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TokenBoomer@lemmy.world

Is Political Violence Ever Acceptable? (www.thenation.com)

submitted 1 day ago by TokenBoomer@lemmy.world to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world

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Natasha Lennard argues that it’s harmful to acquiesce to the state’s determinations of violence, while David Cortright writes that violent acts prevent mass resistance movements.

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[–] Seleni@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The Revolutionary War.

The Battle of Blair Mountain.

Even MLK’s mostly peaceful actions only had teeth because Malcom X was showing people what a non-peaceful protest would look like.

Sadly, violence usually has to be the answer.

As we saw from the peaceful protests in Hong Kong, playing nice gets you absolutely nothing. And as those protests and the Cabin Creek/Paint Creek protests showed, even those who try to be peaceful will find violence inflicted upon them.

Furthermore, left to fester, the racists trying to run the show will start inflicting violence if not put down quickly; see the Tulsa Race Massacre as an example.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 11 points 1 day ago

Even MLK’s mostly peaceful actions only had teeth because Malcom X was showing people what a non-peaceful protest would look like.

MLK even says something similar in A Letter From A Birmingham Jail. Essentially he responds to criticism of his methods by saying (among a whole lot of other things) "this? This is the nice option. If these protests were violent the South would turn into a sea of blood".