This interview between the NYT and the author of 'how to blow up a pipeline' includes discussion of the social acceptability of political violence. Unsurprisingly, the NYT person flips out at the idea of property destruction and seems to bounce between 'political violence is never acceptable' and calling David Malm a hypocrite for not blowing up a pipeline during the interview. Evidently this is the kind of political violence the NYT doesn't support, in contrast to the kind of political violence they love (i.e. political violence used by the american state against property and humanity both foreign and domestic).
This is my favourite part of the interview in the spoilers.
spoiler
NYT: We live in representative democracies where certain liberties are respected. We vote for the policies and the people we want to represent us. And if we don’t get the things we want, it doesn’t give us license to then say, “We’re now engaging in destructive behavior.” Right? Either we’re against political violence or not. We can’t say we’re for it when it’s something we care about and against it when it’s something we think is wrong.
Malm: Of course we can. Why not?
NYT: That is moral hypocrisy.
Malm: I disagree.
NYT: Why?
Malm: The idea that if you object to your enemy’s use of a method, you therefore also have to reject your own use of this method would lead to absurd conclusions. The far right is very good at running electoral campaigns. Should we thereby conclude that we shouldn’t run electoral campaigns? This goes for political violence too, unless you’re a pacifist and you reject every form of political violence — that’s a reasonably coherent philosophical position. Slavery was a system of violence. The Haitian revolution was the violent overthrow of that system. It is never the case that you defeat an enemy by renouncing every kind of method that enemy is using.
NYT: But I’m specifically thinking about our liberal democracy, however debased it may be. How do you rationalize advocacy for violence within what are supposed to be the ideals of our system?
Malm: Imagine you have a Trump victory in the next election — doesn’t seem unimaginable — and you get a climate denialist back in charge of the White House and he rolls back whatever good things President Biden has done. What should the climate movement do then? Should it accept this as the outcome of a democratic election and protest in the mildest of forms? Or should it radicalize and consider something like property destruction? I admit that this is a difficult question, but I imagine that a measured response to it would need to take into account how democracy works in a country like the United States and whether allowing fossil-fuel companies to wreck the planet because they profit from it can count as a form of democracy and should therefore be respected.
NYT: Could you give me a reason to live?
Malm: What do you mean?
NYT: Your work is crushing. But I have optimism about the human project.
Malm: I’m not an optimist about the human project.
Could you give me a reason to live?
lol, what a fucking loser. He's literally like "I'd rather die than dirty my hands with 'violence' to help people". Christopher Caudwell wrote about how western-style pacifists (he distinguishes from eastern -style pacifism) and related bourgeois ideologies is the ultimate individualist refutation of life itself by being like this.
Tears in eyes, nintendo switch at wifes boyfriends house, potato salad has salt in it "Could you give me a reason to live?"
Something insulated white people could get upset about it.
I moved to a very white neighborhood and i noticed a lot of long open restaurants where the food is very bland.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/1935/pacifism-violence.htm
Can't find the exact passage I remember, but this is close.
But to abstain from social relations, is to abstain from life. As long as he draws or earns an income, he participates in bourgeois economy, and upholds the violence which sustains it. He is in sleeping partnership with the big bourgeoisie, and that is the essence of bourgeois economy. If two other countries are at war, he is powerless to intervene and stop them, for that means social co-operation – social co-operation issuing in coercion, like a man separating quarrelling friends and that action is by his definition barred to him. If the big bourgeoisie of his own country decide to go to war and mobilise the coercive forces, physical and moral, of the State, he can do nothing real, for the only real answer is co-operation with the proletariat to resist the coercive action of the big bourgeoisie and oust them from power. If Fascism develops, he cannot suppress it in the bud before it has built up an army to intimidate the proletariat, for he believes in ‘free speech’. He can only watch the workers being bludgeoned and beheaded by the forces he allowed to develop.
His position rests firmly on the bourgeois fallacy. He thinks that man as an individual has power. He does not see that even in the unlikely event of everyone’s taking his viewpoint and saying, ‘I will passively resist,’ his purpose will still not be achieved. For men cannot in fact cease to co-operate, because society’s work must be carried on – grain must be reaped, clothes spun, electricity generated or man will perish from the earth. Only his position as a member of a parasitic class could have given him any other illusion. A worker sees that his very life depends on economic co-operation and that this co-operation of itself imposes social relations which m bourgeois economy must be bourgeois, that is, must in greater or less measure give into the hands of the big bourgeoisie the violent issues of life and death. Passive resistance is not a real programme, but an apology for supporting the old programme. A man either participates in bourgeois economy, or he revolts and tries to establish another economy.
Passive resistance is not a real programme, but an apology for supporting the old programme.
Damn shots fired
As long as he draws or earns an income, he participates in bourgeois economy, and upholds the violence which sustains it.
Some good stuff here, but this is almost word-for-word
I don't think "you have no choice but to participate if you want to live, but participating makes you guilty" is all that convincing, and I'd bet a large part of its appeal stems from older Christian concepts like original sin, anyway. What's more convincing to me is "you can either try to help or do nothing, who would you rather be?"
And this:
even in the unlikely event of everyone’s taking his viewpoint and saying, ‘I will passively resist,’ his purpose will still not be achieved
Seems dubious when you think about strikes.
Pretty big brained take to treat George Fox like he was some quiet monk.
At a protest in 2020, on one of the first days an 'organizer' was being shady saying thing like "I don't want to stand out here all day, I don't want anyone to get hurt or anything" and trying to encourage people to leave before anything even really happened, happy to hold a sign for half an hour and go home, clearly trying to diffuse more militant anti-police activists. They said shit like this interviewer is saying here, it was discovered later this person was being paid by the city. The city paid for this because it was so effective, there were similar people doing it all over the country. It added a lot of mistrust.
edit: Just want to add emphasize on how fucked this is, I don't think people even at the protests around the US realized how prevalent this sort of thing was. In one of the most 'progressive' cities in the country, our tax-dollars went to funding the active disruption of collective action against brutality and racism, that was only one of many parts of the psychological warfare against the people protesting too.
My favorite part is when the interviewer randomly started asking him to give a reason to live lmao
Yes that's it lol. I included the run up to that because I think it makes the left turn when his head explodes even funnier
I had to look at the article to confirm that wasn't a bit. Holy fuck how is people destroying fossil fuel infrastructure such a terrifying prospect that you don't want to live to see it?
Sir, your country blew up a pipeline for economic gain and your worried about what?
'Could you give me a reason to live' is an Eric Andre ass interview question
Malm is gonna live with missing that slam dunk in every shower for the rest of his life
I'm not an optimist about the human project
New site tagline
A few minutes ago, you said you’ve never blown up a pipeline. If that’s what you think is necessary, why haven’t you?
That combined with "Please incriminate yourself publicly here, what specific crimes have you done?"
I asked why you aren’t blowing up pipelines, and you gave this answer about how action has to happen in the context of a community and “Oh, but I have done very serious stuff” — there’s something fishy. You have actually engaged in property destruction? Or are you just scared of somebody calling you a hypocrite?
If they read Malm’s fucking book they could have read between the lines of the examples of direct action he gave in it…
A) NYT "journalists" can't read and B) they want something they can forward directly to their handlers for an immediate arrest
Guy published a book titled "How to Blow Up a Pipeline" and hasn't been arrested yet, idk maybe if I try and "Gotcha" him now in an interview it'll work
Liberals (non politicians) feel good after voting because that’s all they advocate for. So their brain crashes when someone has more complicated analysis because they can’t automatically execute their vision unlike dropping a ballot in the mailbox.
Such a lib move on that snip in the spoiler.
this makes me feel bad, but I'm an optimist, so please tell me something to feel better!
you should feel bad. Shit is objectively bad.
Such a lib move on that snip in the spoiler
Hence CW: liberalism in the header lol
The version posted on the nyt is even funnier, it has little throwaway remarks from the interviewer and on that line in the snip the author says "I just blurted this out" or similar language
liberals love the "relatable self absorbed baby with no self control" personality type
Justifying my position in the afterlife by yelling "my naivete was willful!" into the empty vacuum plane where God used to live until we killed him.
Could you give me a reason to live?
strong contender for the most pathetic sentence ever
The NYT interviewer would rather give up and die than fight for the future of our planet and blow up a pipeline lmao
his instincts are correct! he and his will likely all have to die for the fest of us to have a better world
I'm imagining Larry King just dropping this line in every interview with increasing desperation.
: I also said, “Give me a reason to live.”
: I will always remember this. No one ever asked me this before.
And if we don’t get the things we want, it doesn’t give us license to then say, “We’re now engaging in destructive behavior.” Right? Either we’re against political violence or not. We can’t say we’re for it when it’s something we care about and against it when it’s something we think is wrong.
We literally have an annual holiday celebrating violence because the colonists didn’t get what they want from the English monarch.
How do you rationalize advocacy for violence within what are supposed to be the ideals of our system?
Who’s “ours?” Whose “ours?”
When I grew up learning about the Boston tea party and colonial rebellion, I was like "oh apparently property destruction and violence are two key founding ideals of this country", even a child can understand this! That's not even getting into the long history of political violence since then. I don't think there are many ideals you could say are as American as political violence.
Americans treat politics like the Old Testament and the New Testament. Political violence is the Old Testament - it was necessary back then when monarchs oppressed us, and its purpose has been fulfilled after independence. Now we live in New Testament America where the more cool headed politicians preach and you’re expected to follow them blindly, but when political violence does happen everyone is quick to bury it under the carpet so no one thinks too hard.
Vote from this, all of you, for this is the ballot of the covenant, which is casted for many for the pursuit of happiness
Liberals and their 'representative democracy' shit lmao. You got to vote and if you don't like the results too bad. Fuck off. Fuck all the way off. You get to choose between shit and real bad shit. Stop pretending like we get to vote on things that matter.
I've worked with a lot of Americans and Europeans, and that exchange at the end is so indicative of other exchanges I've seen at work between Americans and Europeans:
American: "Aww, you're being negative. How about we be positive, huh? It's more fun to be positive. I don't want to think about bad stuff."
European: "I am being realistic about the situation, why would I not be realistic"
Positivity Brain Damage is one of the most insufferable things. A thing can just be bad and it's insulting and patronizing in the most frustrating way implying you're choosing to feel bad and sticking your head in the sand is a good thing.
I hate living under American mandatory optimism so much. Cloying bullshit
In “Overshoot,” you write this about the very wealthy: “There is no escaping the conclusion that the worst mass killers in this rapidly warming world are the billionaires, merely by dint of their lifestyles.” That doesn’t feel like a bathetic overstatement when we live in a world of terrorist violence and Putin turning Ukraine into a charnel house? Why is that a useful way of framing the problem?
There were more dead civilians in Gaza after like 30 days than Ukraine has seen in 2 years of war. Using Ukraine as your example on 1/16/24 is tantamount to genocide denial.
It honestly confused me, had to check the date of when this was published.
And let's be clear, it's significantly more.
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Estimates for Palestinian deaths by November were between 15k and 40k civilian deaths, mostly women and children. Given the near-complete information blockade, it's obviously impossible to know with any certainty.
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Civilian deaths in the Russo-Ukrainian war is estimated at 10k-15k civilians, almost half of whom were from the separatist republics (ie presumably killed by Ukraine) over two years.
The amount of dead civilians / day killed by Israel is up to 100x more than Russia, and as low as ~25x.
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Either we’re against political violence or not.
NYT interviewer is the third person after Kant and Gandhi to come out with the "bold" stance of not supporting either side in any war
This whole thing was bizarre. It felt like the interviewer was trying to trick him into admitting that everything was going to be OK and that he's just angry because of some aberrant mental deficiency.
It's funny, when I started going to a therapist, they said something like "well, maybe you have depression, or maybe being upset at everything going on and wanting to do anything but work for the same capitalist forces that perpetuate this massive injustice is actually the rational position, and there isn't anything wrong with your brain?" They were a comrade therapist <3
I basically explain that as simply as I could and without trying to be "too commie" with multiple therapists. Along the lines of "I don't think people were meant to live like this, but I'm forced to." Keeping it vague for them. It sucks though because literally everything is set up that if you can't tolerate 40 hours a week for your entire life because your brain is exploding at the bootlicking you see from coworkers or the depravity on display from owners... then you're the problem and you need to get help. Or you go on rants day after day until you get forced out of jobs... cough
just angry because of some aberrant mental deficiency
It's accusations of ressentiment every time. They want you to shrivel up and die.
treatment
