Violence... Non-Violence... What About When It Comes To Nazis?

That's American Nazi leader Richard Spencer pretending to be Dave Gahan a couple months ago in front of a crowd of drunken fascists who appear to have left their tiki torches at home that night. As a longtime, devoted Depeche Mode fan, that doesn't give me the right to kill him-- even if I'm going to be haunted for weeks after I watching him mincing around the stage like that. Even punching him in the face is... well, just something to laugh about. I've been a non-violent kind of guy for my whole life (except once).



The video's funny. I wish it went on longer. But I don't mean to advocate violence-- just Depeche Mode's music (mostly). Ryan Clayton is the president of Americans Take Action, a populist network formed to restore free and fair elections in America, create a purpose driven economy, and save the free and open internet-- but not to advocate violent action. Definitely not, in fact. Yesterday, on a provate e-mail listserv, Ryan wrote that since Charlottesville he's been seeing "a radical uptick in the number of people on the left calling for us to reciprocate the violence, the most notable example being a new t-shirt campaign called Punch More Nazis. Here's how the argument generally proceeds: 'Practice love and non-violence, except where Nazis are concerned. You must punch Nazis, as they don't speak any other language than violence. Therefore, we much be violent towards them so they understand we mean serious bizness. Yeah, bruh.'" Tempting, right? Ryan says NO-- and you know he's right.

"Punch More Nazis" = Promotion of Violence.  Period.  Full stop.

The Young Turks showed a video of Ryan being attacked by some neo-Nazis a few months ago. Watch:



Ryan:

Honestly, going into this action, I thought they might get violent, but the most I imagined they may was punch us in the face once or twice-- that was the upper limit of what I considered a room full of conservatives might do. But this is a different breed of political animal, folks, these people are straight up right-wing white nationalist fascists, and they heartily embrace violence as a means to an end. Red hats are the new brown-shirts. "Alt-right" just means new nazis, same as the old nazis. I get it. So later on, when having a conversation with a political ally on the left who's a friend, they asked me what it would take to commit violence? I responded simply, "Nothing." After giving me a few scenarios that evoked the same response, he delivered his final salvo, "Yeah, but what about self-defense. What if you thought someone was going to kill you, what would you do then?" I responded, I've actually been in that situation recently, where I thought people were going to kill me, and I held on to my camera; I didn't strike back. The temptation was there that day to ram the person restraining me into the window and free myself from their grip (it ended up being a woman holding me from behind, imagine the delight that O'Keefe would have in flaunting that violent reaction to the world).  When I was being choked, the temptation was there to use training I've received to free myself from such a choke-hold, but that could have been interpreted as an attempt to strike back and escalated the violence. The temptation was definitely there to fight back as I was being thrown down a stairwell, where the thought crossed my mind in that instant that I could end up paralyzed for life from what was about to happen.

I did not resist, I did not strike back, the only violence in that room was in their hands. I allowed them to monopolize the violence, and I called the police instead... The police have failed to pursue any serious charges (even though it's plain as day on the video), and frankly, the community that should be supportive in punishing O'Keefe and his minions haven't really stepped up to the plate to make them pay for their assault on the two of us, including some of the people who got us into the midst of this fracas in the first place. The compendium of these factors had me revisit the wisdom of nonviolence, I've spent time recently re-litigating the debate over and over again in my mind. I say this to relate to those who are softening in your stance toward a commitment to nonviolence, I understand how you feel, I've been there. You're angry, you feel threatened, you feel responsible, you feel duty bound to do something to protect yourself and others. I get it.

But let me ask you something, do you believe in science? Like, there's science that says the world is warming and the climate is changing, 99% of scientists agree, it's a fact backed up by reams of data. I believe in science, so when a scientist investigates the last 100 years of conflicts on planet Earth and discovers that nonviolent conflicts are 3x more effective than violent conflicts, I listen. When she shows us data demonstrating that violent conflicts are becoming less common and less effective, and opposition movements that gain power through violence usually end up more violent against their own people once in power, I listen. When she shows that violence is effectively a barrier to entry for all but males between the ages of 18-45 who are willing to harm other people, it means a revolution grounded in violence will leave out (most) women, artists, intellectuals, civic servants, religious leaders, young people, etc (i.e. all the people who make a movement). When she says that every movement, violent or nonviolent, that achieved the active and sustained participation of 3.5% of the population has succeeded in the last 100 years, I am filled with great hope (btw, no violent campaign has achieved that percentage of active participation). So listen, the science of nonviolence is here, you can read it, analyze it, and you can even disagree, but your gut feeling that violence is still an effective tool for political conflict is the exact same thing as those people denying the scientific consensus surrounding the reality of global climate change.

Put plainly, violence is not more effective than a movement commitment to nonviolence. It's settled science. There's this great saying I've heard in trainings, "In God we trust, all others bring data." So I've shown you mine, now you show me yours. Also, I'll give you the follow up argument too: "But King had Malcolm. Mandela had the Spear of the Nation. They were armed Indians fighting for what Ghandi wanted too. You need both to win." Yeah, I used to make this argument too, before I read the science surrounding this. Thankfully, even a few of the examples mentioned here are addressed and/or debunked in the book of Why Civil Resistance Works (referenced above). The authors even did a follow up study on this line of argument, since so many bruhs were like, "But c'mon, there must be empirical validation of my gut feeling that violence is useful in some way and it always works better cause that makes me feel so good and manly, bruh." Actually, that's completely wrong, their follow up study showed that nonviolent movements that had simultaneous violent movements were prolonged and less successful over time, and I believe that this is increasingly true in the later half of the century. Their scientific data and analysis trumps your gut feeling, bruh.

Coming back to the topic of the day, my partner in progressive pranks was also in the crowd that got rammed by the car in Charlottesville (while I was on the phone with him). Much of his political involvement prior to me hiring him was doing work with anti-fascists in DC. He still knows some of them and attends rallies/protests occasionally, which is why he was there that day, but since working for me, he has accepted and adhered to a strict code of nonviolence-- part of a requirement for the job, but he's also genuinely come around on the issue. Personally, he will tell you how he now believes that violent responses in the streets are counterproductive and how he's seen how powerful nonviolent actions can be, such as dropping Russian flags with Trumps name on them into CPAC. He has been successfully making the argument in some of those networks that violence is really just a testosterone fueled explosion of emotional release (mostly by men), rather than an actual strategic tactic employed to achieve actual political goals. The main problem I personally have with black bloc violence is that they're usually doing it around the corner from a nonviolent protest. When they break windows on one corner of the street, the police start cracking skulls on the next street over. The violence, once associated with a small group of protesters, can be used to paint all protesters and justify violence against them. It takes a lot of conversations and a lot of listening to bring the younger generation of activists around to seeing the virtue and strategic value of nonviolence, and we all pay a price when protesters are subjected to increasing volumes of violence from police as well as our political opponents, so if you're doing anything that is undermining the former and promoting the latter, then you're doing it wrong.

So, let's bring it all together now... When Donald Trump tweets out that there is violence on many sides, he's watching and waiting for you. He wants you to fuck up the response to this. He didn't mess up his response. He was planting a seed, and you're playing directly into Donald Trump's tiny hands. When someone on the left encourages violence, they can point and make the false equivalence, "See, both sides are doing it. Both sides are guilty. Both sides are violent." Then it's a competition to see who can be more violent to win. And make no mistake, they want a violent conflict-- conservatives believe that violence is a perfectly acceptable way to solve political disputes. They have guns and they want to use them (btw, per capita gun ownership has declined while gun sales have increased, so less and less people are owning more and more guns... and it ain't progressives locking and loading up). You're the key to them changing the terms of the debate from words into violent actions and unlocking all those gun safes to head down to the local protest. They know both sides will lose, but we will lose more-- not as many of us are willing to be violent, our active and passive supporters mostly reject violence, the uncommitted in the middle will throw their hands up because "both sides are doing it" robbing us of any moral high-ground, it will embolden their supporters and swell their ranks with people who believe in violence as a means to an end, it will sap our enthusiasm and our people's will to resist. So, when you say, "Punch More Nazis," you are a recruitment mechanism for alt-right neo-nazi fascists and delivering psychological death blows to the new ranks of the resistance.  You are becoming the handmaiden of the oppressor. So, congratulations, I hope you sell some shirts, because you're going to get us all fucking killed.

Lastly, some will also say, "Yeah, I normally am against violence, but it's okay as a last resort."  Isaac Asimov once said, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."  If the use of violence is morally justifiable in your book and you reject the science of nonviolence, then you are as Mr. Asimov says.  

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.