasants, & intellectuals' chance that I'm talking about.
>Latin America is full of such examples
Armed self-defense is a matter of fact -- not a matter of theory -- outside rich nations; it's a matter of necessity depending on the contexts in rich nations as well.
>-- apparently there
>are no leftists left in Mexico, that populous sepulcher of
>revolutions, but Subcomandante Marcos.
?
>It's true if you're a leftie you're not allowed to have dead
>nonviolent martyrs -- the liberals steal them. There's some
>building at the north end of Battery Park here in New York
>which has just been painted with the enormous visages of
>Gandhi and King. There's nothing a liberal likes better
>than a dead non-violent radical, and they run off with every
>one. So we're not allowed to have any.
Aside from liberal cooptation, however, I'd emphasize that the Left should not fetishize non-violence to the point of _pointless_ masochism & martyrdom. Self-defense is justifiable. And there is a doctrine of just war.
>That leaves the living -- and I guess except for Mr. Peltier
>and Mr. Abu-Jamal, all the radicals are out of jail? For
>the moment, anyway?
Linda Evans (at <http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/linda.html>)? Susan Rosenberg (at <http://www.prisonactivist.org/ooc/oot0006.htm#susan>)? Check out <http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/pplist-alpha.shtml>, for instance.
Yoshie