(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Nonviolent Resistance as a viable path forward [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-27

There is a diary on here suggesting that our only path forward in this moment is taking up arms and engaging in a violent Civil War.

As a nation, we have been there and done that. First we waged a war to free ourselves from British rule, and then later engaged in a Civil War to keep the Confederacy from seceding.

And we very well may be heading for another Civil War. Check out this dive into the 2022 Stephen Marche Book The Next Civil War if you are looking for another reason to lose sleep at night.

It does seem clear that the Trump Regime is prepping to head off a potential Civil War through intimidation and, if needed, brute force.

Just a few indicators:

Putting former Trump lawyer Pam Bondi in charge of the Department of Justice to turn it into a department of Political Intimidation and revenge.

Firing Trump-appointed FBI chief Christopher Wray and appointing vengeful Trump crony Kash Patel.

Appointing White Supremacist Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and standing idly by has he decimates qualified and diverse Pentagon leadership and the offices of the Judge Advocate General (i.e., the lawyers who advise the Defense Department about the legality of their actions.)

So all of that is concerning, to say the least. But will it lead to a Civil War? And, more importantly, should it?

Or could a sustained campaign of civil disobedience head off an actual war?

Since the consequences of Civil War are incredibly serious, I think it’s a good idea to give non-violent resistance the old college try, because it has an incredibly successful track record in our country as well as in other countries.

When you look at American history and study the successful social reform movements of the past 100 years — woman suffrage, labor, racial equality and civil rights, environment, women's rights, and so on — every one of these issues, and many many others, were reformed through nonviolent people-power. Money-power, as always, strove to prevent any social change that might possibly upset the status quo and threaten their place at the top of the heap. On every one of these issues the rich and powerful — and therefore the government — initially opposed and resisted reforms. But nonviolent people-power forced both government and society to correct (or at least partially ameliorate) these abuses — though in some respects, some of these struggles continue to this day.

It is important to point out that while the participants in these non-violent movements did not perpetrate violence, at times they were subjected to violence by authorities. Suffragists were imprisoned, and when they organized a hunger strike they were brutally force fed, resulting in a huge backlash that propelled women’s suffrage to electoral victory.

Another approach that has succeeded is a hybrid approach, in which violence (or the threat of violence) is sometimes employed alongside non-violence. The credible threat of violence was sometimes effectively used in the American Civil Rights movement:

Walter Bruce, a Durant native and former chair of the Holmes County Freedom Democratic Party, told the Center for Oral History the story of how “fighting fire with fire” was the only way many African Americans and their supporters were able to survive the sixties.

"Well, our strategy was we always did carry our weapons out there. . . .And so, when they came over that Wednesday night and started to shooting, and when they got down there about half a mile, our people opened fire on them. And so, they turned around, and come back that a-way. And when they come back that a-way, the people on that side started shooting over they heads. And [when they] got in town, they said, "We not going to go back out there no more." And said “Them [Black people] got all kinds of machine guns out there.”...and that word got out, and so from then on we never had no more problems when we'd go out there [with] nobody coming by shooting no more. So that broke that up." From these examples it is clear that many African Americans used the term and tactic of nonviolence quite loosely. Their public stance was undoubtedly necessary to attract supporters and to compel government action, while the more private reliance on armed self-defense was a reality that few activists shunned.

So is Civil War inevitable? No, it is not. Is civil unrest unavoidable? I would say yes. So go ahead and prepare yourselves as you see fit for a challenging period in our history, but also be adaptable to circumstances that might change rapidly. One good way to prepare yourself is to familiarize yourself with the tools of non-violent social change and resistance. Here are some links that might be useful.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/27/2306660/-Nonviolent-Resistance-as-a-possible-path-forward?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/