[Peace-discuss] Rethinking Oct. 27

Sat Oct 13 00:33:12 CDT 2007

>People seem to be conflating two different organizing tactics here

While this may be the case that the different organizing tactics are being
confounded, I think that you have maybe oversimplified the choices.  Here
are legal actions and civil disobedience; and both of which can be
non-violent and/or violent in nature and can be directed towards property
and/or people.

>Secondly, there is the question of using violence as a means of achieving
political ends, which I am 100% opposed to, >as were Gandhi and MLK. In the
history of the world, violence has NEVER EVER achieved anything admirable,
PERIOD. >And yes that includes the Red Army. The failure of the USSR to ever
realize the "withering away of the state" is >probably a result of the fact
that the country was founded on the concept of violence . . a violence that
continued in >unprecedented form.

Of course, this is a value statement, which I have no doubt that you believe
in and follow to the letter and which you have a right to make and follow.
I will take it at face value as being your position; but that does not mean
that it has to be mine or anyone else's or that everyone agrees with it
100%.  I also think that you are making some categorical empirical-like
statements that can be neither proven nor disproven empirically (i.e.,
violence has NEVER EVER achieved anything admirable, PERIOD); such
statements depend on how one defines "NEVER EVER" AND "admirable."

Having said that, one needs to acknowledge that the U.S. was also born out
of violence (the revolutionary war, the Mexican-American war, the killing of
native Americans, the enslaving of blacks); and it is questionable if it
ever achieved any of its stated goals and principles. But if it did, it
involved violence which is as American as Apple Pie.  The end of slavery in
the US also was a result of a war which was very violent.  In addition, one
has to acknowledge that the stopping of German Nazism, Italian Fascism, and
Japanese racism and oppression involved the use of violence during WWII. I
could go on and give examples that questionably be taken as refuting or at
least calling into question your proposition that "In the history of the
world, violence has NEVER EVER achieved anything admirable, PERIOD."

Moreover, your use of the term "violence" is intentionally or not very
general; it includes violence to anything - people, animals, plants,
property, environment, etc.  If one considers medical advances for people
and even animals as desirable and admirable, one has to accept that some of
them may require that exercising the violence involved in testing them on
test subjects -animal or vegetable - is undertaken in the production of the
admirable and desirable results and outcomes.

I think one needs to be cautious in making unqualified statements of
principle or fact.

> It's as simple as that. Break the Law? Yes! Use Violence? No!  That is how
you rise above injustice. 

Maybe for you; but people you see things as being so simple and black and
white scare the shit out of me.  More often than not such "either/or"
fundamentalists see no shades of gray and perpetrate some of the worst
injustices.  Instead of rising above injustice, this sort of viewpoint tends
to immerse one deep into the realm of injustice.  "America love it or leave
it," "better dead than red," "you are either with us or against us," etc.
all have their grounding in the "it is as simple as that" attitude.

>This is why the greatest American peacemakers of our time are people like
Kathy Kelly (my personal hero) and Cindy >Sheehan. They aren't strapped down
by any inane bureaucracies, parties or overarching ideologies. They are
motivated >by peace and willing to do all in their power outside of violence
to achieve that end.

I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the two persons you
mention, although I would not do them the disservice of connecting their
names with such hype as "greatest American peacemakers of our time."  They
are both people who do more than just talk, more than merely
intellectualize, and more than engage in riskless demonstrations.  For these
reasons, I have no problem accepting their activism as being real and
meaningful and as being of great significance independent of questions of
their use or non-use of violence as opposed to mental masturbation or
intellectual exercises engaged in by other activists who face few if any
risks and inconvenience, danger, or cost to themselves.  

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Matt Reichel
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 2:56 AM
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] Rethinking Oct. 27

People seem to be conflating two different organizing tactics here.
Firstly, there is the question of legal action vs. civil disobedience. The
latter implies breaking the law and risking arrest in protest against an
immoral authority, which would most certainly be appropriate now. I believed
that students should have walked out of their classes, disrupted classes,
and stopped up traffic in campustown to disrupt business as usual in
champaign/urbana when the war began in 2003. And I will remind you that we
were quite successful in that endeavour for one day. 

Secondly, there is the question of using violence as a means of achieving
political ends, which I am 100% opposed to, as were Gandhi and MLK. In the
history of the world, violence has NEVER EVER achieved anything admirable,
PERIOD. And yes that includes the Red Army. The failure of the USSR to ever
realize the "withering away of the state" is probably a result of the fact
that the country was founded on the concept of violence . . a violence that
continued in unprecedented form.

It's as simple as that. Break the Law? Yes! Use Violence? No!  That is how
you rise above injustice. This is why the greatest American peacemakers of
our time are people like Kathy Kelly (my personal hero) and Cindy Sheehan.
They aren't strapped down by any inane bureaucracies, parties or overarching
ideologies. They are motivated by peace and willing to do all in their power
outside of violence to achieve that end.

That should motivate us all!

-
mer

> From: tvchick at insightbb.com
> To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] Rethinking Oct. 27
> Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:05:48 -0500
> 
> >From a strategic angle even Martin Luther King Jr. was willing to break
the
> law in order to get a point across. He made the distinction between what
he
> considered to be "just" and "unjust" laws. King knew when to play it cool
> and when to engage in actions that people may have considered
revolutionary
> back in the 1960's.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
> [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Stuart Levy
> Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 11:35 PM
> To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Rethinking Oct. 27
> 
> On Wed, Oct 10, 2007 at 11:18:27PM -0500, Laurie at advancenet.net wrote:
> 
> > > 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.
> 
> Oh -- do you mean that India is still a British colony?
> 
> cheers
> 
> Stuart
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss

  _____  

Boo! Scare away worms, viruses and so much more! Try Windows Live OneCare!
Try now!
<http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/purchase/trial.aspx?s_cid=wl_hotmail
news> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20071013/44139045/attachment.html