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Can We Be the 100 Percent?
Occupy Wall Street has signaled the changing weather of a looming “American Autumn” and consequently galvanized the progressive movement. The 99 percent, as they call themselves for the interests they want to represent, have shown tremendous courage in the face of police brutality. They have also demonstrated remarkable perseverance, despite the general lack of accurate mainstream attention on their efforts to reclaim a democracy that takes the human being into account over corporate interests. But perhaps the most inspiring aspect of this movement is that its members are choosing nonviolence to achieve their objectives. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the movement would be more inspiring, more effective, and ultimately truly nonviolent, by including the one percent.
Nonviolence is not a mere strategic tactic as touted by scholars of political theory, including some within the progressive movement itself; it is more comprehensive, and as such, much more powerful than the limiting definition these people have adopted (to our detriment as a movement with a real future). The basis for the power of nonviolence is emerging more and more in science, not to mention that it has always existed across the wisdom traditions—namely as a positive force governing human interaction that allows us to build deeper bonds and uncover a greater sense of unity as people.
Gandhi (who celebrated his birthday on October 2nd) said, “It is the law of the humans,” meaning, we exercise our full humanity as we exercise our full capacity to do good to others. And it is illogical to think that we can raise the image of humanity if we do not take all of humanity into account. Within that excluded one percent are people, indeed some powerful people who will simply point out our hypocrisy of methods if we dehumanize them in our movement. When we use dehumanization as a tactic, we borrow it not from any true theory of nonviolence, but straight from the paradigm of violence. It is the violent who gave us “corporate personhood;” we need to espouse radical humanization to set right that distortion.
As Gandhi disclosed in regard to his national struggle against the British Raj, “Behind my non-cooperation, there is always the keenest desire to cooperate on the slightest pretext even with the worst of opponents.” Of course we are not blind to the evil that has been perpetuated in the name of citizens of the United States by the one percent. Those grievances are well known. Nor do we deny that there is a group with whom we are in opposition; but we have to be clear about where that opponent resides. When Gandhi says that he is willing to compromise with his opponent it is because he was aware of a higher reality, that we are an interconnected whole that in the end, our opponent is none other than ourselves.
“Conquer anger,” the Buddha says, and “you will conquer the world.” It is in conquering ourselves that we will begin to conquer our foes and have the full force of nonviolence at our disposal for persuading our opponent to change, not by violence or domination, but by employing the right means to, as Gandhi said, “compel reason to be free.” Conquering anger does not mean suppression or passivity, it means using it for constructive ends; it means transforming it into a creative force. Gandhi put it this way, “I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.”
This is the secret of nonviolent action: conserved anger can become love, not a soft, passive love, but a love that can disarm a person expecting a harsh remark or an insult. Our friend David Hartsough, for instance, experienced this force at a lunch-counter sit-in in a segregated Virginia. When his life was threatened with a knife at his chest by an angry segregationist, David, in an effort to transform his anger and fear turned to his aggressor and said quietly, “You do what you think is right brother, and I will try to love you anyway.” The man dropped his knife, began to cry and left the restaurant.
This is why at the Metta Center we recommend finding a spiritual practice such as meditation. We recommend practicing it everyday, anywhere. Gandhi himself turned prison time into an opportunity to meditate and continue to build the movement. With the October 2011 protests looming large, we have a great opportunity to keep our flame going and build it and other protests currently underway into an enduring movement. That one percent of energy saved each day in meditation is going to keep us from burning out, from harboring resentment and anger, and for keeping the struggle going for building a nonviolent future for the United States. We will get there fully when we are chanting, “A nation united can never be defeated” and mean all of us, 100 percent.
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56 Comments so far
Show AllGood reminders. I'm glad CD posted this.
Blah blah blah
The 99% slogan is an amazingly effective tool to illustrate that our nation has been hijacked by a small minority of corporate overlords. The ideas espoused by this author would be very disempowering if adopted by #occupy.
Of course she's from Marin, probabaly nice and cozy in her ashram. these paeople are the bane of working class activism, and are concieted "spiritual" know-it-alls who have been engaging in magical thinking about politics and consciousness cahnge for the past four decades. Meanwhile te working calss slipped further and further intio the margins while the gurus advised them to love their persecutors and chant Aum.
I really am beginning to hate these arrogant bourgeoisie bullshitters. These fake lefties know virtiually nothing about class conflict. Having lived lives of privilege, they emerge from their New Age Centers to preach their immobilizing nonsense to the workers.
There is a tremendous amount of anger out their among the people. We need to fan the flames of that anger, not put it out with a lot of spiritual hoo ha.
The author has every right to his religous opinions, but it is arrogant and wrong of him to try to project his faulty political notions onto this new movement.
Thank you, DJH! These murderous fuckers would love nothing more to see us 'non-violent' ourselves into the grave. Trust me when I say this...these fascist pricks aren't playing with us. They play for keeps and, when the bullets are flying, sound guns begin blasting, pepper spray is spraying and batons are crushing (as if they ever stopped for my people), your new age drivel and your bourgeois, stolen 'spirituality' isn't going to save you or anyone else.
Thanks Black_Anarch!
I think a lot of people latch on to this type of wrong headed "religous pacifist" argument out of good intentions, but for many others it's just a way of trying to wiggle out of being called out as part of the 1%.
Ultimately, these afluent new agers trust in their wealth and class status to protect them from the dire economic, political and social conditions in the US, and if there is no revolution, that's okay for them too, maybe even the preferred option.
to DreamJoeHill and Black_Anarch! : Perhaps you both know a different crowd of meditators than I do. In the meditation groups I've been involved in, the participants were of modest means (had an apartment, food to eat, day jobs, etc), did show up for and/or help organize political events, and would think you really didn't understand us if you used the term "religious pacifist" to describe us. After all, we meditated outside of any organized religion, and our political activities, while peaceful, were not passive.
I challenge you both to read "Gandhi the Man" by Eknath Easwaran. (If you want to understand how powerful it can be to combine peaceful resistance with social change.) If you have no interest - no problem... just watch the blanket generalizations about peacemakers and meditators. We're not your enemy...
Nothing wrong with meditating, or any other spiritualism one wishes to pursues.
The problem arises when spiritualism is presented as politics, or as a prerequisite to social and political change, or as a substitute for politics.
The question is not whether or not we see you and your friends as the enemy, but rather whether or not you see us as the enemy.
Thanks for that very clear analysis TA.
one of the wonderful things about meditating is that you can experience that all beings are connected. at certain times, people take sides on an issue, but underneath it all -- we are one. So: you are not my enemy, even though we have very different ways of understanding the world.
The sides are not merely internal or imaginary.
When my loved ones are threatened, I am going to take sides. When the innocent are suffering and persecuted, I am going to take sides. You may be able to "experience" transcending these sides, and disappearing them in your internal world. That does not mean that the reality magically disappears.
Most of us do not so much "take sides" as we are forced to do so. Life and death are hardly mere "issues."
I cannot imagine what sort of "way of understanding the world" precludes what I just said.
Wow, TA, that was just my thought. Reality exists. Can you have an internal experience that 'transcends' the idea of reality? I'm sure you can. That doesn't change the fact that you can't meditate your way from in front of a speeding train, barreling down on you. You can't 'OM' your way out of a bullet burrowing into your brain and you can't 'chant Babylon down'. At some point, you'll have to DO something, in order to see a change in reality.
Meditation -- and the understanding that underneath it all we are all connected, despite very real differences that exist in the material world -- is something that yields benefits over time.
You wouldn't expect herbs to instantly cure a heart in need of an immediate bypass surgery, and you wouldn't expect to stop a speeding train with with meditation. No one here is saying any different.
You use meditation to strengthen your character so that you can be of service, an effective, committed agent of positive change. You learn how to stay human, to set firm limits with abusive people and yet still see their humanity. You learn to translate any useful info and insights gained thru introspection into positive action steps. You learn to catch yourself when you're over-filtering information and shutting down in converstations, or running away from people or situations to avoid fear. You learn over time what triggers meanness, cruelty and sadness in you, so that you can find better responses. Ultimately, you build the character to be of service in ways that previously might have overwhelmed or scared you.
So, as you can see -- meditation is kinda like lifting weights - it's neither glamorous nor particularly exciting most of the time, it may make you sweat and push you to your limits, and it doesn't appeal to everyone. But from my experience, I can say that it certainly does pay off over time.
of course if your loved ones (family, nature, neighbors, etc) are in danger, you should protect them! the challenge is to stay human while you're doing the protecting.
We are all related, and what you do to someone else, you also do to yourself. (aka the law of karma.) If there is an option to be courteous / inflict less pain on the perpetrator, take it. If not, at least you made the effort to search for a humane solution. Stay human!
Agreed.
"In the meditation groups I've been involved in, the participants were of modest means (had an apartment, food to eat, day jobs, etc), did show up for and/or help organize political events,."
I guess you've never hung out in Marin County....
How do you propose to make peace or mediate the current capitalist economic death march? If you are "mediating" between the 99% and the 1% then by definition you are not identifying with the 1%.
They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Blair
Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?
Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
I am not advocating for hatred or violence, but I recognize the class dimension to the political, economic and environmental struggle. I don't appreciate being put in the same class as the financial oligarchs in reference to the current crisis. True we are all human, but that does not begin to suffice as an organizing principle for the current crisis
Which side are you on?
It's an important question to answer in these times of crisis.
Pretending that there are no sides is not an answer to that question. It is an intellectual evasion and a diservice to the masses.
2 Am,
Maybe the problem is not either whether they see us as an enemy or we see them as one but that we think there must be an enemy. That assumption makes us the enemy of everyone, including ourselves. Some people will scoff and snort at this; it may be that their own anger prevents them from seeing the psychological truths behind what happens in the world, and how we hold others’ shadow and they hold ours, by which I mean: those parts of us we can’t accept we assume exist in others and not in us; we even take seemingly unrelated steps to create those traits in them. (We all feel desire, for example; one aspect of desire we call greed has been pushed and condensed into the form of psychopathic corporations.) Recognizing that we each hold the same fear, anger and grief is not pretending anything; it’s becoming aware of what drives the destruction, including class warfare. but by doing that we end up facing and ‘fighting” it completely differently—and far more effectively.
DJH, you make some remarkable assumptions about Stephanie Van Hook. Have you actually investigated what her income is, what work she does, and what actions she’s taken part in?
I know more people than I could easily count in Marin County and almost none of them are rich; in fact, many are poor, debt-ridden students and laborers. Why do you not only assume she is wealthy and privileged but base your argument on that assumption and even reject a reply that points that out? Unconsciously-driven conservatives hold silly assumptions about people (Welfare queens, all Islamic people are terrorists, anyone involved in protesting Wall Street is a dirty hippy ecoterrorist, etc.) which is exactly why we oppose them. If we expect to succeed, we have to do better in debating issues than they do.
We - the working class people - are under assault. Saying that is not "thinking that there must be an enemy," rather it is recognizing that there is in fact an enemy.
At issue in these discussions - though not always obvious - is not how we fight back, but whether or not we do.
Violence is in the hands of those with the power. Preach non-violence to them. Gandhi and MLK used non-violence as a tactic, not in lieu of fighting back at all. Many promoting non-violence in these discussions are using that as a ploy to advance an agenda of moderation, caution and ineffectiveness.
"recognizing that there is an enemy" is in fact imagining that the enemy excludes ourselves, and that we are not inextricably interlinked---socially, ecologically, and especially psychologically---with those you're calling enemies. I know you don't get that so never mind; let's drop this aspect. I'm in fact talking past you to other readers and don't expect you to understand, because you obviously aren't trying to. (We would recognize trying by the presence of questions in your posts amid all the unsupported and unsupportable assertions.)
I've never known anyone to preach non-violence as a way to prevent action. I imagine people do it, outsmarting themselves since non-violence is so much more effective than violence and they are thus pushing their opponents toward the one tactic most likely to succeed. I do know people sometimes SAY people preach non-violence as a ploy to prevent violent action, but that might be mainly to prevent non-violence, which if they’re smart, they fear will be very effective. I don't see people advocating inaction here by preaching non-violent action, and I'm not sure how you could judge their motives through email (particularly without any emoticons). : )
So the choice isn't WHETHER we resist and pursue our positive agenda (permaculture, community self-reliance, the Transition movement, alternative currencies and exchange systems, etc.), it actually IS about how we pursue our goals. I preach non-violence to those with power all the time. So far, I have not been joined by enough people to stop them, but there is still some time left.
Not sure what you mean about Gandhi and MLK. They used ONLY non-violence, so your statement makes no sense. Let’s remember that in situations where repeated attempts to accomplish the same by violence had failed so miserably most people here will not even know of the attempts, MLK and G used non-violence quite effectively. They both won.
I agree that we have some problems and need to stop people from pursuing actions that are destroying the planet and civilization. Most people I know, even those who agree, are also committing those same actions (overconsuming especially through driving, flying, electrical use, meat-eating, waste of all kinds…) We have met the enemy and he is us. The actions we need to succeed are multi-leveled, varied and I-don’t-know-how-else-to-say-that. Personal change, psychological change, industrial change, political change at the local, state, national and international levels, economic change… we need all of the above and probably more.
We are faced with many problems, the most serious and urgent of which is the climate catastrophe- peak oil complex and the larger ecological crisis. Violent action on behalf of climate change will absolutely inevitably result in violent reaction by the rich and powerful, and that, both internal and international, will most likely result in war which would doom us with absolute certainty to the collapse of civilization and the mass extinction of most life on Earth, humans included. I’d rather avoid that. So I’m preaching non-violence to you.
And the last form of preaching here will be to say that those who confuse non-violence with non-action are either suffering from understandable but unfortunate rage they need to overcome, or just aren’t paying attention. Or both.
"recognizing that there is an enemy" is in fact imagining that the enemy excludes ourselves, and that we are not inextricably interlinked---socially, ecologically, and especially psychologically---with those you're calling enemies. I know you don't get that so never mind; let's drop this aspect. I'm in fact talking past you to other readers and don't expect you to understand, because you obviously aren't trying to. (We would recognize trying by the presence of questions in your posts amid all the unsupported and unsupportable assertions.)" -J4zonian
You really are a pompous ass. You even proclaim in the 2nd person plural. Do you fancy yourself a bourgeosie judge presiding over the moral conflicts of your lessers?
Your "logic" and advice is a poison to successfully confronting Wall St. Pompous religous asses have been preaching the same ineffective "consciousness raising" on the left for decades. It;s ineffective because the consciousness that's needed to win this political struggle is CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS which is essentially the opposite of the Kumbaya you preach.
And you are remarkably divisive and insulting for someone who names him or herself after an important organizer and inspiration.
I'm stopping now; you continue to refuse reasonable discussion and won't try to understand something apparently beyond you right now. The degeneration to insults won't help us (and by the plural (first person by the way) I include you). For more you can read my posts on other CD articles from the same day as this one.
I'm encountering this rage and projection a lot of places now; it's understandable that the rage is coming out now that it has some useful-feeling place of expression; at the same time I hope we can get beyond it and its aggressively naive straw person arguments to come together on the wise political action that needs to happen. I will continue to do whatever I can to make that political action conscious action that will be more effective, less distractable and less co-optible than the simple angry them-are-the-problem one-pony nonsense that even tea party activists can muster.
It's unfortunate you won't discuss this with an open mind; it could have been interesting and helpful.
My mind is open, but your arrogance required that you be called out.
"them-are-the-problem one-pony nonsense that even tea party activists can muster. "
Your ignorance is on display here. You ignore the context of the 99% movement which is all about calling out the capitalist oligarchy centered in Wall St. You'd like to redefine that movement so that it fits your religious views, but your religious views don't really apply here.
Your bastardized grammar is also incredibly condenscending and is clearly a kind of classist bigotry.
Like most dogmatic spiritual types, you interpret disagreement and criticism as rage and close-mindedness. Once "insulted" you tend to double down on the conceit and condenscension. You hide your egotism behind a thin facade of unity and "we're all in it together," and you cast yourself as spiritually superior to your critics.
It's child play to get you to tip your hand and reveal your elitist contempt.
What a nasty joke you are.
Thanks, Hero, it’s frustrating dealing with such obsessive, un-self aware anger. Whether Joe is COINTELPRO or not is beyond me; those revelations are only made in retrospect and are often a shock. It doesn’t pay to become suspeicious of everyone who disagrees.
I like the Canup quote; however, in the end malice and stupidity are the same thing. “Evil is an epistemelogical mistake” said Gregory Bateson, talking about a misperception (literally and figuratively) of the nature of the universe and the self.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Hi DJH,
I'm for everyone being well fed, having shelter & something meaningful to do, and a chance to know joy & love in their brief sojourn on the earth. I'm glad people are organizing in NY, Boston, Chicago, LA, etc. And I'm glad they're camping out together; perhaps in going through this sacrifice together, they'll be able to come up w/ some new visions, and spur onlookers who dream of living more fulfilling lives to wake up and take action, too. To be willingly of service is a huge life-enhancer, in my experience.
I'm also in favor of the recent sit-in in BofA, and direct action to block the XL Pipeline.
I'm also in favor of people in groups coming up with practical, inexpensive under-the-radar solutions to problems facing that community or family.
And my above all favorite thing to do is spread positive earth loving vibrations through music...I find that I have much more energy and drive when I feel good, so I like to pass that along ...
Bottom line: we need a diversity of techniques. Don't let Western Duopoloy-style thinking get you down -- there are more than 2 sides! :)
Harsh but true
Now, now DJH. You seem to be angry. We can't have that. After all, if you would just start thinking beautiful positive thoughts, I am sure you would be much happier. Try analyzing your belly button lint, That - plus a six figure income - seems to work for these various "progressives" who are constantly lecturing us about what is wrong with us.
"The author has every right to his religious opinions, but it is arrogant and wrong of him to try to project his faulty political notions onto this new movement."
Hear, hear,
See, now TA,
you seem to be trying to make us all angry enough to resort to violence by your repeated straw person arguments. I'm stopping now because you seem only to want to distort and misunderstand our position and talking to you has become a waste of time I can spend more valuably... well, doing almost anything. Please write back if you want to seriously consider any other viewpoints and drop the sarcastic nonsense.
Uncle Tom tried your approach. It was suicide then, it is suicide now.
... by which you mean non-violence is suicide? If so, that is astoundingly historically ignorant. India, all of eastern Europe, South Africa, much of Latin America and many other countries are free now because of non-violent or mostly non-violent revolutions. Others are getting there--ongoing Arab Spring for example... What exactly are your disagreements with the strategy suggested in this article?
I didn't say that non-violence was suicide. I don't oppose non-violence as a tactic.
then splain me please your post. what is suicidal?
Believing that their is a chance for unity with Wall St is suicide for a political movement against the capitalist class.
"We're all one - including the people gorging on our futures" is not the primary truth that the anti-capitalist campaigners need to strategically embrace right now, nor does a concept of shared humanity preclude a class based movement for justice for the 99%. The author and several posters see everything as one thing. Perhaps that's why they are confusing apples and oranges.
The 100% approach is, from my perspective, anti-historical, as it denies and denigrates the CLASS STRUGGLE that has torn so many many important workplace and human rights from the jaws of the capitalist oppressors. We didn't win our rights by identifying with the legitimacy of the oppressor's position. No! We win our rights by demanding that the employer class, the capitalists, surrender their tools of opprression that enable the rapacious accumulation inevitable under capitalism.
This is more than a problem of individual morality, it is about overthrowing a system that depends on and encourages monsterous and massive exploitation & destruction, misery & bloodshed = all in the name of property rights.
.
1. that doesn't explain the suicide remark
2. insisting on rageful dichotomizing vs remaining passive is not the choice. The better we understand the world the more effective we are, and the world is not simply them and us. To be obsessed with class struggle and see people only as enemies will in the end slow the change we need, not help it. Please try to understand that there is more than that, to the world, to us, and to our opponents, and that true progress requires more profound analysis than that.
1. Your response is the childish equivalent of "No,it's not because I say so." Your arrogance and idiocy knows no bounds.
2. "To be obsessed with class struggle and see people only as enemies will in the end slow the change we need, not help it. Please try to understand that there is more than that, to the world, to us, and to our opponents, and that true progress requires more profound analysis than that."
your analysis is neither "profound" (more of your incredible conceit) nor useful.
Obviously you don't understand the concept of class struggle; so how could your analysis ever transcend it? Without class struggle the workers lose and the capitalists win. What part of that don't you understand?
You are blinded by your own spiritual arrogance and conceit.
I hope that your ilk have little influence on #occupy, otherwise it is bound to become just another "spiritual" circle jerk.
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
-- Mahatma Gandhi
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good"
-- George Washington
"The bearing of arms is the essential medium through which the individual asserts both his social power and his participation in politics as a responsible moral being..."
-- J.G.A. Pocock, describing the beliefs of the founders of the U.S.
When only cops have guns, it's called a "police state".
"The state calls its own violence `law', but that of the individual `crime'"
-- Max Stirner
"Taking my gun away because I might shoot someone is like cutting my tongue out because I might yell `Fire!' in a crowded theater."
-- Peter Venetoklis
"The great object is, that every man be armed. [...] Every one who is able may have a gun."
-- Patrick Henry, speech of June 14 1788
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence.
-- Attributed to Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948)
If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who are perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick BATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms].
-- U.S. Representative John Dingell, 1980
To make inexpensive guns impossible to get is to say that you're putting a money test on getting a gun. It's racism in its worst form.
-- Roy Innis, president of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1988
I don't like the idea that the police department seems bent on kepping a pool of unarmed victims available for the predations of the criminal class.
-- David Mohler, 1989, on being denied a carry permit in NYC
You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.
-- Rush Limbaugh, in a moment of unaccustomed profundity 17 Aug 1993
EZ,
The success of non-violent revolutions disproves the need for guns. Is it easy? No. Do they always succeed? Of course not. Are violent revolutions easy and do they always succeed? When a peaceful revolution fails those who are left are left with education, inspiration and a model to follow, in life as well as revolution. When violence fails, those who are left are left with even more rage, bad models and guilt over killing, besides. The failure of non-violence leaves a residue of peace in its wake, whatever else it bequeaths. The failure of violence leaves dead innocents, an opportunity for effective propaganda by the ruling elite, and a residue of confusion, grief, rage and fear---on both sides.
Non-violence, when it is tried with an equal number of people committed and educated, has a vastly better record than violence. While violence works pretty well directed downward toward the poor and oppressed, it doesn’t often succeed when directed upward, toward the rich and powerful. No surprise there; the rich and powerful (a redundant phrase) can usually command many times the number of guns and thugs the poor can inspire. So especially for everyone besides the extremely wealthy, education and emotional maturity are far more important weapons than guns.
The love of guns in the US is the result of fear, rage and grief, not any need to do something practical with them. Isn’t it obvious that there are better responses to fear, rage and grief than killing someone?
Thanks for your courteous and thoughtful reply. Your argument applies to both sides, but unfortunately, conservatives don't seem to care about the immorality, fear, rage, grief and deaths they cause through their wars and the crimes they commit using weapons.
Rejecting weapons leaves the liberal majority at a tactical disadvantage, defenseless and weak, easy prey for the predatory conservative class. That was the experience of our forefathers whom I have quoted often in other posts, and for whom a well armed populace was the goal so as to preserve the democracy they fought, suffered and died for.
Calling for the liberal majority to arm themselves is not a call to commit violence, but to defend ourselves and prevent violence from being committed against us. To show the power that they need to play nice. We underestimate armed conservatives and their oligarch masters at our peril.
Thomas Jefferson: 'A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!'
You're welcome. I'm trying on non-violence to see if it fits.
As has been pointed out many times the founding fathers were mostly rich owners afraid, however consciously or un, of having their stuff stolen. Their opinions on the matter of guns were skewed by that, and by the noble gun-related traditions of the colonies. Wiping out Native Americans, for example. Making sure slaves and indentured servants didn't steal their stuff or try to you know, get a decent wage for their work. Woulda ruined the economy, ya know. The ones who knew better compromised--otherwise known as surrender--aka Obamad--to maintain 'solidarity' with the slave-owners and keep from being taken over by even more violent ones, since they didn't have the imagination to invent (reinvent, actually) peaceful resistance.
Rejecting weapons actually leaves the majority at an advantage, since they're a majority and they end up not saddled with the (deserved) PR burden of being violent opposers of the rightful owners of the all---of being 'socialists', 'terrorists', 'ecologists' and the like.
Calling for the liberal majority to arm themselves is a call to defend against their stuff being stolen by the poor. It aligns the middle class with the wealthy and perpetuates their exploitation by removing them from the class war, at least the active part. They remain on the receiving end, of course. It allows them to continue with the delusions that good things can be accomplished with violence and and that they can all become as wealthy as the extremely wealthy and that that would bring them happiness.
We should never underestimate conservative's ability to either commit mass murder or be convinced we're right and join us in creating something better. Guns in the hands of liberals don't stop the first, only the second.
J4zonian: 'A government that IS its citizens is the only real Democracy. No one has to be afraid of anyone that way.'
J4Zonian: We are on the same page. Thanks for your comments.
"Calling for the liberal majority to arm themselves is a call to defend against their stuff being stolen by the poor."
The poor usually tend to be the most liberal in the liberal majority. Why should they be denied guns?
To make inexpensive guns impossible to get is to say that you're putting a money test on getting a gun. It's racism in its worst form.
-- Roy Innis, president of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1988
"When a peaceful revolution fails those who are left are left with education, inspiration and a model to follow."
Tell that to the tens of thousands of Chileans murdered when Salvadore Allende's electoral revolution was overthrown by Pinochet's (and by extension Kissinger's) murderous right wing thugs. Rounded up, penned into a stadium and massacred is not a model to follow.
A failed revolution implies a successful counter-revoltion; so, failed non-violent or any other revolution can end very badly. This is an important distinction.
Try to understand the screaming class dialectic that churns out maimed and dead bodies and spirits every year. Truly, we must resolve this dialectic by eliminating all the social, political, military and economic supports that feed the ongoing atrocity called capitalist militarist imperialsm.
If you think that the term "capitalist militarist imperialsm." is mere rhetoric or "Western dichotomous thinking" then you need to think again. It is a term that very accurately summarizes our current international financial system. Of course no three words can say it all, but hese are a good start!
If you think that I must be a bloody bolshevist because I use the term "capitalist militarist imperialst" then think again.
What part of capitalist militarist imperialist don't you underrstand?
Most parts of it, apparently. I have only spent one lifetime in study (I'm over 50). I understand a little about its causes, which are psychological, and which prompt me to understand that while we need to 1) not take part in the corporate economy (as much as this is possible), and 2) get others to be able and willing to not take part in the corporate economy, and 3) do whatever else we can as what Joanna Macy calls 'holding actions' (everything we do to slow ongoing human and other nature destruction) we need also to address the roots of the problem. And those roots require responses on a different level from simple fighting.
They require 1) creating alternatives--food and fiber production, localization, renewable energy, etc. 2) engaging the essential basis of all liberal thought, which is that we are all connected. Intelligent recognition of this is not New Age belief in The Secret or other nonsense but knowledge of psychology, ecology and history and more.
Yes, many were killed in Chile. Many were killed in Guatemala, Somalia, Iraq, and hundreds of other places. I guess I don't understand the point. We're left with dead people in every violent revolution, too, only some of those, including innocents, were killed by the left--an unaceptable price, to me. Every time, we have models to follow, either killers, or poets, singers, thinkers and spiritual people. I'm more inspired by Neruda, Jara, and Mandela than by Lenin and the Sendero Luminoso and Al Qaeda. Sorry, just my foolishness and ignorance.
To insult each other and assume that because someone has a different view they must be stupid is not helping. To make the false dichotomy between violence (or even the emotional/mental violence of simple dichotomous thinking) and effectiveness is also not helping.
I don't. I just think we get farther by acting as if we are until that becomes obviously foolish or obstructive.
“A nation united can never be defeated” and mean all of us, 100 percent." The author's choice of words/quote betrays her thought. Why defeat? does it mean USA will always compete or is competing? what about sharing? Why nation? how about the world? Why 100 percent? why only now?
100 percent is impossible, no man, no nation can achieved that. It is also self defeating. Imperfection is real and natural, and sometimes, a necessity. It is time now that the majority and the deprived stand and change the world for the better for real.
Use the system we have, to fix the system we have... and demand one simple law: make it a misdemeanor NOT to vote in federal elections.
There is a cynicism about applying the values of our founding fathers --- equality, justice and the common defense --- to ALL people on the planet. Applying the Golden Rule is considered optional. However, it is necessary for our survival. We are trapped in this spiral of self-dependence and lack of trust. Real progress will never be made until we reduce this level of fear. Violence is not power, violence is a weakness. It is a tool of cowards and bullies. It does not create control, it releases chaos. The culture of violence needs to be replaced, not overwhelmed with police powers, not corrected with underfunded agencies, not locked up in a jail cell, not treated as somebody else's problem. It's our problem.
THE HUMAN UNION---HU ARE YOU.
Membership---Everybody is already in it. Call your Chamber of Commerce to opt out.
Rejoin at any time.
Dues---Pay it forward with solidarity, common sense and good will.
Leadership---Apache nantan, talk it up, see what happens.
Tactics---Peaceful, Speaking Truth to Power, Resist, Occupy, Produce.
Goals---Fair pay, Fair play, Justice under the Law, Benefits to the Seventh Generation. No War.
One Planet, One People.
IF NOT NOW---WHEN?
CORP IS BORG.
if they turn and act human, then they will help the 99 percent and in that way be included
It is a serious mistake to remain passive when you are being beaten (unless you are in a cell with three policemen wielding clubs). Active nonviolence requires one to ACT. Thousands may have to die as they defy unjust laws, but there is no other way to win. When a nonviolent movement gives in to violence it has lost. The other side may then claim their violence was justified, creating confusion over who is really the injured party. If you remain passive you are cooperating with your oppressor. Active nonviolence attracts world opinion, which will not long continue to tolerate such blatant injustice.
If you cannot act out of love for your oppressor as did the man at the lunch counter in a previous post, it is better to be violent, but once you respond with violence there is no end to it---ever. The world has been at war continuously the entire Twentieh century---with no end in sight. Partly, I admit by design; too many people were making too much money to consider peace, but this is not the whole story. Violence breeds violence.
We cannot go into the present conflict with the idea that we are one with Wall Street.
That is not violent, it is disagreeing with a an out of touch and counter-productive "critique" of #occupy's very effective "99%" meme.
I have participated in organizing active non-violent rebellion for most of my adult life. But the line is grey on the picket line, and one comes to the aid and solidarity of other activist.
So stop disrespecting the 99%, and the idea behind it. The very .small number of people who crashed the economy are still benefitting from it. They are the 1% that are exploiting the other 99%
": “We have the ‘crooks’ on Wall Street, and I use that word advisedly — don’t misquote me, the word is ‘crooks’ — whose greed, whose recklessness, whose illegal behavior caused this terrible recession with so much suffering. We believe in this country; we love this country; and we will be damned if we’re going to see a handful of robber barons control the future of this country.”
Sen Bernie Sanders
So who you gonna believe, Bernie or some wannabe guru from Marin?