[Peace-discuss] Rethinking Oct. 27

[Laurie at advancenet.net]

> Where would we be if the leaders of the civil rights movement had used
> your logic? I think it would have to fight the battle all over again
> and again at least once a generation, and there would never be the
> slightest hope for justice.

One could argue that one of the reasons that MLK's non-violent approach
worked was because there was a Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and the Black
Panthers among other groups advocating "by any means possible",
insurrection, and revolution. Aren't we already fighting the battle over and
over again at least once each generation?  As for whether or not there is
the slightest hope for justice despite the fact that we are still fighting
the good fight for civil rights with large periods and indications of great
backsliding, I leave that to others to judge.  But if there is still hope,
then your argument is not very strong in light of the fact that we are still
fighting and re-fighting the same battles.  If there is no longer the
slightest hope left, then the civil rights movement as you picture it - a
non-violent pacifist movement by itself - did not work and produce any
lasting or significant changes.

> Following the logic of your argument, we would then get rid of habeus
> corpus and promote the use of torture.

There is a strategy that might employ such tactics as a means to produce
pain for the nice respectable and responsible middle class mass public such
as to cause them to become mobilized and angry enough to demand change or
revolt rather than tacitly accepting that those things happen to only other
or those who deserve what they get.  In point of fact a similar strategy
used in the 1960s anti-war movement involving tactics that resulted in those
nice middle class and middle aged members of the public getting clubbed and
arrested by police after which they tended to join the in the anti-war
movement and oppose the governmental actions.  If an injustice is done to
you, it is comedy and I will sit back and enjoy it; but if it is done to me
it is tragedy and I will react and take up arms to protect myself.

> A peace demonstration should practice what it preaches.

That is a moralistic position and not a practical power political position.
It typically makes for martyrs but not successful results.  Because this is
what most middle class intellectuals practice, I would suggest is the reason
why their actions tend to be ineffective and symbolic forms of intellectual
exercise more appropriate to religion and not political battles.  The days
of belief in "love" as in the hippy days are over; they died a violent
death, being replaced by violence, the drug culture resulting in drug wars,
overdoses and jail for many who came after the death of hippidom, and crass
materialism and the worship of money and plastic appearances.  With the end
of the 1960's, an amoralistic engineering mentality has taken over and feed
the corporate beast.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-
> bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Karen Medina
> Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 5:38 PM
> To: Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Rethinking Oct. 27
> 
> Laurie wrote:>> Sometimes you have to become a monster to fight a
> monster.
> 
> Where would we be if the leaders of the civil rights movement had used
> your logic? I think it would have to fight the battle all over again
> and again at least once a generation, and there would never be the
> slightest hope for justice.
> 
> Following the logic of your argument, we would then get rid of habeus
> corpus and promote the use of torture.
> 
> A peace demonstration should practice what it preaches.
> 
> -karen medina
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