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Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

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Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#51

Post by flyinRyan »

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.)…

>Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. He is increasingly being proven correct.

Citations? He wasn't even proven correct in India! It was people like Bhagat Singh who finally convinced Britian that it just wasn't worth the trouble. Do you honestly think Gandhi's peaceful protests did anything? If you had some land that you were exploiting for great profit and the only thing between you and more riches was Ghandi would you stop? Of course not, he's no threat to anything. His "great insight" guarantees he never will be. The only thing that could be problematic would be if a majority of the people you need to exploit started doing the same thing, but game theory tells us this probably won't be the case. Just shoot a Ghandi or two and most people will go back to the factories/fields.

I know of no country gaining independence or changing their government without violence or the threat of violence. Of course Britain wants to claim that Ghandi had something to do with it. Hopefully next time people will be stupid enough to believe it, only resist peacefully and we can just ignore them.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#52

Post by flyinRyan »

mythealias wrote: post #22
dredmorbius wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires an opponent who is capable of being shamed. Hitler wasn't shameable, nor Stalin. America wasn't in fighting the native tribes in the 19th century, or the Philippines at the turn of the 20th. The Japanese at Nanking and elsewhere. The Ottoman Empire in Armenia (a matter Turkey to this day will not acknowledge or discuss), in Greece, in Assyria, and Kurdistan following WWI. China in Tibet. Britain/Australia…

Nonviolence is a simple idea. It works when majority of people stop working, enough to cause loss to a company or the ruling party. It requires that the ruling party gains it power from the working class, which was the case in British ruled India and similarly in Iran. It will fail if one nation is attacking another. It would have worked against Hitler if the German people had revolted (I guess they did not because t…

This is wrong. Nonviolence on its own doesn't work at all. Gandhi would have been forgotten by now if people like Bhagat Singh hadn't been making enough trouble to cause the venture to not be worth the cost. Martin Luther King would have failed had the black panthers not been effective with their violence (e.g. "the bomb blast heard 'round the world" mentioned in a King speech). Peaceful resistance probably was tried in Germany, but the Nazis had a habit of disappearing people who didn't toe the party line. You honestly believe the majority of people in Germany thought Hitler was wrong? It was dangerous to disagree.

I don't think Nonvioence and Game Theory play nice together. Nonviolence as a complete solution strikes me as an idea that we really want to believe but isn't actually true. There are many things in this world that are bad and I would like to see changed. I'd love to be able to just be nonviolent and cause it to change but I don't think history is very kind to this fantasy.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#53

Post by flyinRyan »

gruseom wrote: post #31
planetguy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing what you'd like to be true with what actually is true. >Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. Except: that isn't true. Or rather, it's true only in certain circumstances. >Popular movements pretty much instantly lose their legitimacy when they turn violent Perhaps, but "legitimacy" and three bucks will get you a cup of coffee. Power a…

Of course I don't mean that nonviolence beats violence every time (edit: though in fairness I do see what sounded like that). That would be magic fairy dust. The point about Gandhi is that what he did worked at all . Power accumulates in the hands of whoever controls large numbers of men with guns. If you're right, why would the military take Sharp seriously, as the article says they do? Don't they have all the guns?…

Well I personally contend that it's never worked at all. Do you have any specific examples?

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#54

Post by flyinRyan »

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?

No, he's saying Sharp is irrelevant. Change only comes through violence or threat of violence so the Parent apparently meant that uprising is so feared that Sharp's methods are being trumpeted as being effective in the hopes of keeping everyone peaceful and controllable.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#55

Post by mattmanser »

flyinRyan wrote: post #48
mattmanser wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And I'm not even from the US...

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#56

Post by accountswu »

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 think that your message shows one side of the story and that's the official US side. Like Gore Vidal said that in United States of Amnesia people don't remember anything that happened before last Monday.

Ever read about the 1980 Gwangju massacre? That was a massacre of 2000+ civilians in US-occupied South Korea, carried out by the US supported dictator General Chun Doo-hwan while Carter continued to support him.

http://www.workers.org/2005/world/gwangju-0526/ "They came to the U.S. on the 25th anni versary of the massacre because this is the country that has had the ultimate authority over the South Korean military since the end of World War II. It is the country that allowed a succession of military dictatorships to abuse the people even while nearly 40,000 U.S. troops were occupying the country. And it is the country that explicitly—and this has now been proven— gave the orders that allowed the Gwangju massacre to happen. And they came here, said Kim Hyo-Seok, to demand of the U.S. government that it “speak the truth, then apologize and pay reparations to the victims.” Kim spent time after the uprising and massacre as a political prisoner.

The U.S. government and the establishment media never talk about the Gwangju massacre. But in South Korea, that terrible event marked a turning point in the people’s acceptance of U.S. military occupation. Today, the majority of South Koreans say in polls that the biggest threat to peace in their country comes from the U.S.

May 18, the day that the uprising began in 1980, is now a national holiday in South Korea and Gwangju reverberates to demonstrations and rallies calling for U.S. troops out. Since the Iraq War began, a focus of those rallies has also been the demand that no Korean troops be sent to the Middle East."

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#57

Post by accountswu »

Peaker wrote: post #46
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 bod…

Yeah, nukes were almost a survival necessity for apartheid South Africa, weapons were necessary for white supremacists in US to continue killing any black people that demanded equal rights.

A country that continues to reject a peace treaty being offered by dozens of its neighbors, refuses to return the occupied land to its neighbors (for example, Syria's Golan Heights, Lebanon's land, not to talk of the Palestinian occupied land) surely needs nukes or a visit to the shrink. Look up the resolution that is brought up by Arab countries every year since 1980 or so, every year the whole world is on one side, and two countries on the other side (Israel, US, occasionally joined by Australia, Canada, Micronesia, Palau Islands etc). http://www.google.com/search?q=peaceful+settlement+of+the+pa...

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/resolving-the-israel-palest... Year Vote [Yes-No-Abstained] Negative votes cast by…

1997 155-2-3 Israel, United States

1998 154-2-3 Israel, United States

...

2006 157-7-10 Israel, United States , Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau

2007 161-7-5 Israel, United States , Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau

http://www.google.com/search?q=south+africa+nukes+israel

"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... 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."

Oh yeah, just like in South Africa giving equal rights to those within Israel/Palestine would destroy it, so keep denying the right of return to natives, and keep bringing in Jews only. Build more nukes rather than give equal rights, sounds like a plan. Just ask the South Africans who say that Israel is worse than apartheid South Africa because in SA they weren't using helicopters and F-16s to bomb the blacks. www.google.com/search?q=desmond+tutu+israel+worse+than+apartheid

Let me make sure you understand what you are saying, you are saying that the Jews of Europe, or North Africa or Australia who never lived in historic Palestine, whose ancestors never lived in historic Palestine in 1000+ years, they have the right to "return" to Israel/Palestine but those who were kicked out in 1948 and those who still have deeds and the keys to their homes do not have the right to return to where they were born or their parents were born?

Are you not aware that any person with no link to Palestine/Israel can convert to Judaism and get instant citizenship of Israel and immigrate there based on the right of "return"? Are you saying that a converted Jewish person has more right to "return" to a Jewish-only settlement (i.e. the settlements which are being built on 22% of the remaining Palestine which was occupied in 1967, not the Israel proper which was occupied in 1948)?

And that the non-Jews of occupied Palestinian territories and of Israel proper are justifiably kicked out of their homes? Forget about the 750,000 natives that were kicked out in 1948 and their descendants, have you ever heard about the hundreds of thousands of native Palestinians whose residency has been cancelled since 1967 occupation began?

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-admits-... "Israel stripped more than 100,000 residents of Gaza and some 140,000 residents of the West Bank of their residency rights during the 27 years between its conquest of the territories in 1967 and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994."

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/former-thug-who-fo... "Marcus Hardie grew up in an African-American community in Los Angeles, where his nickname was "American Thug."

"I was a tough gangster," he says.

But after a religious awakening that brought him to Judaism and eventually led him to immigrate to Israel, his street name changed to "American Faith.""

I am not sure if you are a victim of the hasbara propaganda or if you're part of it, but either way you should read what Israel has been doing before you justify its actions.

http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/israels-pret... http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-is-more-foc... http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/israeli-stud... "The National Union of Israeli Students (NUIS) has become a full-time partner in the Israeli government’s efforts to spread its propaganda online and on college campuses around the world.

NUIS has launched a program to pay Israeli university students $2,000 to spread pro-Israel propaganda online for 5 hours per week from the “comfort of home.”"

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/peled-the-only-way-forward-is-...

Peled: The only way forward is ‘transformation’ of a racist apartheid state into a democracy

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#58

Post by Peaker »

accountswu wrote: post #57
Peaker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bod…

Yeah, nukes were almost a survival necessity for apartheid South Africa, weapons were necessary for white supremacists in US to continue killing any black people that demanded equal rights. A country that continues to reject a peace treaty being offered by dozens of its neighbors, refuses to return the occupied land to its neighbors (for example, Syria's Golan Heights, Lebanon's land, not to talk of the Palestinian o…

I am an Israeli - and am quite disheartened that you are bringing /r/worldnews style comments to HN.

Let's keep it focused and avoid the useless flame wars, shall we?

Whether you agree with Israel's actions or not, it needs its nukes to survive and Iran does not.

The conflict is two-sided. Israel is responsible for a lot of unacceptable actions, as are each of its neighbors. Singling Israel out is not honest and is in fact a form propaganda.

Jews are not returning to Israel -- they are being welcomed in Israel, in an act of voluntary consent between the two sides.

The whole purpose of Israel was creating a refuge for Jews from around the world, because it became historically clear that Jews need it.

I don't think in 2012 we should still be "solving" the refugees crisis of the 1940's. They should have been accepted into their host countries long ago. Instead, they live without rights and under apartheid in Lebanon, Syria and other Arab countries. Those that immigrated to Western countries did get their full citizenship rights.

I agree Israel should end the occupation and return to 1967 lines (and agreements about land swaps for large settlement blocs are probably possible).

And I agree nobody should be kicked from their homes.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#59

Post by kprobst »

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…

> You should live outside USA for a while

That's amusing, considering I was born in Mexico. Keep trying to 'school' me though, you're doing great.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#60

Post by batista »

jholman wrote: post #24
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…

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!

>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?

Because 99% of "academics writers" on such issues push US foreign policy, with very few exceptions, like Chomsky (which is not an academic in those fields of study, anyway). Think tanks even more so.

This very article, for example, targets US's target du jour, Iran.

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