Another Kind of Response
By There has always been a strain of violence in American politics and life. Since 9/11, that has been amplified. The right in particular has been quick to speak of violence and violent ends, most recently the President sharing a video of a violent end to 11 people on a boat in the Caribbean, visited on them by the American military.
Donald Trump and today’s right, some of whom are now playing in government social media accounts, glorify violence of the kind featured in action movies: quick and to the point, effective. But that was not a single strike in the Caribbean, rather several strikes to kill the people and destroy the evidence.
Some people and movements have chosen a nonviolence, a radical alternative. The current opposition to ICE in Los Angeles and Chicago eschews violence and has been effective, but it is not fully nonviolence. Nonviolence was used inthe civil rights struggles of the 1960s and by AIDS activists. It requires training and can be an effective response to a violent government or movement. We are likely to need such a thing in the coming months, hopefully not years.
Gregg Gonsalves posted an excellent thread on nonviolence this morning, with many resources. I’ll reproduce it here.