You Should Know

Quoting System of a Down: "Why don't you ask the kids at Tiananmen Square..."

A lot of violent protests have succeeded too. Such as the suffragettes gaining the right to vote for women or unions gaining the right to exist, and the 8 hour work day.

but YS(also)K: correlation does not equal causation.

a non-violent protest like the ones described in this article can only commerce, if it is not opposed by state sponsored violence. and that's usually indicative of a government that's already falling apart.

This is complete utter propaganda, especially considering it's coming from the BBC. History has shown us time and time again that the ruling class never gives up its power peacefully.

That's horseshit made up statistics.
Way more than 6% want single payer, but it's not happening.

boot licker post

Name one non-violent protest that changed the material conditions of those protesting, I'll wait.

That statistic only works if the government cares what we think. Voters have trained politicians that they can do whatever they want with no repercussions. Therefore, they do not need to care what we think.

Based on the article "no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of a population has ever failed" has the caveat of "we only look at 3 of them, and those 3 worked".

So their overall sample size is small, and the 3.5% sample size is just 3. Further, those 3 had no idea someone in the vague future would retroactively measure their participation to declare it a rock solid threshold.

I think the broader takeaway is that number of people seems to matter more than degree of violence, and violence seems to alienate people that might have otherwise participated.

'France' has entered the chat

It's about resistance, not violence per we. Choosing the right kind of resistance for the situation is how change is made. Non violent protesting is for raising awareness and building solidarity. Violence is purely for defense and to show when a line has been crossed. Otherwise your movement will just become the next police state regime, if it doesn't get crushed outright. People advocating for violence on social media are either bots or bad faith actors trying to stop the movement. Anyone seriously considering violence against the state sure as shit aren't posting about it on Lemmy.

Interesting how the paper picks East Timor/Indonesia as a case study but makes no mention of the massacres of the PKI and suspected communists, which the US was ambivalent, if not supportive about.

Any serious study of resistance movements around the world will paint a very different picture, one in which nonviolence is frequently met with slaughter, and people turn to violence specifically because nonviolence failed.

The fact of the matter is that people living in the imperial core cannot be well versed in the history of every country in the world (to the extent that we can even exert influence in the first place), and this allows the media to either ignore things like the massacres in Indonesia, or spin them in such a way to justify the preferred side through biased framing. The thing the paper cites as a major determining factor of success or failure is defections from security forces, but what if those security forces come from thousands of miles away?

Trying to assert a universal principle on a tactical level regarding such broad categories is kind of silly in the first place. It's too broad. You have to assess what you're trying to accomplish and formulate a strategy to get there based on the particular situation you find yourself in.

From "The Jakarta Method:"

This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask:

“Who was right?”

In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?

Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.

Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported—what the rich countries said, rather than what they did. That group was annihilated.

Bogus unsupported stats

Idk, that French deal seemed to work out pretty well.

Er... Hong Kong?

We're at that point and yet has Trump been impeached for denying due process and trying to create a process with ice to deport people without a trial to a foreign prison for life? Or for blatantly ignoring orders from federal courts and the Supreme Court?

Until Trump is in prison or tried for his crimes this article doesn't sway my opinion at all. Fact is too many loopholes exist in the rule of law in the usa. Only way to fix it is creating a new government with a new constitution. The executive branch as it is has way too much power consolidated. The current form of government cant go on as it is. Especially because of how much money and bribery is now involved.

I dont see this being resolved peacefully. Fascists never go peacefully. NEVER

The problem when it comes to the current situation in the US, is that these protests already came baked in to the Project 2025 plan from the start.

They're not going to change their minds on anything as a result of the protests because they already knew there'd be mass protests before Trump signed a single order.