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Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

edition.cnn.com

71–80 of 88 posts

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#71
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

Sad indeed, the news of a a cat being rescued from a tree or Lindsay Lohan on drugs again is more important, that another 4 or 14 Afghan kids were just killed by NATO is not worthy of prime time, not when we are the ones killing kids.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#72
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Given that you credit Martin Luther King's success not to nonviolence but to the Black Panthers, who didn't even exist until 1966, I believe no example will convince you. This is one of the low points of a thread with a lot of low points. I regret posting the article. It was borderline to begin with (political, but intellectually interesting), but the toxicity of the discussion it immediately gave rise to shows that…

I was quoting from memory. So it wasn't the Black Panthers but there was targeted violence going on. Of course if you're going to give in you want to give credit to someone like Martin Luther King so hopefully in future people will imagine that non-violence works and you can be safe to ignore them.

It was certainly wrong of you to try and forward the propaganda machine of claiming the nonviolence on its own is an effective mechanism against dictatorships. None of us want violence, but many of us don't want lies either.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#73
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Given that you credit Martin Luther King's success not to nonviolence but to the Black Panthers, who didn't even exist until 1966, I believe no example will convince you. This is one of the low points of a thread with a lot of low points. I regret posting the article. It was borderline to begin with (political, but intellectually interesting), but the toxicity of the discussion it immediately gave rise to shows that…

I'm very glad you posted it, as I don't know if I would have heard of Gene Sharp any other way.

The fractiousness of the discussion is unfortunate, but nobody has to read it.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#74
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that you credit Martin Luther King's success not to nonviolence but to the Black Panthers, who didn't even exist until 1966, I believe no example will convince you. This is one of the low points of a thread with a lot of low points. I regret posting the article. It was borderline to begin with (political, but intellectually interesting), but the toxicity of the discussion it immediately gave rise to shows that…

I'm very glad you posted it, as I don't know if I would have heard of Gene Sharp any other way. The fractiousness of the discussion is unfortunate, but nobody has to read it.

Thanks for saying so. I'm glad I peeked back in here and saw it. Yes, Sharp is genuinely interesting.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#75
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may not attack fishermen, but they do kill Israeli families, fire rockets at Israeli civilian cities, and otherwise engage in horrific violence towards Israeli citizens. How could it not be at anyone's expense? There is no free and open land for the taking. If the Jews wanted to survive, they had only one choice, creating a homeland and that means somebody else will lose his control over that piece of land. It i…

No one says that whites were the victims of Mandela's ANC, why do you insist on justifying an occupying military that is enforcing an apartheid? Probably a few of the Egyptian military and police have been killed by protesters but I only mentioned the 1000+ civilians killed by the police and military, no one insisted that mention the dictator's side of the story, why do you say that I am giving a one-sided story of I…

> Do you know that home-made Palestinian rockets have killed less than 50 people in decades?

Now this is an outright lie. Please try to remain honest in this debate, it is full of enough misinformation.

The rockets are not home-made. They are Grad BM-21's, military-grade improvement of the Katyusha rocket.

The reason they don't kill many Israelis is because Israel builds bomb shelters and every Israeli home has one. Israelis have an alarm system that lets people find shelter in time for the strike.

Homes are destroyed by these grads. Even the "home-made" Qassams (which are actually made in specialized factories in Gaza, hard-to-say "home" made) carry more than 20 pounds of TNT.

It's hard to take your argument seriously when you are repeating these propaganda talking points, and that's where I stopped reading.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#77
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one says that whites were the victims of Mandela's ANC, why do you insist on justifying an occupying military that is enforcing an apartheid? Probably a few of the Egyptian military and police have been killed by protesters but I only mentioned the 1000+ civilians killed by the police and military, no one insisted that mention the dictator's side of the story, why do you say that I am giving a one-sided story of I…

> Do you know that home-made Palestinian rockets have killed less than 50 people in decades? Now this is an outright lie. Please try to remain honest in this debate, it is full of enough misinformation. The rockets are not home-made. They are Grad BM-21's, military-grade improvement of the Katyusha rocket. The reason they don't kill many Israelis is because Israel builds bomb shelters and every Israeli home has one.…

>Now this is an outright lie.

No Sir, you're BSing. I showed dozens of links that document the racism, apartheid and murder of "the other" that your state is carrying out and you seem to justify it. Show me how many people have been killed by Qassam or other rockets, show me a time period when Israel did not kill 4-10 times more people than killed by primitive rockets.

> because Israel builds bomb shelters

Israel refused to allow cement into Gaza for years even to build hospitals and schools that were destroyed in the 2008 massacre. Stop justifying the murder and terror that the Israeli regime is carrying out. Egyptian murders are bad, Israeli murderers have killed far more people than Egyptian tyrants. No one here justified Egyptian butchers, stop justifying Israeli terrorism.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/01/us-palestinians-is...

Gaza gets chocolate but no cement as embargo eases

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/help-replace-welshingazas-came...

Help replace @WelshinGaza’s camera destroyed by the Israeli navy

"On Monday, we published a harrowing account from @WelshinGaza about their standoff with the Israeli navy off the coast of Gaza. During the encounter, Welsh's camera was destroyed by a stream of water the navy shot at the human rights observation boat Welsh was traveling on."

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=498678

Israel demolishes Bedouin village for 39th time

<-- Al Araqib is a village which is inside the 1948 Israel boundary and its citizens are Israeli citizens but since they are not Jewish their houses are being demolished again and again so that other Jews can be brought in to settle in their place. The residents have deeds that predate the Zionist settler movement that accelerated in 1900s.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#78
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one says that whites were the victims of Mandela's ANC, why do you insist on justifying an occupying military that is enforcing an apartheid? Probably a few of the Egyptian military and police have been killed by protesters but I only mentioned the 1000+ civilians killed by the police and military, no one insisted that mention the dictator's side of the story, why do you say that I am giving a one-sided story of I…

> Do you know that home-made Palestinian rockets have killed less than 50 people in decades? Now this is an outright lie. Please try to remain honest in this debate, it is full of enough misinformation. The rockets are not home-made. They are Grad BM-21's, military-grade improvement of the Katyusha rocket. The reason they don't kill many Israelis is because Israel builds bomb shelters and every Israeli home has one.…

>It's hard to take your argument seriously when you are repeating these propaganda talking points, and that's where I stopped reading.

You are repeating Israeli military's propaganda. You are justifying the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and crying crocodile tears over Qassam rockets. Life is sacred, my problem is that I consider every single life sacred. To me the terrorism that kills tens of thousands (by nuclear-armed Israelis with white phosphorus, F-16s, Cobra Gunships) is far worse terrorism than the terrorism that kills 50 (by Qassam or other primitive, unguided rockets).

I'm not interested if you keep repeating your IDF propaganda. If you are sure you are correct then link to a credible source that shows Qassam killed more than Israeli F-16s, Gunships etc killed.

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#79
post #65
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means nothing. What he meant with "You should live outside USA for a while" is not actually literally living outside the USA, but seeing from the viewpoint of other countries. As in, the viewpoint of the MAJORITY of population of said countries. In all those countries where the US staged coups or intervened there is a fat-cat pro US establishment. Actually, that goes without saying for coups --you need local al…

> Which means nothing. It means that the OPs implied assertion that I fit his (probable) stereotype of the ignorant gringo is obviously incorrect. > the viewpoint of the MAJORITY of population of said countries Not sure how you get that, or even what it means, really.

>It means that the OPs implied assertion that I fit his (probable) stereotype of the ignorant gringo is obviously incorrect.

No. You could still be fitting his stereotype to a T. It's just that his way of determining it was inaccurate (but it wasn't meant to be taken literally in the first place).

"Try living there" should be read as "try walking in their shoes / understanding them", not as "live in that physical space".

One could be living in a country and have no fucking clue how the population thinks and feels. Westerners, with their expat clubs and little isolated houses, are very good at this. But even a local can achieve this ignorance. How many rich americans really know how "the other half lives", be it blacks, hispanics, white trash, etc?

>Not sure how you get that, or even what it means, really.

It means the "general sentiment" about something in a place.

If you doubt that such a thing exists about the issue of american intervention in latin countries, then you don't have a very good grasp of politics and/or reality (at least in this matter).

Re: Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare

#80
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you know that home-made Palestinian rockets have killed less than 50 people in decades? Now this is an outright lie. Please try to remain honest in this debate, it is full of enough misinformation. The rockets are not home-made. They are Grad BM-21's, military-grade improvement of the Katyusha rocket. The reason they don't kill many Israelis is because Israel builds bomb shelters and every Israeli home has one.…

>Now this is an outright lie. No Sir, you're BSing. I showed dozens of links that document the racism, apartheid and murder of "the other" that your state is carrying out and you seem to justify it. Show me how many people have been killed by Qassam or other rockets, show me a time period when Israel did not kill 4-10 times more people than killed by primitive rockets. > because Israel builds bomb shelters Israel ref…

You've just dodged the subject and went on to talk about something else.

Will you first admit that your claim about "home made" rockets or small amount of deaths are inaccurate and misleading?

There's no point in debating with someone who's made up his mind and only then goes looking for evidence to justify it.

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