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In reply to the discussion: Non-violent tactics and moral high-ground [View all]Orrex
(63,756 posts)30. The question is not "did he" but rather "would he have?"
I have absolutely no reason to suspect that he would not have. He didn't march to Selma packing iron because he knew damn well that he'd have been gunned down by a sniper, and he'd have been dismissed as a militant angry negro. Hell, they were already dismissing him that way regardless.
Why do you think he owned those guns, if not because of the possibility that they would be needed? Was he an avid sport-shooter?
As for the suicidal incidents, have you ever heard of the march to the sea to make salt? Have you ever heard of Amritsar, in response to which Ghandi called for non-violence and non-cooperation? Again, these acts of submission worked for the Indians because they so vastly outnumbered the English and they actually held the power, as we do against the Nazis in America. I am not saying that would have worked for the Jews in Germany.
And I am saying that Gandhi shouldn't have scolded the Jews for their failure to commit preemptive mass suicide. It's not as though the Jews didn't (and don't) already have enough people blaming them for all sorts of bullshit. I would have hoped for better from Gandhi.
Why, for instance, did he not exhort the millions of Good Germans to kill themselves in protest? Why did he point to the victims of genocide and say "shame on your for not genociding yourselves sooner?"
But again: are you saying that Ghandi was not a moral leader?
Of course I'm not saying that, because he obviously was and obviously remains so in death. However, he was also a very flawed man, and I see no value in deifying him nor in assuming that he is right or authoritative in all things (e.g., sleeping naked with a grand-niece younger by many decades).
Equally, I do not see King as some flawless paragon of virtue or infallibility. He was, by his own admission, a flawed man who made mistakes. He also was not an absolutist.
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No. They didn't do the same thing. If, when 100 nazis show up, we show up with 5000, and
Squinch
Aug 2017
#5
Showing up with 65,853,516 against their 62,984,825 put a Nazi sympathizer in the Whitehouse
Orrex
Aug 2017
#12
You keep saying that King was not non-violent. He never acted against his non-violence message.
Squinch
Aug 2017
#21
Did Dr. King ever shoot anyone? Did he ever stray from his message of non-violence?
Squinch
Aug 2017
#26
What you are describing about the image of liberals is a good description of the image of
Squinch
Aug 2017
#6
Did he ever violently defend himself? Did he pull one of those guns in Selma? Did they
Squinch
Aug 2017
#15
To quote Stokely Carmichael, Nonviolence only works if your enemy has a conscience.
backscatter712
Aug 2017
#11
Who turned the tide? Was it Charmichael or King? There is no question that violence is justified
Squinch
Aug 2017
#17