Is advocating violence acceptable?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=590748&mesg_id=590748

Some discussion this morning regarding Malloy's call for violence against the Koch-paid goons who went around Detroit putting up fake eviction notices.

What's your take?

:)

.

... to deliver the humanitarian aid. Red Cross workers who are splattered have a difficult time handing out antibiotics.

Why broadcast your intentions?

I don't - and won't - compromise my personal ethics standards by rationalizing away poor behavior of persons or personalities of the left while pointing fingers at the right.

I'll go ahead and let the righties be the hypocrites because as a matter of fact, yes I AM better than they are.

That's why there's a war in Libya - because it's necessary. Because the alternative for the rebels is to be killed. They tried peaceful demonstrations in the streets of Tripoli, remember? That didn't work.

Sorry, but Jesus's advice to turn the cheek in that case is bad advice. Turn the other cheek, and you get hit twice. Turn the other cheek to Moammar Qaddafi and he just shoots you.

So, sorry, but I'm PRO-VIOLENCE in the Libyan case. I'm all for the rebels in Libya rising up, getting every weapon they can get, and waging all-out total war against Qaddafi. I'm all for NATO dropping bombs on the bunkers in Tripoli, and aiming for that command-and-control asset named Moammar Qaddafi, and hoping one of them finds it mark.

And here in our borders... Why did our Founding Fathers go to war in 1776? Because the English nobility was waging economic warfare against us. They were using dirty tricks like letting the East India Company be exempt from taxes every other tea business had to pay, which would have driven them out of business. They were looting the colonists, and stationing soldiers to enforce their legalized looting, and for that, we picked up guns and shot the fuckers.

Same thing at Blair Mountain - the coal companies had their workers working as virtual slaves - working for company scrip, going in debt to the company store, living in company housing, and the instant one of them even thought of talking about unionizing, the Pinkertons came and threw them out on the street to starve.

SO 15,000 picked up their guns and started shooting the fuckers!

For the Blair Mountain Coal Miners, sorry, but I'm PRO-VIOLENCE. They had more than enough purely economic justification for using deadly force.

Or what about Stonewall? The GLBT community had been completely marginalized, persecuted, forced into "treatment", and in the case of the Stonewall bar, the patrons were exploited by both the Mafia and by corrupt cops. So guess what, some people there threw some punches at cops. And you know what? IT WORKED!!! The gay community finally got some exposure in the mainstream press, and the gay-rights movement got some movement!

There are times when violence is justified. Even for cases where there's no physical violence, but merely economic violence - people being driven out of their homes, left to starve, denied medical care, then fuck it! I'm all for using violence when it gets bad enough to raise the ante, and make the stakes so high that even the psychopathic exploiting fucks start to think twice - afraid that a few bullets might be aimed at THEM.

Sorry, but even Mahatma Gandhi stated that pacifist resistance doesn't always work, and that it is sometimes justified to use violence. Violence, in the right context, can be used for good.

Progressives need to learn this. They need to stop the plaintive cries of "We must be BETTER than them!" When we stick our noses up and act "better" than them, we get defeated. Every single fucking time. We need to learn to be ruthless. We need to learn to viciously hate our enemies when they earn it. And we need to learn when to start using physical force, along with political force, economic force and Machiavellian tactics. Otherwise, we'll be like we are today - wondering how the vicious sociopaths on the right somehow keep getting the better of us.

self defense. Sometimes self defense HAS to be violent.

Like I said, there's physical violence, and there's economic violence, which doesn't involve the overt use of weapons, but can be just as deadly.

The Koch Brothers are waging economic violence against the middle class. As are the other Wall Street con-artists, and the health insurance companies, and the pharmcos, and Walmart, and all the other big business interests. They are robbing us with a fountain pen, but they ARE robbing us! And leaving us thrown out of our homes, out on the street, denied even medical care. They don't use guns (except when they use sheriff's deputies as eviction agents), but the effect is the same - people are dying.

So there comes a point when physical violence is acceptable as defense against economic violence. I don't think the line was crossed in Mike Malloy's case - that's a political dirty trick which by itself doesn't justify violence, but part of a larger campaign of economic warfare, which is getting really fucking close...

But violence is violence, whether economic or a punch in the nose. People STILL get hurt with economic violence. MILITANT extra electoral and political remedies are self defense against economic violence.

As to whether it devolves into overt physical violence, that's usually up to the exploiters. If you do it right (extra electoral remedies), they probably WILL resort to physical violence.

There has to be an "intent" element added to form a sound opinion. If i didn't go looking to hurt anybody, but had to strike back to avoid being abused myself, then i'm quite comfortable with the "violence".

Now, it might be that many people don't consider self-defense to be truly violent. I don't know.
GAC

and sometimes it MUST be violent.

Sometimes you just need to prevent yourself from being a victim. Really, that is what martial arts is about.

One does NOT need to be aggressive to have enough knowledge to not let yourself get beat up. There is ALWAYS moderation.
GAC

I use the method of graduated response. Whatever force is used against me, I'll use just a little more. That's actually one reason I don't LIKE a handgun as a means of self defense. Using a handgun for self defense is putting the meter up to 10 without going through the intervening stages.

But the democratic process appears to have been bought out from under us by a few very rich, very powerful elites who mean to have it all and if it leaves the other 99.9% of us in poverty and despair, they just don't care.

If they are allowed to keep it up, whether I advocate it or not, I'm going to predict at some point there WILL be violence. I know there are a lot of people in this country that like to make fun of the French, but when they finally had their belly full of the aristocrats, they handled it in a very decisive manner.

How long must the economic violence of class warfare waged by our aristocratic class go on before we reach that point? I don't know, but I do know if they keep it up, they are playing with fire. When the number of hungry, poor and desperate reaches critical mass, I fear it will be on. :(

Violence for political purposes is a last resort. To deny the legitimacy of political violence is to deny the very founding of this country.

Read into that what you will, as I have.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.