soydulcedeleche: akagoldfish: cultureofresistance: First- I never said violence is “the only way”. Only that it is an effective way. We need it all. Now a quote from Derrick Jensen:
“Part of the reason I wrote the book is that when I’ve done talks that have to do with violence (I should say counter-violence, fighting against this system that is exploiting us) the response by the audience has been really predictable. If the audience consists of peace and social justice activists and mainstream environmentalists and also non-activists, a lot of times they are just horrified and put up what I call the “Gandhi-shield” to protect themselves from evil thoughts and keep saying “Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Dalai Lama.” Now if they are a different kind of audience, if they are grass roots environmentalists, they would do the same thing, and then come up to me afterwards and whisper in my ear, “thank you for bringing this up.” If I talk about anything to do with fighting back to an audience of prisoners, American Indians, a lot of people of color, the poor, survivors of domestic violence, family farmers, their response is to look at me like - “tell us something we don’t know.” I realized really quickly the difference is that if you have suffered violence in your own body it is no longer an abstract, or spiritual or theoretical question and so you don’t make it into something bigger than it is, it’s simply a part of life and you deal with it. It doesn’t mean you do it yourself, but it means you deal with it, it’s simply a part of life! As opposed to “oh, my God - capital V violence.” I realized very quickly that pacifism is a cult, and much like Christianity, it’s a cult that can brook no heresy. So it is very interesting that dogmatic pacifists don’t want to think about it themselves, and won’t let anybody else talk about. They have to censor everything related to violence, shut down even the mere possibility of discussion or debate.”
- Derrick Jensen My college was full of those pacifist assholes. Didn’t want to help me with my work getting progressives elected to local and federal office, and would talk about how voting was a waste of time and supporting the corrupt system blah blah blah. But suggest any sort of activism more radical than holding a candle light drum circle, and it would be all “woahh, we don’t want to stoop to the oppressor’s level”. Never did it dawn on them that their tame, state-permitted “activism” was just as supportive of the status quo as voting, except it had far less affect on real political outcomes within the status quo.
Protip: pacifism always benefits the oppressor. by any ethical means necessary. if that means fighting fire with fire, so fuckin be it.