Meatspace,

[Faustine]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2001, Faustine wrote:

> Jim wrote:
> 
> >Ghandi. Womens Sufferage (US). Jim Crow Laws (US). Vietnam. Civil Rights
> >in the 60's.
> >The point being, there are plenty of historical precidence where this 
sort
> >of behaviour has led directly to the change desired by the protestors
> >against a much better armed and entrenched foe.
> 
> It depends on which sort of behavior you mean--none of these causes 
> believed in violence at all!

>Um, you should review the 60's groups like the SDS and such. 

Exactly: those weren't the groups that made the real impact when it 
actually came to getting down to business and changing policy. Blame 
MKULTRA or whatever you want, but the bottom line is that they fell apart 
(and had their members killed or put in jail) whereas groups who didn't 
espouse violence continue to this day.


And while
>Ghandi certainly didn't believe in violence the same can't be said for the
>rest of the Indian freedom movement (not all hailed to Ghandi). 

Without Ghandi, British policy would have taken a far different turn. 
Violence hasn't exactly been a stunning success for the IRA, has it.


>As to
>women sufferage, you need to do some more research there as well, not all
>women are pascifist. they burned more than bra's...

Guess you totally missed what I was trying to say about the Pankhursts. 



>You paint with too broad a brush (typical of the indoctrinating education
>of the day - going all the way back to when I was a kid in the 60's)

Oh come on. Address my points, don't insult me. We can get as specific as 
you like--there are too many issues here to cover them in adequate detail 
in a couple of posts. 


> Back in the day, anarchists used to assasinate people.
>Every ilk assassinates every other ilk if given the oportunity and the
>personality.

Not Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony, Bobby Kennedy and and the 
vast majority of the people who espoused the causes you mentioned above. 
The ones who made the real difference--the ones who immediately come to 
mind every time we think of their cause--didn't espouse violence. If you 
want to talk about Che and Mao and Chairman Gonzalo, that's another story.


> What came of it? 
>>The Indians are a free country. You and blacks can vote.

Not because of the anarchists decision to espouse violence, which the point 
of the above question.

If you want to talk about tactics of anarchists today, why not draw on 
examples from other groups who espoused violence, rather than comparing 
them to groups which largely used peaceful tactics. Apples and oranges.


>The reality is, your example of the 'troops in the street willing to gun
>'em down' (a paraphrase) is apt. The only thing stopping them is knowing
>that the majority of people don't believe it. They still believe in the
>'kindly policeman who's there to help you' of their youth. 

After Rodney King? the LAPD scandal? Abner Louima? Mumia? Patrick 
Dorismond? Not anymore. Ever see statistics on the way people perceive 
racial profiling? Maybe the "kindly cop" stereotype still holds in  
whitebread middle America, but the rest of the nation is getting a clue. 


>Want to see the other side? Kent State.

True...


> The Sacco and Vanzetti case. Here's an 
> uncomforably familiar bit on that--just fill in new details and it's as 
> contemporary as ever:

>>One case does not a generalization make.

Who said it did? I thought it was interesting to note how it paralells 
quite a few different cases today. Anyway, I certainly think it's more 
relevant to the effects of the tactics of anarchism than bringing up 
Ghandi. 


> Ouch. There's a real lesson there!
>Yeah, you need to study history more.

Who doesn't? Anyway, I wasn't bringing it up to score debate points or some 
childish thing like that, why counter it that way. Too bad you didnt see 
anything interesting there-- I really do think it's really worth 
considering, especially in light of the whole "counterterrorist mania".

 

>You're trying to sit on the fence and at the same time stand on both
sides.

Not really, it's a complex set of issues. Why don't you say a little more 
in detail about why "spirit" is a more central issue than tactics, that 
ought to be interesting.
 

~Faustine.