Nonviolent Protesting

[Dognik]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

This is very well said. Indeed I think protesting has only limited effect. Peaceful or not. However changing ourselfs does little more since unless everyone does so, it also is only limited. Now that is a little bit of a dilemma - if protesting does not help and some people who somehow got enlightened change themselves but that is not enough - what can be done then? How to save this beloved planet and how to free the people?

You misunderstood me. You still expect everyone to do as you wish. So I can`t change the world, the people, but i can do things which i think people can be happy about without becoming a victim or slave. I mean for example give a hug to the closest family, ask my colleauges how they are, say someone "you look great today", and surely have a look around to preserve nature, but just for myself. You know maybe those small actions won`t affect people, maybe they will, maybe it won`t change anything, but that doesn`t care. Its all about your feeling about it and the signal you send, and maybe you get it back. We always have the choice. And so it goes on, if we say i start seperate the garbage, buying only glass bottles and so on..
I think these are the small things which count and not the Politics BLABLA abou Kyoto or other **** programmes.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Dognik

You misunderstood me. You still expect everyone to do as you wish. So I can`t change the world, the people, but i can do things which i think people can be happy about without becoming a victim or slave. I mean for example give a hug to the closest family, ask my colleauges how they are, say someone "you look great today", and surely have a look around to preserve nature, but just for myself. [...]And so it goes on, if we say i start seperate the garbage, buying only glass bottles and so on..
I think these are the small things which count and not the Politics BLABLA abou Kyoto or other **** programmes.

I agree that politics as it is done now wont really help. But I think to start hugging people more often will not bring the rescue that is needed. If we had some decades time left, I'd say go for it - start hugging and do little things, separate your trash and maybe it will go somewhere. But as it is, the world is dying and while I am all in for more hugs and separating trash and all those little things, I think it will not be enough unless really a lot of people do this. Some people have been doing such things for many years now but it always had only limited effect. So certainly we separated trash and bought reusable bottles decades ago, we went to organic food stores when those were just a few and picked up trash in the forest 30 years ago - we told people to love nature, to love each other and all the other hippie stuff. But right now I have to say I am a pretty much pissed off hippie in that I see that the ignorance of so many people stands in the way of a continued existence of this world as it is. We (tree huggers, hippies, ecologists,...) have tried for decades to be nice, to explain how good it could all be and how greed and selfishness is not helping and that people should be positive to each other - and I still think so, but I am more and more afraid of failure. See, every day 200 species of living things on this planet go extinct forever. There are man made dead zones in the oceans larger than whole countries. The permafrost begins to thaw, deserts spread, water is becoming scarce and the fish are vacuumed out of the oceans while animals in farms are mistreated. More and more of these things come in. Yes I do hug my friends and I continue to divide my trash in 8 differnt trashcans for recycling and turn on the hot water heater only twice a week and buy reusable bottles and organic food and energy saving light bulbs and all the load of it. But this is not enough, to just took at oneself is not enough I think - of course in the end everyone will have to change to save the planet, but I dont think this will happen by people mysteriously awakening. For some it will, but I think others have to be awoken and those who prefer to stay deeply asleep may have to be shaken or at least stopped in their sleepwalking madness....

RE nonviolent protesting: Here are some images from what happened last weekend in Germany. People chained themselves to railways, put their vehicles on the road, placed trees on the rails and tried to remove cobbles from underneath them in another act of civil disopbedience and putting their bodies in line of another transport of deadly nuclear waste to an unsafe storage compound. Of course the police was as always not exactly peaceful and started beating away, confiscated press equipment and peppersprayed journalists. This is what people should start to get - the violence against people in these actions is in most cases happening on the side of the police while the protesters rather resort to property destruction (like throwing paintbombs at police cars).

http://www.ndr.de/regional/niedersac...ntentgross.jpg
Atom-Transport: Letzte Etappe für den Castor - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Politik
Atom-Transport: Letzte Etappe für den Castor - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Politik
Atom-Transport: Letzte Etappe für den Castor - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Politik

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

RE nonviolent protesting: Here are some images from what happened last weekend in Germany. People chained themselves to railways, put their vehicles on the road, placed trees on the rails and tried to remove cobbles from underneath them in another act of civil disopbedience and putting their bodies in line of another transport of deadly nuclear waste to an unsafe storage compound. Of course the police was as always not exactly peaceful and started beating away, confiscated press equipment and peppersprayed journalists. This is what people should start to get - the violence against people in these actions is in most cases happening on the side of the police while the protesters rather resort to property destruction (like throwing paintbombs at police cars).

http://www.ndr.de/regional/niedersac...ntentgross.jpg
Atom-Transport: Letzte Etappe für den Castor - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Politik
Atom-Transport: Letzte Etappe für den Castor - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Politik
Atom-Transport: Letzte Etappe für den Castor - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten – Politik

Wasn't Germany supposed to stop using nuclear power altogether in 2012 or something? Doesn't really create the aura of the kind of confidence if they don't even know how to properly store nuclear waste. Germans were supposed to be good at this practical stuff, but I guess the twisted hand of financial politics is there to demand sacrifices for such an act of disobedience, who knows.

Anyhow, don't you know that property costs money, but people are free? I mean if you beat someone to a bloody mess with a nightstick, you don't have to pay them money to go get some repairs as you would have to if you did the same for their car. Like there are so many of us, and none of us do as we are told as any good car would, and you wonder why the police get upset when you ruin their reliable cars. There is inherent value in a car, and we all agree on that one, but there is no value in human life.

What does that say about us?

[auroraglacialis]

Yeah - this culture values production and dead things over life

Yes, Germany is supposed to stop using nuclear power by 2022 (not 2012). But there is no place to put the waste. Nowhere in the world there is a place as of yet. In Germany it is especially nasty because there have been some political stunts involved in this place. It was chosen purely for political reasons. Geologists suggested a handful locations, this place was not on the list. It was added in handwriting under the list by some politician before it was given for decision. It used to be close to the border to eastern Germany - nice move because if something goes wrong the junk will go to the east to the "enemy". Then Germany was reunited and now it is dead in the middle of it - in an unstable salt mine similar to that which was used as a test site for nuclear storage and which is collapsing nowadays while they try to get the waste out again because it is unsafe. No one wants this again. So people still protest against putting the waste in such a place that was not thoroughly tested with a positive result

[Human No More]

Keep the unrelated rants out of this thread or it will be considered as having run its course.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Yeah - this culture values production and dead things over life

Not quite, because that still leaves one detail out of the picture, as you can't yet produce things without life.

This culture values things that are useful, and people who don't do as they are told, or in cases like these, oppose the things others(usually those who make the rules) want to do, then people become opposite to useful in their eyes.

Life has value as long as it is productive, because you can't quite yet make things without labour, but I think this small little inconvenience should be taken care of, as machines are much better at doing things. They don't tire out, do not require money, days off or anything else that blights the usual fragile organic worker.

Or as I like to call it, this culture likes to turn people into machines who perform menial repetitive tasks ad infinitum. And while all of this is utterly insane, it's the only way to keep the broken system going, so unfortunately we are kind of stuck with it until we develop something better.

Originally Posted by Human No More

Keep the unrelated rants out of this thread or it will be considered as having run its course.

Isn't that a bit too much?

Like I talked about this with Eltu, the purpose of a forum is to talk, and if we only talk things strictly related to the topic, then this place would be far less interesting. People would just post less, because they wouldn't want to upset the neat order of things, and to me, that doesn't make sense.

We all talk about the things we know about and think are appropriate, and I don't see anything inappropriate or unrelated, though maybe that's because I have completely lost it due to allowing myself to have feelings again. In such case, I apologize for my lack of objectivity, but for now, I think that's not the case.

[Moco Loco]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

Life has value as long as it is productive, because you can't quite yet make things without labour, but I think this small little inconvenience should be taken care of, as machines are much better at doing things. They don't tire out, do not require money, days off or anything else that blights the usual fragile organic worker.

IMO it'll be a very long time until human workers are completely replaced. Though we may have advanced enough to actually reach this pretty soon, the world economy certainly wouldn't allow for it in the near future.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by Moco Loco

IMO it'll be a very long time until human workers are completely replaced. Though we may have advanced enough to actually reach this pretty soon, the world economy certainly wouldn't allow for it in the near future.

That's because the economy and automation are in a direct collision course with one another.

You need to pay people money to get things done, but you also need people to have money to buy those things, and if you don't have people earning money by doing things, then you can't be selling stuff because nobody can afford it.

The way our economy works is just plain fail.

[Moco Loco]

I often wonder when technological advances of that type will start to happen or if they ever will.

[Aquaplant]

Technology will never go there in our society that works only when people work and consume all the time, because that's the only way to keep this ball rolling. The only other alternative is to find another ball, but that's not something I have any say in.

[Theorist]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

That is so wrong...

It is a victim-mentality that I think is all too prevalent in so many protesting. The glorification of becoming a victim. The honorable martyr suffering stuff. Does that really work? Maybe it works with people who have a shred of a heart left and can be appealed to. It certainly wont work on those persons that dont have it, can not afford to show it or simply are just "legal persons" that dont have a heart to begin with. It also wont work with abusers, who are actually having plenty of experience on how to deal with victims and how to ignore anything related to that (like creating illusions of the responsability of the abuse to be searched by the victim, e.g. "she did dreass like a slut so I had to..." - or here "they did not want to move off the sidewalk, so we had to pepperspray them")


Protest is quite often self-defense or defense of others, dont you think. Or maybe not protesting but direct actions. If I chain myself to a tree to prevent a pipeline carrying toxic stuff actoss the wild land I live with, isnt that self-defense then? And if someone from the ALF goes out and liberates some mistreated animals in fur farms, that is in their eyes certainly similar to help someone who is being beaten, just that their compassion goes beyond humans. And in a peaceful protest - people actually usually defend their right to equality, liberty and freedom and if they are beaten or evicted by the police they come into the situation of possibly fasing a person with a stick who wants to beat them - can you seriously tell them that they should be just standing there and take the beating until they end up in hospital with brain damage?

I guess you and I differ on ideals here. That's all I can really say.

I suppose too you can argue what exactly non-violent protesting is, and what self defense is. One could say the protesters at UC Davis weren't being non violent, because there's a higher risk of injury walking off the side walk than on it. I mean it'd kinda be BS if they said that, but they could argue the specifics I guess if they really wanted too. Same goes for if protesters are blocking a road. Is that non violent? It would cause a higher risk of accidents because of larger traffic flow down sorrounding roads, but I think most people would say that is non violent, but again one can argue the specifics if they so desire.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

["this culture values production and dead things over life"]Not quite, because that still leaves one detail out of the picture, as you can't yet produce things without life.

That may be reality, but I was talking about what the values are that are expressed. (Nonhuman) life is a mere inconvenience in this context, as you say: "Life has value as long as it is productive, because you can't quite yet make things without labour, but I think this small little inconvenience should be taken care of, as machines are much better at doing things."
Here we have it. This is what I am saying - that once machines have been found to be "more efficient" in production than human and nonhuman life, life uses even more of itrs value! But already now, the goal seems to be what I said - production of dead things.
This is what I am scared of - that civilized humans really will find a way to jump over that fence and realize that goal - in the process devalueing life itself (at least biological human and nonhuman life) and fulfilling the goal of increasing production of dead things without the present day limits of dependence on the natural world.

[machines]They don't tire out, do not require money, days off or anything else that blights the usual fragile organic worker.

Haha, tell that the instrument I am working with, which has a downtime of about 50%, costs a huge amount of money in replacement parts and looses a part from old age every few weeks or so.

Originally Posted by Moco Loco

...may have advanced enough to actually reach this pretty soon, the world economy certainly wouldn't allow for it in the near future.

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

That's because the economy and automation are in a direct collision course with one another.[...]
The way our economy works is just plain fail.

Indeed - if you really desire a Star-Trek machine-utopia (machines doing all the work while humans can be indulging in creative laziness, exploration or other fun), the consumerist, capitalist economy is a hindrance because it is based on inequality, work, labour ownership and power. Power that has to be resisted - maybe by nonviolent protests, maybe otherwise.

Originally Posted by Theorist

I suppose too you can argue what exactly non-violent protesting is, and what self defense is. One could say the protesters at UC Davis weren't being non violent, because there's a higher risk of injury walking off the side walk than on it.[...]

"Man darf nicht warten, bis der Freiheitskampf Landesverrat genannt wird." Erich Kästner
"One should not wait so long, as when the fight for freedom is called treason"

The definitions of what is violent and nonviolent struggle - in whose hands is it? Who defines what the majority will accept as violent or nonviolent? Is it those who do the protesting or is it the ones that are protested against? What does the answer say about the choices for the protesters that try to always be nonviolent?

My example from Germany is not without relationship to this topic. Last weekend literally thousands of people sat on railway tracks, some chained themselves to it, others carried logs or rocks to block the way of the nuclear waste train. This is to most part still called nonviolent protesting here, and police usually tries to just carry them away. Unlike in the US where those people are just peppersprayed like hated insects. But the borderline is thin - some argue already that this is not acceptable because it impairs the regular workings of that transport. And also, plenty of people were beaten, sprayed and hurt by police even though they did certainly not throw the first stone. Violent protests are all too often violent because of violence from "above". There is an institutionalized difference between someone higher on the hierarchy acting in violence and someone lower in the hierarchy doing the same. Depending on who does it, it is called "the law" or "violent resistance". The law claims its right to violence (e.g. police using violence to remove nonviolent protesters) to be based in the will of the people (all the people), but I think that this is not reality. Few people would actually vote on thousands of policemen removing protesters from railway tracks because they want to see nuclear waste dumped into an unsafe place. And even fewer would agree to the means this is somtimes done. But most people dont even know (this is changing with more protesters owning videocameras) and those who know all too often succumb to the "just a few bad apples" theme, downplaying these incidents as collateral damage.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

["this culture values production and dead things over life"]Not quite, because that still leaves one detail out of the picture, as you can't yet produce things without life.

That may be reality, but I was talking about what the values are that are expressed. (Nonhuman) life is a mere inconvenience in this context, as you say: "Life has value as long as it is productive, because you can't quite yet make things without labour, but I think this small little inconvenience should be taken care of, as machines are much better at doing things."
Here we have it. This is what I am saying - that once machines have been found to be "more efficient" in production than human and nonhuman life, life uses looses even more of itrs value! But already now, the goal seems to be what I said - production of dead things.
This is what I am scared of - that civilized humans really will find a way to jump over that fence and realize that goal - in the process devalueing life itself (at least biological human and nonhuman life) and fulfilling the goal of increasing production of dead things without the present day limits of dependence on the natural world.

[machines]They don't tire out, do not require money, days off or anything else that blights the usual fragile organic worker.

Haha, tell that the instrument I am working with, which has a downtime of about 50%, costs a huge amount of money in replacement parts and looses a part from old age every few weeks or so.

Originally Posted by Moco Loco

...may have advanced enough to actually reach this pretty soon, the world economy certainly wouldn't allow for it in the near future.

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

That's because the economy and automation are in a direct collision course with one another.[...]
The way our economy works is just plain fail.

Indeed - if you really desire a Star-Trek machine-utopia (machines doing all the work while humans can be indulging in creative laziness, exploration or other fun), the consumerist, capitalist economy is a hindrance because it is based on inequality, work, labour ownership and power. Power that has to be resisted - maybe by nonviolent protests, maybe otherwise.

Originally Posted by Theorist

I suppose too you can argue what exactly non-violent protesting is, and what self defense is. One could say the protesters at UC Davis weren't being non violent, because there's a higher risk of injury walking off the side walk than on it.[...]

"Man darf nicht warten, bis der Freiheitskampf Landesverrat genannt wird." Erich Kästner
"One should not wait so long, as when the fight for freedom is called treason"

The definitions of what is violent and nonviolent struggle - in whose hands is it? Who defines what the majority will accept as violent or nonviolent? Is it those who do the protesting or is it the ones that are protested against? What does the answer say about the choices for the protesters that try to always be nonviolent?

My example from Germany is not without relationship to this topic. Last weekend literally thousands of people sat on railway tracks, some chained themselves to it, others carried logs or rocks to block the way of the nuclear waste train. This is to most part still called nonviolent protesting here, and police usually tries to just carry them away. Unlike in the US where those people are just peppersprayed like hated insects. But the borderline is thin - some argue already that this is not acceptable because it impairs the regular workings of that transport. And also, plenty of people were beaten, sprayed and hurt by police even though they did certainly not throw the first stone. Violent protests are all too often violent because of violence from "above". There is an institutionalized difference between someone higher on the hierarchy acting in violence and someone lower in the hierarchy doing the same. Depending on who does it, it is called "the law" or "violent resistance". The law claims its right to violence (e.g. police using violence to remove nonviolent protesters) to be based in the will of the people (all the people), but I think that this is not reality. Few people would actually vote on thousands of policemen removing protesters from railway tracks because they want to see nuclear waste dumped into an unsafe place. And even fewer would agree to the means this is somtimes done. But most people dont even know (this is changing with more protesters owning videocameras) and those who know all too often succumb to the "just a few bad apples" theme, downplaying these incidents as collateral damage.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

That may be reality, but I was talking about what the values are that are expressed. (Nonhuman) life is a mere inconvenience in this context, as you say: "Life has value as long as it is productive, because you can't quite yet make things without labour, but I think this small little inconvenience should be taken care of, as machines are much better at doing things."
Here we have it. This is what I am saying - that once machines have been found to be "more efficient" in production than human and nonhuman life, life uses even more of itrs value! But already now, the goal seems to be what I said - production of dead things.
This is what I am scared of - that civilized humans really will find a way to jump over that fence and realize that goal - in the process devalueing life itself (at least biological human and nonhuman life) and fulfilling the goal of increasing production of dead things without the present day limits of dependence on the natural world.

The way I see it, my life already has no value unless I constantly do as I'm told by others, and churn out money and goods as best of my ability, but that is a game I'm not going to play. (edit: text removed, sorry, my bad). As I said before, I'm not a good hamster, nor am I a good "back to nature" person, so I'm kind of walking a tight rope when it comes to these things.

Haha, tell that the instrument I am working with, which has a downtime of about 50%, costs a huge amount of money in replacement parts and looses a part from old age every few weeks or so.

And what instruments might these be? But as a computer enthusiast I have to agree that hardware failure is unfortunately common these days, but it is also mainly of the result of our profit oriented system, because the point is not to make high quality products, but to sell as many crappy products as possible.

The rule of cheap junk applies here, because you, or the one who bought said instruments have already served their purpose by providing money to those who made them, and after that, it doesn't matter how well your products work, because they have no reason to care now that they have your money.

Indeed - if you really desire a Star-Trek machine-utopia (machines doing all the work while humans can be indulging in creative laziness, exploration or other fun), the consumerist, capitalist economy is a hindrance because it is based on inequality, work, labour ownership and power. Power that has to be resisted - maybe by nonviolent protests, maybe otherwise.

Now you are finally getting in tune what I'm all about, but I'm afraid that I'm not as resourceful as you are when it comes to resisting our current capitalist society and all things that empower it.

[apache_blanca]

Starting from the end:
I agree with Dognik about "if you want to change the world - start with yourself". Yes, sure - the world is not perfect. Are we?

I disagree about a human being being a mass animal (and nothing more). Animals are mostly (altho not always) ruled by instincts; human beings have the gift of the free choice. Every one chooses, & often one makes a choice even when one is not aware of it. And if there is an action - there is a reaction.

Back to the OP:
the protesters made their choice, the policeman made his choice, the chancellor made her choice, & the silent protesters made their choice. Now each one is dealing with the consequences of their actions. The story is all over the internet & the policeman could be cursing the moment he chose to use the excessive force & show "who the boss was" - or he may choose to blame the "punks & hippies" for the unwelcome (for him) attention to his face & name completely ignoring the fact that it was him who triggered the situation.

Personally, I choose to admire the silent protesters. The concentrated silence was So powerful. Yes, true, people achieved many things with violent, or aggressive, protests over centuries (thinking French Revolution for example, with their addiction to chop heads off) - but now times are different, & maybe the protesting methods need a revision: less violence, more consciousness. Or more conscience.