…Was wrong.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2752
There goes Mexico…
It’s easy to go break shit in a country that doesn’t have nuclear weapons. For the countries that do have them, breaking their shit at this point can be very dangerous.
There will be plenty of “natural” events that will break massive amounts shit far better than any group of people ever could, with a far less risk of nuclear weapons being used. Hurricanes will sink cities, West coast earthquakes will crush miles of fiber optic cables and other internet stuff, and, of course, also destroy cities; droughts and fires will ruin properties and make a great zone for weeds and all the animals that eat them. And all people can do is say, “Well, shit happens,” which is far better than, “Those fucking ___ists; kill them all.”
So it seems to me that such actions do work in some places, but wouldn’t work in nuclear countries. I reckon the thing to do is not spend or need much money. Babylon hates that. There may be a time where the same strategies used in Mexico might work, but the risk/reward scale is not in favor right now.
That was quite a read, I couldn’t do it all.
The title of your post got my attention and reminded me of an essay I read by an ex earth firster who had some interesting points. I can’t find it online anymore but it’s sentiments are basically outlines here - http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann02082003.html
I’m pretty sure he was an ELF person so that may be why I can’t find it now.
I’m not sure if this is being discussed on this board yet as I haven’t had time to look everywhere yet but I’ve been getting wind of high level meetings with reps from Canada, the US and Mexico to form a trade block. It’s interesting to note that last year when I went to Shambala the dollar was 20%. This year is was 1.5%. In order to make a trade bloc like what I’m hearing about it would make sense that the currencies of all the countries are approximately the same before a switch to the same currency.
I also heard a very knowledgeable Canadian telling another Canadian about it at this years Shambala.
Great link.
Reminds me of Derrick Jensens book Endgame.
Here’s some excerpts:
Pacifism Part I
http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/25%20-%20Pacifism%20I.html
Pacifism Part 2
http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/25%20-%20Pacifism%20I%20pt2.html
Pacifism Part 3
http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/25%20-%20Pacifism%20I%20pt3.html
ok great who wants to recreate the mexican model with me?
we’ll conspire to smuggle as much cocaine, so much that we need planes and trains and hundreds of trucker with runners. Then well buy thousands of guns from gun runners who play only one side of the fence: greed.
THEN we’ll murder all the hippies, and get crazy pumped up on cocaine, and then go out and challenge the american army.
who’s with me!!!
mwhahahaha go learn how to dislodge a stuck round from your m-16 before you start getting visions of drug gangs doing your pre-emptive apocalypse bidding!
But seriously, what’s the point of this post?
We know violence gets the job done, but what aboutwhen the dust clears, where does that leave you?
with righteousness?
with moral superiority?
do you really need all of your enemies dead before you can live?
non violence makes for more powerful and lasting changes.
And examples of that would be…???
Well, there’s the civil rights movment in the US, and Ghandi’s campaign in India, and then there’s the whole early christianity thing.
But those were all non-violent movements with force to back them up. All the successful non-violence movements I’ve ever heard of were associated with more radical, pro-violence movements with similar goals, and they played a kind of “good radical/bad radical” game with their enemies.
Anyway, the point of a post like this is that, as the collapse comes, it will become impossible to secure things as tightly. And then opportunities will open up for this kind of direct action, which will hasten the collapse, making more opportunity, etc, etc. We should be prepared for this, as we could get caught in the crossfire.
And don’t knock Mexico. At the very least, There’s the Zapatista, who are one of the better models for a successful revolutionary force and a non-coercive society.
I almost choked on my tears of laughter when Nelson Mandella won the nobel peace prize. He taught and was a bomber for the ANC.
Yes, violence has potential. It’s pretty hard at this point in america to do much with non-violent civil disobedience. I think a more visible form of direct action in concert with folks that are “working from the inside” is called for.
you are dealing with some very heavy concepts…this is a question that has plagued my noggin for years…especially after being at the wto and seeing so many pockets of people trying different tactics…i guess for the sake of this discussion, firstly we would need to undertake a definition of terms, primarily of ‘society’ and ‘violence’…i hope in my heart that enough people undertaking a non-violent action can create change. it depends on the society, on the roots of power within the government. if it is a ‘democracy’ and enough people participate in peaceful opposition, yes, change will take place. but, is it just because the govt see’s the action as a reflection on what the next popular vote will be? likely. as far as i can see, one of the main differences between violence and non-violence, is that if you win using the latter, in the structure that comes forth after non-violence, you can claim moral/energetic superiority. also, the good that comes from a peaceful change will hopefully embolden the energy of the community that exists thereafter. violence should always be a very very very last resort. try everything you possible can first. be a ‘passive fist’ (pacifist)
The way I see it, anything gotten through violence must be maintained through continued and ongoing violence.
Maybe somebody can show me an example of this not being the case.
A person who is physically abused to the point of being cowed can be ordered around by their tormentor without violence anymore, because they fear it so. After being broken the violence is no longer required.
Or did you want a positive example?
you guys are talking about two different things. Hey Victor is looking for something like the american independence war of 1776, or the civil war, of the 1860’s. both were violent overtakings of economies. but they didn’t need to keep fighting for their indpendence after they whooped the british, eventually. We dont’ use violence to maintain secessionist states, either. we simply withhold federal highway dollars! Victor, then, and asking for, where violence didn’t beget violence. since one can hold capitalism as a violent action, then even these ‘heroic’ examples I gave about are just transferring the level of violence from outright war to a more tolerated indentured servitude
What Andrew is talking about is where one, by requirement of the situation, accomplishes the goal by any means necessary. Mandela is a great example of someone, with their back to the corner, using any means necessary to create a situation of more justice. He blended, and I know that’s hard for people who must have it all one way peacefully, or all one way ablazing, both violence and non-violent actions to acheive semblence of jsutice, which, in the end, simply restructured the south african economy… but I digress…(pregress???)
Never has a war been fought about justice, in the end, be it american corporations pushing the marshall plan or recapturing Soutehrn Agriculture, it’s all about redistributing resources and potentiality (Iraqi rebuilding of buildings that never needed bombed, anyone???) of economy. I"ll argue tooth and nail for that.
BUt ask yourselves? Why are you defining what you stand for through it’s opposites?
Is it that hard in this world to not be violent? Yes, acting with compassion takes something much deeper than doing not-violence.
In Andrews example, I guess I kind of see the threat of violence as being eqivalent to the continued violence that would keep the broken one in servitude.
If I understand Tony Z. correctly, I would say that the “American way” that was “won” by the revolution has also been maintained and perpetrated through continued violence. Ask Native American people.
Don’t get me wrong, I am no pacifist. Sometimes this talk of violence seems to come so easy and people get worked up by it, but it’s not to be taken lightly and I think it just leads to more of what we’ve had for a long time.
when you have a problem that must be solved, you don’t philosophize over strategy. you act. which, is why I suspect there is still another approach outside this binary thinking box handed down to us by our more current philosophers and leaders.
non-violence worked when violence needed to be neutralized. but the ‘violence’ of maintaining a slave-wage system can’t be neutralized by giving up your role. that only neutralizes your contribution, and your reward.
giving people a better story to be in is, for me, the long haul ticket.
the process of finding that story, or stories, for me, has been through camping with my friends, and the friendly banter of sites like these.
a balance of rewriting stories with your friend, and doing this kind of heacy-lifting thinking, has been my story so far. I still hunger for more, but it’s still not clear where to go. The Way, is certainly not even a Way at all. THe magic moment of feeling yourself fall into the way of things is also the same kinds of emotions when one takes that regretful trip to the grocery store.
There are more things to understand with ourselves and our ability to ‘do’ something about the ‘rest of the people’ who ‘don’t get it’ than argue which of the ‘old principles’ are worth retaining. There are all these new principle, waiting to be discovered, and ancient principles, waiting to re-emerge.
We can’t simply live in the past anymore than civilization is going to survive on living in the future. There is something deeper I am hinting at that I’ll just have to try and explain in a post of my own…
“giving people a better story to be in is, for me, the long haul ticket.”
I like this line of thinking a lot, Tony.
Yeah, the term “violence” means so many different things depending on who your talking to. After the Seattle WTO protests the media was talking about all the “violent” protesters. The thing is they only really harmed property, not people. At first I was pissed that this was deemed violence, but strangely enough I sometimes use the term in the same way now.
I dont agree with elferno who says “violence should always be the last resort”. Jews that fought from the getto’s did’nt get creamated, they had a higher survival rate than those who did not fight. Would you not fight missionaries first with your knowledge of the past? Being non-violent seems to be a very cultural construct that takes roots in obediance indoctrinations. To each there own though, I dont think any one is wrong on this issue, the ONLY thing I feel is wrong is imposing your own cultural morality on others. I’ve heard of peoples that have existed for hundreds of years non-violently, awesome. I have also seen non violence solve nothing doing forest defense. After the apocallipse I’d prefer hiding over all else and using my brain to way my options in each encounter, not ruling viable options out because of morality.
I’ll clearify a little more, I’m not saying violence should be a first solution in these instances, just saying they shouldn’t be the last. I know also our culture is extremely violent to the earth and “inferiors”. Our cultural morality basically is designed to keep the underlings from rising. A transgression against rulers and equals is frowned upon. The poison Arrow pople in Brazil shoot first ask questions latter and they exist still, and survive. I am not going to just shoot people (hypothetically speaking) who are missionaries, I would give them 1 warning.