>B A D R E V I E W S
>
>Pacifism as Pathology
>Ward Churchill
>J.C. Myers
>Sunday, June 9 2002, 4:57 PM
>
>
>Yet, it is worth remembering that for Gandhi and King, non-violent actions
>were intended to place direct pressure on the state: the jails were to be
>filled in order to clog the system, eventually bringing its coercive power
>to a halt. Churchill contrasts this vision of non-violence with
>contemporary actions that have become increasingly symbolic: protestors
>offer themselves for arrest only to be processed and released by an
>efficient police apparatus long inured to civil disobedience. A sense of
>personal purity may be won by those who gently cycle from demonstration to
>police station to living room, but genuine political gains are more
>difficult to see.
>
>What Churchill's essay neglects, however, is perhaps the most important
>point to be made by the Left with regard to violence: armed struggle is a
>tactic, and tactics are useless in the absence of a mobilized mass
>movement. Considering armed struggle when the Left is unable even to make
>an impact on an election (let alone actually contest one) is pointless and
>dangerous, encouraging the Hollywood illusion that political change is
>made by the actions of lone, armed heroes. Barring a dramatic
>constitutional change, the tactics of armed struggle would do the current
>US Left no good and much harm.
Perhaps the reviewer read a different book than I did as I recall this subject being brought up in this book and if memory serves the book makes it clear that the best tactic for now is in all probability not an armed resistance by the left. The book was more than anything lamenting the fact that in Churchills opinion the non-violent aspect of protest was a ritual that the police encourage and participate in, not the non-violent "clogging of the system" advocated by Ghandi. Apparently this reviewer came to different conclusion than I did after reading this booklet. Did anyone else come away from this booklet with the same viewpoint as me? I did not read this as a call to armed insurrection by progressives.
John Thornton