About that flag burning business & acts of violence by Occupiers--

[Jackpine Radical]

If you think those re smart things to do, read this book & get back to us:

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Civil-Resistance-Works-Nonviolent/dp/0231156820/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328103486&sr=1-3

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories.

Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement and commitment, and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience, greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents' erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment.

Chenoweth and Stephan conclude that successful nonviolent resistance ushers in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war. Presenting a rich, evidentiary argument, they originally and systematically compare violent and nonviolent outcomes in different historical periods and geographical contexts, debunking the myth that violence occurs because of structural and environmental factors and that it is necessary to achieve certain political goals. Instead, the authors discover, violent insurgency is rarely justifiable on strategic grounds.

[Robb]

1. Or, in the words of Brother Lennon

"When you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out."

[morningfog]

8. He was torn, he says "in" in one version and you can hear it "in response" on the album.

From an interview:

"I wanted to put what I felt about revolution; I thought it was time we fuckin’ spoke about it, the same as I thought it was about time we stopped not answering about the Vietnamese War when we were on tour with Brian Epstein and had to tell him, “We’re going to talk about the war this time and we’re not going to just waffle.” I wanted to say what I thought about revolution.

I had been thinking about it up in the hills in India. I still had this “God will save us” feeling about it, that it’s going to be all right (even now I’m saying “Hold on, John, it’s going to be all right,” otherwise, I won’t hold on) but that’s why I did it, I wanted to talk, I wanted to say my piece about revolution. I wanted to tell you, or whoever listens, to communicate, to say “What do you say? This is what I say.”

On one version I said “Count me in” about violence, in or out, because I wasn’t sure. But the version we put out said “Count me out,” because I don’t fancy a violent revolution happening all over. I don’t want to die; but I begin to think what else can happen, you know, it seems inevitable.

* * *

WENNER:
You don’t really believe that we are headed for a violent revolution?
LENNON:
I don’t know; I’ve got no more conception than you. I can’t see... eventually it’ll happen, like it will happen–it has to happen; what else can happen? It might happen now, or it might happen in a hundred years, but...

WENNER:
Having a violent revolution now might just be the end of the world.
LENNON:
Not necessarily. They say that every time, but I don’t really believe it, you see. If it is, OK, I’m back to where I was when I was 17 and at 17 I used to wish a fuckin’ earthquake or revolution would happen so that I could go out and steal and do what the blacks are doing now. If I was black, I’d be all for it; if I were 17 I’d be all for it, too. What have you got to lose? Now I’ve got something to lose. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to be hurt physically, but if they blow the world up, fuck it, we’re all out of our pain then, forget it, no more problems!

WENNER:
You sing, “Hold on world...”
LENNON:
I sing “Hold on John,” too, because I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be hurt, and “please don’t hit me.”

WENNER:
You think by holding on it will be all right?
LENNON:
It’s only going to be all right–it’s now, this moment. That’s all right this moment, and hold on now; we might have a cup of tea or we might get a moment’s happiness any minute now, so that’s what it’s all about, just moment by moment; that’s how we’re living, cherishing each day and dreading it, too. It might be your last day–you might get run over by a car–and I’m really beginning to cherish it. I cherish life."

http://www.jannswenner.com/Archives/John_Lennon_Part2.aspx


Of course, he went on to remove any question with "All we are saying is give peace a chance."

I just thought his wrestling with whether real change can happen without ultimately reaching violence is not all that different from conversations being had today. He doesn't endorse violence, but doesn't necessarily see a revolution without it. In the end, he loves his life and doesn't want to die. I feel the same way. It isn't worth shedding blood, mine, ours, theirs, anybodies. It hasn't got to that point, yet. I hope it doesn't.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Personally, I don't take my political strategy advice from dead Beatles.

And yeah, I was sad the day John Lennon died.

[Lionessa]

2. Please separate flag burning from "acts of violence" or your OP is crap.

The two are NOT the same and shouldn't be equated.

[inna]

5. excellent point. if anything, "acts of violence" are unilateral -

and not coming from the protesters.

[rhett o rick]

6. I think it is important to keep perspective. Violence against people is unacceptable.

Some minor property damage isnt in the same category. It still isnt good strategically.

Hitting someone with a baton can cause permanent injury. Breaking Starbucks windows wont bother Starbucks one bit but will be equated with the brutality by the police by the OWS haters.

[Lionessa]

7. I'll even go with violence as a whole isn't useful, but burning a flag isn't

violence, is petty vandalism at best.

[SidDithers]

15. "minor property damage" is vandalism and is illegal...

and I think smashing a shop's windows, which you seem to be advocating here, goes beyond "minor property damage".

It may not be as bad, on some sort of violence severity scale, as police assault on protesters. But "not as bad" doesn't make it acceptable.

Sid

[rhett o rick]

16. Why do you think it important to distort what I say? Where do I "advocate" smashing a shop's

windows. What I am advocating is perspective. Those here that hate OWS protestors will ignore the police brutality and raise bloody hell when a window is broken or something is thrown at the police.

The police tactics of brutality way beyond what is necessary is aimed at intimidation against protests. This is terrorism.

If corporations can use money as an exercise of their free speech, why cant The People use peaceful protests as free speech?

[Jackpine Radical]

9. They are not the same.

They are equated in the popular political mind.

And if you read my subject line and do a careful syntactic analysis, you will note that I didn't equate them.

Flag burning is generally taken to mean "I hate America." And if you think that is a good message for the Occupy movement to send, then maybe you ought to spend some time thinking about the issue.

[Lionessa]

11. Repeating misinformation like "equated in the popular mind" as though you have a

handle on the popular mind is somewhat telling. The only people I know who think such are conservatives, be they Dem or Repub, they're conservatives.

I am not, we will therefore not agree. But my experience tells me that your broad brush about how people feel about flag burning couldn't be true or there'd be a law against it. There's not one currently.

[Jackpine Radical]

17. About half to 2/3 of the public would go for a Constitutional amendment prohibiting flag burning.

That good enough for you? I generally have reasonable information behind my "broad-brush" assertions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_Desecration_Amendment

A USA Today/Gallup Poll in June 2006 reached a different conclusion, with 56% supporting a constitutional amendment, but down from 63% favoring a flag burning amendment in Gallup's 1999 poll.[6][7] Another poll conducted by CNN in June 2006 found that 56% of Americans supported a flag desecration amendment.[8]

[Lionessa]

19. Read all of the wiki, amendments haven't passed though have been tried,

so I guess 2/3 wouldn't. Seems it didn't even get out of the Senate most of the time.

#2. Just because it's popular doesn't make it right, and with the margin of error, I'd imagine we're actually closer to 50/50.

#3. In June 2006, things were dramatically different in most every American's mind than they are now.

[rhett o rick]

12. I think some people burn the flag because they see it as a mockery of the freedoms

it used to represent. IMO.

[randome]

14. But I guess we'll never know what was in the minds of the people who burned the flag in Oakland.

Because, you know, they never said why. Kind of hard to see a protest under than lens, isn't it?

[Jackpine Radical]

18. And when they do it, others get a different point.

[rhett o rick]

3. Acts of violence provide justification for opposition as we have seen from DU members. nm

[SidDithers]

4. In before agent provocateur...nt

Sid

[dionysus]

13. vaht? vas you shayin shumthin... vaht?

[LanternWaste]

20. In regards to flag burning, I imagine it comes down to whether

In regards to flag burning, I imagine it comes down to whether one believes that branding, perception and popularity holds a higher priority, or if maintaining the courage of our own convictions is more important.

[Jackpine Radical]

21. I think winning is important for the Occupy movement.

I see flag desecration as detrimental to the cause. Sorry.