#international

It's been a while: but on the topic of Pacifism v. Direct Action/rioting: There's not a lot of use of pacifism in history as I've read it to warrant ever calling it a succesful thing to do, or if it ever lead to anything happening on its own. In recent cases you could compare the results of the Occupy Wallstreat movement which was wholly peaceful vs the riots of Ferguson. Occupy lead to nothing going on, and in the long-game sense of it lead to a class of economically frustrated individuals that lead to Bernie and Trump, and when Bernie was booted out of the election then Trump became the momentary standard barrer for people dissatisifed with the economic direction. But in the end: Trump filled his White House with the same Wall Street people that got us into the mess before.

AaronMk

2017-09-19 08:57:25 UTC

Compared against the Ferguson riots, which put so much in the way of danger that the fastest way to deescalate was to bow to the pressure of force and inact immediate reforms to try and heal the wounds. In a metaphorical sense, Ferguson became an open sore that festered and needed to be treated while Occupy was a simple cut that healed up on its own.

AaronMk

2017-09-19 08:58:40 UTC

To add to the pattern, even the Detroit riots in the mid-60's lead to immediate reforms in city government as it pertained to housing reform for blacks and bringing in more of the growing non-white population of the city into munincipal government as a gesture to bridge opening divides.

AaronMk

2017-09-19 08:59:56 UTC

The tactics of the labor movement, either stubbornly at odds with the buisiness owners or even violent like the Haymarket Riot bombing ultimately resulted in the passing of the 8-hour workday, workplace safety standards, minimum wage, and so on.

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:00:36 UTC

And no one ever petitioned succesfully to end slavery in the States. If anything the petitioning lead to war which in the course of the war slavery was legally ended.

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:02:39 UTC

The thing with violence isn't so much being violent in itself, but the use of violence. Are people unrelated to the cause going to die, even as simple unavoidable consequences of conflict? Or is the threat of violent and force to enforce some sort of change going to be applied as with groups like the Deacons of Defense in the deep south during the Civil Rights movement?

olev

2017-09-19 09:04:28 UTC

Funny thing that's related

olev

2017-09-19 09:04:45 UTC

I once joined a socialist server that said advocating for political violence is not allowed

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:06:57 UTC

Direct action as praxis these days seems to be something frowned upon. You could see it as a selective look at the work of MLK or even Gahndi. Both ignore some fundamentals in the background, whether it be India's growing tenious position for the British in the aftermath of two World Wars or the support roll the armed vigilantes of the Deacons who helped enforced permanent reforms in the communities MLK and other national leaders got change in.

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:08:12 UTC

I don't know if these people are Americans too, but I'll even admit I still hold onto a few small threads that *maybe* the democratic system can be changed from within without bloodshed; that would be the preferred course but unlikely without everything being boiled down to meager pickings to even get it passed mainstream democrats.

olev

2017-09-19 09:08:26 UTC

Being opposed to the current system, let alone believe in displacing it by force, is frowned upon in general

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:09:33 UTC

I'm just going to blame it on a complex series of issues that may or may not include the way history is studied and taught in class and remembered in the popular memory.

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:10:54 UTC

Like, we want to remember all was good, even when it was bad, because the future will be good. Never mind the Continental Congress on many occasions dragged the colonial armies through successive periods of starvation and wanting because they were too busy hoarding stuff for the militias of the constituent colonies.

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:11:53 UTC

We'd rather think of Valley Forge as just a terrible winter, and not an actually very mild winter with the complicated factor that no one in Philadelphia-left-to-York, Pennsylvania wanted to feed them.

olev

2017-09-19 09:11:59 UTC

What are you, politically? @AaronMk

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:12:42 UTC

@olev In some undescerned location between Socialist, AnCom, or whatever vanilla Communism.

olev

2017-09-19 09:13:08 UTC

Well socialism is not it's own thing seperate from communism, communism is a type of socialism

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:13:35 UTC

It is, but in the popular mind-set it's often pictured as a less extreme variant.

olev

2017-09-19 09:14:05 UTC

The reason I ask is because I have a server of my own, which I actually started with a couple people that were on here since this place is mostly right wing trolls

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:14:23 UTC

Like if I were to tell someone I'm a socialist over a communist I doubt I'd be associated with gulags or starvation as so often happens. At best I'll be compared to muh Sweden or just get called an infantile liberal.

olev

2017-09-19 09:15:57 UTC

People always refer to Venezuela, the USSR, ect. to say that socialism has failed but never have heard of anarchist catalonia, Yugoslavia, Rojava, ect.

olev

2017-09-19 09:16:20 UTC

State socialism isn't exactly socialism

olev

2017-09-19 09:16:28 UTC

Since the workers neither own nor manage the means of production

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:16:53 UTC

PRetty much

olev

2017-09-19 09:18:30 UTC

But yeah if you want an invite to my server just let me know, it has about 70 members so far, most discussion is far more constructive and no right wing trolls like there is in here

AaronMk

2017-09-19 09:19:53 UTC

I suppose so. You're the first person to send me an invite I've actually talked to before hand.

olev

2017-09-19 09:20:25 UTC

https://discord.gg/E2aBdy