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Kwame Ture the pitfalls of liberalism (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/quotes@lemmy.ml
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[+] -19 points 22 hours ago (34 children)

Violence begets violence. Seeking balance serves only to stabilize this cycle, victim becoming oppressor becoming victim ad nauseum.

Do not allow yourself to be shaped by what is inflicted on you. Strength is demonstrated not by an ability to react, reflect, or respond but endure. To become what has hurt you is the most total defeat. Living as an example others are compelled to follow is the greatest victory. "To thine own self be true".

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  • [–] 16 points 18 hours ago*

    I'm not trying to make a dig at whatever age you are, but I'm just gonna point out that I definitely would have been the one espousing this argument when I was like 22 and still mostly viewing armed conflict as an emotional/psychological phenomenon, without understanding the material and economic machinery at play. I was years away from internalizing the degree to which everything we think and are is shaped by our circumstances, including the ways and tools by which we try to transcend them

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  • [–] 16 points 21 hours ago (8 children)

    This is completely wrong, idealistic, and ignores all of history, which shows that violence is nearly always required to overcome an oppressor.

    The "victories of pacifism" are almost always used as propaganda to maintain the status quo.

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  • [+] -12 points 21 hours ago (7 children)

    Idealism is perhaps the trait I am most proud of, and what I genuinely believe has the best chance of leading us to a brighter tomorrow. 'Victories of pacifism' is not a term I am familiar with, and I am neither going to read all those links or start citing bhagavad gita at you. I would love to continue exchanging ideas directly, but am realizing there is a hostile and well-entrenched audience here impeding that process. A sense of unity predates, has endured, and will outlast every empire. Acceptance of the tools of your oppressors as all-powerful and inevitable is perhaps the most fundamental defeat there is. Whatever is built with them must crumble like all that came before. Feel free to DM me.

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  • [–] 16 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

    I guess we should have told all slaves to forever be slaves then?

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  • [+] -11 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

    "We shall overcome" was one thing they told themselves. You're like the third person to throw this specific gotcha at me here. To exaggerate your own logic, should they have started taking slaves of their own?

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  • [–] 9 points 13 hours ago

    So theres a little confusion here, you're using idealism to mean optimism, they're using idealism to mean "pertaining to ideas as opposed to material reality and existing social relations".

    The latter tends to be used in political texts, particularly marxist ones.

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  • [–] 15 points 22 hours ago* (16 children)

    So for example slaves should just endure slavery as that's true strength? Lest they be as bad as the slavers...?

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  • [+] -14 points 21 hours ago (15 children)

    I made a genuine effort to bridge understanding and am saddened by this response. To endure is not to accept.

    What do you think ended slavery? What were those people before being enslaved, and what do you think would be the best way for them to move on (or return) to something better?

    Would enslaving others in turn be desirable?

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  • [–] 17 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

    … what the fuck are you yapping about? Violence is a tool used by the oppressed against oppressors.

    What do YOU think ended slavery? You think slave liberators wanted to enslave white people in response? Too much anime. NEXT

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  • [+] -14 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

    In a prior response I posit slavery was ended by technological progress, specifically the industrialization of agriculture. You contribute nothing here, and the vitriol of your dismissal impedes genuine engagement with those who actually seek it.

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  • [–] 14 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

    Slavery was ended by revolutionary liberation. You think you’re being intellectual (or something) but you’re instead being racist & diminishing the accomplishments of revolutionary black liberators and civil rights leaders etc.

    I do not even want to dignify the idea that ”slavery was ended by technological advances in agriculture”. Might be the most racist thing I’ve ever seen on Lemmy so far.

    It’s like you guys have meetings on who can be more Nazi Apologist, more ignorantly racist and anti Immigration, and then you say “alright, we’re gonna go be progressive online!”

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  • [+] -9 points 20 hours ago (1 child)

    You don't think a cotton gin requiring vastly less effort to maintain/oppress had anything to do with it? This was the one time the American empire engaged in a just war that was in no way economic?

    ...the very idea might be the most racist thing you've seen on Lemmy so far?

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  • [–] 7 points 12 hours ago*

    The cotton gin intensified and prolonged slavery by making the labor of farming more valuable, cotton harvesting increased almost 20x between 1800 and 1860, with per-slave productivity roughly doubling.

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  • [–] [S] 14 points 21 hours ago (7 children)

    What ended slavery was slaves using violence against their oppressors to gain freedom. What ended fascism in Germany was overwhelming violence against the Nazis. What ends oppression is violence against the oppressors.

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  • [+] -12 points 21 hours ago (6 children)

    What "ended" slavery was technology making it economically unfeasible, and the violence of it still resonates through American society today. What "ended" fascism in Germany was... Hard to fit in a one-liner and I'm not sure I'd actually say it did end, but I'm sure you can agree the violence of that ideology is all too with us today. Oppression has in no way ended or even been reduced as the result of violent response. It has only grown and spread.

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  • [–] 15 points 21 hours ago* (5 children)

    What “ended” slavery was technology making it economically unfeasible, and the violence of it still resonates through American society today.

    This is also completely false. What ended modern slavery in the western hemisphere was two tremendously violent events: The Haitian revolution lead by former black slaves, which defeated french colonialism to end slavery (and whose proclamation to end slavery was subsequently adopted by Bolivar, which sealed its end in the southern hemisphere), and the US civil war which brought an end to slavery in the US south with a bloody conflict.

    Oppression has in no way ended or even been reduced as the result of violent response.

    Also completely false. The biggest example is the eastern front of WW2, the bloodiest conflict in world history, where the USSR defeated Nazi expansionism and its attempt to enslave eastern europe.

    I recommend you read the article I linked above, to learn how truly disgusting pacifism is as an ideology.

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  • [+] -10 points 20 hours ago (4 children)

    Good thing America doesn't currently have a gestapo and concentration camps. All thanks to the restorative power of violence. Things have in no way escalated since then, fascism has been thoroughly defeated. Mission accomplished, Dubya.

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  • [–] 14 points 20 hours ago* (2 children)

    Good thing America doesn’t currently have a gestapo and concentration camps. All thanks to the restorative power of violence.

    Unfortunately the pro-slavery forces rallied during the period of reconstruction, and were able to transmute slavery into a system of mass incarceration. Opposition to that wasn't non-violent, but you can't blame oppressed peoples for not always winning their confrontations. You can read about that in WEB dubois's black reconstruction in america. Your unwillingness to read even short articles above, is probably why you're so ignorant of the history of these class struggles.

    Things have in no way escalated since then,

    This is interesting coming from someone who avows pacifism, and thus thinks that reactionary violence shouldn't be challenged in any threatening way, and that we shouldn't dare fight back.

    Anyway, you can keep offering Gandhi's advice that "jews should've offered themselves to hitler's knife, as it would purify them". But the rest of us in the real world know that when someone attacks you, the best course of action is to stand up and fight back.

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  • [+] -11 points 19 hours ago (1 child)

    Your reliance on tertiary sources is probably why you're so ignorant of the simple, direct impact each action we take can have. I treasure direct input so much more and respect any of it anyone is willing to provide me. My perspective is informed by time spent in squats and camps and prisons. I know all too well what happens when I react to each injustice versus attempting transcendence, and feel I have a greater impact this way than I ever did resenting percieved defeats and pursuing empty victories. Go ahead and shoot a border patrol agent or whatever gets you hard. I'll keep putting water in the desert.

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  • [–] 7 points 14 hours ago*

    My perspective is informed by time spent in squats and camps and prisons. I know all too well what happens when I react to each injustice versus attempting transcendence

    bruh you aren't transcending anything you're just high as fuck writing this crap

    Go ahead and shoot a border patrol agent or whatever gets you hard. I’ll keep putting water in the desert.

    Man you're getting way too high and smug from your own farts.

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  • [–] 7 points 14 hours ago

    I made a genuine effort to bridge understanding and am saddened by this response. To endure is not to accept.

    But to resist is bad as you say. And you cannot resist violent suppression without violence back. You don't just lie down and just say "I am better than you" while being attacked like what the fuck.

    What do you think ended slavery? What were those people before being enslaved, and what do you think would be the best way for them to move on (or return) to something better?

    Violence ended slavery. Also on the BOLDED PART, I WILL ASK, what the FUCK are you implying here?

    Would enslaving others in turn be desirable?

    What are you implying here? That it's "eye for an eye" crap? You think it's always on equal measure? Can't even think that perhaps people just want to not be enslaved, not be killed and not be displaced?

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  • [–] 12 points 16 hours ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 11 points 16 hours ago

    (for the actual leftists here who know about the work of the above author, Gelderloos does get a number of things wrong about "the state," but he was not wrong about any of the above statements regarding "nonviolence.")

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