Strategies for Resistance and Change

These two lines leap out at me:

“Not only do you not get through to your lords and masters, you don’t even let the rest of the population know what’s going on.

In Europe these people tend to be left wing, in the US they have been co-opted, and this is one reason why your lords and masters don’t care what you think, because you don’t have the big iron backing you up.”

While a movement can begin anywhere, for it to be ultimately successful (if not for this generation then the next), blue collar workers and service sector slaves (Walmart et al), have to be engaged, respected and inspired to participate. There was a time, especially before the cold war, when the left and the street stood together. Now they’ve lived apart for too long—they’re nearly alien to one another and they still perceive their interests as being different. I’m speaking of the authentic left and not what seems to be the vast majority of self-described liberals that love to refer to the poor and uneducated as stupid (unless of course they vote team donk).

The disenfranchised are gagging for an alternative narrative that muscularly addresses class inequality. At the same time, if we’re to reach out to them, we have to see their concerns as our own, we have to show them the respect they deserve. And if we’re serious, we have to have ways of communicating to them that do not rely on the corporate disinformation and at least not primarily on the internets. So to me that’s gotta to be a core strategy from the word go—how to convey our message to the people being most abused by the oligarchy. Reds, union activists, in this country and all others, when they have been successful, have always gone to where those people lived and spoken to them as equals stakeholders. Any left unwilling to do this doesn’t merit a better tomorrow.

Six weeks the US stock market is down, now watch. Interest rates paid to account holders are non-existant. Change is coming. Its not going to be shame.

For most of the elite, the last time they remember demonstrators standing toe-to-toe with the police or army was watching scenes of the Godfather concerning the Cuban revolution. Lech Walensa and the Gdansk ship yard may be more recent but less a part 0of the culture.

Back around 1937, the UAW had prolonged sit down strikes and took on the police and won. It took outsiders to preside over the coup in the auto industry. A guy with no memory except Wall Street coups, certainly not people coups. Macnamara was really chilled by demonstrators, He worked as upper management at Ford and must have heard about the sit ins in the auto industry a lot. That was over 70 years ago.

The elite broke the teamsters through deregulation and earlier prosecutions of multiple Teamster leaders starting with Hoffa. This isn’t France. Talk with a few truckers and Reagan is hated for deregulation. The result was loss of pay and loss of independence and even longer working days for less.

Btw, the classic case of workers going toe-to-toe with the army was in Bolivia in the 1950s. The tin miners were on their own turf, had explosives, and knew how to use them. They actually beat the army. Now that is something for the elite to be very afraid of.

Lincoln said that public sentiment is indispensable for any political cause. “Without it, nothing can succeed. With it, nothing can fail.” If he was correct, then the object of any political tactic such as those Mr. Welsh proposes must be to gain public sympathy for its cause.

Those tactics include peaceful demonstrations, disrupting the operation of industrial facilities, rioting, stalking and harassing government officials, and boycotting the purchase of goods and services. If you do any except the first and the last, people will regard you as a thug because you are using thug tactics. They care nothing for your opinion of your motives. They give much greater weight to their own opinion of your motives, that you seek to gain power over others by ruthless means. They suspect that if and when you gain power through thug tactics, you will direct the same tactics at them as soon as they do anything you disapprove of. Creation of that suspicion is the exact opposite of the public trust which Lincoln called vital to any cause.

Demonstration: Non-violent method of persuasion and protest #47.

Shunning and shaming: A lot like haunting (#31) and taunting (#32) (for Canadians, entartism).

As for “off the grid,” see forms of social and economic intervention like Establishing new social patterns (#174) and Alternative economic institutions (#192).

Not saying this taxonomy is any sort of blueprint, or even exhaustive. However, it points to a very rich inventory of non-violent tactics that deserve consideration, many of which are being practiced (though not reported on) today, and with success. I doubt, for example, that the Egyptians would have gotten even as far as they did, had they not treated a reputation for non-violence as the strategic asset it turned out to be.

Of course the other side is using thug tactics. None of us here just fell off the turnip truck. And Mao and Stalin were soooo much better than emperors and czars.

Wow, lot of your ideas are pure anarchism. Imagine if people moved past liberalism, a failed and feckless ideology.

The people who piss me the off are the folks who insist that non-violence works everywhere and at all times and that violence never works.

As a reader, it’s hard for me to believe that we’ve consumed so much comment-space in the last couple threads arguing about this. It’s pretty obvious to me that violence works, and also that non-violence can work at times.

Great essay, and general outline of strategies. “Opt-Out” is the future, or at least I know it is my future, what I was born to work on. From this will eventually arise a competing paradigm, much as Europe eventually arose from the ashes of Roman civilization. There have been many waves of people, throughout time, who attempted to check out of the dominant paradigm physically. The 60s was the most recent wave, occurring at the peak of prosperity of the current civilization, and not all attempts failed. However, if your hippie commune went bust, you could still return to society, get a job and enjoy a relatively prosperous middle class existence, and the majority did just that. That option is less and less viable today, if it exists at all.

“Opting Out” is called “Building Lifeboats” by people like Richard Heinberg, a figure in the Peak Oil movement (switching contexts slightly). Here’s a parallel thought from that movement, gleaned from a random site:

There are many strategies for dealing with the approaching collapse or contraction of the modern industrial world. Some will build lifeboats, some will try to redirect our overgrown civilization, some will even try to move the icebergs out of the way, and some will try a combination of responses. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the sinking of the Titanic is inevitable. If the unpredictable course of human history is any guide, the relative merits of the various ways to opt out involve some conjecture. We leave that judgment to you.

My thanks also for the essay. I get too easily lost in over-complicated thinking and to be brought back to basics – it’s been done and worked before, this is how it’s done – is very helpful.

This is a great post.

I am not a fan of “Black Bloc” tactics, under the theory that those of us who aren’t the oligarchs – aka “the rest of us” – need to see ourselves reflected in the ranks of the protesters/resisters. “Why those people could be us!” etc. How that identification occurs differs from society to society. Egyptians may find it easier to identify with people setting barricades of flaming palm trees on fire than, say, Canadians.

But wearing masks and dressing up in paramilitary gear completely dehumanizes you. You become very easy to dismiss as some sort of “other”.

Gotta disagree about Malcom X, or the black George Wallace. As someone old enough to remember the desegregation of my elementary school, as someone whose family was active in the civil rights movement (I was just a kid) I really have to take issue with that and will write a response over at my blog when I have a chance.

As for violence, it is easy from a distance of comfort to excuse violence, but the means determines the ends. You cannot win freedom with violence, only a different sort of dictator. That is why India is a democracy and Algeria is a dictatorship.

Your last section about getting off the grid has the most merit in my opinion. Boycotts have a long and honorable history in the United States, and a winning one I might add. The oligarchy would love strikes, provoking strikes is a known union busting technique. Boycotts are another thing all together. Boycotting the Koch brothers makes a lot of sense right now. Justice by example and all that.

I don’t have any sympathy for Maoists. The time to attach attack the Marats of this world is before they have powerful newspapers, not after.

I agree that violence must not be ruled out as a potential strategy or tactic, but I would argue that it must only be employed once non-violence has been thoroughly tried and shown to fail – like the “exhaust diplomacy before committing to war” rule. Clearly, non-violence cannot win against those without morality: even if you sway the overwhelming majority of the population into sympathy with your cause, if they’re all perfectly committed to non-violence, everybody can still get machine-gunned by a handful of thugs with a lot of ammo (one might argue “But then they’d be killing the proles whose labor enables their luxurious lifestyle!” but that’s the same logic as European Jews who were reluctant to believe the rumors of death camps in the ’40’s). I would also agree that non-violence without the inherent threat of future violence – if demands are not met – is generally toothless and easily (and understandably) ignored.

But also, the decision to pivot from non-violent resistance into violent resistance is one to be taken very seriously – violence changes the very character of any resistance effort. While it may not be particularly true of labor struggles, movements seeking a change of government can become corrupted by the violent elements employed in seeking their goal; how many revolutions began with altrustic intentions only to adopt violent tactics during their struggle, and finally replaced the existing oppressive, violent regime with a similar monster of their own creation? Your repeated citing of the the United States’ founding is valid but, I would argue, more of an exception than a rule in terms of it’s end result.

(I think this is what Lambert was referring to when mentioning Mao and Stalin…)

Disagree with dcblogger on the point of strikes. I’m reminded of a few short years ago when millions of latinos shut down many businesses and filled the US streets to a point neither major party said a peep and major networks aired it extensively. An effective strike in our times would have to be conducted by at least as many if not more people who are not in a union. And it would have to take place over an extended period… probably more than a few times. I also think strikes of a different nature… such as shaming banksters and their employees (take and publish names, photos etc.) by practically shutting down Wall Street with walls of people demanding basic decency could have many positive effects.

The problem with violence is the people who gravitate to leadership, the first ones willing to torch a police car, break a window, etc are often not who you want as your leaders when the revolution is won. When thuggish tactics are winning tactics, thugs win. Maybe they are “our” thugs, but thugs none the less. That said singing “We Shall Overcome” and linking arms as your end game is not intimidating to the thugs on the other side. This is a dilemma every revolution/movement struggles with.
On opting out-I think it a mistake to say the counterculture of the sixties largely failed. Opting out is a slow process . Learning the survival skills abandoned by humans who flocked to the cities for industrial jobs is generational work. I would bet the number of children raised on small farms tending organic gardens, milking goats/cows, building fences, baking bread, messing with alternative technologies quadrupled over the previous decade. Lots of “hippies” quietly dropped out , bought farms, relearned ancient skills, and are part of the rebirth of the farmers markets all across the USA. You are right it is easier to live a third world economy in a first world country. When you need to raise some cash you do not have to travel far to prostitute yourself. Learning to “opt out” will be much harder in a decaying society.

Jake: On Tahrir Square and Egypt, a few responses; I’m familiar with most of the examples you cite; I blogged about many of them, in real-time. The Tahrir Square organizers grew from the union movement (itself a consequence of neo-liberal policies that encouraged Egyptian sweat shops). So, if the crowd in Tahrir Square was able to chant Peaceful! Peaceful! one reason for that is that experienced organizers helped propagate that tactic; it wasn’t a media creation, or a Western creation. Another reason that Peaceful! Peaceful! chant “worked” (if we define “work” as retain the initiative) was that it matched with people’s experience, because Tahrir Square (again, down to good organizing) became the face of the revolution. Provincial violence in no way invalidates that. What I’m saying is that a reputation practicing a discipline of non-violence is a strategic asset and, as a corollary, that the way to develop that reputation is to practice the discipline. For example, when the thugs surrounded TS for a night of petrol bombing, it was clear to every observer that the thugs struck first, and because of the “good will” the Egyptian movement had built up, they were free to counterpunch. Which they did! (Heck, after that, they attacked the Ministry of Information; but then every self-respecting revolutionary has to do that.) Finally, at least in the Egyptian context, I believe that non-violence was important for three additional reasons: (1) It enabled “The people and the Army are one”; (2) it allowed “all walks of life” to participate; and (3) it made Tahrir Square a joyful national school for self-organizing, as opposed to an armed camp. (The occupation of downtown Bangkok was very different, had none of those last three characteristics, and I wonder if that had something to do with its failure after a general in sunglasses got his faction to go violent and ended up getting shot.)

And “incremental” is bad why, exactly? The consistent demand of the TS movement was “Arhal!” Leave! That Mubarak step down. That demand was achieved. Nobody thought anything but that there was a lot more work to be done, and plenty more suffering. So they devised their own metric and succeeded.

As far as “incremental.” That’s bad why, exactly?

Correction: “Once the revolutions has been one” – has been WON.
ouch.

@ Petro,

That is quite a fatalistic world-view, but that’s not to say that I disagree – obviously, because I’ve considered this and come up blank.

I worry: are we doomed to hitting rock-bottom before a corrective can occur?

And on it’s heels,

Given the climate issues (among others), can we afford to wait to hit rock-bottom to prompt a corrective? Will a corrective still be POSSIBLE, once we’re culturally prepared to accept it?

@Lambert

I don’t see any indication that even the incremental changes you’re talking about are working or are going to be lasting. Keep in mind one of the biggest things talked about in the aftermath of the revolution was the supposed reopening of the rafah crossing into gaza now:

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/egyptian-military-council-still-serving.html

I think its much more likely that what will happen is more along the lines of what Joseph Massad has been warning about.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/2011689456174295.html

What this shows is it’s not enough just to overthrow one figurehead, the whole of the ruling class has to be removed from power and institutions for democratic control of both the government and the resources of the country need to be established. By definition this means a willingness to engage in a prolonged struggle. That struggle doesn’t necessarily have to be violent, but it needs to be united. It helps no one but the ruling class to condemn those who, having lived under the yoke of an oppressive regime for too long, decide to violently fight for their rights (or as the case was in egypt their very basic needs for survival since they couldn’t even afford to buy bread.)

@Hoarseface,

It is a bit fatalistic, sure – but there is an inexorable quality to contemporary issues that seems to beckon that position.

That said – I’m highly optimistic that recent “bedrock” worldviews – capitalism, meritocracy, and (more provincially) exceptionalism – are going to take a right beating, and may go down for the long count. I wish I could be fatalistic about that!

The painful side of these contemplations is knowing that suffering will happen on an unconscionable scale – regardless of how we choose to respond. How I respond to the people that I meet is the most important thing for me right now.

Michael: “A willingness to engage in a prolonged struggle.” I agree. I don’t think anybody in Tahrir Square, including the organizers, thought that the struggle would be anything other than prolonged. “[I]t needs to be united.” I agree. One of the amazing things about the Egyptian movement in general is that “all walks of life” felt able to participate, and did.

As far as “condemn”– Speaking in generalities: Last I checked, killing others was an act subject to condemnation on moral grounds; that’s why, I assume, Ian condemns blowing Afghan wedding parties into “red mist.” No, I don’t think it’s always wrong: The Civil War had be fought to end the slave power. There was also a prolonged national debate about the issue over decades, just as with every other case Ian adduces. Nothing like that has taken place here; it doesn’t matter why. Speaking in specifics: I know nothing about the Indian situation — though if the violence there was been going in for 20 years, it seems not to have achieved very much — and so neither praise nor condemn. I know a little about Egyptian situation, having read and written a lot about it, and what they achieved seems to be a secular miracle to be emulated, and not to be, oh… “condemned” because it didn’t achieve goals they themselves did not set.

Keep in mind that the Revolution will not be televised, and that’s precisely why Egypt is no where near a Revolution. If it was, it wouldn’t be televised, meaning it would have received scant coverage at best, and most likely no coverage. It was televised and publicized because the Plutocrats are pulling in their chips, and in so doing, they know there will be uprisings. They would prefer those uprisings are non-violent, anticipated, and well managed as to not disrupt their ultimate plans. The Bushes didn’t buy a significant chunk of land (100,000 acres) on , and adjacent to, the Acuifero Guarani in Paraguay for the hell of it. That’s just one example. Look at all the Plutocrats buying up Patagonia, as well.

This is a real little girl. Her name is Aspen Dawn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McA983H60IY&feature=related

She grows up in spite of us all.

And guess what else. They don’t write their words and never have. Why? Because they don’t want them corrupted by those in power.

Imagine that.

“As far as “condemn”– Speaking in generalities: Last I checked, killing others was an act subject to condemnation on moral grounds; that’s why, I assume, Ian condemns blowing Afghan wedding parties into “red mist.” ”

@Lambert

I don’t think that’s necessarily correct. While killing others can be subject to condemnation on moral grounds I don’t think it always is. There’s a difference between a man who out of jealousy chooses to kill a rival, or out of greed shoots a man to steal his land, and someone who in the midst of being attacked kills someone else in self-defense.

This goes to the heart of most of our arguments in defense of those who would use violence. If someone else is occupying your land to just to steal what is under your soil, or if they are attacking you with the explicit purpose of completely wiping you out, or both (as was the case in the American Indian wars, and Germany’s General Plan for the east) then I would say yes that under any one of those circumstances violence is justified.

When Ian is condemning the bombing of wedding parties I also think he’s bringing into play three related concepts when it comes to issues of violence; Legitimacy of the actors, motives, and legitimate targets. When Ian condemns the bombings he’s saying that the people killed were civilians (not legitimate targets) who should not have been murdered. When he condemns the bombings he’s also condemning the motives for the attack probably something along the lines of “even if the attack was done to terrify the population into submission I still condemn it because that’s still an immoral reason to do it.” And that leads into the next point which is he rejects the legitimacy of one actor while endorsing the legitimacy of another. The U.S. has no right to bomb wedding parties because the U.S. has no right to impose its will onto other people. The Afghans have the right to fight back because they have the right to decide for themselves what their country and society should be.

This is not the same as endorsing violence. Fighting back can come in many forms, but it’s up to the Afghans to decide whether the fight back will be violent or non-violent depending on the circumstances hence my comment. I’m not endorsing violence I’m saying it’s not my place to condemn it.

As for your last two points;

“No, I don’t think it’s always wrong: The Civil War had be fought to end the slave power. There was also a prolonged national debate about the issue over decades, just as with every other case Ian adduces. Nothing like that has taken place here; it doesn’t matter why.”

I’m not sure I understand your point here. Is it directed at me or at the Egyptians? If it’s directed at the Egyptians I’d say this debate has for most of them been going on for decades at least. If it’s directed at me, then let me say don’t assume that because I don’t often post on this website I haven’t been following what’s going on in Egypt closely or discussing the moral issues brought up by the Egyptian uprising. As for the morality of violent resistance that’s an issue that’s been foremost in my mind ever since I began to seriously investigate the abuses of the Israeli government towards the Palestinians.

And your next point

“I know a little about Egyptian situation, having read and written a lot about it, and what they achieved seems to be a secular miracle to be emulated, and not to be, oh… “condemned” because it didn’t achieve goals they themselves did not set.”

Well then we’re in agreement. I’m not condemning them for not achieving goals they did not set. Like you who has argued previously up on this page why they should continue pursuing nonviolent resistance, I’m merely suggesting what I think would be a good way to move forward. Considering that from time to time this website discusses the issue of how our societies should be organized, and more specifically what’s wrong with the way they’re organized today, and what might be done to fix it, or what a society that replaces it should look like I was merely putting forth my own contribution (ill thought out as it might be) to be the basis of discussion critique etc.

I don’t see where your hostility is coming from. I merely disagreed with you about whether gradual reforms were really effective and I linked to an example of a reform I thought was failing already and since Joseph Massad had made the argument before me (and better than I could.) I linked to his editorial expressing my fear of what might happen if the movement in Egypt settles just for parliamentary democracy.

My last point about unity was a response to what I thought was your view towards Egyptians using violence. Namely I thought you were asking the movement at large to distance itself from those who would, and my response was that I thought since the protestors were weaker than the state it would be counterproductive to split the movement between those who use violence and those who don’t. Rereading your comments I’m not sure if my knee jerk interpretation of you was correct. If I was wrong I apologize. If I was not wrong then I still apologize if I was condescending. I wasn’t trying to be.

Formerly T-Bear
June 10, 2011
Maybe the most effective way to wrest control of the power to direct and control the economic resources is to do nothing, the current edifice is built upon the sands of belief in economic fairy tales, using the marketing legerdemain of misleading mendacity, reducing the education of its citizens to the meanest levels short the absence altogether of education for serfs. Such a nation cannot last, its human resources as depleted as its natural resources and energy resources. The timber of its law fragile, dry-rotted and termite infested, incapable of sustaining support of the edifice it is incorporated into. Those wielding power will be required to apply ever greater applications to maintain their prerogatives. That nation cannot last, the political corruption will assure that outcome; lift not a finger to stay its downfall is enough. (/opinion)
=====================================
Very cogent; especially your closing sentence.
After years of fretting, anger, rage, disgust, and blah, blah, blah; I’ve come to much the same conclusion. Sometimes doing nothing is the most powerful action. Cheers.

Bringing about the overthrow of the old order may not be as strategically critical as just being prepared not to help preserve it through another round of crisis, collapse and failure.

It’s surprising to me, in a way, that the Left has not absorbed the obvious lessons of the Shock Doctrine and Disaster Capitalism more quickly.

Michael:

Really not sure what you mean by paradoxically. What’s inherent in arguing that sometimes violence is necessary that prevents serious analysis.

* * *

Well, perhaps “serious” is the wrong word. I believe without irony that academic work is serious. That said, if the context is what do we do, now, the only way to get “serious” is to get down to cases of who to kill when and why. So, paradoxically as argued above, those who get down to cases in contexts like this one are least likely to win them.

[Others, quickly, RL calls….]

Bruce Wilder PERMALINK
June 10, 2011
It’s surprising to me, in a way, that the Left has not absorbed the obvious lessons of the Shock Doctrine and Disaster Capitalism more quickly.
===============================
Me too; Shock Doctrined we were…

To me it’s not that violence is never effective, it’s that it’s most effective when seen as being in self defense (this gets to the idea of non-violence as a strategic asset). I think most successful uses of violence in this country from the left have been in response to violent tactics. The union movement did not start off with violence. Neither did the American Revolution (tea party anyone?). The benefits of not advocating violence first is that when violence comes the movement and its participants will be seen as the victims, which will permit it to 1) fight back without necessarily losing popular support (because most people believe in a right of self-defense) and 2) the violence will further delegitimize the forces who instigated it. As an added benefit, some of those brought in to hand out the violence may refuse (a critical point now days when governments have so much more firepower than the population) and the leaders of the movement aren’t a bunch of thugs who only know how to destroy things, not build things.

In other words, it’s one thing to put a gang together to go beat Mubarak’s thugs and burn government buildings. It’s another thing to do so after Mubarak’s thugs have attacked you for simply standing in a public square.

But I agree the ability and willingness to fight back (even if it’s never needed) is very important. It was absolutely critical in Egypt (although I agree the debate is still open for whether any real change will come). It was critical in the union fights. It was critical in the civil rights and the anti-war movements of the 1960s.

For me, the issue is have we put as much pressure on the system non-violently as we can? I think the answer is that we haven’t even come close and so that is where I think that’s the work needs to be done.

@Ian and all the rest,

I very much ‘enjoy’ what is said here.
which is not the correct word.

It means:
I very much agree.

But, to internationalize the movement, I urge everybody to stick to a choice of words, which EVERYBODY understands.

No codewords please!
No idiosynchracies (e.g. ‘idiosyncrasy’ is the word found by quick look, and not any variants, which tend to frustrate any benevolent reader in the international –non english speaking community- )

So, ANY international call to resistance or whatsowever should restrict its wording to common phrasing, and NOT ingroup speak!

So, please, you all: watch your wording!

You will be multiply effective, if You restrict Your words to common vocabulary, and not some esoteric ingroup speak.

Being polite is also always helpful!

dcblogger:

One word about the American Revolution. It is my considered opinion that it would have been possible to devise a strategy of sustained non-violence to drive out the British, but you could never have enlisted slaveholders to carry it out. Slavery is not consistent with non-violence.

The American Revolution is unique, it is the only one I know of that was not betrayed. Other revolutions, Cromwell, the French, the Russian, the Chinese, don’t have happy endings. Even though this is America, I have no confidence in that sort of constellation of political talent being reassembled.

Of all the big-name revolutions, the American is actually (IMHO) the least justified. The US would have won its independence and autonomy, just like Canada and Australia and all the other member of the British commonwealth, given time. There were already proposals made before Parliament–too late, as the crises had reached its crescendo–representation in taxation, either in Parliament itself or locally. “Taxation without representation” translated really meant “we want to exist under the protection of the British empire with all its benefits and be and pay no taxes compared to everyone else”. Anti-tax stupidity and greed has a long history in the US; you saw this same sentiment arise again in the War of 1812, where Southern and Western states voted for the war then turned around and voted against the taxes necessary to pay for it.

Moreover, part of the motivation for the US obtaining its “liberty” was the greed of slaveowners and those of white colonists wishing to steal land from Native Americans (the British acting at least partially as a braking force against that). If the US had remained under British control, it is possible that slavery might have been ended peaceably with the rest of the empire, and that the Natives might have enjoyed somewhat better protection. I won’t make great claims in the latter because they weren’t exactly treated well, but the US treatment of its Native populations WAS outright genocide.

But to address your main point–conservatives like to point out the American revolution as being different from the French and Russian because of its “peaceful” resolution. Their arguments are misleading and to an extent false. For starters, to me the main reason that the US revolution was more peaceful was unlike the French and Russian, the post-revolutionary US was not plunged into yet another war for its very survival by a host of ideological enemies. Such circumstances drive the most radical and those most willing to “crack a few heads” into positions of power. If France and Russia had been granted a breathing space, the more moderate and peaceful I believe would have retained power.

Secondly–don’t let anyone say that there were no reprisals after the US revolution. The best estimate is that 2 % of the population (the prominent Loyalists) were hounded out of the country!! That’s peaceful?

StewartM

@StewartM

this is just the sort of belly-watching nobody is listening to from the outside of the beast.

Ever recognize that?

Reduce to two sentences, that even a Syrian can understand that.

Watching a BBC documentary on Amnesty International last night, I learned that Amnesty would not adopt Nelson Mandela because he refused to repudiate violence in response to the white South African regime. I’d say that the South African revolution (and I think it deserves the name revolution) has had a far less violent aftermath than the American revolution, which as StewartM points out wasn’t all that non-violent in its effects on those of Native American or African origin.

The problem with violence is that it seems to offer a quick immediately effective solution to a complex problem. Brute power is a drug and a very addictive one at that, but there are times when you need a drug to combat serious disease. I’m of the “violence is the last resort” camp, but it is ultimately a resort if necessary.

This is OT but germane: Today Al Jazeera presented an in depth report on the discrepancies in the prosecution of the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing. The video accompanying raises questions about the “safety” of the conviction, many issues never covered or reported in the corporate media in their baying for blood for blood.

More importantly the discovery of inconsistencies shows how functioning systems of justice go about beginning to correct miscarriage of prosecution and convictions, putting the principle of justice above the convenience of saving the face of the courts. Curiously, most of the issues in the report had appeared in some European newspaper reporting at the time but were swept aside by both turn of further events and the prosecutions suppression in the trial.

There is a good likelihood of the accused being innocent and a victim of governmental scapegoating to cover for their failure to apprehend the true perpetrators. It is a good example of marketing guilt to an otherwise ignorant of the facts public and propaganda exercise. Early speculation from European sources had connected the Pan Am bombing as a retaliation to the US missile downing an Iranian civilian passenger jet over the waters of the Persian Gulf (conspicuously by “accident”, the plane’s identification transponder was operational at the time). To identify Iran would have shown, upon investigation, sheer incompetence by western powers in the inadequacy of their intelligence operations; well worth the price to one incarcerated individual to keep from public disclosure.

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2011/06/201169134738626549.html

Again, Olson, it’s soooo good that the US’s founders didn’t understand that violence never works.

For those who think that the means and ends of the American Revolution are an unalloyed good,
here is some history and thoughts by Howard Zinn that are worth keeping in mind:

Untold Truths About the American Revolution

The American Revolution—independence from England—was a just cause. Why should the colonists here be occupied by and oppressed by England? But therefore, did we have to go to the Revolutionary War?

Do you think the Indians cared about independence from England? No, in fact, the Indians were unhappy that we won independence from England, because England had set a line—in the Proclamation of 1763—that said you couldn’t go westward into Indian territory. They didn’t do it because they loved the Indians. They didn’t want trouble. When Britain was defeated in the Revolutionary War, that line was eliminated, and now the way was open for the colonists to move westward across the continent, which they did for the next 100 years, committing massacres and making sure that they destroyed Indian civilization.

Jack Olsen:

I suppose that explains why NATO, facing the massed tank armies of the Warsaw Pact,

Uh, how many tank armies?

(From someone who has the Soviet order of battle and a list of Soviet armies on his bookshelf).

The Soviet Bear was never as fearsome as you’se guys always painted it to be to secure even more Pentagon funding. During the end of WWII, the Soviets were already feeling a massive manpower squeeze and struggled to keep units up anywhere close to their paper strengths. They started to disband armies before the war actually concluded because of this. Immediately after WWII, demobilization started quickly, because Soviet agriculture was in such arrears that if they hadn’t, mass starvation would have resulted.

Postwar, many of those Soviet divisions you’se guys like to threaten us with were essentially paper units, stashes of equipment with staffs and minimum manpower. Even the stashes of usable, modern, equipment wasn’t as much as you guys claimed. The figure of over 50,000 tanks that Reagan liked to cite included mostly obsolete tanks in warehouses; even leftover WWII-vintage stuff of extremely limited military utility (that is, if it was in working order at all).

armed its troops with construction equipment instead of attack aircraft, anti-tank missiles, and M-60 tanks.

Straw man argument. For one thing, tanks used as fill-in police typically don’t shoot their main gun–their main weapons against crowds would be their machine guns. But they’d rather not even do that; what they typically do is to rely on their mass and intimidate a crowd into submission or dispersion. A tank on the outside to civilians looks very menacing; on the inside its crew is very aware of its limitations and vulnerabilities.

It goes back to what Ian said—the cost/benefit analysis of those in power. Those in power would like that protesting crowd to disperse. But they don’t really want to send the military go in to shoot up and destroy property, especially if it’s in some way *their property* getting trashed. So they’d rather not have those tanks fight all-out as if they’re fighting the Warsaw Pact if they can help it.

StewartM

Ian writes:

Malcolm X makes Martin Luther King possible.

However, at least according to Wikipedia, MLK was leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. Malcolm X was organizing mosques in 1955, and only emerged to national notice, at least two years after MLK, with in 1957 with the Johnson Hinton incident (which is interesting in itself).

@ Lambert

No you didn’t. Really? Give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re tired (or maybe it’s not the real Lambert) – your analysis is usually sharper

Maybe not that early in the trajectory of their lives, but when Lyndon Johnson comes to deal with MLK in 1963 and 1964, MLK has more power at the table because LBJ (and the power elites of the day) are frightened by the kinds of trouble Malcom X can stir up.

Malcolm X makes Martin Luther King possible.

I am inclined to agree with Strether’s point (as I understand it) that, unless Ian Welsh has some knowledge of U.S. history that I do not, Malcolm X did not make MLK possible. Fear of a Black Revolution did not make Kennedy or Johnson take the actions that they did to pass the civil rights legislation. To the contrary, had the civil rights movement not been non-violent, I think that it likely would have failed (been crushed) or at least been much delayed.

@anon2525

I’d also say another reason why the civil rights movement was able to succeed the way it did (mostly non-violent though to be sure there were some race riots) was because it had the backing of the federal government. Part of the reason that happened I’d argue was because of the cold war and the propagand value the soviets were getting out of jim crow.

After World War II pointing out the racism rampant in the united states was one of the ways the soviets tried to delegitimise the U.S. during their Ideological war. The ku klu klan in particular became a favorite of soviet artists in their propaganda posters. Also the war in vietnam, (not so much the fear of revolution but of uncontrollable civil unrest at home) was probably another big reason to try and reach a settlement on civil rights as quickly as possible, particularly when you had other more militant movements starting to acquire steam, and when even the moderate leaders were beginning to become more radical and uncompromising in their critique (MLK’s triple evils speech in which he linked the civil rights movement to the anti-war movement, and even gave hints of a larger program challenging the U.S. economic system is one of the most powerful critiques of U.S. policy I’ve ever heard and certainly ranks up there with the most militant speeches of Malcolm X in its uncomprimising stance.)

Part of the reason that happened I’d argue was because of the cold war and the propagand value the soviets were getting out of jim crow.

After World War II pointing out the racism rampant in the united states was one of the ways the soviets tried to delegitimise the U.S. during their Ideological war.

The Soviets may have tried, but it did not have any discernible effect on U.S. domestic policy. (Likewise, U.S. foreign policy did not have any discernible effect on the domestic policy of the Soviet Union. Contrary to right-wing propaganda, reagan did not “win” the Cold War. “Correlation does not mean causation.”)

@Jay:

You are absolutely right. As one of the “off-grid” proponents, here’s a bit of what I said in the last thread:

…and they will respond. They will try to appropriate and tax our neighborhood gardens, and I mean that as only partially metaphorical. Then… then we will see what we are truly made of.

That should cover both passive-resistance and some of the excitement of revolution, no?

The point has been made by many in the passive-resistance crowd, including Gandhi – you provoke a response by non-cooperation. When the motive of self-defense thusly becomes bared as righteous, then a little, ahem, “push-back” becomes much more popular and effective.

That’s why I think it is an essential first step. Otherwise you get your usual thugs, as has been also discussed here.

The other strategy there seems to be agreement on is shunning and shaming. I don’t think it’s tried enough, and I think if there were a concentrated campaign of it focused on a few particular individuals it could have a pronounced effect.

These craven sociopaths at the top fear two things: loss of money and loss of life. You may not ever succeed in actually taking either from them. But you can make them fear the taking. Shit, I grew up reading Batman comics. Criminals (read: our elites) are a superstitious and cowardly lot. Wage a campaign of terror against them. Feed their paranoia, because everyone at the top is paranoid. Make them lose sleep. Make them hate to be alone. Make them afraid of the dark again. It will alter their behavior, and at any rate, it’s no less than they deserve.

@ Jumpjet

“Shit, I grew up reading Batman comics. Criminals (read: our elites) are a superstitious and cowardly lot. Wage a campaign of terror against them. Feed their paranoia, because everyone at the top is paranoid. Make them lose sleep. Make them hate to be alone. Make them afraid of the dark again. It will alter their behavior, and at any rate, it’s no less than they deserve.”

Now you’ve just given me an image of Batman Ian waging a ceaseless war against the ruling class, decked out in full spandex throwing his maple leaf shaped batarangs (maplerangs?) at the forces of oligarchy.

Jumpjet: Agreed on the shunning and shaming. There was IIRC a union movement that was giving bus tours of hedgie mansions in Greenwich, CT. Nice! (The streets aren’t everything…)

At the same time I think just the existence of the soviet union made this problem more accute because it meant U.S. government politicians couldn’t keep their populations passive by claiming (as margaret thatcher famously did) “there is no alternative.”
…
Any way just my two cents. Now have fun tearing it apart.

Actually, I’m going to agree with you in a certain sense. The presence of the Soviet Union (and before that, of Japan and Germany) acted as a check on the behavior of those in power in the U.S. The past ten years have made this effect clear. Keep in mind I’m referring to the behavior of the powerful not to domestic policy that affected ordinary people (as civil rights laws do).

Once upon a time in America, the politicians and media would point to the Soviet Union or its allies and say, “Look! The communists torture prisoners! We don’t torture people–we’re better than that. And look! The communists have political prisoners and show trials! We don’t do that–we’re better than that. And look! The communists are invading and controlling smaller, less powerful countries with their vastly larger military. We don’t do that–we’re better than that. And look! The communists spy–on their own people! We don’t do that–we’re better than that.”

“The people in the u.s. want DADT? Let them have it–what do we care?”

“The people want the banksters prosecuted for fraud? No. There was no crime. The wealthy and powerful do not commit crimes.”

Morocco Bama:

lambert strether: The Civil War had be fought to end the slave power.

And yet, that’s not why it was fought. It was a result, but it wasn’t the intention. A stronger Union was always the intention, and the Bankers ultimately got their way.

I think you’re dead wrong on that, Morocco, and are reversing cause and effect.

First of all–the war was started not by northern bankers, but by the South. Southerners were the ones who first seceded, and they are the ones who fired the first shots. The bankers could have gotten their stronger Union from the remnant of the nation more easily with the South gone. In fact, some of conservative bent like George Templeton Strong said in effect “good riddance” when the South seceded.

Moreover, the passions that inflamed both South and North involved slavery. The South had convinced itself that any attempt to limit its expansion in the slightest of ways would be tantamount to sealing its abolition. Their propaganda and the fact that opposition newspapers were not allowed to circulate in the South meant that many Southerners went to war thinking lies such as Lincoln having really campaigned on a platform of freeing all the slaves and then having them marry white women were fact (think of Southern histrionics as Breitbart, pre-Youtube). While most in the North were racist themselves, and hardly racial egalitarians, they did think that the expansion of slavery was undesirable (admittedly this was tied to a desire to keep African-Americans ‘down there’) and many did think the institution morally wrong. There is no conceivable way that that war would have happened sans slavery. None.

Now, if you want to say that the bankers took the opportunity and exigencies of of war to push for a stronger Union to further their desires, I have no problem with that. But let’s not confuse cause and effect.

StewartM

Stewart, I am not talking about the South’s motivation. The overriding motivation for the South was to keep slavery as an institution, but ending slavery as an institution was not the motivation for the North. It was to preserve The Union, meaning a stronger, more powerful, Centralized Federal Government.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/grossman.banking.history.us.civil.war.wwii

The National Banking era was ushered in by the passage of the National Currency (later renamed the National Banking) Acts of 1863 and 1864. The Acts marked a decisive change in the monetary system, confirmed a quarter-century-old trend in bank chartering arrangements, and also played a role in financing the Civil War.

Provision of a Uniform National Currency

As its original title suggests, one of the main objectives of the legislation was to provide a uniform national currency. Prior to the establishment of the national banking system, the national currency supply consisted of a confusing patchwork of bank notes issued under a variety of rules by banks chartered under different state laws. Notes of sound banks circulated side-by-side with notes of banks in financial trouble, as well as those of banks that had failed (not to mention forgeries). In fact, bank notes frequently traded at a discount, so that a one-dollar note of a smaller, less well-known bank (or, for that matter, of a bank at some distance) would likely have been valued at less than one dollar by someone receiving it in a transaction. The confusion was such as to lead to the publication of magazines that specialized in printing pictures, descriptions, and prices of various bank notes, along with information on whether or not the issuing bank was still in existence.

Under the legislation, newly created national banks were empowered to issue national bank notes backed by a deposit of US Treasury securities with their chartering agency, the Department of the Treasury’s Comptroller of the Currency. The legislation also placed a tax on notes issued by state banks, effectively driving them out of circulation. Bank notes were of uniform design and, in fact, were printed by the government. The amount of bank notes a national bank was allowed to issue depended upon the bank’s capital (which was also regulated by the act) and the amount of bonds it deposited with the Comptroller. The relationship between bank capital, bonds held, and note issue was changed by laws in 1874, 1882, and 1900 (Cagan 1963, James 1976, and Krooss 1969).

Federal Chartering of Banks

A second element of the Act was the introduction bank charters issued by the federal government. From the earliest days of the Republic, banking had been considered primarily the province of state governments.[1] Originally, individuals who wished to obtain banking charters had to approach the state legislature, which then decided if the applicant was of sufficient moral standing to warrant a charter and if the region in question needed an additional bank. These decisions may well have been influenced by bribes and political pressure, both by the prospective banker and by established bankers who may have hoped to block the entry of new competitors.

An important shift in state banking practice had begun with the introduction of free banking laws in the 1830s. Beginning with laws passed in Michigan (1837) and New York (1838), free banking laws changed the way banks obtained charters. Rather than apply to the state legislature and receive a decision on a case-by-case basis, individuals could obtain a charter by filling out some paperwork and depositing a prescribed amount of specified bonds with the state authorities. By 1860, over one half of the states had enacted some type of free banking law (Rockoff 1975). By regularizing and removing legislative discretion from chartering decisions, the National Banking Acts spread free banking on a national level.

Financing the Civil War

A third important element of the National Banking Acts was that they helped the Union government pay for the war. Adopted in the midst of the Civil War, the requirement for banks to deposit US bonds with the Comptroller maintained the demand for Union securities and helped finance the war effort.[2]
Development and Competition with State Banks

The National Banking system grew rapidly at first (Table 1). Much of the increase came at the expense of the state-chartered banking systems, which contracted over the same period, largely because they were no longer able to issue notes.

@Morocco Bama. II

…Prior to the establishment of the national banking system, the national currency supply consisted of a confusing patchwork of bank notes issued under a variety of rules by banks chartered under different state laws. Notes of sound banks circulated side-by-side with notes of banks in financial trouble, as well as those of banks…

What does this mean, except that it is a -sorry-quite senseless citation of something.

I tell you.
At that time the diverse metrics were quite confused, and some Dudes, even the Originators of the Constitution really did not KNOW what this was all about.

There have been some insights into the money system, e.g. Goethe (Faust I&II), which You should investigate, and also the insights of the founding fathers, who were inspired by the early enlightenment, –down to Adam Smith–, and had some deep difficulties in understanding the ‘measurement problem’ versus the value-problem. Up to Marx.

The early enlightenment –I am quite sure about that–was confused by the riddle of ‘value’ and its measurement.

Please refrain from senseless citations of passages You do not seem to understand quite well.
As well as all those Economists, who refuse to learn and accept HET (History of Economic Thought, to be precise).

(Always ready for a good fight. So please raise Your fist and kick me in the face. )

Amen.