4 Likes
In today’s shocking news, facists object to being called facists, can not be chill about it.
9 Likes
Fortunately, this dovetails right into the lesson on irony.
2 Likes
Given that the establishment writes the history books, there may be a correlation/causation fallacy here, where successful campaigns are retroactively re-framed as having been nonviolent
Could there have been … other things going on in the world that might have contributed to the collapse of the British Empire 
5 Likes
your right to be offended is only active as long as you carry a gun, didn’t you hear?
1 Like
These kids - and their teacher - they’re alright.
If I interviewed any of them for a job and found out they had a disciplinary note on their record for performing independent, referenced research to place a political text into a current setting, well we’d move straight on to the salary negotiations.
11 Likes
@smulder @anon73430903 @SheiffFatman
To rephrase Jimi Hendrix “'excuse me while I roll my eyes”.
Look, dudes, dudettes, or dudxes, I don’t know what to tell you; the information is freely available for your perusal. You’re also free to have whatever skeptical thoughts that you like; and this is coming from someone who invests in Costco-Sized Industrial Strength Cynicism.
For what it’s worth, the research started out as a doctoral thesis in which the hypothesis was that violent campaigns were indeed more successful than non-violent, only to find that when the actual research was done the hypothesis was incorrect; which then ended up becoming a decade and a half long (and still going) project examining and collecting data on all kinds of protests, movements, and revolutions that have occurred – and are still occurring – since 1900; what they entail, how they were conducted – including what constitutes violent vs non-violent campaigns (in other words, just because violence occurs during a protest doesn’t make the overall protest “violent” (see BLM for a current example)) – and also their aftermath and the longevity and types of change that came after the campaigns were either successes or failures.
And yet those who participated in violence did not speak for everyone either nor did they the movement as a whole. The overall movement, its tactics – which did utilize many ethically questionable or dubious methods – ideology, main leadership, and position were of non-violence. It can be disingenuous to take nuances or minor parts of a whole and make them a synecdoche. Just because a few Skillets in the bowl are poisoned doesn’t mean all the Skillets in the bowl will kill Don Jr if he eats them.
Judging by the amount of work put into NAVCO, I’d say they’ve probably asked themselves and dealt with a lot of the questions and criticisms you all are bringing up here.
6 Likes
I can’t tell if this statement is being facetious or not, but I’ll go ahead and bite and say: “quite literally, yes.”
Yes, reducing a movement to either “violent” or “non-violent” as if that was a dichotomy rather than a spectrum intentionally drops important real world information. What if the most effective movements are predominantly non-violent ones with small violent elements and one of the things that makes them effective is the worry that if their demands are not met the violent elements will grow? That idea can’t even be considered within a framework that defines movements as violent or non-violent.
And what about the problem of the fact that non-violent movements can only exist in a society where non-violence is an option? It’s hard to have a non-violent movement against a government that is willing to kill millions of it’s own people - non-violence didn’t get rid of Hitler, Stalin or Mao. So non-violent movements by definition exist under conditions that are easier to change.
But beyond that, even if we can look at history and say non-violent movements have succeeded more often than violent ones, we can also look at even more reliable, better documented history, to see that passing gets more yards than rushing in American football. No one is foolish enough to suggest that means you should always pass.
11 Likes
The cops could have used this as a positive teaching opportunity. It’s called “outreach”. But it’s like the slogan says: when opportunity knocks, rip down the posters.
1 Like
When opportunity knocks, knock back harder?
1 Like
Just because Harvard says something doesn’t make it true. Harvard isn’t the end all and be all of academia, where scholarship goes from theory to fact. It’s one institution, with one set of scholars among many, MANY institutions the world over. They have their own ideological biases and blind spots. No scholar is free from bias, either. Just because these scholars reached this particular conclusion, and Harvard agreed, doesn’t mean that everyone who works on these issues agrees with their conclusions or that they won’t be disproven later by other scholars.
7 Likes
Not really. The independence movement started off violent, by NAVCO’s own terms. Gandhi came along later with new ideas, having had some minor success against apartheid in South Africa, but the violent groups never disappeared. They were still around in fair numbers during the 1940s, some were trying to negotiate with the axis powers offering to join the war against Britain (I never said that they were all good). To say that it was a non-violent is inaccurate, and can only be said after cherry picking data.
My problem with the NAVCO data is there is no accounting for mixed campaigns, where there are sizable non-violent and violent groups working towards the same goals. Everything is put into a box marked violent and non-violent, which then leads to questions about bias, both from their sources and by NAVCO themselves. Their own FAQ does not clear this up.
I am a lot closer to the issues around this than I am comfortable with. The trans liberation movement in the UK is still in the law-abiding stage, even as it looks like laws will be enacted against us. The fight to stay where we are has been going on for years now and we need to win all the time, the transphobes only need to win once to cause major problems. We need to start a non-compliance and disobedience campaign now, like today.
Violence is still a long way off, and if I am honest, mass evacuation of trans people before that happens would be a wiser move.
8 Likes
9 Likes
A bit of a self-own, doncha’ think?
1 Like
I lived in Muncie and went through grade school there in the 70s. I’m happy to see that there are some good teachers there and that the kids are being allowed to explore ideas in what I always thought of as a stifling, small-minded town.
I hope the school pigs get their asses sued and lose their jobs.
3 Likes
Totally agree, however no one (in this instance) said that. Harvard is where the project is currently being run out of, but the research began pre-Harvard and involves work from people that aren’t associated with Harvard. Granted, the subject matter and its findings are quite possibly why Harvard hired Chenoweth and created NAVCO as it fits with their ideals, but it did not start at Harvard. The inference here based upon a single mention is the type of reaction that steers us all onto the dirt road of logical fallacies – which is a place I find my own self all too often.
1 Like
Muncie?
2 Likes
