Forum Post: WE ARE ABOUT TO HONOR THIS HERO OF THE MOVEMENT - so here are a few of his words
Posted 13 years ago on Sept. 27, 2011, 2:43 p.m. EST by GandhiKingMindsetResist
(44)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation.
i am again stunned at the naivete and simplicity and stupidity of these positions. Simply put, you aren't going to open a door to negotiation, you are trying to negotiate with demonic beings. Their idea of negotiation is to have the police start breaking bones. People need to grow up and see that in fact merely protesting is futile. Only WORK on EVOLUTIONARY solutions actually brings us closer to those solutions, only direct democracy open source think tanks and clear solutions to assorted social and civil problems gives us the moral authority to take the power. These people can't be negotiated with, they will have to be BEATEN, and that can't happen on the streets, it has to happen in the court of public opinion.
The difference between your position and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s position is that you presuppose that at core, the people on Wall St. perpetrating these acts are inherently evil. King did not think that and neither do I and most others that seem to be a part of the OccupyWallSt movement. These are human beings like you and I with the same frailties of you and I who are caught in a system just like you and I. What non-violent resistance does is brings it all out into the open past the slogans and slick advertising. The streets are where this happens because the streets are the very intersection between public and private.
Now you have called King and Gandhi naive despite their successful outcomes for millions of people. I'm not sure how you are able to make that leap.
The key is to get rid of your hatred of the people and focus on the system. We must provoke using active non-resistance to bring the harms of that system out into the open.
"The difference between your position and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s position is that you presuppose that at core, the people on Wall St. perpetrating these acts are inherently evil." You people need to face the truth on this. They are. " King did not think that and neither do I " and hes dead from assassination, and your "social movement" is the mobmentality equivalent of a bonobo- it has an group or Set IQ easily half or a third of the actual participants. " and most others that seem to be a part of the OccupyWallSt movement. These are human beings like you and I with the same frailties of you and I who are caught in a system just like you and I." No, these are patently evil sociopaths, who have been knowingly operating an intentional caste war against the middle class for decades. You can not actually face down or solve the problem of evil unless you can acknowledge it. " What non-violent resistance does is brings it all out into the open past the slogans and slick advertising. " No, it merely wastes everyones time doing everything else other than the meaningful WORK. "The streets are where this happens because the streets are the very intersection between public and private." We have a neat invention called the internet. Its the new intersection between public and private and the pigs can't in one instant destroy all your teeth over it.
"Now you have called King and Gandhi naive despite their successful outcomes for millions of people." The core actual problems have evolved and the USA government has worked out how to handle protests and activism. Compared to meaningful right action, this is all of it a pathetic waste of time. If ghandi had been alive for the internet i assure you he would have been in favor of a viral information revolution instead of getting beaten up in the streets. " I'm not sure how you are able to make that leap." its easy. I know what the real work load is for evolution, i have been fighting this battle for 20 years. You people just jumped in in the last six months. I know these problems and i know these issues and i know what it takes to make change happen. Protesting in the streets is pointless until you have depth solutions for all of our social and civil problems. Now your on stage naked and you have almost nothing to say.
"The key is to get rid of your hatred of the people and focus on the system. We must provoke using active non-resistance to bring the harms of that system out into the open" Seriously, thats silly. the key is to actually generate science centered solutions and open source direct democracy think tanks and let evolutionary forces go viral. We could take every last seat in every election my way and have a truly egalitarian and just civilization. Or we can go your way and just end up rounded into concentration camps when the elites pull the plug on make believing you have rights.
I think what we'll find in the end is that it's both what you're saying AND what I'm saying. Your part of the operation needs others to do direct action. And the direct action folks need others to be working on the "putting the thing together in a new way" aspect. I think if you look carefully, I've never once denied that the hard work needs to go on behind the scenes. I've only argued for the importance of the direct action part. It was you that made the false leap suggesting that I was advocating direct action only.
I think the movement needs people like you and people like the direct action folks if we're going to pull this off. The fact that King and Gandhi were both killed does not in any way undermine my point that their movement released millions of people from bondage.
And, as far as your suggestion that Gandhi would be a computer revolutionary..... Gosh, that's anyone's guess. I'd hate to see him get hooked on some silly video game in the process....
I am enormously thankful that people are waking up to the problem and doing something about it. I am constantly face palming because after 20 years of fighting this fight more or less alone, you guys are making mistakes i NEVER made in terms of throwing your time and energy away. I think its awesome that the works of Ghandi and King were successful. King only partially so. However we must face the simple fact that the government has evolved and adopted new tactics and those tactics will tend to make merely protesting meaningless. The best path of action is the one which uses the energy we have in a way that is strategically meaningful, in a way which preserves instead of dispersing that energy, and in a manner in which it can go viral as information instead of being list in the noise of a mob. If Ghandi or king were alive now they would be counseling an information revolution and telling people like i am that compared to that protesting in the streets is silly. thousands of people are protesting and they haven't even thought about what to say. they are angry, but not lucid, they have no demands, they have nothing to put forth to the public. Thats not effective, its not useful, its not a solution. Its a formula to be marginalized and forgotten about.
I hear you. However, I think I've been pretty darn specific. The only thing I haven't done is draw the map and someone else is working on that as we speak as far as I know. Continue your struggle. It is good. I applaud you. And I too have been at this for 20 years.
we need to get things moving in that direction, and fast, or these protests will be marginalized for not having a clear message.
We each (all of us) have to do it a paragraph at a time, one sit in or direction at a time. We people are more powerful than most of us think when we shed our fear. And now they've marginalized so many (especially youth) that they'll have a tough time keeping a lid on the thing and keeping the lie alive. Look at the citibank memo that was leaked that was sent to their wealthiest clients. This whole thing is FASCINATING. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BzgUudifBc68ZGUyNzA0MzAtZDZkZC00ZmZjLTkwY2ItNzBlZWRmNjI1ZTNm&hl=en_US
that dead ends me at google docs. can you put it somewhere its a click away i don't have to join?
I'll try. They keep pulling it off but I'll find it. It's worth it.
http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/files/plutonomy-1.pdf
wow, thats amusing material.. reposting on FB...
Thanks!!!