Nonviolence

A report by the RCMP’s Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Team reveals that Canada state surveillance of, and rhetoric about, grassroots environmental activists is not much different than in the US. We see the same false suppositions: The well being of the people aligns with that of exploitative corporations which destroy landbases and poison the land, water, and air Those defending land for current and future human and non-human inhabitants are working against the well being of the people ...

In this new essay, Will Falk of DGR San Diego explores the extreme possibilities of violence: choosing to die, and choosing to kill. He asks how these decisions relate to the ongoing violence of civilization and asks what we need to do, and what we’re willing to do in response: It is becoming increasingly clear the dominant culture must be stopped. The more effective we become at resisting, the more violence will be visited upon us. Will we be strong enough to decide to die for a better world? Will we be strong enough to decide to kill for a better world? If this sounds too extreme, then I ask you what decisions were faced by Tecumseh, Nat Turner, Crazy Horse, Denmark Vesey, and Padráic Pearse when they picked up rifles and hatchets to meet bullets and swords? ...

Diversifying tactics does not mean that our movements have to polarize around the “violent/nonviolent” debate. This letter from a member of Decolonize/Occupy Seattle frames the debate well. It might give you some ideas for clarifying this debate at your local General Assembly. Open Letter to Decolonize / Occupy Seattle Originally published at Occupy Seattle I am writing concerning the debate about nonviolence vs. diversity of tactics. I can’t be at GAs this week because I am visiting friends and speaking about the port shutdown to folks from Occupy Wall Street in NYC. Please share this with people on all sides of the debate; I wished to raise some of these points in the GA on Tuesday but was never called on (which is okay, a lot of other people had crucial things to say). For transparency’s sake, I wish to emphasize I am definitely part of the broad “radical” tendency of Decolonize/ Occupy Seattle, but I do not speak for all radicals. We have no representatives or leadership structure; in fact, we are a loose grouping of like-minded activists, not an organization. Here I wish to emphasize a particular radical perspective that I think has been unfortunately drowned out by the polarizing debate. ...