Targeting the rank and file

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

I've been seeing a trend on DU of targeting individual rank-and-file Republicans--a troll here, a school official there--and a lot of outrage directed at those DUers who do so. Now we have a case in which someone has committed what is probably a criminal offense against a beloved poster. Person A interfered with matters of life and death for Person B. I'd like to put in my two cents about the trend and the present situation.

Wherever you find liberals and progressives, you find people committed to nonviolence. This is sometimes taken to quasi-religious extremes. Even a barrage of telephone calls is taken as violent. What is forgotten is that behind the success of two great nonviolent movements in the twentieth century--the liberation of India and the desegregation of the American South--was a considerable THREAT of violence. The parties involved were the majority in the contested areas. They used their RESTRAINT as a bargaining chip with powers that stood to lose, at least, large sums of money on a violent conflict.

We can't use nonviolence to achieve anything unless we embody a threat. Thinking so is the intellectual equivalent of waiting for Jesus to come back and solve our problems.

A relative of mine in the armed forces wrote a nasty little manual during the occupation of Italy. Probably a lot of us who have marched in protests have experienced the effects of this book, which set out protocols for riot control that were widely adopted.

When suppressing a riot, one does not go for the ringleaders. The fastest way to quell a riot is to start beating or preferably shooting people on the sidelines. That's when the rioters know you are serious. That's when even the ringleaders begin to have second thoughts.

Now I'm not saying anyone should beat or shoot anyone. I believe in nonviolence and I have studied it closely enough to understand that it is a tactic of war with the same end as war: to achieve victory. If it is used as an end in and of itself, it is not serious and not to be taken seriously.

Metaphorically, why not use practices that are known to work when confronting the Republican mob?

[Stanchetalarooni]

1. Such as?

Metaphorically, why not use practices that are known to work when confronting the Republican mob?
Such as...?

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

2. Targeting little ones

Getting the dirt on police chiefs, mayors, state assembly, etc. and wrecking their careers just on general principle. We obviously don't have heavy enough hitters in DC to go after the big fish.

[Demit]

3. I haven't seen that outrage at DUers who target individual Republicans

I don't know what you mean. Nor do I know about this criminal offense against a poster thingie. What are you talking about? Presumably, from the rest of your post, this is a good thing. But could you be more explicit?

[tubbacheez]

4. I agree. It's the demonstration of control that hints at one's strength.

There's a big difference between choosing nonviolence and advertising that one is entirely incapable of violence.

One invites negotiation. The other invites attack.

[sweetheart]

5. However, this is a discussion board

Bullying and targeting people might work in the real world, but in
cold black and white print, the words stay around long after the emotion
has cooled... and it is unbecoming to say the least. Aggressive
thuggery has no place in discussion, as it only sets precedents making
such behaviour OK.

You know H.P.G, were some people to start snipering the heads of nasty
corporations, and where there some sort of movement against the
corporatocracy, i believe what you say... it would not take much, a
little bit of mob violence against the machine, and suddenly the
ringleaders would have to re-consider their approach, as without much
of it, a whole rank of upper management not being paid "combat pay"
would take jobs where their lives were not on the line.

Sadly, the snipers are stupid, and there is no institutional threat
against the corporate bolsheviks. And indeed, were such a thing used,
it would surely affect people, that most perferred that the corporatocracy
restrained itself, not needing such prodding.

However, we are not confronting a republican mob here. We are
discussing our own strategic position. THe republican mob is out
there in the real world where the guns are.... and frankly the enemy
is more the corporatocracy and the church leaders who go too far,
much more than the congress persons, who like mushrooms, pop up to
take the latest graft-cheque to get rich.

As a political movement, we should rather focus on our own manifesto,
and making it happen. As we don't have one, for all the gray matter
in opposition, the energy is squandered fillibustering without any
coherent manifesto for anything the opposition statnds for except
"Not-them". This manifesto indeed includes nonviolence, and it is
not just forswearing not to use violence, but forswearing hatred in
ones heart.

In this regard, that person who screwed with andy should not be hated
but simply forgotten. The ultimate revenge is to step over their
dead bodies without noticing.