[lbo-talk] non-violence is the most powerful weapon we have

[shag carpet bomb]

Yes, I totally agree with your comments, especially the earlier one
that we are really talking about "civil disobedience." What I was
raising was the fact that, on the ground, in our Occupy, there's a lot
of confusion. As you say non-violent civil disobedience evokes a
repressive, violent response. NV has become shorthand for NVCD and
people don't realize that.


>From a distance, it looks a bit like there's an effort at quelling the
radical edge of OO by insisting on reformism. For instance, I notice
that one of the proposals Joanna linked to, the one that was supposed
to have been voted on at the Oakland General Assembly Wednesday night,
specifically said "non violent protest".

I translate that as a rejection of "civil disobedience." Adopting that
stance is reformist, a warm embrace of safe, canned, behind the
barricade protests.

I expect that once they finally vote on that proposal (they pulled the
proposal at the last minute and the other two "non-violent" tactics
proposals were rejected, one receiving only 15% support b/c it was
vague.

Still, if they leave that reformist wording in, where it's about
protest, and not civil disobedience, I'm guessing a lot of people will
reject the proposal at the General Assembly. I could be wrong, and
perhaps the folks at OO are far more ignorant of these issues, but
reading Boots Riley's tweets, it's clear that he is not at all. I'm
guessing that, if he stays in the game, I hope they will do some more
teach ins on the topic.

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu

Historically, non-violence leads to fairly heavy casualties (including
deaths) among the protesters. You have to keep at it with huge numbers
until the cops/army get sick to their stomach at killing people or
beating them up.

Carrol

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
[mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 7:07 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] non-violence is the most powerful weapon we
have

shag carpet bomb: "When people advocate non-violence as a tactic -
because people look a lot more innocent when they're non-violent. . ."
-

-------

See, "non-violence as a tactic" hardly makes even grammatical sense,
and it hs no substance whatever. I'm being non-violent as I sit at
this keyboard: is that a tactic?

It only makes sense if you write, "Non-violent CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE."
Non-violence becomes a TACTIC and not a mere nothingness, only when
the cop gives you an order and you refuse to obey: lie down instead of
turning around, etc.

This whole debate is senseless until all concerned understand that
"non-violence as a tactic" means "civil-disobedience" as a tactic.
Otherwise it is incredibly stupid to say, " non-violence is the most
powerful weapon we have," since by itself it is no tactic at all, weak
or powerful.

Carrol