Mastodawn

Robin Barton Jun 10

@cthon1c @spencerbeswick Your violence is exactly what Trump and his ilk are hoping and planing for. He will use that as an excuse to escalate to afv's and tanks which you can't match. Democracy survives and is restored when alliances are built and peaceful protests are out in the streets day after day after day. Why use a method that has been proven to fail? Peaceful is slower and harder but more fruitful.

Catherine is not complacent

@Robo105 @cthon1c @spencerbeswick pish tosh. You’re missing the fact that if he wants to respond to violence he will manufacture violence.

Robin Barton Jun 10

@CatDragon @cthon1c @spencerbeswick Yes, but that is why we need to be loud and active and flood the zone with evidence to the contrary. If main stream media has published articles that violence is what Trumps wants then they are open to the idea that it might not be wise to take Trump's word for what is happening

Catherine is not complacent Jun 10

@Robo105 @cthon1c @spencerbeswick I have no faith in that.

×

Spencer Beswick Jun 10

White people today: the protesters in LA are hurting their own cause, they should be like MLK and the Civil Rights Movement!

Meanwhile, white people during the Civil Rights Movement:

Robin Barton Jun 10

@spencerbeswick Yes, but this narrative of violence became harder and harder to sell the longer they stuck with peaceful civil disobedience. In the end you are striving to change the minds of enough to allow change to happen. Remember women fought for the right to vote and got it when they convinced enough white men with beards to vote for it. Leveraging the political system takes time, courage, alliances and consistently refusing to take the government bait to use violence.

@Robo105 @spencerbeswick I think the fact that women got the right to vote after a few bombs were placed and other few actually exploded gets forgotten way too often.

Robin Barton Jun 10

@VonKant @spencerbeswick I had not forgotten but ignored it as it failed as so often violence does. Those men in parliament didn't quail before a few bombs just as they didn't quail before the Irish uprising or in India. Both those places won when it was clear it was no longer socially or politically possible to keep the status quo. People are quick to advocate violence as it is emotionally attractive and offers a simple solution rather than a long path of alliances & protests

tony 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏴 🚴🧗🏻Jun 10

@Robo105 @VonKant @spencerbeswick people with ahistorical understandings of past events are also quick to dismiss violence with a broad brush.

Nelson Mandela and the ANC in South Africa are often credited with leading a peaceful revolution but if you read Mandela's autobiography he makes it very clear that after DECADES of peaceful protest leading nowhere, the ANC started to use more violent means like sabotage to put more pressure on the white government. It worked.

tony 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏴 🚴🧗🏻Jun 10

@Robo105 @VonKant @spencerbeswick boycotts from around the world also helped, which is why the US government loves trying (often succeeding) to make boycott illegal

Robin Barton Jun 11

@autonomousapps @VonKant @spencerbeswick I agree but the key is a focus narrative of what is to be achieved and pithy saying can project that to the public.
Rule of Law for All

Robin Barton Jun 11

@autonomousapps @VonKant @spencerbeswick It didn't work and would not have worked if there not been the collapse of communism and the growing sense in South Africa that apartheid was no longer socially acceptable. Remember, Nelson brave man that he was got released from prison by a white government. If that government had been supported like Israel is now and it had social support among whites it would not have happened. Nelson stated he want peace and democracy which was a powerful narrative

Fernando M. S. 🇵🇸Jun 11

@Robo105 @VonKant @spencerbeswick ok, but do the status quo change by itself? Or is there a challenge that forces the status quo change? If so, then what is the challenge in each of these cases?

Robin Barton Jun 11

@fmors @VonKant @spencerbeswick Great question. The status quo changes when a group develops a coherent message that shows why the present status quo must change and wins over adherents. I would suggest that a tightly focused 'follow the law/due process' and paint ICE and law-breaking hooligans and that the civil disobedience is to bring back democracy

MedusaSkirt Jun 10

@Robo105 @spencerbeswick here’s the thing: violent methods of resistance is another tool, another tactic/strategy in resistance just like non-violence

We don’t actually know if primarily non-violent resistance works better regardless of context, because whether or not non-violence is better is just as dependent on context as whether or not violence is better.

MedusaSkirt Jun 10

@Robo105 @spencerbeswick Activists have been arguing about this since probably-forever and there isn’t enough convincing evidence to show if either non-violent or violent resistance is “better” overall… probably because, at least to me, asking which one is “better” without any context is asking the wrong question

A Tattered Scrapbook Jun 10

@medusaskirt @Robo105 @spencerbeswick It’s funny that those who are entirely opposed to violent protests never talk about the White Rose group in Nazi Germany, or non-violent protests in Pinochet’s Chile, or, while referencing Tiananmen as an example of repression, skip over the massacre of peaceful protestors… It’s always MLK and Gandhi, both of whom were murdered…

Robin Barton Jun 10

@Tattered @medusaskirt @spencerbeswick The difference is between a dying democracy and a dictatorship. One has the possibility of peaceful protest and the other has a sure chance to be shot. Hitler said he would shoot a 1,000 of Gandhi's followers and keep repeating until resistance ended. Remember this is the man that led Germany over a cliff. China has tens of thousands of protest a year so that has not ended either

MedusaSkirt Jun 10

@Robo105 @Tattered @spencerbeswick Robo, we in the US are at a point where our dying democracy could turn dictatorship in a matter of weeks… or take years, or never happens

Like, you’re talking about a situation so chaotic and unpredictable that it’s not really possible to arm-chair judge whether non-violent or violent resistance is broadly “better” right now; it greatly depends upon things like local goals, who is being dealt with, etc., and it can even change from day to day

MedusaSkirt Jun 10

@Robo105 @Tattered @spencerbeswick like, Robo105, think about the practicalities of when non-violent and violent tactics make sense, and like do it with very specific scenarios and not just trying to make conclusions based on big picture summaries of history

Robin Barton Jun 11

@medusaskirt @Tattered @spencerbeswick I agree that you are in a dying democracy but others have been there before and won. They did it by having a compelling narrative of the problem and a solution which wins you allies. You need to sway the public in the middle so that Trump doesn't set the narrative. Are the protest out of control violent foreign paid actors or are they patriots fighting for due process for all, same constitution for all and same tax burden for all.

A Tattered Scrapbook Jun 11

@Robo105 @medusaskirt @spencerbeswick And what do you think Trump will say/do that is different from Hitler? Given that big differences between DJT and AH include the existence of Palantir, drones, and so on?
It would be nice if you were right. I suspect you are not, and that the American bases in Japan will be my ticket to a death camp.

Robin Barton Jun 11

@Tattered @medusaskirt @spencerbeswick The death camps came after the pressure of WW2 meant Germany could not expel what it considered undesirables. USA is a dying democracy and not yet a totalitarian regime otherwise we would not be having this discussion and the National Guard who be piling up bodies. DJT & AH share some ideology, racism, lebensraum, misogyny and manifest destiny) but DJT is not there yet

A Tattered Scrapbook Jun 11

@Robo105 @medusaskirt @spencerbeswick Why do you think people are not coming back from El Salvador? That members of Congress cannot visit those who have been deported? You very much are already there, because AH is not the only murderous despot that DJT looks back on. He has Thatcher’s favourite Pinochet as an example, too.
What kind of prisons do you think can take 3000 people per day?

Robin Barton Jun 11

@Tattered @medusaskirt @spencerbeswick Kilmar Ábrego García was visited & brought back. USA is a dying democracy which is still using rubber bullets. The Occupy movement accomplished nothing as it had no compelling narrative to gather allies and focus on the ills of society. I suspect, sadly, that these protests which are well meant will fail to gather allies and public support because Trump will control the narrative. Many people are in the middle waiting to here a reason to offer support.

MedusaSkirt Jun 11

@Robo105 "the death camps came after the pressure of WW2"

that is just incorrect, the death camps were planned from the beginning; they weren't a side effect of Nazi Germany starting WW2, they were part of *the plan* the Nazis had for the war

also, I see in a later post you reference how the Occupy movement accomplished nothing... when the Occupy movement was overwhelmingly peaceful

Robin Barton, please stop, you don't know what you're talking about, you're starting to sound like a psyop

Robin Barton Jun 11

@medusaskirt Historians are split about the Intentionalists and the Structuralists regarding the final solution. Hitler wanted to send the Jews to Madagascar to rid Germany of his problem. My point about Occupy was that they had not compelling narrative and so their opponents were able to create one for them. Why when people disagree they always suggest that the interlocker is evil (psy-Op) the No More Kings movement is the only one I have seen in the USA that has a coherent message.

MedusaSkirt Jun 11

@Robo105 if this is not the first time someone on the internet got "psy-op" vibes from you, stop replying to be the most-confidently-smart person in the room and reflect on wtf you're saying... maybe actually listen to the people you're trying to win internet arguments against

not at all a good look that you're spreading misinfo about the Holocaust while trying to advocate for "non-violent only resistance pls get behind this one named movement that I will argue was terrible in a few months"

Robin Barton Jun 11

@Tattered @medusaskirt @spencerbeswick Yes, Gandhi was kill by a radical Hindu and MLK by a racist. Nobody would suggest that it was safe or easy but civil rights happened and India did not descend into a civil war like Algeria. White Rose were brave children in a totalitarian dictatorship during a global war. Pinochet lost power due to the 1988 plebiscite. Right now the National guard is using rubber bullets so there is time to build a coherent and compelling narrative to woo the public.

A Tattered Scrapbook Jun 11

@Robo105 @medusaskirt @spencerbeswick I think you somewhat overlook the Partition of India, and the subsequent human rights abuses…

I’ll leave this conversation with the reported last words of Rosa Luxemburg: “Which prison are you taking me to?”

Bon chance.

Lightning Bjornsson*

evdonia_corner_emblem

@Robo105 @spencerbeswick The narrative of violence will be spun without freedom fighters using violence ever. They figure they may as well get it over with, and ready themselves for a real fight. #lang_en #USPol

@spencerbeswick 😒 say no more!

@spencerbeswick

And as we all know the police protect our property and the American way of life
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing

1985 MOVE bombing - Wikipedia

Rocío Vega Jun 10

@spencerbeswick ah, conservative humor needing to tag characters in their strips, just in case the average reader can't see the resemblance

King Kaufman Jun 10

@spencerbeswick

MLK wrote a letter about those white people — and the ones today too — while he was in jail in Birmingham. I forget what it was called.

Matilda Love Jun 10

@kingkaufman @spencerbeswick

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

"the white moderate", he calls them, and names them """almost""" a greater obstacle to rights than the literal KKK

Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]

Brian Vastag Jun 10

@spencerbeswick I believe historians will tell us that pretty much any protest for social change is only popular in hindsight.

@spencerbeswick I can only imagine how heartbreaking it was for MLK Jr. to be doing all this nonviolent and peaceful protesting against racism and still getting framed as the bad guy back in the 1960's.

gender affirming bulldozer Jun 10

@spencerbeswick mlk was pretty critical of shitassed white people who agreed with the cause but for whom every method was the wrong one and it was always the wrong time lmao

@spencerbeswick 100% True

CassandraVert Jun 10

@spencerbeswick
I think public opinion is definitely with the protesters. I'm not sure what they are supposed to have done wrong. I did see several civilians get shot while not doing anything, and in one case standing yards away and facing the other way.

wendivibe Jun 11

@CassandraVert @spencerbeswick Agents provocateurs, folks who came in prepared to do harm, have set off fires and broken windows. There’s an effort to blame these actions on the peaceful protesters and peaceful immigrants.

Weekend Editor Jun 10

@spencerbeswick

I remember, during the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s, the reaction of a relatively racist older relative.

I won't quote him.

But... yeah, white folks in very white parts of the US thought exactly like this: somehow the violence was the fault of the exquisitely carefully nonviolent movement.

Tofu Golem Jun 10

@spencerbeswick
We are seeing the same thing we saw during BLM: the police do the violence, and the mainstream media blames the protesters.

Cousin Tea Monk Jun 11

@tofugolem @spencerbeswick Like any good “race riot”… Black man swims in public pool, white man pours acid in pool, public pool closed “for public safety”… Black existence + white violence == more white violence, and handwringing admonition about order and protecting property, and “this is why we can’t have nice things” and “such a shame we all can’t just get along…”

⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯Jun 10

@spencerbeswick this fact, combined with the 80% approval rating for the iraq war is what lead me to conclude years ago that 80% of americans have absolutely no idea what's actually going on in the world at any given time.

Marcus Adams Jun 11

@spencerbeswick And they killed MLK anyway.

tootbrute Jun 11

@spencerbeswick power has never been given up without violence.

Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️Jun 11

@spencerbeswick

they should be like MLKSo white people can murder them again.
Good point /s

Sjoerd Stendahl Jun 11

@spencerbeswick this song from Phil Och from over half a century ago still rings extremely relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acQywbKq9ZM

"No, no, no, " moaned the mayor
"It's not the way of the order"
"Oh, stay in your homes, please, leave us alone
We'll be glad to talk in the morning"

(...)

So wrong, so wrong, but we've been down too long
And we had to make somebody listen

In the Heat of the Summer

YouTube

Jyrgen N Jun 12

@spencerbeswick I heard MLK would never have been as successful without Malcolm X showing what the alternative was. Sounds plausible to me.