What others say
A diversity of tactics, a paucity of participants by George Lakey
The Sword That Heals: Challenging Ward Churchill’s ‘Pacifism as Pathology’
Works by Peter Gelderloos on this subject
Works by Ward Churchill.
Of course, the two approaches or philosophies are not necessarily mutually exclusive in terms of how things sometimes unfold on the ground, so to speak. But there is significant disagreement among activists regarding this, such as is indicated in the debate between Ted Rall and David Swanson. and the disagreements over black bloc– (note to myself : it’s a tactic not a group)– between Chris Hedges, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, Peter Gelderloos and David Graeber. See Graeber’s Concerning the Violent Peace-Police and Gelderloos’ The Surgeons of Occupy
I can’t confirm it, but this tension may be among the causes of some of the rifts within Occupy groups from city to city. Might be some generational gaps too, but sensed this issue was a factor (though I haven’t confirmed or even explored it yet) between the Occupy group on Freedom Plaza where I was at (mostly older crowd with a more traditional approach to activism), on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the Occupy group at McPherson Square in DC (which was younger and seemed more inclined toward confrontations with police and maybe vandalism). Also, suspect this to have been a factor with Occupy Columbus legal team issues.
This is not an attempt to divide activists within and beyond progressive movements. Either extreme is not good: wanting to avoid controversy so as to promote a false sense of harmony, on the one hand; or, on the other hand, sensationalizing the controversy because of egotism or other reasons.
Humbly suggest unified fronts emerge after we’ve constructively grappled with our conflicts and disagreements. If we ignore our differences, it seems we risk either group-think or petty divisiveness, or maybe both. It’s important to know what differences matter and what ones we can compromise on.
Most progressives and ‘radicals’ probably agree on problems. The challenge is constructively dealing with our differences when it comes to what type of movement we’re going to build to address them. That’s where questions of tactics and strategy apply.
Some additional advocates of ‘diversity of tactics’ are Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay, and Lierre Keith. They published Deep Green Resistance last year. There is also Peter Gelderloos’ How Nonviolence Protects the State
As for my own inquiry into this while reporting on the counter RNC actions, is it ultimately a matter of striving to love and to not hate instead of a matter of choosing nonviolence ?
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