Does Gandhi's Pacifism really work?

[Taverner]

I just finished Sam Harris' "End of Faith" and he had an interesting take on pacifism, claiming it to be useless, unsucessful and extremly self-serving via the martyr complex.

Think about it - if India continued to deal with Pakistan via pacifism, it would be under Sharia rule today.

And as much as I admire MLK Jr., do African Americans really have it equal today?
And the gains made by African Americans - did it come more from the peaceful demonstrations, or the threat of real retaliation from Malcom X and Stokely Carmichael?

There are no easy answers in any of this - and I can't say that I agree with Harris, but I can't say that I disagree with his points either.

And here's the rub - any black or white answers on this in either direction will be patently false, since an issue of this magnitude is not answered in a simple yes and no fashion.

While answering this, keep in mind Gandhi's solution for Hitler's "final solution" - he suggested all Jews commit mass suicide to make the Nazis and the world take note of the injustices of the Nazis. This would be the pacifist solution - and a terrible solution at that.

[izzie]

1. One would think not with the worlds history of war

But it does seem that more gets done when people get together and talk about it. I am not so sure war has changed the world as much as new thoughts have.

[bananas]

2. Sam Harris says Liberalism doesn't work either

Sam Harris article entitled "Head-in-the-Sand Liberals"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=88886&mesg_id=88886

[Taverner]

27. Not correct; his beef is with Relativist Liberals, not Realist Liberals

The liberals who excuse Sharia law and the Taliban for multiculturalism's sake.

My problem with his argument is that there are and were a great deal of Liberals who supported the war in Afghanistan but not Iraq. All tinfoil hats aside, the Taliban was a theocracy among theocracy, with a very anti-human, anti-reason element. Iraq was not - it was a secular dictatorship.

[bananas]

137. Being progressive on a few issues doesn't make him a liberal

nor does it make him a realist. That's as true for Harris as it is for Lieberman.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. It Works When You Have Elites Whose Consciences You Can Appeal To...

That's why the civil right movement worked... Because northern elites and even some southerners were apalled at the injustices Jim Crow presented.

It certainly wouldn't work with the Nazis or radical Muslims.

[EFerrari]

5. I think you guys are mixing up pacifism with passivity. n/t

[YankeyMCC]

59. I think that's exactly 'the rub'

Pacifism does Not have to mean passivity. I don't think you can call the core of Gandhi's and MLK's could be called 'passive'

I think Pacifism can work more often than is generally believed, but it's difficult to say the least and not least among the reasons it is difficult is human nature (including mine I don't think I would have the patience required for the more difficult situations).

[DrDebug]

13. Indeed. It sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One of the oldest examples of pacifism is the Cathars and they just got exterminated. Even though I have the Dalai Lama as my avatar and I appreciate him very much, it is clear that Tibet is a country where pacifism is not effective.

Not all evil can be stopped by pacifism. It worked for India because there was some civilization left in British government and most importantly a reluctant to use force against the protests. The same applied to Martin Luther King jr.

As far as nazism goes, I think that it best described by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who started out as a pacifist and was one of the greatest resistance fighters of the 20th century. He wrote a book about his mental struggle with pacifism and whether it would be effective called Ethics in which he outlined why pacifism could not be used against nazism and as a result of that writing, he joined the July 20, Plot against Adolf Hitler. He was arrested before the plot, because it was discovered that helped Jews escape to Switzerland. When it became known that he was among the conspirators of the failed plot against Adolf Hitler he was hanged on April 9, 1945, just three weeks before the liberation. His legacy was best summarized in The Cost of Discipleship where he wrote: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." The sad part is that so few know about Bonhoeffer.

Nevertheless non-violent resistance should be tried first and that is something which is not being done today, because the scale is too small to be effective. I think apathy is the real dilemma of today's society. It is important to remember that pacifism is not always effective and that it depends on the conditions.

[elehhhhna]

33. a brilliant post. write more.

[DrDebug]

37. Thanks. Maybe an excerpt of Dietrich's writings

His books are very misunderstood, because he writes as a minister and his writings use the Bible as framework, and sadly it is best enjoyed whne you take some distance. If he hadn't written it for himself and used a more generic tone, it would have been one of the greatest books on ethics.

So please read a bit between the lines and remember that Bonhoeffer is very intellectual and lived in one of the most extreme times. His message is hard to understand and even harder to practice, but he breaks all taboos in Ethics and goes to the hard of the matter which is complete selfless action, and considering that everything is relative and even questions like good and evil are a duality which need to be evaluated on a relative scale.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945)

Excerpts from Ethics
(...)

And finally, again like Aristotle, Bonhoeffer sees judgments of character and not action as fundamental to moral evaluation. Evil actions should be avoided, of course, but what needs to be avoided at all costs is the disposition to do evil as part of our character. "What is worse than doing evil," Bonhoeffer notes, "is being evil" (Ethics, p.67). To lie is wrong, but what is worse than the lie is the liar, for the liar contaminates everything he says, because everything he says is meant to further a cause that is false. The liar as liar has endorsed a world of falsehood and deception, and to focus only on the truth or falsity of his particular statements is to miss the danger of being caught up in his twisted world. This is why, as Bonhoeffer says, that "(i)t is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie" (Ethics, p.67). A falling away from righteousness is far worse that a failure of righteousness. To focus exclusively on the lie and not on the liar is a failure to confront evil.

Nevertheless, the central concern of traditional ethics remains: What is right conduct? What justifies doing one thing over another? For Bonhoeffer, there is no justification of actions in advance without criteria for good and evil, and this is not available (Ethics, p.231). Neither future consequences nor past motives by themselves are sufficient to determine the moral value of actions. Consequences have the awkward consequence of continuing indefinitely into the future. If left unattended, this feature would make all moral judgments temporary or probationary, since none are immune to radical revision in the future. What makes a consequence relevant to making an action right is something other than the fact that it is a consequence. The same is true for past motives. One motive or mental attitude surely lies behind another. What makes one mental state and not an earlier state the ultimate ethical phenomenon is something other than the fact that it is a mental state. Since neither motives nor consequences have a fixed stopping point, both are doomed to failure as moral criteria. "On both sides," Bonhoeffer notes, "there are no fixed frontiers and nothing justifies us in calling a halt at some point which we ourselves have arbitrarily determined so that we may at last form a definite judgement" (Ethics, p.190). Without a reason for the relevance of specific motives or consequences, all moral judgments become hopelessly tentative and eternally incomplete.

(...)

Reliance on theory, in other words, is destructive to ethics, because it interferes with our ability to deal effectively with evil. Bonhoeffer asks us to consider six strategies, six postures people often strike or adopt when attempting to deal with real ethical situations involving evil and vicious people. Any of these postures or orientations could employ principles, laws, or duties from ethical theory. But, in the end, it makes little difference what principles they invoke. The ethical postures themselves are what make responsible action impossible. A resort to the dictates of reason, for example, demands that we be fair to all the details, facts, and people involved in any concrete moral situation (Ethics, p.67). The reasonable person acts like a court of law, trying to be just to both sides of any dispute. In doing so, he or she ignores all questions of character, since all people are equal before the law, and it makes no difference who does what to whom. Thus, whenever it is in the interest of an evil person to tell the truth, the person of reason must reward him for doing so. The person of reason is helpless to do otherwise, and in the end is rejected by all, the good and the evil, and achieves nothing.

(...)

The man or woman of conscience presents an even stranger case. When faced with an inescapable ethical situation that demands action, the person of conscience experiences great turmoil and uncertainty. What the person of conscience is really seeking is peace of mind, or a return to the way things were, before everything erupted into moral chaos. Resolving the tensions is as important as doing the right thing. In fact, doing the right thing should resolve the conflicts and tensions or it is not the right thing. Consequently, people of conscience become prey to quick solutions, to actions of convenience, and to deception, because feeling good about themselves and their world is what matters ultimately. They fail completely to see, as Bonhoeffer notes, that a bad conscience, that disappointment and frustration over one's action, may be a much healthier and stronger state for their souls to experience than peace of mind and feelings of well being (Ethics, p.68).

(...)

Furthermore, the sole guide for acting in accordance with this reality is the model of Jesus' selfless behavior in the New Testament. There are numerous dimensions to this model. First and foremost, your action can in no way be intended to reflect back on you, your character, or your reputation. You must, for the sake of the moment, unreservedly surrender all self-directed wishes and desires (Ethics, p.232). It is the other, another person, that is the focus of attention, and not yourself. In ethical action, the left hand really must be unaware of what the right hand is doing if the right hand is to do anything ethical. If not, your so-called good action becomes contaminated and its moral nature altered.

(...)

http://www.iep.utm.edu/b/bonhoeff.htm

[elehhhhna]

41. Wow! Thanks. Think I'll buy "Ethics"

[intheflow]

53. I wish I could bookmark this post.

I have to prepare a sermon in two months on "the right of conscience" and it would be most useful to have this at ready access. I learned about Bonhoffer in seminary and this is a wonderful reminder of his wisdom and clear thinking that more people need to be exposed to.

[elehhhhna]

97. his books are avail. on Amazon (used) for like a dollar

[burythehatchet]

112. Thank you

I had not been familiar with this person, Bonhoeff. He quite exquisitely expresses the central truth about non-violent protest. A brilliant man.

[mntleo2]

15. Which Is Also What Archbishop Tutu Said As Well

...soon after he won the Nobel Peace prize, he was asked why he supported the Tutsi guerrillas instead of starting a movement like Gandhi had begun. He said that pacifism only worked with civilized societies and it would be foolhardy to try it with barbarian societies such as the Nazis ~ and S Africa, which also saw the slaughter of protesters at Gandhi's demostrations as well. It seems to me, even with "civilized" societies, still also people are slaughtered before the rulers become sufficiently embarrassed enough to yield to pacifism.

While love changes hearts where a gun to the head never would, it takes a great deal more courage and strength to act out of love rather than violence.


My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

[Irreverend IX]

31. MLK and Gandhi were successful...

Because they pointed out their opponents' hypocrisy and challenged them to live up to their purported ideals. Britain and the US both claimed to value human rights and human dignity, and the aforementioned leaders showed by example that those nations weren't practicing what they preached. In Nazi Germany and South Africa, on the other hand, there was no disparity at all between the words and actions of the government. They believed in racism and oppression and they acted on it, as simple as that. If a society is torn between base impulses and high ideals, it's possible to use pacifism to guilt the society into doing the right thing. If a society has put hatred and fear on a pedestal and made those impulses into its ideals, violence is usually the only way to stop them.

[lapislzi]

32. You are so right

Thank you for putting into plain language what I've been trying to come to terms with for a long time. I lived in SA during the apartheid era, and always felt a little guilty for supporting the ANC...thinking that there had to be a better way. You are absolutely right: sometimes there isn't. I'm thinking the same thing again.

[HamdenRice]

83. I also lived in South Africa during the apartheid era ...

for two years, and visited on and off from 1986 to 2001, and I think we disagree on what brought that government down. Firstly, for most of its history of armed struggle, it considered its violent actions to be "armed propoganda" -- that is, it wasn't trying to kill people or defeat the SADF, but to show that it could operate within the country, that the government could suppress the organization but not the movement. It began to actually kill people -- at first on the border, and then through bombings in the cities -- in the mid 1980s. And even then, the UDF, which had been organized by then, flew to Lusaka and told them to knock it off.

Non-violent active resistance brought down the apartheid regime. As early as the mid 1980s, when the trade unions began to prove that they could shut down the economy at will, government analysts were saying that there was little they could do against that kind of movement.

Then the civic associations took control of the townships, under the misleading misnomber of "making the townships ungovernable." In fact, they were taking over the functions of local government.

Although the struggle in South Africa was violent, I don't think it was violence that brought down the system. It was non-violent resistance of an extraordinarily active form.

[pberq]

90. Great post! - nonviolent resistance

Gandhi's method is better stated as nonviolent resistance, rather than pacifism.

What Rosa Parks did when she sat down in that bus was nonviolent resistance, and it worked. As noted in the above post, it was nonviolent resistance that brought down apartheid. Many other examples of the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance can be cited.

I would urge anyone reading this thread to read Gandhi's book "An Autobiography - the Story of My Experiments With Truth." The problem is that many of us don't really understand what nonviolent resistance is and how it works.

[lapislzi]

93. Point taken...and I don't in fact disagree

The problem I had/have is specifically with the ANC. Even when Mandela ran for the presidency in 94, they hadn't yet renounced the armed struggle (even after Lusaka, as you pointed out, told them to quit--they never did). It didn't sit well with me, because I couldn't see the need for it at that point. In fact, I thought they were doing harm to the cause by then. I have the same opinion about the IRA.

But I don't think the resistance would have been nearly as successful in as short a period if not punctuated by the violence. I guess it's a tool, the same way that anger is a gift.

[HamdenRice]

108. Here's what I think was going on with the ANC

And this is based on having read the Goldstone Commission's reports and the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The ANC refused to give up armed struggle largely as a rhetorical point. A semi-secret agreement was made that the ANC would not in fact engage in armed struggle, but in order to remain popular with its base it could not say so. At that point, you may remember, the ANC and NP agreed to incorporate MK into a transitional multi party Defense Force.

Officially, at the top, the ANC was committed to not engaging in violence, but when the Zulu nationalists began attacking ANC communities, those local communities armed themselves and fought back. Even worse, elements within the Security Police began carrying out "false flag" attacks (and this is well documented) in order to get ANC and IFP aligned communities to slaughter each other.

The highest level of the ANC at which violence was organized and carried out was the KwaZulu-Natal ANC party chairman -- Harry Gwala, I think was his name. That guy was a true violent psychopath -- a guy in a wheelchair sending fit young men out to kill each other, a guy who was garnering money and power from the low intensity civil war.

He was so violent that right after the 1994 election it was revealed by intelligence agencies that he was plotting to assassinate Mandela because the election would end the violence and he wanted to keep fighting.

So the ANC gave up violence, but by that time, they could no longer control it.

BTW, what part of SA did you live in? I was based mostly in Joburg, but traveled a lot out to Rustenburg and Bophutatswana.

[lapislzi]

144. Thank you for the perspective

I lost sight of SA politics after I left in late 94, although I was well aware of the IFP false flag ops in Natal before I left. You're right; that was pretty much common knowledge. I wasn't aware of Harry Gwala...that is some scary stuff. Natal was a war zone for years.

I had a farm NW of JHB...close to Krugersdorp. I know Rustenburg. Ex and I used to go for a Sunday (also to Sun City; ex is a big gambler). I also lived in Cape Town for a year. Might have been a different country!

I have actually considered going back if it gets any worse here (ie a draft).

[myrna minx]

36. Wonderful insight.

You put into words what I've been trying to reconcile. Thank you. :hi:

[Taverner]

56. So Blacks are equal today, and India and Pakistan love each other

Pacifism worked in India because Britain had no money to maintain an empire...we made sure they had no money by waiting until the last minute to enter WWII.

After WWII England was depleted of all resources. It wasn't until the 1960's that they had any money again, and by then all of their colonies were gone.

[rman]

74. red herring

No-one is claiming blacks are equal today, and India and Pakistan love each other - nor is anyone arguing that such is evidence that pacifism works.

But that does not mean that pacifism does not work - it's just that it has as of yet failed to solve all conflicts. But i don't think it was ever claimed that it does solve all conflicts.


Question is whether Blacks and the people of India would be better off now if MLK and Gandhi would have led a violent resistance rather than a pacifist one.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

145. No, but if you remember the pre-civil rights era or

have been watching Eyes on the Prize, you know that the situation is much improved.

Most of the legal barriers to equality are gone, thanks to the civil rights movement, and attitudes have changed immensely.

In the past, white people who wanted to discriminate had the support of the legal system and could unilaterally declare their business premises to be for whites only or put restrictions on how black people could patronize their business (must sit in a separate section of a theater, can get food in a restaurant only to go, cannot try on clothes in a clothing store, can make beds at a hotel but not stay in it), and in the South, there were unspoken social rules, such as addressing black adults not as "Mr." or "Ms." but as "Uncle" or "Aunt," or such as not allowing black men to wear shirts with ties unless they were going to church.

Sure, there's still plenty of racism to go along, but a lot has changed since my childhood. Laws are easy to change; attitudes take longer.

As far as India and Pakistan are concerned, neither country has followed Ghandi's principles lately.

[Brian Stevens]

147. And where did it get them?

assassinated.

[lildreamer316]

79. Pacifisim is an energy idea for the new millenium, not the old one.

Please forgive me, for this is going to be a very new-agey post...but I really want to explain my thoughts on this. Of course not all will agree; and that's as it should be.
ANYway...
I personally believe in the somewhat new-ageish concept of the fact that we as a planet are all "growing up" ; coming into ever higher "frequencies"; incarnating at faster rates, learning new ways of living, loving and learning as a whole; etc. Because of my strong belief in reincarnation and some of the reading I have done on the subject (and some of the conclusions I've been drawn to), I also believe that different groups on the planet are in differing stages of development on a soul level. With regards to the concept of pacifisim as brought to the global conciousness by such people as we have discussed, MLK and Ghandi,as well as above, Archbishop Tutu-who understood the effect very well I think--the basic fact is that some cultures see and accept this new, higher way of relating to each other as the next step. SOME cultures are just not ready for the next step. You can't teach a person calculus without first teaching them aglebra, or basic math.
Now, I've expressed this idea before and had ppl jump down my throat because they percieve me as saying that some cultures are inferior to others, including our own. That is not my point at all. I do not see it as a judgement of someone to remark on their age. Do you expect a 12 year old to act the same way and understand what an 18 year old does? What a 28 year old does? What a 40 year old does? Even an 80 year old? I don't think so. It does not make the person bad, or wrong, or stupid. Just young. Inexperienced. Learning. Growing. We were all there at one time.

I am not using a civilization's recorded "age" or time it has existed on this earth as a barometer of their soul age, as is obvious from my premise. In fact,I believe the opposite to be true--and this is where the concept of America came from. It makes sense to me that we have come further in 200 years than some have in thousands--and the best and brightest of those came here to help. But, there is a whole other discussion. Again, there is no implicit judgement there. Of course in certain ways we have not progressed as well as others...not trying to say we are perfect.

Pacifisim is an idea for the developing mind, the civilization that is moving away from the physical and towards the mental, towards the exploration of the mental, and of the energy therin. It needed to be introduced so as to permiate global conciousness...to "sit and stew";as it were, until everyone reaches a point where it is a functional part of their reality. It does NOT need to be discarded or pushed aside as a non-functional ideal. All of human interaction can be seen as energy play for balance(war/game?) that is played..check and checkmate, action and reaction. This is the joy and ultimate pain of being human and incarnating--the infinite ways we can find to explore the ways we can "play" the "game". Pacifisim is just another way of taking this to the next level. I would call it mental warfare if that wasn't so...strange. It's a different way of relating..and a very exciting one.
Hopefully we'll all be ready for it soon. Until then, I can understand why Sam Harris would think that way, and his frustration with the application of an idea that seems to have no effect in certain areas. I can very much agree with Archbishiop Tutu's assesment. When they are ready for it,they'll be ready for it. Not until then. Neither are we all so ready for it..

Eh, just one crazy woman's ideas. Guess I'll find out next lifetime...or not.
(Spellcheck isn't working,sorry)

[HamdenRice]

82. How do you explain South Africa?

The Nationalist Party, which gave South Africa apartheid, was hardly a party full of people with conscience. Yet it was largely non-violent resistance (especially the power of the trade unions) that forced the government to negotiate majority rule.

As one poster below said, non-violent resistance does not mean passivity. It can mean seizing social and economic power through non-violent means.

[EFerrari]

4. Pacifism defeated the British Empire.

What is the context of Gandhi's "solution"? I've never heard that and it sounds unlike him.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. It Defeated The British Empire Because

It defeated the British Empire because the Brits lacked the capacity for evil that would have been needed to maintain it.

I doubt the Axis Powers would have peacefully relinquished their control over much of Europe, North Africa, and Asia.

[EFerrari]

10. You have a much rosier view of the British than I do.

:)

[Monk06]

103. Amen to that....................

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amritsar_Massacre

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Quote:

"The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs." (That's Gandhi speaking to his biographer in 1946.)

And pacifism didn't defeat the British Empire so much as an inability to maintain control of their Indian empire after two financially crippling world wars and in the face of mounting native opposition to British rule (there were a significant number of Indians who assisted the Japanese in fighting the British, as part of the so-called "Indian National Army", and there were also several cases of mutiny among Indian troops under British command during WWII). Yes, Gandhi's pacifism and nonviolent resistance were a factor, but hardly the only one, and maybe not even the most important.

[EFerrari]

11. How can you separate Gandhi and what you're calling

"mounting native opposition"?

You can't.

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. Actually, you can...

because Indian troops fighting alongside the Axis and violent mutiny against British commanders don't square with Gandhi's nonviolence at all.

[EFerrari]

16. But they were both part of the same movement, so no, you can't.

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. That's like saying...

that you can't make a distinction between MLK and the Black Panthers, which is plainly wrong; whether the end was the same or not, the means are quite different, and it is certainly possible to draw a distinction between those who advocate violent means and those who advocate peaceful ones.

[EFerrari]

25. No, that's not like saying that at all. That's simply sophistry.

You can't discuss the Civil Rights Movement without includng both.

[Spider Jerusalem]

26. Well, actually...

when the British prime minister of the time says that the Indian National Army and mutinies among Indians in British service were a more decisive factor in the British granting Indian independence than Gandhi's movement (which Clement Attlee DID say; see here), I tend to credit it.

[EFerrari]

54. Lol! Sure -- because this politician will not admit to being

outwitted POLITICALLY by a man he saw as his inferior.

[Spider Jerusalem]

75. Sure.

It can't possibly be that Gandhi's contribution to Indian independence is overrated and excessively mythologised. And Attlee saw Indians as inferior, which is why he admitted that Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army movement were largely responsible for the British decision to grant independence. Right. :eyes:

[lildreamer316]

77. I would venture..

that it's possible that Attlee's ego wourld rather him say a fellow warrior/s was responisble for their decision rather than someone who was what he probably viewed in comparison as a "wimp"; or some such--it's a challenge to his, and Britan's; manhood.

Just an opinion, sorry.

[HamdenRice]

85. Yes, but why did the Indian soldiers mutiny?

In other words, the non-violent movement politicized the entire society such that soldiers mutinied.

[Spider Jerusalem]

87. I don't know that you can say that.

Especially when the soldiers who mutinied (and in at least one instance killed all of their British officers) were much more influenced by Subhas Chandra Bose and his doctrine of violent resistance than they were by Gandhi's pacifism.

[H2O Man]

22. Correct.

A good way to illustrate this is to consider Martin Luther King, Jr. It would be foolish to say that King didn't make any significant advances, because Minister Malcolm X advocated a different set of tactics. No one pretends that Gandhi or Martin lived in a vacuum.

[EVDebs]

44. Ghandi, Thoreau, were both possible in a democratic society

with legal system's that respect the rights of man and follow the 'reasonable man' aspects of English common law. Shame and common sense (reminders of Tom Paine, anyone ?) fuel the revolution. Underground groups, like the Freemasons, capable of revolutionary thinking and communications, become the next step when outward means within captive media supress free thinking.

This essay by Thoreau is said to have greatly affected Ghandi's thinking. It bears a link here at DU

Civil Disobedience
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/civ.dis.html

[rman]

46. delete

[BlooInBloo]

57. ROFL! Spoken like a true white man....

"MLK and Malcom X were killed before they could have much of an effect"

(I get the feeling you're going to try and hide the fact that you think this, and pretend that you never said it.)

I have a screenshot too.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. India "would be under Sharia rule today"

"Think about it - if India continued to deal with Pakistan via pacifism, it would be under Sharia rule today."

OK I thought about it and that statement of yours is unsupportable hogwash. Kashmir, vastly muslim by religious affiliation might be part of Pakistan, or not, but certainly India proper would not be under Sharia rule today.

Nonviolent civil disobedience is not exactly pacifism and does not mean at all that one sits around accepting whatever the authorities decide to do, in fact it is actively opposed to opprression and advocates direct action against the state.

[EFerrari]

12. Exactly. Pacifism isn't passivity. n/t

[Taverner]

42. What is the goal of Islam?

And remember I'm not talking about Muslims.

But Islam as a faith - it is to convert the world by word or by sword.

After Kashmir, Pakistan would set it's sights on the other Islamic states within India, like Rajastan for example.

BTW, Christianity has the same goal.

[EVDebs]

50. "Love conquers all"....Let the lovliest of all win ! n/t

[magellan]

9. There are times for pacifism and times for taking off the gloves

Each of us draws the line in a different place in different situations. Perhaps the wise men -- Gandhi, MLK, Malcolm X -- just drew the line in a place that was right for the times.

[Bucky]

17. "no easy answers" is right

Malcom and other less pacifist oriented activists involved in the Civil Rights struggle certainly played important roles in the dialog that broke the back of Jim Crowism. But the central role that King and his nonviolent approach took is paramount to explain why the great body of whites came down on the pro-equality side of the debate. By acting in civility while challenging evil--evil which frequently resorted to violence in opposing him--King let the case for who is right and who is wrong lay itself out. It was costly, sure, and it wasn't 100% effective, and it probably relied on happening in an age of television to work. But had a Carmichael or a pre-Hajj Malcom taken the central role in the Civil Rights struggle, the level of white support for the cause would have a fraction of what it was. What King did right was win over allies to his side and create a moral high ground that could not be resisted.

Progress in racial equality is slow today and in many cases is being reversed. But the problems tend to result from institutionalized poverty and the decay of urban centers, not the return of instutionalized racism. The fix today requires more education, not legislation.

[Dorian Gray]

39. Bucky

I think you hit the nail right on the head with your analysis here. Very well spoken and I think you are quite right about it.

[JHB]

18. I think the "moment in history" helped

I'm not sure about Gandhi, since I don't really know enough about the particulars of his movement and activism (the timing, the political currents involved, etc.), but as for King and the Civil Rights Movement...

I think a major unsung factor in their (admittedly incomplete) success was when it occured: during the Cold War, when in vying for the "hearts and minds" for people around the (newly-decolonialized) world, propaganda and public perceptions were the weapons of choice more often than guns. In such an environment, daily broadcasts of naked hypocracy ("America is the land of the free, now excuse us while we string up these here darkies who thought they were as good as white folk") just wouldn't do, so Federal protection (eventually) came down on the side of peaceful protesters.

The total political environment was such that usual mechanisms for outright suppression weren't alloeed to function, and that gave King and co. the room they needed to make some progress. It worked to some extent then, but I'm not convinced it's always the right solution.

[Reader Rabbit]

23. Doesn't square with Gandhi in South Africa, 1906

This is where Gandhi developed the idea of saytagraha, and where Gandhi's nonviolent resistance movement first began.

[H2O Man]

19. I'm curious

about where you have found Gandhi advocating "mass suicide" of Jews? I've read a number of things by and about Gandhi, and have never heard this before.

[rman]

61. i second this query

[endarkenment]

67. Ghandi seems to have said this to Lewis Fisher circa 38-39 .

And it seems to have been blown out of proportion for various reasons by people with various agendas.

"You know what he said to Lewis Fisher in 1938 about the Jews in Germany -- that German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which would "have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence."

He was making a tactical proposal, not a principled one. He wasn't saying that they should have walked cheerfully into the gas chambers because that's what nonviolence dictates. He was saying, "if you do it, you may be better off."

If you divorce his proposal from any principled concern other than how many people's lives can be saved, it's conceivable that it would have aroused world concern in a way that the Nazi slaughter didn't. I don't believe it, but it's not literally impossible. On the other hand, there's nothing much that the European Jews could have done anyway under the prevailing circumstances, which were shameful everywhere.

Orwell adds that after the war Gandhi justified his position, saying, "The Jews had been killed anyway and might as well have died significantly."

Again, he was making a tactical, not a principled, statement. One has to ask what the consequences of the actions he recommended would have been. That's speculation based on little evidence. But for him to have made that recommendation at the time would have been grotesque.

What he should have been emphasizing is: "Look, powerless people who are being led to slaughter can't do anything. Therefore it's up to others to prevent them from being massacred." To give them advice on how they should be slaughtered isn't very uplifting -- to put it mildly.

You can say the same about lots of other things. Take people being tortured and murdered in Haiti. You want to tell them: "The way you ought to do it is to walk up to the killers and put your head in front of their knife -- and maybe people on the outside will notice." Could be. But it'd be a little more significant to tell the people who are giving the murderers the knives that they should do something better. "
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/pfrm/pfrm-07.html

[rman]

71. So the Gandhi quote in the OP is out of context

Thanks for offering some background on that.

[endarkenment]

91. Yes.

This was a remark made to a friend, not a principle of nonviolence. At any rate, one is not obligated to accept the beliefs of Ghandi as some immutable gospel of nonviolent civil disobedience. Lots of good people have carried his work forward.

[H2O Man]

102. There is a wonderful

Gandhi biography by Fisher, which I'm familiar with. And I should add that the person who wrote the OP is someone I admire on DU. But I think that context is important. And part of that context is language.

Another DUer who I do not care for uses part of a quote, grossly out of context, that mentions Gandhi advocating, approximately, that Jews jump off a cliff into the ocean. Unless one is familiar with Gandhi, that sounds odd, indeed. But Gandhi, like most enlightened teachers, uses language in a specific way. "Water" is a reference to the universal energy force. Hence, from Fischer, we read Gandhi saying, "If we shatter the chains of egotism, and melt into the ocean of humanity, we share its dignity. To feel that we are something apart is to set up a barrier between God and ourselves; to cease feeling that we are something is to become one with God. A drop in the ocean partakes of the greatness of its parent, although it is unconscious of it. But it dries up as soon as it enters upon an existence independent of the ocean."

More, we read Gandhi saying, "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean. If a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." Hopefully, most people will recognize the context of the "jump into the ocean" quote in these Gandhian sayings about that ocean.

Translating Gandhi into an easily understood context is difficult. For what it's worth, the movie is still of some value. But for a better understanding, perhaps of even more value than either Fischer or even the autobiography are two books: first, an easy and pleasureable read is Thomas Merton's "Gandhi on Non-Violence," (New Directions;1964) which directly addresses issues of war; and my favorite, Erik Erikson's "Gandhi's Truth," (Norton;1969) which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book award for its focus on the origins of militant nonviolence.

[LWolf]

21. I guess it depends on

what you consider "working." On what the priorities are.

On what price/s you are willing to pay to achieve your goal.

Too many people, imo, are way too willing to spend the lives of others to achieve goals, and the goals they are willing to spend blood on are not worthy of the lives spent. Pacifists spend their own lives, if it comes to that, and they do so by their own choice.

If Gandhi were alive today, I'd prefer him as president over all but one or two Democrats alive today. That said, he was a man, not a saint, and lived a very human life. He wasn't always a pacifist, either; he evolved in that direction over time.

While I have pacifistic tendencies, I'm not a good pacifist. I'd spill the blood of others under some circumstances. I also wouldn't see it as the "best" solution. I would know that, in some ways, by choosing to spend blood, I'd failed the larger purpose.

The fact is that too many humans, in their current stage of evolution, like violence. They like violence in their preferred forms of entertainment and in their solutions to conflict with others. Too many Americans actually LIKE war. They told me so themselves, at the beginning of the current mess in Iraq. Some were neighbors and colleagues who just told me; others screamed at me from cars and threw things at me when I stood on street corners holding signs protesting military intervention in Iraq. They screamed "WE NEED WAR!", "WE WANT WAR!", "WE LIKE WAR!" They like flying the flags, they like the emotional drama, they like the role of cheerleader. They get self-esteem from the image of their country "kicking ass," just like they do when their football team beats another on Sunday. They like to think that there is something noble about going off to war, and they can't or won't or don't see that the U.S. government mirrors their own bully tendencies when they misuse the lives of others.

It's pretty common here at DU to call on Republicans to send their kids first, if they are going to be warmongers. Personally, I think the same standard holds for Democrats, and for DUers. My perspective: don't call for the spending of lives until you put you and yours on the lines to be spent first.

[Zensea]

24. Does violence really work?

What's wrong with that question?
Same thing as is wrong with the pacifism question.

As for Gandhi, it seems to me that committing suicide is a form of violence.
It would be interesting to know how he would respond to such a comment.

[Reader Rabbit]

28. It doesn't work quickly. Maybe that's the problem.

The campaigns of both Gandhi and King took years. And I think people are confusing "pacifism" with "passive." Nonviolent resistance is in no way passive. It is merely a way of confronting an issue without resorting to violence. The entire purpose of nonviolent resistance isn't to defeat one's opponent, but to convert him or her to a different way of thinking. This cannot occur if the opponent feels physically threatened, because the brain reverts to instinctive reaction, as opposed to critical thinking. Nonviolent opposition is designed to create a lasting change in people's minds, and that takes a great deal of time and sacrifice, because human beings fear change.

I suspect that part of our problem as Americans is that we can't imagine a situation so bad that we would be willing to let people beat on us without raising a hand. I totally endorse satyagraha, and I am perfectly willing to be arrested for a cause. But could I just stand there like the workers at Dharsana or the marchers in Selma and let someone beat on me without running or raising a hand to protect myself? I really don't think I could.

[KittyWampus]

29. Does Militarism & Violence Work? Pacisfism is important as it invokes

our Higher Self and by so doing gives our more civilized potential a clearer path towards manifestation.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. Well, the endless wars haven't "worked" yet.

One can take a look at history and say that any type of "ism" that has been tried hasn't "worked" over the long run.

If you look at the world today, it would be easy to say that Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Militarism, Liberatlism, Conservatism, even "democracy" hasn't worked.

In the end we all find our own "peace" with the world and ourselves.

As long as the bosses believe in violence as a solution to problems, and as long the people are willing to follow the bosses, the wars will continue. No matter what great ideal they profess it's all about power and Lord Acton's axiom kicks in.

[gratuitous]

35. I'll second that

Because whatever folks thought the invasion of Iraq was going to accomplish (or the invasion of Afghanistan, or the Soviet invasion of same, or . . . well, the list goes on and on), no rational human being will argue that the destabilization of the region, the mass atrocities, and the total disruption of Iraqi society are desireable, worthwhile goals that we just couldn't accomplish any other way.

For the times when an aggressively pacifist approach has been used, and there aren't many examples, it has been incredibly successful, particularly when measured alongside the results "gained" from armed conflict. Does it take a long time? Well, we still have troops stationed at Guantanamo Bay, on the Korean peninsula, even in Germany. And World War II ended more than 60 years ago, but we're still paying for it in billions spent every year. How long did it take for non-violent opposition to apartheid to bring down that unjust regime? And in the aftermath, the non-violent Truth Commission helped to put South African society on the road to healing and reconciliation. Compare and contrast to the ongoing hostilities experienced in eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and other places where armaments continue to fuel tension and make sure that a few profit from the widespread misery inflicted by ongoing armed violence.

[Taverner]

40. Endless War is bad always; Targeted war can work

Endless war does not work, but targeted specific goal-oriented war has. I'm speaking about WWII (depose Hitler and Japan), Gulf War I (even though I was against it, it was a sucess), and many other instances.

Other endless wars such as Vietnam, Korea and Iraq II, which had no targeted goals, and no measures of sucess.

Afghanistan had originally a goal - depose the Taliban and eliminate Bin Laden. As far as those goals went, I was for it. The problem is too many variables were thrown in by special interests (Unocal Pipeline, appeasement of Pakistan, etc.) and that skewed the mission. Throw in Bush's bungling and you have a good plan with terrible execution.

[rman]

49. war can be both targeted and endless: see W's war on terrorism

[Taverner]

51. W's war is not targeted in the least

On paper it is about terrorism. IN reality it is about oil, pleasing the merchants of death and "us vs. them."

[rman]

55. either way it is targeted

and endless

[Taverner]

60. Ask Rumsfield why we fight in Iraq and every time its a different answer

I suppose it is targeted as the goal IS endless war, but that's not exactly what I meant.

[rman]

63. Obtaining resources is a goal, a target, isn't it?

If not then no war has ever been a targeted war.

[Taverner]

65. I guess I'm using the wrong words - I mean focused

Iraq is not focused at all - its about oil, but its about WMD, but its also about freedom on the march, but its also about stopping bin Laden....

A sucessful war should follow the Powell Doctrine (doing what he said, not what he did) and have a clear measure of sucess BEFORE the war begins, a clear goal, and an exit strategy.

Iraq had none of these.

[rman]

68. Maybe the term you're looking for is "of limited duration"

The W gang has no exit strategy because they don't intend this war to be of limited duration. They want the oil - and not just Iraq's oil. That's a clear goal, it's just that they are not being honest about it. If it's up to them they'll be done once the oil gone, which is at least a couple of decades down the road. That would make this war not endless in a literal sense, but the duration is unspecified.

At any rate, i don't think it can be argued that Gandhi, MLK, Malcom X, Mandela etc would have been more effective if they would have engaged in any kind of war or violent uprising.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

62. Hitler and the Japanese militarists wanted a "targeted" war.

Again, the bosses decided that violence was the answer to their problems. Hitler wanted "lebensraum" in the east and to combat "Jewish Bolshevism" - he had no desire to go to war with the west.

The Japanese militarists wanted to control the natural resources of East Asia because they feared overpopulation and a possible revolution.

So the Germans marched into the Ruhr and Sudetanland and the Japanese took Manchuria. The wars were targeted and, at first, successful.

[Taverner]

66. Yes they were sucessful

And they hadn't really planned on us stopping them the way we did....

[rman]

69. So in the end they were unsuccessful,

especially Hitler.

[Taverner]

70. They failed to stop OUR targeted war

WWII was a complete gamble, on all sides.

Germany and Japan gambled that Pearl Harbor would keep us out of the war.

We gambled that waiting for England to deplete its resources would still leave enough of a window for us to win.

Germany gambled that not sharing fighter tech with Japan would not leave them vulnerable.

We won, purely by luck.

[rman]

76. One nation vs the rest of the world

(ok, 2 nations if you want to count the Japanese)

With Hitler playing General; it was only a matter of time for them to lose.

[Selatius]

99. It is likely we would have won no matter the strange twists in history

The first atom bombs were meant for Germany, not Japan. No matter what happened, it is likely Germany would not have come out of the war victorious, especially when dealing with two superpowers like the US and USSR.

[Taverner]

139. They were dangerously close to developing their own atomic weapon

[elehhhhna]

34. K&R fascinating conversation.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

38. I'll second that!

:thumbsup:

[Jim__]

43. Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man. - Bertrand Russell

I consider Russell's statement to be true, and one of the strongest arguments that there is for pacifism.

But, as I read your post, you seemed to unequivocally reject Harris's argument yourself. You say, ... he had an interesting take on pacifism, claiming it to be useless, unsucessful and extremly self-serving via the martyr complex.

And later you say, any black or white answers on this in either direction will be patently false, since an issue of this magnitude is not answered in a simple yes and no fashion.

Based on these two statements, Harris's argument is patently false.

[Taverner]

47. Ahhh yes, only a Sith speaks in absolutes ;)

And that is one of my biggest beefs with Sam Harris

He does talk in absolutes, which in arguments over quantitative data makes sense, but over qualitative data is a mistake.

Although I agree that Faith is a dangerous thing - but do think there is a place for pacifism, albeit a very limited role, especially when fighting theocrats.

I also don't buy his arguement in favor of torture. On the surface, his argument has merit ("if torturing a known terrorist can save thousands who would otherwise die by carpet bombing, wouldn't it be worth it?") again he is speaking in absolutes, and I would argue that Torture is emperically wrong .

Much like his argument of honor killings being empirically wrong

He does, however, make an excellent argument for realism over relativism.

[Taverner]

48. Ahhh yes, only a Sith speaks in absolutes ;)

And that is one of my biggest beefs with Sam Harris

He does talk in absolutes, which in arguments over quantitative data makes sense, but over qualitative data is a mistake.

Although I agree that Faith is a dangerous thing - but do think there is a place for pacifism, albeit a very limited role, especially when fighting theocrats.

I also don't buy his arguement in favor of torture. On the surface, his argument has merit ("if torturing a known terrorist can save thousands who would otherwise die by carpet bombing, wouldn't it be worth it?") again he is speaking in absolutes, and I would argue that Torture is emperically wrong .

[JVS]

45. Gandhi's pacifism worked because it was good PR

He was the "good cop" and the millions of people who were ready to go berserk at any point were the "bad cop"

If dealing with the "good cop" means getting to avoid the "bad cop" then people will do so.

[rman]

52. MLK and Malcom X were killed before they could have much of an effect,

yet they did have some effect before they died.

Do you think African Americans would be more equal now if MLK and Malcom X would not have done what they did, do you think African Americans would be more equal now if they would have been leaders of a violent uprising?

I notice you do not discuss the effectiveness of Gandhi in India.

Besides, what do you propose as an alternative to pacifism?

---

I suspect the RW would very much like the Bush opposition to become violent - just so that they have an excuse to 'protect' America some more...

I suggest we walk our talk and let violence be the very last resort - as opposed to incorporating violence in our opposition to the warmongers as a matter of principal.

[BlooInBloo]

64. You win! Most Asinine Statement EVER On DU!!!

Even for the whitest of white folks that's asinine. Even the Klan wishes "somebody'd'a killed that nigger before he got all them changes a'rollin".

lol!

"MLK and Malcom X were killed before they could have much of an effect"

ROFLMAO!!!

[Bucky]

131. I didn't even know there was a contest. I demand a recount!

[BlooInBloo]

134. Sorry. Voting technology provided by Diebold. Better luck next time.

[bleedingheart]

58. The key is to Fight when its actually called for...

for example, the labor unions started out with walk outs and non violent methods.
They got gunned down, beaten and jailed.

After they let the corporations and companies fire the first shot...they could both peacefully and even violently return fire...and it was okay and they gained support...

If you start out firing..you look bad. It is all about the PR and timing.

It is always best to have the martyrs be on your side rather than create them for the other side...once you have the martyr...you have the symbol around which to rally and the martyr whose cause you will die for...whether it is religion, labor rights...or civil rights.

[the other one]

72. NOT Pacifism - its Peaceful ACTIVE Disobedience

Big difference. Active disobedience is key.

And Ghandi never would have advocated suicide. He would have said to be brave and unafraid of death, but I can't see him arguing for mass suicide.

[Marr]

73. I don't think MLK would've gotten anywhere without Malcolm X, either.

The risk of violence and chaos is very frightening to people in power. They want to milk the system, not destroy it- and if the choice comes down to making a few concessions and possibly losing the whole package, they'll make concessions.

I personally think that the history we get is largely meant to keep people quiet and manageable. So you hear alot about MLK but nothing about Malcolm X. You hear nothing about the massacres during the Labor Movement, or the violent responses. You hear about Ghandi, but not the other factors that were at play in India and Britain at that time.

[Leopolds Ghost]

101. Nonsense. MLK very skillfully used Malcolm X as a "good cop bad cop".

He did so deliberately. There will always be evil beliefs out there that decent people can refer to if they want to play "good cop" with the forces in power.

The beliefs of the Nation of Islam would have done nothing but hurt the civil rights movement without people like MLK and Malcolm X himself -- post-hajj -- to provide an alternative.

To say that MLK needed someone militant to play against is stating the obvious. If there were no militant people, you'd have total acquescvence. The same culture of violence that leads to class-based oppression also inevitably results in militancy -- not to mention crime. They are all linked.

So you might as well argue that crime is essential to stopping oppression, when in fact, like the militancy of an oppressed minority, it is merely a symptom, incapable in itself of resolving the underlying disagreements.

And if you don't think the Separatist viewpoints of the Nation of Islam were evil -- which Malcolm X later rejected on his trip to Mecca, which is why he was assassinated -- then you need to imagine thiose beliefs in practice today, or Marcus Garvey, who had a mutual friendship with the KKK owing to their mutual belief in black separatism.

[Marr]

106. You called my statement nonsense, then restated it.

"To say that MLK needed someone militant to play against is stating the obvious."

The notion is both obvious and nonsensical?

[BlooInBloo]

109. lol! I'm curious about what the genius response will be... lolol!

[Leopolds Ghost]

110. Your notion that militant leftism by itself can achieve anything

Militant leftism is a symptom of oppression, not a cure.

There will always be assholes on the left for courageous pacifists like MLK to play against.

To restate Jesus in a different context, "the asshole hard left you will have with us always."

What is nonsensical about your statement is that MLK needed such assholes to play against -- I suppose you think Malcolm X needed to become a militant black separatist BEFORE he could reject the values of militant Black Separatism, as he did after the hajj.

[Marr]

124. I never said militant leftism could accomplish anything on it's own.

What I said was that I don't think MLK's message would've been as successful as it was without a relatively militant alternative hovering in the wings. It made him seem more moderate. That is my opinion.

Though to be perfectly honest, I think that militant leftism can in fact accomplish alot on it's own- and has, in the last century. Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala (for a time, at least)... people have had success by demanding change rather than asking for it persistently. But that isn't what I was arguing, nor am I interested in debating the point.

[Leopolds Ghost]

126. Depends what you are trying to accomplish.

Some of us radical populists don't want to live in the type of militant state socialist environment that a fair number of 60's radicals preached.

They transmuted their state-socialist and vanguardist militancy into a militant upper-middle-class neoliberalism, the religion of the baby boomers, in which you can be arrested for smoking in a public place, or walking around without $5 in your pocket, or protesting the "just" war in Lebanon.

Militancy, in the sense of violence and separatism, always leads to more state repression, win or lose.

[Peace Patriot]

78. Change the "cycle of violence" to a "cycle of peace." Pacifism is a

long term project.

I think that Gandhi and MLK were thinking lo-o-o-o-o-o-ong term. They'd "been to the mountain." They'd experienced a vision of a peaceful world--peaceful race relations, peaceful resolution of disputes, peaceful change.

What has violence ever gotten us? We become the mirror of what we hate. Change the dynamics. Mirror peace back to the violent. And if you do that as national and international policy, you have the right tool for PREVENTING a Hitler from ever arising. Look at the CONDITIONS that led to WW II. The U.S. , England and Europe inflicted extremely harsh punishment on the Germans for WW I, and that, combined with the greed of the rich that precipitated the Great Depression, laid the groundwork of misery, starvation and demoralization that Hitler built his movement of the "superior race" upon.

What if the U.S., England and Europe had been GENEROUS toward the German people after WW I, and the rich had been prevented from their pre-Depression looting spree in western countries? We would be living in a different world.

AFTER WW II, FDR's government tried to learn this lesson. You prevent war LONG BEFORE war ever happens. With the extremely generous Marshall Plan for Europe including--especially including!--Germany, and other such measures, AND with the creation of the United Nations, and the signing of this and other visionary new treaties, such as the Geneva Conventions, the great minds of the post-WW II world tried their best to stop aggression before it starts, address grievances before they become wars, and set a high standard of ethics for governments, in an unprecedented set of actions that kept the world stable even through the Cold War and the threat of nuclear holocaust. They wanted there never to be another war like WW II again. They wanted there never to be another Hitler, or any imperialistic monster, rising up to threaten the world again.

These were the impacts of PACIFISM upon the world! The world got a NEW IDEA for dealing with aggression: Prevent it! And do so not just by creation of a strong forum for disputes, but ALSO by justice and generosity.

I think that when Gandhi or MLK personally took blows, to DEMONSTRATE the peaceful way, they were doing so for all time. They could see the implications of NOT mirroring violence--not letting yourself become that which you hate. They were in immediate circumstances, but they were responding to the way they wanted to shape the future.

But I happen to know--because I was a civil rights worker in Alabama in 1965--that MLK respected warriors, and said something to us like this (not an exact quote), "Give me a street fighter any day--someone who has had to defend himself--over a weak individual who has always fled from conflict. Non-violence takes great courage!"

Non-violence is the NEXT STEP. It is the higher way. It does NOT MEAN that you a wuss. On the contrary, it means that you have a passion for justice, and are willing to fight and die for it, but you also have the higher capacity see into the future. You can see the CONSEQUENCES of violence as they ripple through time. And you have the spirit and the intellect to CHANGE THE DYNAMIC.

We are seeing the exact opposite of this abiding wisdom in the Bush regime. They have threatened and isolated and punished North Korea, for instance, and have refused to speak to the North Koreans--even with South Korea begging the Bushites to do so. They have very specifically and pointedly driven the North Koreans--as they are doing also to Iran--to seek nuclear weapons as their only protection against an aggressive, militaristic, imperialist U.S. junta that decimated Iraq, for no good reason, and slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent people without a thought. The Bushites are overturning a century of effort--and you might even say, ten thousand years of effort, the entire history of the human civilization--to learn to prevent the cataclysm of war through justice, diplomacy and generosity. And they are doing it for the worst of reasons--greed and power--and not out of necessity.

But I don't agree with some posters above that the majority of the American people "love war." A few do. And to some it's just sort of a video game, a violent movie--it's not very real. But the great majority of Americans opposed this war way back before the invasion, even before all the lies were exposed. 56% opposed to the war, Feb. '03. And the opposition has only grown since. It's up to about 70% now, with a whopping 84% opposed to any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war. Americans aren't pacifists, on the whole, but they DO subscribe to the post WW II consensus that set up all sorts of bars against war of aggression. That's one of the reasons the American people turned against the Vietnam War. It was so obviously senseless--a very bloody assertion of U.S. power into Southeast Asia that had no real justification. Indeed, we could have been ALLIES with communist Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh--the popular anti-colonialist hero, who would have won the presidency fair and square in the UN-sponsored elections (nixed by the U.S.)--offered as much. They didn't want to be anybody's tools. They had a 5,000 year history of fending off Chinese domination.

In those days, the U.S. election system was not controlled by private Bushite corporations, with electronic voting machines run on trade secret, proprietary programming code. So it was still possible for the electorate to influence the government. As a consequence, LBJ was prevented from running for a 2nd term, and Nixon had to pretend to be in favor of ending the war in order to win. Today, the American people are disenfranchised. We have NO influence over our government. China, Russia and Europe are preventing the Bushites from invading Iran--not us.

The American people wanted PEACE, and saw no need for war, in the '60s. They wanted PEACE, and saw no need for war, in Feb. '03. Even with half the population believing in WMDs and a 9/11 connection, and despite relentless 24/7 fearmongering and propaganda, 56% believed that war was not the answer. How you GET peace, today: first of all by a fair settlement of the Israel/Palestine dispute; secondly, by a long hard look at the ways that the U.S. and other western nations have exploited and oppressed the people of the Middle East, and supported tyrants and princes and shahs and filthy rich sultans; and thirdly by conversion to alternative energy. You don't get it by MORE violence, and MORE exploitation.

That is the lesson of Gandhi and MLK. How about starting by NOT mirroring that which you hate?

Thomas Jefferson provided the other critical element for a peaceful world: democracy; the checks and balances of a vigilant, well-informed population with the power to influence their government through voting. He and the other founders considered optional war by the executive to be the highest form of tyranny, and the worst danger to the republic. They designed our Constitution to prevent it. They, too, were not pacifists. But they wanted PEACE, and they knew that the greatest threat to peace is an out-of-control head of state. And the other great threat to peace is the violent upheavals--such as occurred in Europe--of either one set of tyrants against another, or uprisings of the poor against their oppressors. And the answer to THAT is ALSO democracy: a method for PEACEFUL change of governments, and setting a new course, and remedying injustice--by voting!

Well, the tyrants have found their way around that--by controlling the vote with secret programming, controlled by some of their biggest political contributors. The American people are much better informed that anyone gives them credit for. But we have been stripped of our power. How do we get it back?

We have what may be a narrow window of opportunity to get it back, by changing the voting system back to hand-counted paper ballots, through pressure at the state/local level, where power over voting systems still resides. It won't solve all our problems, by any means, but it is the essential first step. Without the power of the vote--which is, in essence, the power of peaceful change--we cannot begin to implement any other reforms, nor steer our country toward the path of peace.

I've been pushing the Absentee Ballot protest. Don't vote on these machines! Boycott the machines! Use any other means of voting you can. If everyone who despises the Bush Junta--60% to 70% of the American people--votes by Absentee Ballot, the reign of these diabolical machines will be OVER.

And it IS happening. More and more people are voting by Absentee Ballot because they don't trust the machines. As with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Gandhi's Salt Tax protest, this is the way. Tough, but peaceful. Masses of people NOT COOPERATING with their own oppression. The rickety rule of the current fascists, and those behind them--the corporate rulers--cannot win in the face of such actions. While PREVENTIVE ACTION is still possible, we must take it.

Think long term. Think what you would like to future to be. And be that NOW.

[pberq]

138. Excellent post!

Very good points about the great minds at the end of WWII. Preventing wars requires a sophisticated, long term approach.

Here is a section from "The Autobiography of a Yogi", by Paramahansa Yogananda:

Alone among great leaders, Gandhi has offered a practical nonviolent alternative to armed might. To redress
grievances and remove injustices, the Mahatma has employed nonviolent means which again and again have
proved their effectiveness. He states his doctrine in these words:

I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction. Therefore there must be a higher law than that of
destruction. Only under that law would well−ordered society be intelligible and life worth living.

If that is the law of life we must work it out in daily existence. Wherever there are wars, wherever we are
confronted with an opponent, conquer by love. I have found that the certain law of love has answered in my
own life as the law of destruction has never done.

In India we have had an ocular demonstration of the operation of this law on the widest scale possible. I don't
claim that nonviolence has penetrated the 360,000,000 people in India, but I do claim it has penetrated deeper
than any other doctrine in an incredibly short time.

It takes a fairly strenuous course of training to attain a mental state of nonviolence. It is a disciplined life, like
the life of a soldier. The perfect state is reached only when the mind, body, and speech are in proper
coordination. Every problem would lend itself to solution if we determined to make the law of truth and
nonviolence the law of life.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

80. i would argue that gandhis pacifism was terrible for india

gave the brits 20 more years to rob india

the corrupt became the leaders and not the people who were willing to die for their country

[Taverner]

84. Interesting take

And I never thought of that either...

Pacifism takes longer, and definitely gives the foxes more than ample time to rob the henhouse...

[Jcrowley]

81. Excellent question

And some excellent comments throughout. Let us remember those who physically fought in the Warsaw Ghetto had the highest survival rate.

An Excess of Civility?

-Why is it unheard of for someone to call a politician or corporate CEO a liar? Why do we instead hear terms such as "they are not telling the whole story",  "he needs to come clean" or "he is misrepresenting the facts"?

-Why do massive demonstrations (Feb 15, 2003 for example) seem to end with people walking away, planning the next event, and feeling re-energized?

-Why are we not flooded with images in our mainstream media of Iraqi and Afghani children killed by coalition troops, or for that matter dead or injured U.S. soldiers?

-Why have so many been turned off by the confrontational work of the rather dishevelled-looking Michael Moore? Has he not been seen lately making his rounds on late night television clean-shaven in a suit and tie?

-Why does an increasing cynicism of the U.S. intervention in Iraq not translate into wholesale changes in staff or policy?

I think that the answer -at least in part- lies in the shallow North American notion of decency, morality and civility. We have, in some ways, gone from being citizens to consumers, and lost a meaningful connection to deeper issues, particularly those that don't appear to impact us directly.

In many jurisdictions of North America, some ominous trends -and in many cases accompanying legislation- are taking root:
                         
-the creation of  "no-go" zones at peaceful demonstrations
-new legislation to stop panhandling on street-corners
-by-laws to crack down on homeless and squeegee kids
-the Patriot Act and other "anti-terror" legislation
-severe cuts to income assistance and services for families and children
-xenophobia at Canadian, Mexican and U.S. borders

Is this civility? In this harsh new world we are putting politeness and decorum above substance. Our attention is focused on how the homeless person smells, as opposed to looking at the issue of affordable housing. Sure, we can send books and care packages to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but we cannot call the Bush administration a pack of liars for manufacturing their case for the invasion. For days last month, the image of a U.S. soldier holding a blood-soaked Iraqi child made the media circuit, but no such image of an Iraqi parent with their blood-soaked child is appropriate material. It is clear that we can tolerate a bland John Kerry or a challenged George Bush, but not an emotional Howard Dean.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7930

[patrick t. cakes]

107. great thread

we have, in some ways, gone from being citizens to consumers...
i like that, great quote

this has been a great debate top to bottom. cheers DU

[leftofthedial]

86. It has short-term usefulness

but eventually, money and/or bullets will win.

[Deja Q]

88. Only if EVERYBODY truly agrees with it.

The moment even one person does not, the concept is nullified.

I admire some of the viewpoints Ghandi kept to, but the reality is that it's not going to work.

One can dream, but one also has to wake up.

[BluePatriot]

89. Possibly

My pondering-history caveat:

Not to justify violence, but I feel that when non-violent AND violent movements toward a common goal exist in tandem (though generally abhorring each other) it has more effect on a cause than either method has alone.

[Rosemary2205]

92. It can work in social justice situations.

and suicide is not pacifism, it's violence. IMHO. With Gandhi's appreciation for the value of human life, I cannot see him advocating suicide. -- perhaps I missed this previously.

[Leopolds Ghost]

100. Let's not forget that most Jews DID resist the Holocaust with nonviolence.

They were as successful as the Warsaw resisters -- who pleaded with Americans to bomb the death camps, killing everyone in them in order to put a minor dent in Hitler's apparatus.

Let's not forget that WWII failed to prevent the Holocaust. It was the German's and Eurpoean Quislings' "End of Faith" and rejection of nonviolence (in favor of atavistic, pre-Christian beliefs about how best to deal with so-called foreigners) that enabled it to continue, not anything the Jews did or didn't do.

Moreover, had the Jews resisted more strenuously, as some "realist liberals" apparently criticize them for not doing, they would have thrown just as much of a wrench into Hitler's plans in a nonviolent fashion as if they had done so in a violent fashion.

No act of violence prevented Jews from walking into the box-cars under the very theory Sam Harris advocates -- practicality -- self-preservation. Which is the foundation of all violence, and acquiescence to violence.

Had the Nazis been forced to gun them down in the streets, it would have been just as difficult to enact the Holocaust whether or not the Jews so resisting were themselves armed.

And it was evil -- Stalin's total mobilization of Russia, with 50 million casualties -- that ultimately defeated the evil of fascism.

[Jcrowley]

104. Small point here

The Jews who participated in the Warsaw ghetto uprising had a much higher rate of survival than those who went along.

Should the Vietnamese have remained pacifists in light of the US invasion?

[Leopolds Ghost]

116. If the Vietnamese had remained pacifist, there would have been no war.

The Jews who participated in the Warsaw ghetto died in the Warsaw ghetto.

The ones who escaped did so by virtue of an underground railroad set up by militant leftists **WHO ADMIRED THE MILITANCY OF THEIR COMRADES ON THE LEFT**, even as thousands of other holed-up Jews who had no special connections to the Polish left died ("The Pianist" provides an excellent perspective on this, as does a documentary on the survivors of the uprising.)

They did not survive through force of arms and more importantly, almost no one was left alive in the rubble. So I disagree with your argument.

What you are proposing is the very doctrine that motivated militant Zionism -- the notion that the Jews could, and still can in the Middle East, shoot their way out of oppression.

"Militant" (as distinguished from radical) Leftists feel the same way.

"Militant" Liberals, on the other hand, simply believe that we'll always need a war every ten years or the country will be invaded and bombs will go off everywhere, like in, say Brazil, a similarly large and populous country that has neglected to "defend itself" for ages.

[Jcrowley]

119. So

should the Vietnamese have not resisted in your opinion? Should all others who have been invaded merely adopt positions of peace?

But you are right. There would not have been war if the Vietnamese had merely rolled over in the face of naked aggresors. Is that what you're stating to be the better path? Does that hold true for every household?

Peace is not the opposite of war, slavery is.

The war in Iraq did not happen because US forces invaded Iraq. The war happened because the people in Iraq are resisting the invasion. Had they not resisted, and submitted to corporate domination as we do here, would that then have been OK for the US to invade Iraq, because we would have had "peace" and no war?

On the other hand, when we say we are "against the war" are we saying that the Iraqis should submit to the forces of corporate domination and control, as we have here?

There is a world of difference between being "against the war" and being against the invasion, and everything that is involved in the motives and agenda behind the invasion and occupation.

[Leopolds Ghost]

129. It is possible to resist invasion or even genocide

without using violence. Successful genocide generally depends on technological superiority and numerical inferiority -- something that cannot be overcome by violence on the part of the victims. Only violence from a rival state -- often the very state that funded the war machine of the oppressor -- may stop it, or the victims may flee to another jurisdiction. Either way, most of the ones left behind will die at the hands of a more technologically sophisticated, well-fed, numerous opponent.

We could not bomb the Vietnamese into submission: it holds that the reverse is also true. However one must have a belief system, that allows for nonviolent resistance against the "death machine" before one can effectively use it. Otherwise you are simply asking people whose only objective is to save their own lives, and that of their immediate family, to become heroes and martyrs.

The Jesuit converted the Huron to pacifism. They were subsequently massacred by the Iroquois working for the British. Were the Huron fools to not retaliate against the Iroqois in kind and repay death with death?

[Jcrowley]

133. Possible, yes

Likely, no.

One's belief system can include numerous tactics depending on circumstances. Pacifism itself can become a rigid ideology.

“No greater love is there than that of a man who is willing to lay down his life for his brother.”

The “anti-war” pacifists believe that all war represents some kind of failure on the part both sides to come to a mutual agreement. From there perspective, they believe that the opposite of war is peace. But what happens when one party will not compromise nor has sinister intentions such as your death. Hitler’s “ultimate solution” was genocide, and he had the power to back it up. What could the Jews say to produce a compromise, other than submit to death itself?

As citizens of an aggressive and dominant nation, we should be careful when we say we are "anti-war." The war in Iraq would cease the moment that the Iraqi people ceased resistance to domination by the US. Is that a desirable outcome? If not, why not?

There are people who would rather fight and die than accept domination by the US. If there were not, and if the people in every country within which we have interests merely submitted to the will of our country, would that be good because we had "peace" and not war?

If we take a position that we are against all war and fail to distinguish between fighting to enslave others and fighting to resist enslavement by others we are taking a very weak and indefensible position. People are, and have always been, willing to fight and to die in the cause of freedom and self-determination and justice rather than to submit to tyranny. Are they then "pro-war" and to be condemned for that?

There are worse things than death. There are worse things than war.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

146. Some small examples of resistance worked

I don't have time to look up the details, but there was a demonstration of Gentile women married to Jewish men who staged a mass demonstration to have their husbands released, on the grounds that they would then emigrate.

During the early years of the Nazi era, when the Nazis were rounding up disabled people for extermination, there was a family named Bodelschwingh whose father had founded a charitable institution for disabled people who had been rejected by their families. The official Nazi line was the disabled people were going to "better" state-run institutions, but a friend of the Bodelschwingh family learned the truth and warned them. When the Nazis came to get the residents of their institution, the Bodelschwinghs simply refused to hand them over. The Nazis tried threats and bribes and everything else, but the family remained steadfast and the Nazis eventually gave up.

If you've read about that era, you know that the Nazis didn't clamp down on everything all at once. They always sent up trial balloons for their intentions to see how the public would react. The "trial balloon" for the persecution of the Jews was the boycott of Jewish businesses. The Nazis announced that on a certain day, no "Aryan" would shop at a Jewish-owned store.

Sadly, most Germans complied. A few didn't, including, interestingly enough, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's mother, who made a point of patronizing Jewish-owned stores that day, even facing down some Hitler Youth to do so. What if the majority of Germans had followed her example?

That would have been a perfect example of pacifist resistance.

[Cleita]

94. I just started reading Jared Diamond's book, "Guns, Germs, and

Steel, The Fates of Human Societies". In the very first chapter he tells the story of the invasion of Moriori peoples of the Chatham Islands by the Maori of New Zealand. The Moriori people were peaceful hunter/gatherers. They had a tradition of resolving disputes peacefully. In a council meeting they decided not to fight back two shiploads of Maoris armed with guns in 1835, but to offer peace, friendship and a division of resources.

Instead the Maori attacked, killing hundreds of them, often cooking and eating their bodies, enslaving the rest and killing them at their whim in the years that followed.

A Maori conqueror explained, "We took possession...in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed, and others we killed--but what of it? It was in accordance with our custom."

So it would seem that the moral of this story and many others in history would be that it's okay to offer peace after you have armed yourself to the teeth with the latest in weapons, technology and military might.

[Leopolds Ghost]

98. The Native American Chiefs understood the moral of the story.

Had the Moriori resisted -- they would have given up their values as a society, AND been massacred and eaten anyway.

The path they chose means that if any survived -- and there is always hope for survival -- they kept their integrity as a people for as many generations as refused to reject their ancestor's pacifism.

It is when the children reject their tribal beliefs out of hatred for the oppressor that you see the sort of self-destructive and pointless behavior that is endemic among Inuit teens in Canada.

Don't forget that the moral of Jared's story is that hunter-gatherers and all other custodians of archaic culture, whether or not they have the moral high ground -- and if you believe as Jared does that "civilization" is based on the forcible appropriation of agricultural surplus with no corresponding decline in inter-ethnic violence, it is arguable they do -- are fighting a long defeat against the forces of "civilization". Better to die fighting for your values -- peacefully, if that is your way -- than to die on your knees, broken and bereft of your values.

Anyone advocating the "End of Faith" is advocating the latter approach towards the forces of oppression which seek to make agricultural and industrial cultures every bit as persecuted and obsolete as their hunytter-gatherer forebears.

[Cleita]

105. I personally would rather pick up a gun and fight so that

my descendants can have peace. There is no peace for sitting ducks, only death or enslavement. The fact that we have professional, armed para-military forces in our cities known as peace officers (there's an oxymoron for you) so that the rest of us can be safe enough to go about our business and raise our children should be reason enough to realize that we can't do like Gandhi all the way.

I am pretty much into peaceful ways of settling things, however, once every option has been tried, sometimes there is no other option but to fight back. It turns out that during the Holocaust it was the Jews who fought back that survived to tell the tale. If more had fought back, the genocide would probably had not been as extensive.

On the other hand I totally despise wars of aggression whether done for political gain or for vengeance. The only acceptable war is one to repel aggression and for that we must be as sophisticated militarily as the aggressor. We had such a period in our history between the Korean War and the Vietnam war.

We still maintained our military and development of new technology much of what we take for granted today in our day to day lives. In the meantime our children went into the draft, received military training and often were able to see the world while in the military all while we were at peace. We developed the space program in that period.

Many towns, including the one I partially grew up in here in the USA, were supported by the military bases, which provided many civilian jobs that provided a middle class existence for the majority of the workers not to mention money that trickled into the mom and pop businesses in town.

Of course back then the rich were progressively taxed and the money used for this infrastructure recycled into the economy, which provided more jobs and prosperity from the workers spending the money on property and goods that they purchased with it.

We can't as a species be completely at peace without a strong military. It's not in our genes. Greed will move those to use their military to attack countries that have something they want and that they know don't have the military infrastructure to repel them. This is what our country is doing today in the Middle East by attacking a country whom we had disarmed first. Also, this is destroying our armed forces and making us very vulnerable.

I'm afraid it's going to take a citizen's militia as set out in the Constitution to rebuild militarily what we have lost since Eisenhower was President and to make up for our Achilles heels militarily that are sticking our of our boots for all our enemies to see and target. This was the original purpose of the draft so that all citizens would do their military duty and know what horror war really is in order to actually work for peace.

[Leopolds Ghost]

111. The Jews that fought back were not the ones to survive.

The Jews that were sheltered by German and Polish neighbors, or stuck it out in the death camps through luck and wits, or went on the run, were the ones that survive. And I totally disagree that the militarization of America's cities proves that we can't live without the threat of violence from the State to keep us in line.

As for a citizens militia, Jefferson wrote into the Constitution a provision banning standing armies in peace-time -- and banning corporate monopolies, the people that benefit from the militarized economy that supported your parents.

[Cleita]

115. Here's a first person account that tells a different story:

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:EX4bGzHEzhUJ:www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/17784/edition_id/354/format/html/displaystory.html+Who+were+the+Jews+who+fought+back+at+the+Nazis+who+survived+the+holocaust.&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

This is what a quick google gets me but I'm sure a search of the Weisenthal Center and other institutions that chronicle the Holocaust will bring up similar evidence. I read about it many times over the years so it can't be ignored.

Also, as much as I admire your idealism, I think that change can't really come about until we recognize historical reality.

There is a saying out there that teachers who preach peace can do so because there is an army out there that keeps the barbarians at the gate so that they can teach about peace and spread the word.

[Leopolds Ghost]

117. There is a saying that people who preach strong defense should join up

Just because you disagree with Iraq gives you no right to shirk ones duty, as a supporter of a strong defense.

I swear to god, America is crawling with armchair soldiers who think that by TALKING about how violence is heroic, they will somehow justify the deaths of their neighbors and their transformation from kids into killers -- or they will somehow prolong their own lives against imagined threats, such as terrorists or crime from the inner city -- lives they have studiously defended by avoiding the inner city, avoiding uncomfortable social situations, and staying out of combat.

Those that have seen combat often tell a different story.

[Cleita]

121. Yes, and they saw combat not slaughter. That is the difference.

I used to live in Los Angeles and I knew a few Los Angeles cops back then. This was back when South Central was a ghetto for innocent black people who couldn't live anywhere else, criminals and gang bangers. The cops had the attitude that as long as they kept the gangs contained within certain geographical areas and out of affluent white neighborhoods, they had done their job.

The poor people who couldn't live anywhere else, were condemned to a hell of drive by shootings, robberies, burglaries and rape that no one could do anything about because the police were MIA for the most part. They ended up instead supporting the gangs who held their area because it was the only protection that they got so that they could go about their daily lives with some sort of peace.

Try living in one of those neighborhoods and see how you feel about things then.

[Leopolds Ghost]

122. You didn't live in "one of those neighborhoods" did you?

Try preaching peace in one of those neighborhoods (or in El Salvador in the 1980s or Baghdad today) before declaring that cops (and gangs) will always be essential because without them there would be worse violence.

Try addressing root causes instead of advocating for the very war macxhine that abandoned South Central (former home to the US peacetime aerospace industry) to its fate.

As it happens, a good friend of mine used to teach in a school in "Simple City" here in DC. He is not a pacifist, but he is definitely not a big advocate of "police deterrence", "law and order" and "national defense".

If you're wondering what "Simple City" is, it's the place in Anacostia where Russian mercs paratrooped into a reform school in the 1980s after a violent incident. The same Reform school had seen marked progress after vets had been brought in as teachers. But it was shut down and the problem kids moved elsewhere, to continue the cycle of violence.

As it happens, many parts of Anacostia are livable. The nonviolent response -- practised by almost everyone in inner city society in places like Simple City -- is to move out.

The ONLY thing sustaining the violence is the drug trade, a Prohibition-era racket catering to addicts of a substance imported by Republican-allied gangs in Latin America, and the majority of users fueling money into these areas (mostly depopulated) are wealthy white people.

Other people I've met (including my pastor) worked with the Salvadorans at the height of the 1980s genocide there, when anyone could be kidnapped, tortured and mutilated and bodies showing up on the side of the road. They are pacifists, as are, I'll warrant, a fair number of the church-going old ladies in South Central LA. That takes true courage.

Your doctrine depends on two things I think are misconceptions on your part:

1. "They CAN Kill us all."

2. "It is more important to maximize our own utility through a strict interpretation of Darwinism -- maximizing our own survival rate -- than to embrace a strong ethical stance on violence."

Point #2, boiled down, describes the sort of society portrayed in Frank Herbert or the Aryan Vedic hymns -- a society where the survival of ones own progeny through technological superiority trumps all

(better weapons -- being on the right side of the local gang puts you on the right side of history.)

Which is how we got into this mess in the first place. "There came a time when the people, as was custom in those days in other lands, to desire a king..."

[Cleita]

125. Actually, I lived in a mixed neighborhood in Santa Monica for

twenty years. The cops were fairly absent there too although not as bad as South Central or Venice. We had burglaries on a regular basis, break ins with the residents tied up while the robbers cleaned out their homes. My husband and I personally had two cars stolen. My next door neighbor was a dope dealer, so there was a constant flow of traffic at all hours of the night in and out of her apartment.

We had homeless camped in our alley and I often woke up in the middle of the night with gun shots. We called the cops all right but they usually showed up hours later, took a report, and left. Nothing was done.

I had fellow workers, African Americans, who lived in the neighborhoods I described. They couldn't live in white neighborhoods because no one would rent to them. Screw the gangs, decent police protection would have been nice though to get the small percentage of bad apples off the street, into jail and out of the neighborhood.

[Leopolds Ghost]

127. Fair enough. Housing discrimination is much to blame, too. nt

[Leopolds Ghost]

114. I draw a distinction between radicalism and militancy. The militants on DU

Are advocating a basic doctrine whose fallacy is, in my opinion, similar to the problem with Bush's "better to fight them over there" fallacy:

"Better to die fighting than to die peacefully."

When you break down the logic of this statement, it boils down quite readily (using logic principles) to the proposition:

"The militancy of our technologically advanced enemies is what makes them superior to our low-tech, pacifist ways, and therefore we should adopt their methods so that we will not have died in vain."

This is of course the opposite of the old European ethos. The pre-Christian Europeans were quite violent but they did not seek to avoid death -- "death before dishonor", or even "death is inevitable, so go out with honor" was their credo.

For practicing (i.e. radical) Christians, it is impossible to "go out with honor" if you resist by violent means, especially when non-violent means are available.

The ability to preserve one's own life -- a life you'll eventually lose anyway, while others may die in your stead, if you are in an extremely violent place, is a fundamentally watered-down and non-ethical element in the equation, as you can see if you study the life of Oscar Romero in El Salvador or even some of the non-militant Shi'ite clerics in Iraq.

Put it another way -- if your objective is to preserve your own life, taking up arms against an armed opponent will not increase your chances of doing so, unless YOU become so powerful as to be the agressor.

The whole point of Jared Diamond's argument is that THE MORIORI DID NOT HAVE GUNS.

Why, then, would you have them abandon their cultural and religious beliefs to satisfy a hypocritical Western paternalistic attitude -- the same impulse that drives paternalistic, creeping, armed government here in the US -- because we insist we must "think of the children" -- especially other people's children -- especially when their parents, like the Moriori or the Amish, seemingly "cannot fend for themselves"?

[Cleita]

118. Actually, the point of Diamond's argument was that the two

people were once united and one tribe. When they separated, one clan became peaceful hunter, gatherers and the other tribe farmers with a bellicose nature of tribal infighting. Then over the centuries they forgot about each other. It's when European sailors found the Chatham islands on their way to New Zealand they told the Maoris about it, who mounted a raid, which they knew they would win because of superior weapons.

It wouldn't have mattered really if the Moriori had fought back because they didn't have the superior weapons, however, if they had the weapons they could have repelled an invasion because they outnumbered the Maori. It's the old motto, be prepared.

I am against Spartan militancy where the military is the end of all things, but we wouldn't be Americans today if our revolutionaries were afraid to pick up a gun to defy King George.

It's our nature as human beings to be warlike. Even if we practice peace, other warlike humans will try to kill us if we don't fight back. And I never said non-violent means shouldn't be tried first. All non-violent methods should be exhausted before we launch even one warship or missile. Violence should be the last resort, but we have to be ready for it.

[Leopolds Ghost]

130. Then again, his ultimate conclusion was that hunter-gatherers

(and somewhat by extension pacifist, non agressive tribes like the Huron) are doomed to Darwinian extinction by techno-superiority of rival, genetically aggressive humans --until or unless-- such humans achieve a new, non-agressive genetic balance after wiping out all rival forms of existence on this earth.

He does not advocate it, but that is the reality. If so, I cast my lot with the doomed. My ancestors (Northern Europeans) were proud to fight the "long defeat" against militarily superior invaders who ultimately crushed or assimilated their cultures. They did so through both peaceful and non-peaceful means. The non-peaceful means did not serve to forestall their ultimate defeat (which they considered inevitable anyhow) but did create unanticipated trouble down the road, as the cycle of violence and bloodletting continued well after conquest and assimilation had ended -- culminating in the repression and persecution of the Jews, Africans, and other non-orthodox Christians. Some of my ancestors were German Pietists -- pacifists. Their ancestors were the Anabaptists, who were mostly wiped out but nevertheless remembered, just like American leftists were mostly wiped out but nevertheless remembered. There is no dishonor in that.

Besides which... we have only one life to live. We are not REQUIRED to obey impulse to think only of the survival of our own bloodline. So I don't see how pacifism or any other "genetically selected against" trait is wrong by virtue of its sheer improbable existence, in the face of all the cultural forces working against it.

It is possible to witness against violence and survive. We don't have to apply extreme holocaust scenarios in order to practice day-to-day pacifism. Let the dead speak for themselves, I say. (what if neo-Nazi gangs in South Central captured your kid and strapped a nuclear weapon to him/her and it was set to go off in a Naval Base in Long Beach in half an hour, just as the fleet was about to set sail for Iran, and you could only stop it from happening by torturing the Nazi terrorist leader?) ;-)

[Cleita]

135. Hehe. Neo-Nazi gangs would be too chicken to venture into

South Central. However if this happened up in Washington state it could be a possibility, maybe substituting Bremerton for Long Beach. I will have to say that I wouldn't torture the guy because there are ways of getting information without the torture and other ways of disarming a person with a bomb if you know who it is. But here you need the specialists who do this and who are for the most part military. Incidentally I never condone torture no matter how dire the circumstances.

Also, the reason for keeping peace with an active defense force is to provide the next generation with a place that is peaceful enough to be nurtured and grow up. Their parents need to be able to work and do business so they can raise the next generation in a place that they don't have to worry about being robbed, shot at or murdered on a daily basis. My heart really goes out to those poor families in Afghanistan and Iraq who have to live this way because of us now.

[Leopolds Ghost]

95. Anyone who advocates the "End of Faith" will never understand desirability

of Peace, forgiveness, and like most secular Dems, the immorality of the American Materialist Political-Economic system. A worldview based on utilitarian ethics inevitably leads to materialism and selfishness, as we see amongst the "liberal" upper class who have taken control of our party.

[Taverner]

141. Yes, the American Mat. Poli-EconSys leads us to selfishness

But I would argue that faith itself leads us to be ignorant of the true fact that we humans are merely animals. Many Christians of all stripes conclude falsely that denial of the Judeo-Christian God leads one to amorality and a lack of ethics. This conclusion is patently false, as the code that that denial pushes is the Social Contract, rather than the New Covenant.

In the end, this, I beleive, is what differentiates Morality from Ethics - adherence to an otherworldly code rather than the social contract. If you ask me, I would prefer ethics to morality.

As for the economic system - deep in my heart I am a Socialist. I would love for us to have continued along the new deal/great society path that we abandoned in 1980 with the election of Ronnie. But the sad truth is that we didn't. Should we revolt and lead a revolution? Should we all disobey? These ideas are non-practical and much like voting for the spoiler in an election. It's fruitless and counter productive.

We have the society we have now, whether or not we like it. The goal is to bring about the best possible outcome for the greatest amount of people with the least harm done to others. This is the very core of the Social Contract - and it gives an ethical ruler to guide us. Much better than the contradictory code put out by the Bible.

As for peace, yes I yearn for peace, but Harris is absolutely spot on when he said that we will never find peace as long as we have contradictory codes being forced. As for Sharia law, I would rather die than follow it. And if I am going to die, I want to take as many pro-Sharia types out with me as I can.

[Leopolds Ghost]

96. Faith-based pacifists on the subject of Sharia rule:

"Better to be ruled by a Turk, ignorant of the Gospel, than a so-called
"Christian" who rules by the sword." --Anabaptist quote from the 1600s

[insane_cratic_gal]

113. Only if the leader is beloved

If Bush went on a hunger strike, I just might encourage him.

In all seriousness, I think it can work. Look at the strides the Dali Lama has made in bringing awareness to what the plight of the Tibetan people. His is a path of non violence. It's an evolutionary Idea, to love all beings, to be understood and respected, although it's not a new one, we've never been able to maintain it for long. I really don't understand why this is, except the human ego is more powerful then compassion?

[Leopolds Ghost]

120. Many on DU would argue Tibetans should abandon their "Faith" & take arms.

Of course they'd be massacred, but they'll go down in a blaze of glory!

Yes, Freedom is (can be only found) on the march, in the ranks of the militia, in the clarion call!

Freedom cannot be found in passive resistance or a willingness to die for your beliefs -- a willingness that only heroic soldiers share.

Most are merely killers and often come to regret the path of war. Once you become a killer, that time in your life defines you for the rest of your life.

Back to the Moriori and Holocaust example. Holocausts (genocide) is defined by its effectiveness. A people that are both well-armed cannot generally be wiped out. But they can be overcome, disarmed, and then wiped out (example, Tutsi, Armenians, etc.) They may be left with a sense of hatred and a compulsion to re-arm. Whereas the vast majority of Moriori and Jews resisted peacefully.

AND, more importantly for the Jared Diamond example, one side will always be better armed than another. Totalitarian states are more "fit to survive" on the Darwinian scale than industrial democracies, than tribal warriors, than peaceful hunter gatherers. Hitler would have won WWII if he hadn't attacked a similarly evil and powerful totalitarian state, Stalin's state. Meanwhile, if your entire culture is doomed to defeat by Darwinian technocrats, like the hunter-gatherers, why abandon your pacifist beliefs? Why become a citizen of Rome rather than be fed to the lions?

Hitler and Rwanda were defeated militarily. But the cycle of violence, the impulse to violence in the "national defense" did not prevent those genocides from occurring.

Once you let the genie out of the bottle, there is mutually assured destruction, as we see in numerous primitive societies that operate on the same principles Sam Harris advocates, only they lack a strong centralized police state to do the dirty work for them, out of sight.

[Cleita]

123. You said:

"Hitler would have won WWII if he hadn't attacked a similarly evil and powerful totalitarian state, Stalin's state."

Not true. Hitler would have been defeated sooner if not later because he misused his military assets, like our Hitler in the White House is misusing ours. Towards the end of the war, the "men" the allies were running into in Hitler's armies were many teenaged boys and elderly men. He had lost most of the men of military age with his invasions particularly his invasion of Russia.

The Russians weren't formidable but their terrain was. Hitler refused to listen to his generals calls for retreat, which would have preserved his army on the Russian front if they had marched back to Germany. Instead he let most of them die in a war he couldn't win because of the Russian winter.

His militia had been formed for agression, not defense. We, I believe, will be doomed to the same fate if we don't stop the crazy people who are running our country. We haven't exhausted all legal and Constitutional means yet, but if elections or other checks won't stop them we may have to have a civil war to get our country back, which means the only effective way we can win is to practice guerilla warfare. In other words, we will become the insurgents and the terrorists. Other's will call us freedom fighters.

Now, I'm not saying this is what I want or that this is the only way, but that it may be the way the future plays out and instead of sticking our heads in the sands of ideology, we need to be prepared.

[Leopolds Ghost]

132. Good points. n/t

[jeffrey_X]

128. Only if you are the majority like the Indians were

eom

[kdpeters]

136. It's not Gandhi's pacifism that makes him my hero; it's his courage.

Ask yourself, who is it that's influenced you? Who makes you want to be a better person? Who inspires you to make a positive difference in this world with the short time you have here?

I'm not a pacifist, but Gandhi, MLK, Thoreau, and Jesus are inspirations for me when I'm really concerned about making a difference. To reduce Gandhi's influence down to nothing but pacifism would indicate to me that Sam Harris is arguing against a strawman. As does this part of your post:

Gandhi's solution for Hitler's "final solution" - he suggested all Jews commit mass suicide to make the Nazis and the world take note of the injustices of the Nazis. This would be the pacifist solution - and a terrible solution at that.

I beg your pardon, but he suggested no such thing. If you're going to make such outrageous assertions, you should provide evidence to support it. Gandhi preached resistance, not desperation. I'm not aware that he ever suggested anyone commit suicide, much less did he ever advise an entire race/religion on an entire continent to exterminate themselves. You're putting words in his mouth and thoughts in his mind.

That he has such enduring influence and admiration almost fifty years after his death is a testament to just how effective he was.

[Taverner]

140. Unfortunately, Gandhi did say that

Read some of the previous posts - his suggestion was for the Jews to commit mass suicide for the world to take note. Don't get me wrong, Gandhi had tremendous courage, but also suffered from martyr complex - a form of narcisism. In the end, there is no such thing as selflessness...

[Avalux]

142. Pacifism, as an ideal, is a wonderful sentiment,

and wonderfully simple. I often find myself asking the question "why can't we just all get along" and sometimes become saddened to the point of despair by the state of the world, the violence, the death. It's easy to utter that statement, but just try to apply it to the real world.

I'd like to call myself a pacifist, but if I or my family were threatened, I'd fight. You're correct that there is no black and white answer to the question; pacifism in some circumstances by some peoples may be effective and in other instances completely unaffective and even downright futile.

[pberq]

143. With all due respect, this is an oversimplification of Gandhi's

doctrine. See post #78, and my posts #90 and #138.

It is much more than "why can't we just all get along" - because in this crazy world we have a lot of misguided people. In Gandhi's words:

"It takes a fairly strenuous course of training to attain a mental state of nonviolence. It is a disciplined life, like the life of a soldier. The perfect state is reached only when the mind, body, and speech are in proper coordination. Every problem would lend itself to solution if we determined to make the law of truth and nonviolence the law of life."

And on another occasion he said:

"I call myself a nationalist, but my nationalism is as broad as the universe. It includes in its sweep all the
nations of the earth. My nationalism includes the well−being of the whole world. I do not want
my India to rise on the ashes of other nations. I do not want India to exploit a single human being. I want India
to be strong in order that she can infect the other nations also with her strength. Not so with a single nation in
Europe today; they do not give strength to the others.

President Wilson mentioned his beautiful fourteen points, but said: “After all, if this endeavor of ours to arrive
at peace fails, we have our armaments to fall back upon.” I want to reverse that position, and I say: “Our
armaments have failed already. Let us now be in search of something new; let us try the force of love and God
which is truth.” When we have got that, we shall want nothing else."

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