Well, and as I'm trying to make clear, being non-violent doesn't make you not a target. The US government was busy trying to target the most non-violent group that exists in the US as terrorists. Violence is so antithetical to their religion they cannot be drafted into the US military, due to freedom of religion. The real name of their religion isn't Quakers it's "The Religious Society of Friends."

The more non-violent you are, the more likely these freaks are willing to view you as easy to take down and remove from the conversation.

It's just like... the first Gay Pride demonstration was literally a riot.

Like I said in another thread too, every state (as in nation, not US states), uses violence as an answer all the time. Police violence against criminals or protesters, military violence against other states, death penalties against those deemed too dangerous to live, prisons in general. So what is it about state sanctioned violence that is considered moral by most people who would also decry individual violence as immoral? Even Brian Thompson oversaw an increase in claim denials from ~10% to ~30%. How many people did that kill, or torture, or cause suffering? Obviously a lot of people have already talked about social murder, but again, why is social murder more justified? Just because it's legal and allowed by the state?

Laws aren't some inherent measure of morality, and states don't have some inherent sense of justice that is superior to that of their people. Just look at slavery, it was fully legal and rescuing slaves was a crime. That didn't make it moral, or the abolitionists who ran the underground railroad immoral. Or look at prohibition, or the current version we have with the war on drugs. What makes someone indulging in a vice like weed, or mushrooms, or honestly even something more addictive like cocaine be guilty of a crime, when someone indulging in alcohol, or cigarettes, or caffeine, or sugar isn't? And what makes someone doing that on their own, assuming they don't harm others because of it, worse in the eyes of the law than someone who gambles?

In order to see the imbalance of power and violence, you only need to look at the recourse each party has for violence by the other. Look at what happened when an individual committed violence against UHC by killing the CEO. There was a national manhunt, tens of thousands of dollars offered in rewards for finding them, and once a suspect was arrested they were humiliated by the police, put in jail to be held until trial, and are likely facing life in prison if they are convicted. None of that would happen to any of those responsible for a wrongful death due to an illegally denied claim. In that case, in order to get recourse, the family would need to sue the company, which takes a crazy amount of time, money, and effort. And if by the end of it they win, what punishment would UHC face? The CEO wouldn't be given jail time for murder or manslaughter. The company wouldn't be broken up or shut down. At most you'd get some money, and they'd maybe have to pay a fine to the government. During the lawsuit the CEO and board would be free to continue business as normal, killing or hurting who knows how many people while doing so.

So obviously the government, corporations, politicians, and billionaires will denounce this as a "tragedy", a "horrible act of violence". Those celebrating in it are "advocating violence" or simply the minority, existing in "dark corners of the internet". Because admitting that violence is an acceptable strategy means they'd accept it turned upon them, instead of being the sole group allowed to use it as they see fit.

This isn't necessarily me advocating for violence either, as I think in general neither one should be accepted, no matter if it's done by an individual or a state. But the legality of that violence is also not what should determine its morality, and there are exceptions to every rule. Personally I consider myself a pacifist. I'm vegan, I would go to jail before being drafted because I would never want to serve in a war, and obviously like most people I would always prefer a non violent answer to a conflict if possible. But things don't always work out that way, and it's nonsensical that anyone would consider Brian Thompson, or any other CEO of a major company, better or more morally acceptable than the one who killed him. State approved violence, legal violence, is not and should not be seen as any more acceptable or moral.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."

But taxes!!!!!

Said anyone who doesn't know that minus $600/month that only covers the basics plus $300? in taxes that covers a lot more is a net savings.

Lol, "voting".

Even if you want a peaceful protest, the state security apparatus will turn into a riot when they need to discredit the protester, ie Floyd Protests is recent example.

Then older people start pearl clutching over "black youth" "looting" a corporate location! The horror!

Liberals will bring some generic race arguments etc

Now we got a proper circle jerk and discussion about police brutality is third order of operation.

its afraid.jpeg because we have not seen such class unity in modern history.

Good.

This last election made me into an anarchist for now. I do not believe there is any way to salvage this system we have in any meaningful way. I'm not a violent person so I can't see myself doing anything like Luigi, but Democrats aren't going to save anyone and are just one part of the problem.

I think Donald could be the death blow to our country as more and more of our social contract is upended, especially with talks of killing the ACA and other popular programs.

Then why do peaceful protestors get arrested and brutalised by cops all the time?

Gandhi disagrees

(Unless he's playing Civ)

The answer is neither peaceful organizing nor individual aggression, but mass, millitant organizing!

This is true, but also extremely difficult, especially in an era of mass media induced paranoia and alienation. Mass militant organizing requires a large cohesive social class that has a center of gravity - a church house or a social club or a workhouse floor - that increasingly no longer exists.

Social media was supposed to be the new venue for mass mobilization, and we saw the beginnings of it in the early '00s. But media consolidation, saturation from automated marketing accounts, and counter-programming have largely washed it out.

Read theory and get organized.

One is significantly easier than the other.

That said... go look for local unions in your town or neighborhood. Look for chapters of the DSA or the PSL or other labor-friendly organizing groups. Go to your local PTA meetings and city council meetings when you can, and get to know the people who show up there regularly. Get out of the house and meet people where they are.

That's all good advice. But its also hard, exhausting work. And its done in the face of enormous headwinds. Don't mistake the failure of leftism as a simple failure of "human nature" or whatever. We're in an entrenched system and attempting a Herculean feat to change it.

They need to make it easier to find their podcast on their website, instead of dumping everyone into the Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts pipeline...

https://blowback.show/BLOWBACK

There's a playlist of the episodes near the bottom of this page.

Reminds me of the graphic novel "The Bush Junta."

Episode Zero with H. Jon Benjamin as Saddam Hussein is pretty gold.

I think their assessment that the history of the Iraq War is important to understand our current place in history is absolutely correct. Especially not prosecuting war criminals and how that lead to not prosecuting Trump.

Listened to the first season a while back, I genuinely had one (1) note/dispute, for a series spanning nearly 11 hours on the Iraq invasion. They brought receipts, sources, archived media snippets, and a lot of context that mainstream media still glosses over with 9/11 remembrance justifications.

Very listenable, add it to your queue if you remotely enjoy geopolitics

honestly if you can 3d print something you can make something almost as strong out of wood, it just takes more effort

one could also easily make a disposable mold for a low-melting-point metal alloy, those are much stronger than 3d prints and many can be melted on a normal stove

I think the problem is more that information on how to make guns is now easily available, rather than the specific usefulness of 3d printing as a manufacturing technique

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests

Specific news articles about that day:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040904214302/http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=54365

From Guinness World Records:

On February 15, 2003, anti-war rallies took place across the globe – the largest occurring in Rome, Italy, where a crowd of 3 million gathered to protest against the USA’s threat to invade Iraq. Police figures report that millions more demonstrated in nearly 600 cities worldwide: on the same day, 1.3 million rallied in Barcelona, Spain, 1 million participated in a peace march through the streets of London, UK, and 500,00 people in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, joined the biggest marches since the Vietnam War peace protests.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100326221254/http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=6067

The French political scientist Dominique Reynié has estimated that, between 3 January and 12 April 2003, some 36 million people took part in nearly 3,000 protests around the world against the Iraq war.

(It's worth noting here that I have been unable to find Dominique Reynié's paper that estimates this. I have searched and searched for a PDF with no luck. Lots of references to this work, but can't seem to find the actual document.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20190921125652/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2765215.stm

Between six and 10 million people are thought to have marched in up to 60 countries over the weekend - the largest demonstrations of their kind since the Vietnam War.

A key aspect of what made it so big was because it was happening worldwide, simultaneously, in multiple cities all over the world.

I was a bit skeptical as well, but there's at least one seemingly reputable academic researcher who says as much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests (first citation).
So even if it wasn't, one could easily be forgiven for the mistake.

Yeah, the point of a peaceful protest is meant as a neutral option, just to show that a large group exists who has some demand, and if the demand is not met it will escalate, either via disruption to the economy with strikes or disruption to society with violence. It shouldn't be blamed on protesters if it ends up escalating that way, because the protest was meant as the warning. Most people wouldn't blame a country that has repeatedly warned a neighbor to stop annexing it's land for fighting a war with them. If the country never went farther than warnings then they would all be empty threats. Somehow protests are thought of differently though, and if one turns violent it's blamed on the protesters and not the government for basically completely ignoring every protest movement in recent memory.

There's two episodes in the podcast Cool People who did Cool Things that talks about basically that in regards to the violent wing of the nonviolent civil rights movement. You need both.