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Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

edition.cnn.com

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Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#41

Post by mkramlich »

gruseom wrote: post #12
gaius wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Gandhi's techniques aren't really generalizable to anything else - any other imperial power than the British Empire would simply have shot him and massacred his followers. You couldn't do it in China for example (remind me what happened to the guy in the photo in Tianenmen Sq, standing in front of the tank). By the time Gandhi started his movement, the British had learnt the secret that had eluded everyone else…

Gandhi's techniques aren't really generalizable to anything else People frequently say this (right down to the cliché about how lucky he was to be facing the British), but it's obviously untrue. Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. He is increasingly being proven correct. (Popular movements pretty much instantly lose their legitimacy when they turn violent.)…

> Let's not forget that Gandhi's techniques were considered ridiculous and guaranteed to lose by most people at the time. It was only once he won that the "obvious" position had to be revised to "well of course it worked in that situation, but..."

  1. First they ignore you.
  2. Then they laugh at you.
  3. Then you free India from them.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#42

Post by molmalo »

kprobst wrote: post #25
jholman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um. Why on earth would the article mention that? What does US foreign policy have to do with the life and work of one academic/writer? Are you under the impression that all Americans (e.g. the Executive branch, and Dr Sharp) are equivalent? Because they're not; they're actually pretty varied, and pursue opposing goals sometimes!

To paraphrase Jamie Zawinski, all online conversations about geopolitics expand until the United States is at fault.

You should live outside USA for a while to check out why that happens...

You don't have to go as far as the middle east, just go anywhere south of the border. Almost every coup in Central and South America was orchestrated with help, support and/or acceptance from the CIA and Pentagon.

They trained and supported dictators (School of americas, national security doctrine, and so on), that ruled in support of their interests.

That's why that's the sentiment in most of the world about the US government. Some people realize that it's not the main portion of the population the one to blame about this. But given that government after government has followed the same foreign policies, involving in every other nation's internal affairs, it's fair to ask: If the vast majority of the US population would have really opposed to this, there would have been a change by now. The only reason left, aside from indifference, is just that "the defense of the american way of life" seems to be far more important.

The United States, with less than 5 % of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world’s fossil fuel resources—burning up nearly 25 % of the coal, 26 % of the oil, and 27 % of the world’s natural gas.[1, 2]

That explains it all. It doesn't really matters what happens in other countries as long as resources keeps moving, and money keeps flowing. Even if that means placing dictators all over the world.

And that is why you end up with that kind of statements. It won't change, unless your governments start to change. And it doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.[3]

[1] http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810 [2] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-con... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/opinion/americas-shameful-...

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#43

Post by molmalo »

datapimp wrote: post #38
accountswu wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

satu, I agree with you, if the American support for dictatorships had ended then it would have been futile to mention the past. The problem is that this is how the situation is today and it's the same as it was 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. The Bush's WMD charade surely was indirectly responsible for killing far more than 100k Iraqi civilians, perhaps more than a million. The infamous leaks showed us that the US gov and…

Young man. I have been in your exact shoes and tried this exact strategy. Hated the exact same things you do. Told every internet forum that would accept me that the US Government has worked in order to support economic interests and supremacy through out the world and in the process has benefitted from and knowingly participated in serious crimes against humanity. I gave hundreds of examples backed by our own docume…

Sad. But true.

As satu said below, there's a lot of ways to avoid thinking in what their well-being costs all around the world. Most people just see gadgets, ignoring the kids killed in Coltan wars. We like to feed our vehicles without thinking about all kind of problems that the very same oil we are using is causing elsewhere. And it's natural, otherwise, we'd get crazy.

But then again, it's amusing when (just to put a silly example) a company changes something in their EULA, and lot's of people start calling for a boycott.

Our values scale is so damn wrong.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#44

Post by mattmanser »

molmalo wrote: post #42
kprobst wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paraphrase Jamie Zawinski, all online conversations about geopolitics expand until the United States is at fault.

You should live outside USA for a while to check out why that happens... You don't have to go as far as the middle east, just go anywhere south of the border. Almost every coup in Central and South America was orchestrated with help, support and/or acceptance from the CIA and Pentagon. They trained and supported dictators (School of americas, national security doctrine, and so on), that ruled in support of their inte…

I can't tell if this is a parody or not! A perfect example of kprobst's point with the added comedy bonus that you threw a rant about oil in there too!

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#45

Post by regularfry »

theorique wrote: post #27
jackolas wrote: post #20

Amazing that CNN is this scared of the people to be pushing the CIA-funded method of social resistance.

You mean Sharp himself is funded by the CIA? What are your sources for this claim?

Besides, even if it were "funded by the CIA", that would mean the CIA would be helping ordinary people avoid ending up face down with a boot on their neck. I would have very few problems with that.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#46

Post by Peaker »

accountswu wrote: post #19

The article didn't mention the billions of Dollars that (for example) Egyptian dictators have been getting every year to keep the Egyptian people under the boot and to make sure they don't push Israel to end its military occupation or to allow the Palestinian refugees to return. Egypt is the 2nd highest recipient of US aid after Israel. The 1000+ civilians that the Egyptian military regime has killed were killed with…

For Israel, the nukes are almost a survival necessity. Nukes in the hands of Israel are less worrying to many than nuclear technology (that could be translated to nuclear weaponry) in the hands of a theocracy.

Additionally, the Palestinian refugees of 1947 have all lived in other countries for 3 generations now. Having the "refugee" status persist through the generations is without precedent. The UN has a special body for refugees, and another special body for Palestinian refugees whose interest is perpetuating the problem rather than solving it. If the countries the descendants of Palestinian refugees gave them basic rights and assimilated them, the problem would be solved. If Israel allowed the descendants to enter ("Return" is really an inaccurate word choice given that most of them were never in Israel) it would destroy it.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#47

Post by sanxiyn »

lionhearted wrote: post #37
accountswu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple one-liners often work well to brush aside the real issues, you don't need an argument, just a simplistic phrase that plays with emotions is enough. May I suggest that you read about who was at fault at what place and when? The current Syrian dictatorship is not US-supported, neither are Iran and North Korea. Does that mean that Britain and US have no part in bringing Iran to where it is today (i.e. 1953)? Do y…

Normally I try to stay out of politics, but this one is really off-the-mark -- > Do you deny that 2 million Koreans were brutally murdered as a part of an imperial struggle in 1940s? That's... not even close to a correct understanding of what happening. Without the U.S. forces in the Pacific, Korea gets Japanized by Imperial Japan and Korean culture very possibly would have been eradicated and the Koreans assimilated…

I agree. If UN ever did the right thing by military intervention, Korean war was it.

I live in South Korea. Thank you all nations which helped us.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#48

Post by flyinRyan »

mattmanser wrote: post #44
molmalo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should live outside USA for a while to check out why that happens... You don't have to go as far as the middle east, just go anywhere south of the border. Almost every coup in Central and South America was orchestrated with help, support and/or acceptance from the CIA and Pentagon. They trained and supported dictators (School of americas, national security doctrine, and so on), that ruled in support of their inte…

I can't tell if this is a parody or not! A perfect example of kprobst's point with the added comedy bonus that you threw a rant about oil in there too!

If you can't tell that probably means you haven't spent any real time outside the US (and being on a military base in a foreign country doesn't count). I'm glad all the suffering that the US military causes is humorous to you though.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#49

Post by flyinRyan »

planetguy wrote: post #26
kprobst wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paraphrase Jamie Zawinski, all online conversations about geopolitics expand until the United States is at fault.

That's a fabulous line, I'm going to remember that one.

No, it's a useless line that sounds like ignorant whining. "Boo hoo, every time I go online someone complains about the US, why don't they just be quiet!"

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#50

Post by flyinRyan »

mynameishere wrote: post #9
vijayr wrote: post #3

This reminds me of a story I read as a kid, not exactly a fight against brutal regimes though (don't know if it is a true story either): When shoe factory workers went on strike in Japan, they used a very interesting method - no shouting, or blocking roads etc. They simply made just one half of a pair (just the left side, I think). Thousands of shoes produced every day, but just the left shoe. Didn't take long for th…

That would normally result in mass firings or a lockout, both legitimate in a case like that.

Japan must have more reasonable labor laws.
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