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This refers to Chenoweth's research, and I'm somewhat familiar with their work. I think it's good to clarify what non-violent means to them, as it's non-obvious. For example, are economic boycotts violence? They harm businesses and keep food of the tables of workers. I don't think that's violence, but some people do, and what really matters here is what Chenoweth thinks violence is, and what they mean when they say "nonviolent tactics are more effective".
At the end of "civil resistance: what everyone needs to know", Chenoweth lists a number of campaigns which they've marked as violent/nonviolent and successful/unsuccessful. Let's look at them and the tactics employed tonfigure out what exactly Chenoweth is advocating for. Please do not read this as a condemnation of their work, or of the protests that follow. This is just an investigation into what "nonviolence" means to Chenoweth.
Euromaidan: successful, nonviolent. In these protests, protestors threw molotov cocktails and bricks and at the police. I remember seeing a video of an apc getting absolutely melted by 10 or so molotovs cocktails.
The anti-Pinochet campaign: successful, nonviolent. This involved at least one attempt on Pinochet's life.
Gwangju uprising in South Korea: unsuccessful, nonviolent. Car plowed into police officers, 4 dead.
Anti-Duvalier campaign in Haiti: successful, nonviolent. Destruction of government offices.
To summarize, here's some means that are included in Chenoweth's research:
- throwing bricks at the police
- throwing molotov cocktails at the police
- assassination attempts
- driving a car into police officers
- destroying government offices
The point here is not that these protests were wrong, they weren't. The point is that they employed violent tactics in the face of state violence. Self-defense is not violence, and this article completely ignores this context, and heavily and knowingly implies that sitting in a circle and singing kumbaya is the way to beat oppression. It isn't.
We're not necessarily at an impasse! Use facts to back up your assertions about Iran. Give examples. Argue for your position. Personally I would really appreciate that, because I'm very open to the possibility of being wrong! I know the basics of Iranian history, so there's probably a lot that I don't know that could convince me that they're at the same magnitude of badness as Israel. And if you're basing the idea that Iran is as bad as Israel on actual historical facts, and not just pulling it out of your ass as you're currently making it seem, I could stand to learn a lot from you, and you could convince someone of your position. That's a win-win.
Translated: if a democrat were president, we wouldn't care about the genocide, suppression of speech on university campuses, racist police brutality, and deportations, and we'd be having brunch while those things are happening, just like we did during the Biden regime
I think the main error in your thinking is that you severely underestimate the magnitude of evil that Israel has inflicted on the world. 750,000 Palestinians ethnically cleansed in the Nakba, 400,000 arabs (mostly Palestinians but also Syrians) ethnically cleansed as a result of the June 1967 war, 3500 Palestinian refugees murdered over two nights in Sabra and Shatila, the illegal settlements, the apartheid (this word covers more than I can cover, I hope you don't underestimate the extent of what this means), the mowing the lawn operations, the current ongoing genocide, the blockade of Gaza in 2008, the intentional and unpunished rape of Palestinian prisoners, the continual illegal invasions of neighboring countries every decade from the 60s to now. Iran, while bad, does not hold a candle to what suffering, violence, child murder, Israel has meted out over 77 years. When people say Israel are the Nazis of today, they are not exaggerating.
Personally, I would support the US in WWII, despite slavery, despite the Jim Crow laws, despite the atom bombs, despite being founded on genocide, and so on, and others wouldn't because both sides bad. Purity politics (which is what you're advocating for) does not stop holocausts. I think you agree with me on this judgement. I also think that you're underinformed, and that that's why you think the same reasoning doesn't apply here.
I disagree, for three reasons. The first is effectively "inaction in the face of an oppressive status quo is complicity", and that's the weakest of the three, I'll be the first to admit. The second is that any nation has a right to defend itself when attacked. And that is very much what's going on here.
The third, for me, is the main reason, and it's an analogy. Imagine a situation with three people, a child rapist, a wife beater, and a child. The rapist is on the verge of raping the child, and the wife beater asks you to give him your gun to stop it (just imagine you're unable to fire it yourself for some reason). In this scenario, I would give the gun to the wife beater. I would be supporting a bad guy (he beats his wife), but I would do it 11 times out of 10.
For clarity, Israel is the child rapist, Iran the wife beater. And yes, the relative magnitude of immorality here corresponds with that between Israel and Iran.
Eh, one side is committing genocide, has been ethnically cleansing Palestinian, continually attacking neighboring countries, and effectively murdering gay people as well (do you think the 2000 pound bombs make an exception for gay people?) and the other side is a theocracy with all the flaws that come with that. When it comes down to it, Israel is far, far worse than Iran. You can support parties you're critical of.
Your style of arguing is really comical.
I’m so glad you know nothing about Mandela’s leadership.
What am I supposed to do with this? There's nothing of substance here. Nothing to refute. But the funniest thing to me are the constant expletives like
Jesus Christ
and whatnot. They're completely out of place and make you come off as overly dramatic. Very cartoonish.
Anyway, I saw your discussion with the other poster, and it seems pretty pointless to engage with you. Maybe take a community college class on critical thinking or rhetoric or something.
Liberals aren't leftists.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Holy moly! I never looked at it that way! Thanks!
They're highly complicit in Israel's actions.
Not every jew is a zionist. Don't conflate the two. Israel does not have a right to exist, and jews do.
Mandela led the ANC, hardly a peaceful movement. Heard of necklacing?
The dissolution of the Soviet Union came paired with a shelling of parliament. Hardly a peaceful act. Bonus fact: they held two referanda, one for the baltic member states early in the year, and one for the remainder. The Baltic states voted to dissolve, and they left. The outcome of the second referendum was that by and large, people wanted the Soviet Union to remain intact. This was ignored, and parliament shelled.
The ousting of Pinochet involved assassination attempts on Pinochet. Maybe they were peaceful assassination attempts, so I gotta hand this one to you.
Mentioning Ghandi and pretending the uprising of 1857, which inspired and propelled forward the movement for independence (including Ghandi), never happened is deeply dishonest, and disrespectful to those who gave their lives for the cause.
MLK jr., much like Ghandi, was paired with violent methods as well. Ignoring their contributions is ahistorical.
I'm assuming you're using "etc etc etc" (etc) to mean "I can't think of any other examples, erroneous or otherwise", so I'll do the same:
etc etc etc etc etc etc etc
Laudable but illiberal means. Good on you.
If you see an oppressed people protesting against their opression, and your first instinct is to lecture them on the optics of their protest, you’re not really an ally. You’re just using “optics” as an excuse to not do anything to help out but still think of yourself as a good person. I don’t think anyone falls for it.
So, I appreciate this is the internet, and text does a piss poor job of communicating inflection and sarcasm, but surely there's a limit to the necessity of the /s? This year already we've had to rely on the restraint of Iran to maintain a semblance of peace five or so times in the face of direct Israeli aggression. How could anyone take what I said at face value?
I agree, fuck Israel!
Man Iran is such a destabilizing force in the region.
If you see an oppressed people protesting against their opression, and your first instinct is to lecture them on the optics of their protest, you're not really an ally. You're just using "optics" as an excuse to not do anything to help out but still think of yourself as a good person. I don't think anyone falls for it.
They consider it non-violent.