Gar Lipow wrote:
>
>
> Do you really think that a mass action strategy requires such absurd
> structure? Or that it is impossible faced with an overwhelming disparity
> in the availablity of force, that a non-violent tactics might prove the
> most effective tactics available. Or a reference to Ghandi really
> implies repeating every mistake made in India during his period.?
Yes I do really believe et cetera (allowing for the 200-300 pages of qualifications required by any e-mail post on any topic). But what I believe is neither here nor there. The fact is that no large-scale campaign based on a non-violent STRATEGY has ever occurred except under roughly the conditions I list.
Non-violent _tactics_ have been used over and over again, including within movements aiming a violent insurrection and in the midst of guerilla wars. Non-violent tactics in fact are the best tactics much of the time. But no principle can be articulated specifying the nature of the conditions under which that will be true.
Non-Violent Strategy leads to and requires an immense and powerful bureaucracy with a super-charismatic Maximum Leader at its core, whose followers will follow him [yes him] more or less blindly. It has to be a him because only within an internally complex movement can male supremacy (or, e.g., untouchable status) be challenged.
My arguments apply _only_ to strategy. Tactics cannot be planned in advance or based on some general principle.
Carrol