Violence Never Solves Anything? BUNK!

Or as we say in America- BULL-SHEET!

It certainly CAN solve things. Didn't violence solve the problem of the Axis fascist alliance trying to

take over the world in World War II?

And didn't violence finally drive the United States out of Vietnam?

And violence drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, the goal of the U.S., Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. They were happy about that. They achieved their goal- and after a few more years the Saudis and Pakis achieved their further aim of installed a medieval, fanatical theocracy in power there.

And what about white Southern racists? They have ruled the Confederate states since the founding of the U.S., with only a brief interregnum after the Civil War. A Confederate intelligence network assassinated Abraham Lincoln. That changed history by putting a white supremacist, Andrew Johnson, in the presidency of the U.S. With Johnson's help- which was so extreme that his contumacious violating of U.S. laws forced Congress to finally impeach him, but a few Republicans lost their nerve and voted him Not Guilty in the Senate, even though he overwhelming was- the white racists soon re-

established their slave state in disguised form, using terrorism as an important part of their strategy.

[Their terrorism formation, the Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, was later lionized by the notorious filmmaker D.W. Griffith in his racist propaganda movie Birth of a Nation. Racist Democratic president Woodrow Wilson, who purged the Federal government of black employees, was such a big fan of the film that he

dragooned others into watching it. Griffith is honored on a U.S. postage stamp and his noxious movie is in the pantheon of “movie classics,” which speaks volumes about the U.S. political system and American culture.]

Then there are successful insurrections, guerrilla movements, rebellions, revolutions, in which those seeking the overthrow of an established regime achieve their goal. However, the vast majority of uprisings and armed movements fail, so just on a statistical basis it's a dangerous route to take for political, social, and economic change. And in the current era, given the propensity of the United States especially to take sides in the internal affairs of other nations, movements that are opposed by the U.S. are effectively fighting the U.S. too, not just the local power structure. This is the reason the Palestinian people's situation is so hopeless, for example. It is also why countries like Guatemala and Honduras are trapped in a never-ending hell. Both reform and revolution are impossible there- as the recent coup against the elected president of Honduras a few years back confirmed what was already proven by earlier U.S. coups and military dictatorships in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil, etc.

All this is not to argue that violence is desirable. Unless one is pathological, one has to agree that violence should always be a last resort in all matters. [1] Nor is violence never futile- obviously, like any attempt to solve a problem or achieve a goal, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (obviously it doesn't work for the losing side in wars) and sometimes it's partially successful and partially not.

Then there are the ambiguous situations where violence changes things without a clear outcome, so there is a new reality. In that case it's like reshuffling a deck of cards.

Finally, it's not an on-off switch, violence-no violence. It's more a spectrum, with total pacifism at one pole- letting police and Klansmen physically assault you without any attempt at self-defense, for example- this part of King's ideology was beloved by part of the U.S. ruling class, for obvious reasons- at at the other extreme, the Holocaust, or atomic bombings of defenseless cities. In short, mindless, unreasoning hyperviolence. There are many possible mixes in between the extremes.

You never hear the rulers say “violence never solves anything” when they want to go to war. Nor are police lectured that “violence never solves anything.” This is just propaganda aimed at oppressed social groups so they won't stir up too much trouble. It is trying to make a virtue out of weakness.

This is not to urge violent means on the weak. There is good reason for the weak to avoid violence. Their oppressors have far greater means of violence at their disposal, so you're fighting on the enemy's favored terrain where they have tremendous advantage. But there's no MORAL reason why the oppressed shouldn't fight back physically against the oppression enforced by violence against them. Of course this flies in the face of the two pop philosophers that the bourgeoisie love to shove in the faces of others- Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi, an Indian crank, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who they reviled, relentlessly harassed and spied on when he was alive, and then finally murdered after he came out against the Vietnam War and got involved in labor struggles, raising the dangerous prospect of creating greater unity among the disparate civil rights, anti-war, and labor movements.

But all this is obvious after a mere few seconds of reflecting on history and the reality of the world we live in; and presumably we're all living in the same world, although you'd never know it from the ideologies, opinions, and attitudes of so many people.

So- morons who parrot “violence never works” or “violence never solves anything” or “violence never

achieves anything”- could you please stop being so dumb? Thank you.

Argue instead, if that's what you think, that violence would be inappropriate or counterproductive or, yes, immoral, in a particular situation or for trying to “solve” a particular “problem.” (And here we get into the sometimes-knotty matter of what “the problem” IS in a given situation. The “problem” is often some oppressor trying to get his/her way, or exert control generally, or a person trying to impose their irrational beliefs/attitudes/feelings on others. And people have different perspectives on some “problems,” such as, for example, oh, say, the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” an anodyne euphemism and evasion if there ever was one.)

1] Which of course means that many people in the U.S. power structure, for example, are pathological as they are quick to resort to violence, and insist on getting their way always and will use violence to get it. Gee, who'd a thunk it! They sound so nice when they mouth their propaganda about freedom and democracy and even human rights!

But they look good these days compared to their Syrian counterparts. Too bad when the U.S. SHOULD have gotten violent, with the Assad regime, it didn't!