The question is, when your adversary doesn't hesitate to use violence – and in the machine age, this has reached incredible levels of ferocity – is it practical to expect, or even hope, that it's possible to create a sufficiently broad movement that won't splinter into armed factions, weary of getting shot at and otherwise brutally treated and eager to defend themselves and exact vengeance?
Of course, I don't support Hezbollah – how could I? I'm not Lebanese, I'm not an arms supplier and although I follow military issues (out of, I half believe, some vague sense that one day I'll be the one dodging air to surface missiles), I'm not a strategist for hire.
Mostly though, I don't agree with their political program, as I understand it.
But really, as I've written before that's neither here nor there – my support or lack thereof is irrelevant to how things unfold on the ground. For us, it's a debating point and not a life and death matter. That's not to suggest it isn't important to work out general principles – it's vital to avoid and correct, to whatever extent possible, adolescent fantasies of revolutionary violence.
Still, I wonder if violent and non-violent movements aren't complementary in some sense. According to legend, the existence of the (pre-visit to Mecca) Malcolm X – with his “fire next time” rhetoric and open embrace of the idea that Black Americans had a right to self defense “through any means necessary” made the satyagraha-inspired Civil Rights program identified with Martin Luther King much more palatable to millions.
.d.
The most important isotope of plutonium is 239Pu, with a half-life of 24,110 years.
...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/