• Tankiedesantski [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    There's a large contingent of people here who are pacifists or at least just don't like it when people might get hurt. I'm not one of them, but I think it's good that they're here to prevent the realist Tankies like me from losing perspective.

    • Sinister [none/use name, comrade/them]B
      ·
      1 year ago

      pacifism is the language of the privileged, for most people not fighting and turning the other cheek means death and subjugation. I do not extol violence, but a peaceful world can only be born out of a free world.

      • Dolores [love/loves]
        ·
        1 year ago

        that John Brown achieved in a day

        what was that? a date with the hangman? Harper's Ferry is a terrible example for 'owning' pacifists.

        • Dr_Gabriel_Aby [none/use name]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I suggest you read William Lloyd Garrisons speeches in the months after the raid. He basically prays for a mass slavery insurrection because of what John Brown did. WEB Du Bois, Fredrick Douglas, James Baldwin, Malcom X, and countless others have writings that share the sentiment that the raid started the mass popularity of the anti slavery movement.

          • Dolores [love/loves]
            ·
            1 year ago

            He basically prays for a mass slavery insurrection

            well that wasn't very pacifist of him! but seriously, most of those names still didn't take up arms, if their writings about Brown are significant, they were still not meaningless before/after that violent act of resistance. by rejecting the pacifists outright people throw the baby out with the bathwater--speeches and newspapers matter! we can get along with people who scold about killing and write good

            • Dr_Gabriel_Aby [none/use name]
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Im never taking up arms either. In just not gonna equate this Esquibo conflict to American invasions of Iraq just because weapons are used.

              I am bothered that leftist are using no contexts to the conflicts they are judging. Capitalism does have to be fought back against.

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        My take is that capitalism is a violent hegemonic ideology that will not allow itself to be overthrown without people getting hurt. However, in most cases, hurting people in the overthrow of capitalism is the lesser evil to allowing capitalism to continue to exist and hurt people en mass.

        • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, i agree. Violence isn't chosen by the oppressed. Its forced on them by their oppressors. And that sucks, but there's not much that can change that, unless the oppressed suddenly decide to be cool all of a sudden