Nonviolent protest has a place, but not in self defense.
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Some people make the fraudulent claim I’m demanding violence because I believe we should burn down pesticide GMO crops, or destroy fluoride distribution centers so water can go through untouched. I say we must destroy Monsanto, Cargil, Dow, etc. by hand, and have the right to return fire at cops.
Some people love to take my words and call them “violence” when the point I am making is “self defense”.
Never in the history of our laws has a law been written which protects us from these law forces. If a company or officer is found guilty of a crime, they get a wrist slap while we go to prison for years and years, because we had the audacity to protect our water, land, air, food, and rights.
Many of us may not have a physical gun pointed at our head at this moment, so we can pretend we aren’t an invaded people. Our children are being killed before our very eyes with food and water alone. Hell, cops have been killing people of color since the first invasion and the killing has never stopped.
If some people wish to “imagine” the reality is any other way, we are truly doomed. If they want to “imagine” peaceful thoughts will make it all go away, then we are more than doomed.
We have the right to:
- know what is happening around us
- to defend ourselves,by any means necessary, against this onslaught of blatant genocide
Violence is when all your human rights have been raped. Violence is destruction for personal gain. Violence is being beat, shot, and jailed for profit.
I want peace, but I know others don’t and have painted targets on us. They feast from us, and they aren’t going to stop–ever–not on their own because someone “imagined” them doing so.
Whether we sit peacefully or fight, they are committing violence against us.
Cattle herding…
Sometimes circumstances are made for us which appear as choices and leave us little room for being lawful.
Editor: I highly recommend How Nonviolence Protects the State by Peter Gelderloos
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Photo: bixentro/Flickr
Thank you Rudy for speaking up for what is right. You are not violent in protecting the earth, the children, and animals. This country is a sad mess. Mass genocide. You inform without force. The truth is hard to handle for the ones just waking up. They get defenseful, and call names. Keep up the good fight.. You are making a difference!
In a democracy you have to obey the law because the law represents the aggregated will of the people. If you object to the law as it stands, the correct course is to persuade people to adopt your view. Trying to impose your will by force on a democratic society is the very definition of terrorism (terrorism doesn’t have to involve murder, just the unlawful use of force to achieve a political aim). Perhaps you think the US is not a democracy, that congress is a cabal. But congress is elected, and there’s nothing forcing anyone to vote republican or… Read more »
It’s true that force is not the answer. At the same time, Americans are so politically unfit that by the time they become informed and motivated, we won’t be around. The war on terrorism is the result of their lack of political awareness and participation. I was born in Iraq, where people risked their lives to know the truth. Here, the truth is available all around and no one need die for it. Yet few care because they were raised in a system that oppresses them in the most subtle ways.
We do not have a democracy….never had, never will….what we have is an illusion of vote and an illusion of petition.