re: #104 LastYearsMan

I think “non-violent protesting” is a misnomer. Serious non-violent protests (like those led by Gandhi and MLK) weren’t passive. They were active and violent — but they were about receiving the violence, not dishing it out. They forced the other side to commit violence and willingly accepted that violence in order to completely destroy the legitimacy of their opponents. It is a brutal and effective strategy, but it takes a lot of discipline.

Yeah, that’s something lost on all those morons quoting Dr. King and criticizing protestors for not practicing “non-violent protesting.” The whole point of such is to invoke outrage and sympathy against the authorities and for the protestors respectively. In the South, where violence had been a way for centuries to keep blacks in line, police didn’t think twice about it. But in the North, where that sort of shit wasn’t acceptable, the cops got wise and took to provoking demonstrators by cutting off access to services, keeping them confined in an area, and doing everything they could to piss off the protestors until one would do something like throw a rock, at which time the truncheons came out and the skull cracking began. And when the whole melee was over, the police would blame “violence” on the part of the protestors for the riot.