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Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 2:51pm
by BostonBeaneater
The Nazis ran down an anti racist march in Virginia.

http://nypost.com/2017/08/12/vehicle-pl ... -virginia/



Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 2:54pm
by Inder
Murderous cretins. I read that the police caught and arrested the driver, though it's unconfirmed at this point.


Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 3:14pm
by Inder
The guy apparently says he was spooked by someone throwing rocks at his car. Which caused him to gun it down like two blocks into a crowd of people, slam into reverse and get the fuck out of there.

Edit:


Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 3:28pm
by Inder


One person confirmed dead.

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 6:14pm
by eumaas
The person killed was an IWW member. Other injured people include an ISO member and several DSA members. I believe BLM protesters as well.

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 6:38pm
by eumaas
Some despicable crap coming from centrists today.

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 7:10pm
by Wolter
eumaas wrote:
12 Aug 2017, 6:38pm
Some despicable crap coming from centrists today.
They can fucking die with the Nazis they so desperately want to defend for some reason.

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 12 Aug 2017, 9:56pm
by Flex
my brain is exploding at everything. anyways, since this is a music board, these songs never get old:












Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 13 Aug 2017, 1:05am
by BostonBeaneater
No quarter. Beat these nazis. Scare these fascists. Make racists afraid again. There is no other way. We have to hurt these people. There is no reasoning.

If you are confronted with racism you have to attack it.

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 13 Aug 2017, 1:18am
by BostonBeaneater
Why is David Duke still breathing our air? The left needs to pony up.

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 13 Aug 2017, 1:34am
by BostonBeaneater
Also, how the fuck does the shitheal have a Charger to drive? I got near anal probed to buy a Focus.

Image

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 13 Aug 2017, 10:20am
by Wolter
BostonBeaneater wrote:
13 Aug 2017, 1:34am
Also, how the fuck does the shitheal have a Charger to drive? I got near anal probed to buy a Focus.

Image
And that racist sack of shit is only 20. These fucking spoiled, privileged fucks crying out that they're the victims is the biggest insult.

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 13 Aug 2017, 11:04am
by coffeepotman
I hate them with every ounce of my soul, if I could I would kill each and every klan member, nazi and white supremacist. I put the blame squarely on Trump

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 13 Aug 2017, 11:13am
by Dr. Medulla
I think I’m the only confirmed pacifist here and even tho I know there ain’t whole lot of sympathy for that position these days, I’ll offer up a counter on the chance that anyone wants to have a meaningful discussion.

Pacifism doesn’t prove that it has failed because there is violence committed against the non-violent. If that’s the expectation, then you don’t understand the point of pacifism as a tactic. Non-violent confrontation expects violence, it expects its practitioners will be hurt and even killed. Pacifism succeeds when pacifists come back, again and again, knowing that they will receive pain and abuse. They let others know that violence as a tactic against them will not break their commitment, that if all your enemy has is violence, they cannot intimidate and persuade, and they will not win. It exposes violence and intimidation as a limited and illegitimate tactic. Pacifism only fails when people concede that the tactics of the enemy, to intimidate and hurt and kill, are legitimate and effective, and so they either accede or adopt the enemy’s tactical philosophy. Non-violence signals to those outside the conflict that there is indeed a distinction between you and your enemy. It also confirms that distinction between you and your enemy. Distinctions matter if you think persuading others matters.

Pacifism as a principle denies the validity of violence as a means of settling political disputes. The reason I lean anarchist—I say lean because I still have unresolved reservations—is because I am, first and foremost, a pacifist. I cannot in good conscience deny others the validity to use violence and coercion on me if I think it is legitimate to use against them (aside from contextual defensive violence). Pacifism is further a doctrine of sacrifice for a greater cause—of one’s body and safety—something the Left abandoned a long time ago and that is tied to the success of the Right the past five decades. The ideals of the Left will not succeed without sacrifice, without mass action, and pacifism is a sensible start to re-learning the importance of sacrifice.

Consider how the Civil Rights Era would have developed if, from the start, non-violence was not practiced. Would Northern liberals have endorsed federal action on civil rights without the images and footage of marchers enduring the pain and abuse of monsters, if instead protesters immediately armed themselves and said, “All racists must die”? Look at how the civil rights era ended, with narrow-minded, dogmatic vigilantism and domestic terrorism by any number of factions that accepted government violence as a legitimate tactic and ended up driving the great majority of Americans against civil rights. (And, no, I'm not denying or ignoring violent government oppression in all that.) Who do we remember and admire most from that period, those who accepted beatings and the loss of their life and those of their comrades, or those who argued for an escalation of violent confrontation? Do we look at those who risked their lives to register voters in the South as a bunch of morons for not bringing guns and shooting racists? Or do we see them as braver than we could hope to be? Don’t we esteem as martyrs those who died? And don’t we regard the late 60s and early 70s, when bitterness and violence dominated the Left, as a tactical failure whose repercussions crippled mass action for decades?

If I get labeled some kind of centrist Nazi sympathizer because I refuse to endorse vigilantism or murder, so be it. Fantasies of bloodletting is what drives the fascists and I despair that the Left agrees with that. But, as I said a few weeks ago, I no longer consider myself a leftist anyway based on the state of current discourse, so maybe I'm on a fool's errand.

Re: Pacifism has failed.

Posted: 13 Aug 2017, 12:05pm
by eumaas
Just want to clarify I in no way was looking to disparage you, Hooks. I didn't get much sleep last night and am pretty groggy, but will try to put this down.

My comment about centrists saying despicable shit had to do with Dems saying:
1. that the Nazis were Bernie Bros (which to them is anybody left of Clinton)
2. that leftists do nothing to fight racism, when in fact the people hit by the car were leftists, and most big demos against Trump and white supremacy have been organized by leftists
3. that there was "hate" on both sides
4. that any expression of solidarity and mourning for Heather Heyer is using what happened as a "marketing tool" for socialist organizations
5. that the Antifa caused this to happen**
6. just to reiterate: prominent centrist liberals on twitter have taken to lumping in even the social-democratic left with nazis. But who shows up to these protests?

Avowed pacifism had nothing to do with it, thread title aside. I would never denounce your beliefs, and I think they make sense. I was just about to private message you on the subject, actually.

I'm probably in the middle. I think nazis are an especial threat to society and require pushback. I don't think we necessarily have to go around murdering all of them, but should offer enough opposition to push them back underground at the very least. I'll note that the US Antifa, contrary to the fantasies of the right, have been pretty restrained. No serious injuries that I know of. A good model, I think, would be what happened in Chicago to shut down Trump's rally there. Showing up in overwhelming numbers can send them scurrying away. I still think nonviolent tactics can work. I also think that the reports of leftist violence have been overblown while right-wing paramilitary presence has been under-reported.

I think self-defense groups are probably a good idea, though. The cops are often sympathetic to nazis if not outright members of nazi organizations, so while we never could rely on cops to help, we certainly have no chance of getting much from them now. Particularly vulnerable communities will need to organize for their own defense.



I think we should give credit to the left for defaulting to nonviolence. The urge to punch Richard Spencer aside, I haven't seen much in DSA and other socialist groups that would suggest an assassination campaign or the like is coming. Propaganda of the deed isn't that popular. There's a lot of anger right now, and it's particularly sharp because we have had to take a lot of defamation and smears from centrist liberals, who are ostensibly allies in the fight against fascism.

I am not eager to see a spiral into political violence as an everyday affair (leaving aside the ever-present "invisible" violence of the State). I am afraid, though, that a bloodletting is coming. I don't know what to do to stop it. The ruling class is intransigent and does not seem to be willing to endorse even reformism, while fascism is on the rise globally, and the working class is getting fucked over. Moreover, the ruling class doesn't seem to give a shit about climate change, a problem whose scale doesn't allow for individualist solutions. My hometown is probably going to be underwater within my lifetime. I don't really know why the ruling class doesn't give a shit. They assume that they can't be killed by poor people, and that they can run off to Mars if the planet tanks, I guess?

** (as far as escalation, there has definitely been an escalation of political violence, but the Antifa have only recently appeared in such numbers after the nazis got emboldened by Trump. The idea that it's the Antifa's fault that nazis are around and being bad is a 4chan talking point that liberals have taken up. And again, the Antifa in the US have been restrained in their actions.)