Thread: Demonstrating: Violent or Peaceful?

What's so important about refraining from violence and rioting when protesting?

Loss of life is always a tragedy.

Is it better to live on your knees than die standing?

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Is it better to live on your knees than die standing?

I don't know, perhaps, are you a practitioner of Shinto?

Originally Posted by Phion

I don't know, perhaps, are you a practitioner of Shinto?

No but I like the concept. I think it's worth arguing that some things are more valuable than the physical body.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

No but I like the concept. I think it's worth arguing that some things are more valuable than the physical body.

I might agree with you there, though, personally, and it may seem cowardly, if I were given the choice to live or die depending on my outward beliefs or activities I would probably choose life every time. However, to be fair, I can honestly tell you that my convictions have not been tested to the extent that some might participate in a riot, other unlawful behavior, or even warfare.

A lot of times when protests get violent it seems like the protesters are then seen as stupid punks who need to go to jail. Non-violent protests, if publicized right, seem much more intelligent and I think taken more seriously.

Originally Posted by Phion

I might agree with you there, though, personally, and it may seem cowardly, if I were given the choice to live or die depending on my outward beliefs or activities I would probably choose life every time. However, to be fair, I can honestly tell you that my convictions have not been tested to the extent that some might participate in a riot, other unlawful behavior, or even warfare.

Hypothetically speaking, do you believe there are any values which are more important than your particular life? Is there any possible circumstance you can imagine where it'd be worth it to sacrifice yourself to change or protect human ethos? By that I mean to help make the world a better place or stop it from degenerating into a worse place, better and worse obviously being subjective and I leave them free for your own personal interpretation. For this, I personally would point to freedom, equality and justice as three tenants I would be willing to die for, and kill for. Even though I couldn't blame the officer unwittingly assaulting these values, I would stop him the same way I would stop a rabid dog from hurting my family. No blame, no hate, but if the choice came between ending a life or allowing that life to cause more harm to my ethos, I would end the life.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

A lot of times when protests get violent it seems like the protesters are then seen as stupid punks who need to go to jail. Non-violent protests, if publicized right, seem much more intelligent and I think taken more seriously.

It seems as though the media tends to paint whatever picture it wants on protests, as do information warriors that incite riots within protests in order to provoke police retaliation. But I have a question, if the rioters were truly causing damage, perhaps with molotovs and the like, does it really matter what the media thinks? Does it really matter what kind of attention they give it? What is the purpose of a non-violent protest? What is achieved by holding up a bunch of signs and marching down a street?

I shouldn't have got involved in this - I'm not the activist type really and the issue isn't that important to me (until such time as that may change). But all I'm saying is that Martin Luther King and Ghandi seem a lot more intelligent to me, and to be taken a lot more seriously, than rioters throwing molotovs. To me that's not what I'd call a 'demonstration' so much as guerilla warfare. A demonstration is to bring public attention and awareness to an idea or issue - rioting is a reaction against imminent attack or unfair infringement of rights. They both have their places - I just don't consider them both to be 'demonstrations'.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I shouldn't have got involved in this - I'm not the activist type really and the issue isn't that important to me (until such time as that may change). But all I'm saying is that Martin Luther King and Ghandi seem a lot more intelligent to me, and to be taken a lot more seriously, than rioters throwing molotovs. To me that's not what I'd call a 'demonstration' so much as guerilla warfare. A demonstration is to bring public attention and awareness to an idea or issue - rioting is a reaction against imminent attack or unfair infringement of rights. They both have their places - I just don't consider them both to be 'demonstrations'.

Perhaps not, but I still think it's important to analyze the best way to accomplish one's goals, which invariably is either change of a bad model or protection of a threatened model. I respect MLK and Gandhi as much as the next hippy, but I don't know if clinging to their philosophies of non-violence is really going to save us from oppression. What does a non-violent protest achieve that a violent one can't? You mentioned awareness and public attention, but what does this all culminate to in order to achieve what the protestors envision?

My point being that we've been trying it that way for the last 50 years and despite all our resolve to do things correctly the police have still gone and equipped themselves for guerrilla warfare. They've escalated the conflict, free of the necessary provocation. Oppositely, it almost appears as though the police are attempting to provoke the protestors into degenerating to violence.

Non-violent protests, if publicized right, seem much more intelligent and I think taken more seriously.

They're called elections, and there is usually a dress code.

If you are violent it gives government an excuse to come down hard on you, while at the same time removing your support. If you are very violent and riot you put other people in danger and so the government is justified in breaking up the protest with force. On the other hand when the government breaks up peaceful protests it causes a great deal of outrage and anger at the government.

The point of a protest is to be visible and draw people to your cause. Being peaceful draws in support while being violent removes support.

Originally Posted by Alric

If you are violent it gives government an excuse to come down hard on you, while at the same time removing your support. If you are very violent and riot you put other people in danger and so the government is justified in breaking up the protest with force. On the other hand when the government breaks up peaceful protests it causes a great deal of outrage and anger at the government.

The point of a protest is to be visible and draw people to your cause. Being peaceful draws in support while being violent removes support.

But how does support actually get anything practical done? Like I said before, the police have escalated without the help of violent protestors. They already bring the hammer down a quickly as possible. They come equipped to fight a war, they pepper spray without justification, and they forcibly end peaceful protests. All of this is going on and I don't really see any causes getting much done through protesting. I could be wrong but it doesn't seem as though the 99% have managed to win back a dime that was stolen by the bankers. So what's the fucking point?

In regards to the African-American civil rights movement, I think what what worked best for it was the contrast between it's two most notable figures - MLK went the peaceful route but Malcolm X was ready to resort to violence. I think once the general public realized that change was inevitable, they figured it was was one or the other - they could either pay attention to MLK's peaceful protests, or they could maintain the status quo and risk going up against a potentially violent revolution led by Malcolm X and like-minded supporters.

I think refraining from violence is always important when protesting, simply because people are more likely to support a peaceful movement. But with that being said, I also acknowledge the importance of the threat/possibility of violence - it pressures the general public to demand action from it's political leaders. It's a bit of a risky move though, the threat of violence can also undermine or discredit a protest so it should only be used as a last resort imo.


The legalization effort has been pushing for cannabis law reform for decades and it only just recently started to make strides. It's been a peaceful movement so far, and I think that's why it took so long for the masses to start giving a shit. Had there been a chance of a violent revolt, people would have started to give it some serious consideration ages ago. But on the flip side, had it gotten violent, there's a chance the supporters would have been labelled as crazed radicals and their arguments for legalization would been dismissed.

tl;dr - It's a bit of a balancing act.

I really don't see how lobbing flaming hot toddies at riot officers is going to win back any money from the bankers either though. Are the police really the enemy? Or did you have something else in mind?

It seems like what Occupy needs isn't violence, but unity and organization.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I really don't see how lobbing flaming hot toddies at riot officers is going to win back any money from the bankers either though. Are the police really the enemy? Or did you have something else in mind?

It seems like what Occupy needs isn't violence, but unity and organization.

At least some destruction would prove that actions have consequences. Marching around with a sign doesn't appear to provide wrongdoers with any sort of consequences for their actions. Civil Disobedience still means disobedience, and MLK didn't just advocate marches, he advocated breaking bad laws. I'm not trying to advocate violence against anyone, I'm simply waiting for someone to explain adequately how non-violence helps anything. What could non-violent protests lead to that actually helps the cause? It doesn't seem like attracting support for a cause does much unless it could be utilized for some sort of worldwide worker strike. Most people don't seem to support protestors whether they're violent or not because either some undercover feds spark riots or the media paints them as a bunch of imbeciles anyway.

I dont really believe in black or white, it really depends on the situation. First off I'm against killing especially out of anger. A violent protest for me is stone throwing, flaming bottle tossing and pushing over vehicles. Once protesters start knifing or gunning-- its not a protest its war.

Peaceful protesting has defined the 20th century - in stark contrast to its world wars. The power of the peaceful protest lies in its contrast. The greater the threat, the greater the peaceful protest, the greater its power has.

Take for example the egyptian protestors saying their daily prayers as they were blasted with water cannons. This made the egyptian government look completely retarded to the entire global community - which was the point the demonstraters were making. Had they instead always reacted violently to the water cannons their message could have been lost in the anger.

But peaceful or violent protests in America doesn't mean nothing much. America is on the opposite end of the global protest.

On black friday thousands and thousands of factory workers in asian countries took the streets in protest against the injustice and the lack of soverignty because they are owned by foreign countries. While they protested injustice, Americans were mindlessly shopping for all the goods they produced without a care. Nothing occupy said or did could change this.

It's hard for me to believe that non-violent protests will be taken more seriously when I see shit like this

The problem is that you are looking at protests as if they were the entire method of change. The point of a protest is to raise visibility of your cause, and increase support. You don't act violently because that is better for getting the support of the people on your side. You have to do other stuff at the same time though. For example, the protests go on and then we talk about it on here, that raises awareness even more because you had the big protest and then follow up with people talking about the issue. Or you protest and then it leads up to the election and you use all your support you gain to vote a certain way and it makes an impact like that. Or you bring pressure on someone and force them to change their ways.

Or like you pointed out, you build up and then you use your huge support for a strike. Any way the point of a protest is to build support and bring awareness to your cause, if you want change you need to do other things in addition to it.

As for violence that really doesn't solve anything. That just makes you feel better and relives some frustration. If you do think there is some time for violence you sure the heck shouldn't riot and just destroy things at random. That is stupid. Harming innocent people does nothing to further a cause and only hurts people. If you want violence you better plan it out well, because you are directly responsible for every person hurt and every person who dies. If you are not prepared to accept that responsibility you shouldn't even consider violence.

What if I were prepared to accept responsibility? What if it was well planned out? What if the right buildings were targeted?

Actions need consequences. What type of consequences are realistically in our grasp as people in order to rectify the damage that has been to our rights or to our economy? It seems unrealistic, when most people have families to feed, to pull a worker's strike, at least not with this putrid level of media gestated ignorance. Elections are the same way, people are so scared of one clone they all rally behind another clone. And talking about an issue, well that's just makes my panties wet but it doesn't provide any sort of consequence for oppression and exploitation.

Satyagraha, man.

The effectiveness of it depends entirely on your plan. I don't really condone it, but obviously destroying stuff does destroy the value of things. Going around blowing stuff up is a type of warfare. While protests are a way to change things they are not warfare, so you can't really compare the two. Violence at a protest and rioting isn't expression or warfare, it is just random chaos and random chaos doesn't really produce positive results.

If you are going to go to war with someone, you don't do it as a mob with random destruction and chaos.

Why not? What if the mob is targeting specific people? I mean sure there's collateral damage but the bulk of the damage would hopefully be aimed at the perpetrators. A mob would be a group of people all enraged pass the boiling point, this isn't the smartest animal but they typically go after whatever pissed them off so bad. The UK Police shot a kid in the head for no fucking reason so they got riots aimed at them for abusing power and committing a crime. Did the kid who got shot in the head deserve a peaceful protest in his honor where they all wear hoodies like they did for Trayvon Martin in the US? Or did he deserve to have a few molotovs thrown in his honor?

There is no honor to be had through violent retaliation. I'm sure I don;t have to explain to you what that leads to.

If you really want to overturn a fundamental injustice (and not satisfy some base craving for revenge following a single event, as if injuring the first wrongdoer somehow makes everything okay), your greatest option is to secure the moral high ground. I really doubt most bystanders were concerned about why those rioters in the UK were lobbing firebombs, they just saw a riot, which is never a good thing in anyone's book.

So what sort of moral high ground is there to take that doesn't forsake the murdered boy?