As my mentor once said:
“Never appeal to or rely upon someone’s ‘better nature’; they may not have one.
Instead, count on their self-interest; pretty much everyone has that.”
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Good observation. 
I think if their escalations didn’t meet resistance, their narrative would switch from “we are an oppressed and diminishing minority” to “we are the righteous and growing majority” without skipping a beat. Cowards are at their most dangerous when they think they’re winning.
I’m not totally satisfied with my previous post. I think it sort of insinuates that PR/propaganda/the-look-of-the-thing (whatever you want to call it) is no longer relevant, which is not true. But there is a real physical threat, and if that threat goes unmet it will get worse.
Self-defense is not escalation. I realise that’s a problematic statement since the opposing narrative is that their escalations are only self-defense against “white genocide”, but that only goes to show that it’s futile to worry too much about how things look or what they will be called.
I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that I “look down” on spectators. I mean, I don’t exactly look up to them, but my criticism of what you’ve said in this thread was more that your concerns seem too hypothetical when there are far more concrete concerns to be addressed. Spectators often want a thing done well where participants just want it done, hence the comparison.
I mean, my concerns that your concerns aren’t concrete enough are not in themselves particularly concrete. I wasn’t trying to be high and mighty, I just wanted to make you think about what you’re saying.
But I do think this is a great challenge. It looks like I’ll have the chance to visit the US around thanksgiving, plans are still being settled but it’ll be a couple of weeks visiting some or all of New York, DC, Boston and Charlotte NC. It’s too soon to commit to anything because the dates and places aren’t fixed yet, but I would love to add my support in person. Does anyone know, is there like some master list of rallies somewhere? Do these things get planned that far in advance or do I have to wait and see what’s available?
If I find something and it’s not too far from you, would you like to come with me?
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I’m in Chicago. If there’s one downtown, I won’t be able to avoid it. (And regardless will attend)
Feel free to look me up.
MLK’s article posted earlier as a response to me implored resistance without violence. I fully support resistance, and of course self-defense if escalation is initiated by the other side.
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That seems to conflict with your criticism of a guy for retaliating when physically provoked. I imagine that when you say “self-defense” you’re not talking about covering your face with your hands and saying “stop it”.
I fully support self-defence too and I’d suggest that it can be endorsed in more abstract contexts such as shutting down hate speech meant to incite violence, at least now that the point has been reached where violence and murder in broad daylight have already been incited.
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Provoked, not attacked. That is escalation, not self defense.
And how would you characterise what the guy with the aerosol can is doing? Rather provocative, but no actual harm done.
Oh sod it, this is just nitpicking now. Sorry for taking up so much space, everyone.
“The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.” ~ G’Kar
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Can’t wait for grassroots money spent on their defense while the multi-tens-of-millions-of-dollars bank accounts of the group organizing these rallies avoids draining its coffers yet again.
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