Good Germans did the same thing. Didn't end up so well for them.

There were brawls on breadlines between Communists and Nazis. That didn't work out so well either.

Germany's real failing was first not taking Hitler seriously then the belief among elites that they could control Hitler. We've already made the first mistake, there is still some hope we won't make the second.

then strictly adhere to nonviolence, we will win.

In Germany, the Nazis had numbers on their side. In this case they absolutely do not, and there is no reason for us to allow it to seem like they do. For every one of them there are a hundred of us.

Dr. King was fine with violent self-defense when needed, and he understood that it is indeed sometimes needed. He was clearly and absolutely not dogmatic in his view.

And here's what Gandhi thought about the Jews:

His idea is that they should have committed catastrophic mass suicide, in order to shame the world into action. Well, fuck that. And if you're fine with the Mahatma's assertion, then you have no business instructing anyone in morality.

It is disrespectful to say that he did.

And what Ghandi was suggesting was simply the thing he and the Indians did and found to eventually work. I personally don't think it would have worked for the Jews against the Nazis, but again, we vastly outnumber the Nazis in our country as the Indians did the English in theirs. We are the ones with the power.

If you are suggesting that Ghandi has no business instructing anyone in morality, you are bonkers.

Why did he apply for a CCL? Peer pressure? You imagine that he would never have used these guns, but that's absurd on its face. Far from disrespecting the man, I honor him for maintaining a realistic awareness of the world.

From 'Guns Kept People Alive' During The Civil Rights Movement


Please point me to the episode in which 5 million Indians killed themselves to shame the British. Not "acted without violence" but actually and explicitly committed suicide by the millions. Did I miss that part of the book?

Fun fact: He also slept naked beside his young grand-niece. I wonder how would that fly if one of today's moral leaders tried it?

Was Ghandi's non-violence the only thing that India ever found that successfully got the English to stop oppressing them and leave? Did the previous attempts at violent revolts work? No.

As for the suicidal incidents, have you ever heard of the march to the sea to make salt? Have you ever heard of Amritsar, in response to which Ghandi called for non-violence and non-cooperation? Again, these acts of submission worked for the Indians because they so vastly outnumbered the English and they actually held the power, as we do against the Nazis in America. I am not saying that would have worked for the Jews in Germany.

But again: are you saying that Ghandi was not a moral leader?

I have absolutely no reason to suspect that he would not have. He didn't march to Selma packing iron because he knew damn well that he'd have been gunned down by a sniper, and he'd have been dismissed as a militant angry negro. Hell, they were already dismissing him that way regardless.

Why do you think he owned those guns, if not because of the possibility that they would be needed? Was he an avid sport-shooter?

And I am saying that Gandhi shouldn't have scolded the Jews for their failure to commit preemptive mass suicide. It's not as though the Jews didn't (and don't) already have enough people blaming them for all sorts of bullshit. I would have hoped for better from Gandhi.

Why, for instance, did he not exhort the millions of Good Germans to kill themselves in protest? Why did he point to the victims of genocide and say "shame on your for not genociding yourselves sooner?"

Of course I'm not saying that, because he obviously was and obviously remains so in death. However, he was also a very flawed man, and I see no value in deifying him nor in assuming that he is right or authoritative in all things (e.g., sleeping naked with a grand-niece younger by many decades).

Equally, I do not see King as some flawless paragon of virtue or infallibility. He was, by his own admission, a flawed man who made mistakes. He also was not an absolutist.

I think you are deliberately misreading his comments about what he thought would have worked for the Jews, but we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

No one is saying that neither of them was flawed. I am saying that their legacies in terms of the effectiveness and sincerity of the non-violent movements they led were pretty damn near flawless.

And none of the things you have said dissuades me from their rightness in saying that, in a situation like we have in America today, where we vastly outnumber the Nazis and we actually have the power, nonviolence is the only answer. For our situation, both Ghandi and King showed us the only way forward.

Beyond that, we are going in circles. Someday we may find ourselves marching next to each other. I won't argue with you any more.

I'm saying that your belief in absolute pacifism is inconsistent both with King's philosophy and with practical reality.

I think that there is no way to misread Gandhi's statement that the Jews should have killed themselves en masse.

Nationally, we obviously outnumber Nazis, though numbers obviously aren't the whole story. They hold the Whitehouse, and thereby they have direct access to much more power and influence than they should.

Even so, the national numbers do not negate the reality of local numbers. What happens when 500 heavily armed and armored Nazis show up against 100 unarmed protesters? Do the protesters wait nonviolently for the nonviolent viewers at home to retweet the video?


I accept that you won't be arguing the point further, but I submit that you haven't yet made a convincing case for the moral or practical superiority of nonviolence.

King in a way left that side of things to Malcolm. Sometimes you need a two-pronged movement — the negotiators and protectors.

I was just reading this morning that Cornell West, who was at the Charlotteville protests, said that the Antifa people saved many of the protestors from harm.

Here's a snippet from a "Democracy Now" interview of West:

CORNEL WEST: Absolutely. You had a number of the courageous students, of all colors, at the University of Virginia who were protesting against the neofascists themselves. The neofascists had their own ammunition. And this is very important to keep in mind, because the police, for the most part, pulled back. The next day, for example, those 20 of us who were standing, many of them clergy, we would have been crushed like cockroaches if it were not for the anarchists and the antifascists who approached, over 300, 350 antifascists. We just had 20. And we’re singing "This Little light of Mine," you know what I mean? So that the—

AMY GOODMAN: "Antifa" meaning antifascist.

CORNEL WEST: The antifascists, and then, crucial, the anarchists, because they saved our lives, actually. We would have been completely crushed, and I’ll never forget that. Meaning what? Meaning that you had the police holding back, on the one hand, so we couldn’t even get arrested. We were there to get arrested. We couldn’t get arrested, because the police had pulled back, and just allowing fellow citizens to go at each other, you see, and with all of the consequences that would follow therefrom.

situation. African Americans were seeking equal rights. One of many lies about them was they were inherently violent savages. They could not give credence to that. And as you noted, they had the support of the president, we don't. One of the lies about liberals is we are a bunch of woosies who always turn the other cheek. Wrong. I'm not looking for a fight but if someone brings one to me, I'm not backing down. And the Nazis are bringing it.

Indian people in the minds of their English oppressors when Ghandi led them in non violence. He was an example to Dr. King.

Non violence is the only way for us to win this. We vastly outnumber them. We cannot give them the legitimacy that a violent response would give.

Last edited Wed Aug 16, 2017, 08:56 AM - Edit history (1)

And who can blame him?

Although he rejected the initiation of violence, he wasn't an idiot, and he didn't object to the idea of violent self defense when needed.

I do not find absolute pacifism to be morally laudable or, frankly, realistic.

If someone is about to kill my family and me in that order, is it morally superior of me to sit patiently while it happens, if I have the means to stop it?


The original Nazis would not have been shamed into submission by others' pacifism. Neither will the current crop.

fight back in Montgomery?

His crop of Nazis were shamed into submission by others' pacifism. It's what worked.

Acts of violence are counter-productive to making any situation better.

and hope that non-violent protest can win the day, I really put the protesters on the same plane as the Americans that landed at Normandy. Punching nazis should be an American past time.

you're also saying that everyone who fought on the Allied side in WWII were wrong. We were at war then, and we are at war now.

The government of the United States has been taken over by Nazis. What the heck should we do? Hug them?

I certainly prefer these scumbags to just get crushed in the court of public opinion and they slink off.

But Nazis are an existential threat to many people. We know what Nazis do when they get power. I do not think we can afford to put them on the same level as other political opponents. And I do think we need to be prepared to meet their force with force, if necessary.

I do not advocate riot, or vandalism. But I do not think we should allow these asshats to get the idea that they can cause fear and intimidation without consequence.

degenerate donnie's press conference yesterday. He elevated them and didn't demand they crawl back under the rock they crawled out of. I 100% agree with you on rioting and vandalism. It does nothing but give the cons ammunition.

We're dealing with literal Nazis here. I think it's safe to say they don't have a conscience.

Violence is justified against them.

against them. But violence won't work. Only non-violence will.

Truth.

The alt-president with his Nazi and KKK mobs would no doubt love for us to kneel before them in supplication but I don't want to be lynched or led into a gas chamber, thanks anyway OP.

the rest of America to choose sides.

Plenty of conservatives aren't evil and can be awakened.

I will say that Gandhi was not at all sure the tactics of nonviolence would work against Hitler and the Nazi regime. I'm not sure it would work against a Twitler if he had consolidated power and had the hold on society and the media that Hitler had at the time of which Gandi was speaking.

This is the time to arouse the conscience of the sleeping conservatives and the apolitical who haven't been paying attention.

Which is why I advocate for the tactics of nonviolence now. In a political action.

I personally don't see any inconsistency with defending yourself and your family against a violent attack in your own home. That's not a political setting and in that situation you would not be trying to communicate to the world about the righteousness of the cause and your character while setting out the contrast with the white supremacists to the media and a wide audience. Besides the human instinct to defend yourself and your family, you arguably have a responsibility to protect them.

Those who stood with King underwent intense training and role-playing to be able to maintain their nonviolent response in the face of the white supremacist authoritarians of their day, Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, George Wallace, etc.

This is the 40th anniversary of India gaining its independence and NPR has had a number of pieces about it. One of the most moving was an interview with the British grandson of the man who ordered a massacre of Indians. He had gone to India and forced himself to visit the places where his grandfather had brutally had so many murdered. One person he talked to was Gandhi's grandson. When the Brit tried to apologize profusely, Gandhi's grandson said he was thankful for the incident, because after that people were very clear on where evil was and that was greatly helpful in overcoming the British and India regaining its freedom.

Maybe you don't mean to

Heavily armed, uniformed nazis ran counter-protestors over with cars, clubbed and beat counter-protestors senseless, but you want to talk about the 'violence' of the counter-protestors?

more disgusting.

The OP starts with the presumption that the counter-protestors were violent

THAT is offensive

Everyone has an inherent human right to self defense. Period.

I am a brown skinned woman who carries a handgun on my person virtually every day and teaches others to use a gun, carry one and defend themselves with it and with other means.

I do not go out looking for a fight. I don't go to places where it's likely to happen- the first rule of self defense is don't put yourself in situations where you will need to defend yourself. If there is a Nazi gathering I will ignore them, because all they want is attention.

I won't be intimidated from doing what I want to do by anyone, don't take me wrong. If I want to do something I have a legal right to I will assert my rights and do it. If you don't like an event I am going to and protest outside I'll walk right by you while ignoring you. If you don't like me going into that clinic I don't care what you say. But I won't take the bait and go to an event that only exists because my enemies are itching for a fight and want to draw me to it. If you come to my aggressively I'm not backing down from my rights, but I'm not wasting any effort to go to your plea for attention.

I am not a violent person. I don't look for a fight. I'll beat you in the arena of ideas and using the system in our larger battles. You don't win anything like this in the streets unless it's a full fledged overthrow of government.

But, by god, if you attempt to physically harm me, restrain my movement against my will, sexually assault me or anything else I will use all, every and any means at my disposal to defend myself. Period. As is my right as a human being to defend myself from aggression.

And I will go about my business every day, head held high, not intimidated by anyone. I am nonviolent in that I won't attack you- but you open that door with your violence against me and you will be met with violent and righteous self defense.

It is the foundation of what america is about. We are the worlds melting pot and have been steadily working to ensure that we treat each other equally.

These nazi fucks are looking to erase all of that hard work and sorry but fuck that I will fight them in any way I can. They want jews put in ovens and blacks put in chains. These fuckers are not reasonable people who if only faced with calm rational discussion will change their ways. They are adamant that their mission is the extermination of all non white races and they can just fuck right off with that.

You don't make peace with bullies you smack them down and make them rethink their priorities. The bully does not stop until confronted with violence ever. We have all seen it ourselves. God knows I have caved my fair share of bullies in my lifetime. Every single one of them did not stop till taken down.

But it works because it also scares the shit out of your opponents. It works because when someone comes to shoot you at a peaceful protest, you don't run and don't fight, you say "bring it on, attack me now, in front of these cameras, I may die, but you will lose." Comparisons to war and self defense are beside the point. The point is to make a political statement that will be noticed. Like Heather Heyer did, even though she did not choose to die. We'd be having a different conversion if a single neo-Nazi had been killed, then those who make moral equivalency will have their justification, and Heyer's death would have lost its meaning.

Few people understand the power of non-violence, properly applied. Even fewer are brave enough to do it. I hope a leader emerges from among us who understands bow to do it in our time.

But people have done exactly that and it made a difference. And it's not always a choice. But there will be future protests, and each person at those protests now knows they are risking their lives. They are brave.

of people against a sane adversary. Almost all of the counter-protesters in Charlottesville were completely non-violent. A few were not, and took the battle to the nazis who were there. In that particular instance, non-violence by the counter-protesters was the response, and it worked just fine.

However, non-violence is a principle that is totally useless against an group of people that seeks to mete out violence as its primary strategy. Non-violence in such situations gets people dead and injured. That occurred with the driver of the car that ran down people in a street in Charlottesville.

Where non-violent opposition is effective and does not result in a failure to respond to actual violence, it is the strategy of choice. However, if the force being opposed is set on using violence, regardless of non-violent opposition, then it is not a useful strategy and accomplishes little.

When someone points a gun at you with the intent to shoot you, if you stand silently in defiance, you are likely to die or be gravely injured. If you run away as fast as you can, you have a greater chance to survive. If you shoot your attacker before he can fire and end the threat, you may save not only your own life, but perhaps the lives of others.

Non-violent opposition works well when the threat is not deadly. It works poorly when the people you oppose seek to kill you as their strategy. In the best case, you should avoid being in that situation. If you find yourself in that situation, however, you should either flee or defend yourself in a way that is appropriate to the attack. Fleeing is nonviolent. Standing defenseless, however, is simply foolish.