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.

DC Democrats Want To Learn How To Appeal To The Working Class? Randy Bryce Can Teach Them

Monday, Randy Bryce launched his campaign to repeal and replace Paul Ryan in a southeast Wisconsin district the DCCC has always made clear to Democrats was “off the table.” That’s where Randy lives and a bunch of political hacks in DC claiming his district is “off the table,” isn’t going to stop him for a minute. The fish rots from the head and if Trump can’t be held accountable until 2020, Speaker Ryan’s time is now. And Randy is the exact right person to do just that. We covered his announcement on Monday morning. And Randy is no kid who will ever be pushed around by the DCCC or molded into a centrist running away from a fairer tax structure or from Medicare-for-All, the way Jon Ossoff did last week. This statement from Donald “D” Taylor, president of one of America’s biggest and most active unions, Unite Here, was issued this morning on the latest loss by Democrats in special congressional elections. It sounds like he’s getting as fed up with the DCCC as the rest ion us are:

Hope is not a strategy and ‘resisting’ is not a plan. The Democratic Party is out of excuses on its electoral performance. Donald Trump is a menace to America and his handmaidens in the House and Senate GOP like Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell are enablers for the dismantling of our healthcare, the devastation of our middle class, and undermining our values as a beacon of hope in the world. I don’t care where in the country a race is conducted-- Democrats should be able to win. In Red States or Blue States, Democrats should be able to compete-- and win.

Millions of Americans are desperate to be led by political leaders who stand for something, are willing to take risks, and are willing to tell the truth and engage Americans where they live. That just isn’t happening. Our union has been able to prove that issues combined with organizing can overcome just about any obstacle to win.

Sounds like D Taylor is starting to realize-- or has come to fully realize-- that the DCCC is not a friend of the working class. Close to the ground in Wisconsin, Mike Elk also reported on the beginning of the Bryce campaign, BREAKING: Ironworker Randy Bryce Announces Bid to Unseat Paul Ryan. Please give it a read through and, if you want to help, consider contributing by tapping the thermometer on the right. Mike Elk:

Despite his 6’2 frame, the half-Mexican, half-Polish Army veteran known as the “@IronStache” on Twitter is the epitome of a gentle giant. Holding a beef brisket sandwich in his hand, he hugs, back slaps, and laughs his way through the crowd at the Juneteenth parade on the lakefront of Racine.

“I’m running for Congress against Paul Ryan,” ironworker Randy Bryce struggles to tell an African American woman over the noise of a gospel choir singing on the stage behind them.

Ryan, the Speaker of the House and a former vice presidential candidate, has more than $8 million in the bank for his re-election bid. By contrast, Bryce is a rank and file ironworker activist who has built some of Southeast Wisconsin’s best-known landmarks, including Milwaukee’s Miller Park and the landmark Northwestern Mutual Building.

However, it’s not an entirely uphill battle. Ryan’s district includes the pro-union bastions of Racine and Kenosha, as well as the suburban Milwaukee Republican stronghold of Waukesha. According to the Cook Political Report, the district is only 5 points more Republican than Democratic. If 2018 turns out to be a wave election year, some think Ryan could be defeated by a candidate like Bryce in such a marginal swing district.

So far, Bryce-- an Ironworkers Local 8 member-- has lined up endorsements from the Milwaukee Building Trades, state Senator Chris Larson, and former House candidate Rob Zerban, who ran against Ryan in 2012 and 2014.

He has also enlisted the help of Bill Hyers, who managed the winning 2013 mayoral campaign of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and has worked on campaigns for the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). Former Milwaukee Democratic Party Chair Sachin Ccheda has signed up to help build a grassroots army to defeat Ryan.

Many in the district feel that if anyone could beat Ryan, it would be a rank and file union activist like Bryce.

“People know that the system is rigged and something has to be done, and Donald Trump took advantage of that,” says SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin’s Bruce Coburn, who serves as the union’s Vice President for Politics and Growth. “Randy, though, is someone who really believes in people and has shown it in all the years he has been in the labor movement.”

I first got to know Randy through the #wiunion hashtag during the Occupation of Wisconsin Capitol in 2011, and since then we have become personal friends. Bryce was part of the tens of thousands who occupied the Capitol in order to stop Scott Walker’s anti-union agenda.

Bryce sips Limeaid in the living room of his small two bedroom apartment outside of Racine as he recalls that battle.

“Walker’s strategy was to divide and conquer,”  Bryce says. “His strategy was pointing out people and saying they are being the reason that the others didn’t have it as good as they possibly could. Now that’s being taken to the national level with Donald Trump.”

“Just to get the [White House], he pointed the finger at Muslims, at people from Mexico, at immigrants, and there is a huge divide,” Bryce continues. “Now, people are looking at why we are different and thinking that’s the reason why they don’t have what they could.”

A year ago, Bryce wasn’t preparing for a Congressional campaign. This isn’t his first race; he ran for the State Assembly back in 2012, where he lost in the primary. Two years later, he ran for Wisconsin Senate in a conservative district and lost to Republican Van Wanggaard.

He says that he was moved to run, however, after being approached by a number of people in the wake of Trump’s election. Finally, during this year’s May Day protest-- which saw over 20,000 show up in the streets of Milwaukee-- Bryce says he began to believe that he could build the type of multi-racial coalition that could defeat Ryan.

If elected to Congress, he sees his role there as being more of a shop steward than a politician, and that he aims to run a campaign that amplifies the voices of others. “For an African American woman, there is no possible way that I can put myself into that woman’s frame of mind, the struggles she faces on a daily basis,” Bryce says. “I could do something to pretend, but I can’t experience it myself, so I need to rely on other people.”

Although he was a Sanders surrogate during the primary, he campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the general election and would have been an elector for her had she won. Given the ongoing struggle for control of the party, many in the district say that Bryce is a candidate who could bring Democrats together.

If successful, he would be only the third American since 1862 to defeat a sitting Speaker. It’s a given that the GOP and their corporate allies will spend heavily in the swing district to avoid that embarrassment.

He’s not naive about his long odds. But Bryce says his experience as a rank and file ironworker-- having been suspended hundreds of feet above the ground while working-- has given him the confidence to take on the almost impossible task.

“Being an ironworker, I have seen some things that, unless I have seen them with my own eyes and been part of it, I would say you can’t do that-- that’s impossible,” says Bryce. “You know, you are gonna walk up on a two and half inch piece of metal, you are gonna be up three hundred feet in the air and walk across and carry something to get to a place to wield-- that’s impossible… When ironworkers hear somebody say, ‘We can’t, it means ‘I won’t.’”

“Let’s trade places,” Bryce quips. “Paul Ryan can come work the iron and I’ll go to D.C.”