Brief Notes On Non-Violent Movements

If you advocate violence, you are not nonviolent, even if you don't personally use the gun or the knife. Supporters of the IRA, supporters of Hamas, supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu, Turning Point USA, none of them are nonviolent and none of them can claim the mantle of non-violence.

When Martin Luther King Jr's Southern Christian Leadership Conference decided to undertake nonviolent civil disobedience, they eschewed even violence in self-defense. They knew that any acts of self-defense would be spun as offensive violence.

Self-defense itself can become an excuse for offensive violence. Some of the most violent movements claim to be defending themselves: Nazis claim to be defending themselves against Jews, US white nationalists claim to be defending themselves against black people, and so on.

In Praise of Progressive Courage

Would people please stop calling progressives cowards? It's the progressives who've been trying to lead this charge for 2½ decades, in the face of constantly being told they were alarmists and not to worry. With each new surrender we were told that surely now the abuses would stop. And with each new surrender, the enemies of the Constitution and freedom and the Republic gained more ground. And yes, we're tired. In 2½ decades, the young of us have become middle-aged and the middle aged have become old. But we're still fighting and we were out there fighting when so-called "cooler heads" were surrendering in advance. 

We wonder at the compliance of our institutional leadership but they are only following the standard the "moderate" political leadership has been setting for 2½ decades. It is time for different leadership, and where else could it come from but progressives?