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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!
