A Ghandian Strategy

[yltlatl]

I think one of the keys to a Ghandian strategy is turning the enemy's motives against each other. In the case of the British, their constitutional semi-representative monarchy couldn't face the prospect of killing potentially millions of Indians (ah, those innocent times). The other side of the coin is that a Ghandian strategy targeting the same two motives (representative gov't & empire) probably would not have been effective against Hitler at the zenith of Nazi power (because his empire did not even pretend to possess the former trait).

Anyway, one potential conflict in the right's motivations is its penchant for racial solidarity vs. its desire to militarily subjugate the ME. If western liberals could somehow convince enough westerners to actually go and sit in Palestine that even the corporate media would have to note them being killed by Israel, I wonder what would happen...

Probably they'd all get killed.

[H2O Man]

1. Gandhi

... would perhaps as likely have tried to convince the people in both Palestine and Israel to have peaceful demonstrations. And, if he were to walk the streets of the United states, he would probably have asked our people to hold peaceful protests here. It is always a possibility that we will reach a stage of maturity that would be needed to do this. Then, and only then, will we confront the issues of violence head-on in a manner that opens the potential that we might win.

[mmm]

2. been there, done that - it works

BUT, I am six foot six, blonde hair, loud.
And I was there with four other US citizens, all male,
all businessmen, all big and loud.
The IDS offered up ZERO of their regular bullshit.
Shit got done.

[mmm]

3. slight females should not be in the kill zone

they get kicked down and shot in the back of the head,
or bulldozed while a cheering IDF looks on.
The situation is much worse than you see here.
We are winning this fight, one bastard at a time.
The IDF ain't gonna fuck with a big loud American
business man. (I do lots of business in Isreal.)
Support the ISM. They support me.

[yltlatl]

10. Holy

brass balls Batman!

Hats off to you. Seriously, respect.

[seventhson]

12. ditto

[Muddleoftheroad]

15. People only get bulldozed

When they place themselves directly in front of heavy machinery. That's foolish even under normal circumstances. In a combat zone where drivers fear constant sniper fire and try to keep their heads down, it's downright stupid.

[sweetheart]

4. Ghandi was not a slave

We fight with guns for our liberty in the western continent.

Amhisa (ghandi's approach of nonviolence) works in person, but not
against people who murder with impunity. Probably they'd all get
killed. Probably better to kill them first.

[H2O Man]

5. Gandhi

not Ghandi. And he faced down some of the most brutal killers in history. The original question was also in regard to Palestine, not the "western continent." However, it is a tactic that works on an individual level, or on an international level. Certainly people will suffer and die using the tactic, but they are now without it. Nonviolence offers humanity a sane path out of the violence.

[sweetheart]

6. I agree

Nonviolence is the way.

It won't help much when we are attacked by nuclear weapons through
bush military provocation. I'm not so sure sitting back for that
one is so wise. Violence works in pinpricks... like a laser
vaporizing a tiny tumor in otherwise healthy tissue.

Its the Sheik Yassin principal.. kill the evil before it rots out
the whole system... go after the causers... and use preemptive war
before the preemptive warriors can use preemptive war against
the potential threat of preemptive war.

That said, perhaps its better to be murdered by them and let god
sort it out.

[H2O Man]

7. People do not control violence.

Do not be afraid of the people with the bombs and weapons. They do not control the dark force, or death force if you will. They are controlled by it. Concentrate on the light/life force. Of course, people do not "control" that energy, either. But we can all access it. And it is the only cure for the violence we see around the globe today. But do not be afraid. The voice of the living universe is that of a female, and throughout human history, she has gently told us, "Do not fear." Yet it is only through quiet introspection that we hear this. That is the first step in understanding what Gandhi was talking about.

[sweetheart]

8. very beautiful

I have not welcomed you to DU H2O Man. Welcome to DU. :party:

Your post is very touching... and i'm tempted not to rebut, by the
very truth that my soul agrees with you. You've sold this Buddhist
on nonviolence. :-)

I think of the 1994 Ruwanda crisis, and it points me to wonder
though, that violence and the threat of it, could have saved a
million lives. Nonviolence was no victory in that place... the
blood of those people is on all of us and it won't wash off.

Realpolitik, on a discussoin forum of the major party of american
government, (of a global military empire) must accept the reality
of that empire and our endemic threat to use violence; this threat
that is spoken in yours and my name the world over by 17-22 years
olds in army clothes.

Your governmental administration may very well seek to use other
means of influence come 2005, but what about when the longer term
enemies of this society come to threat, with arms, who have been
deterred thus far, by stronger force of arms? I believe in the
philosophy of nonviolence, yet i can't help but see this as more
of a religious ideal... and not practicial. What about realpolitik?

[yltlatl]

9. Both of you...

let's get specific. There are a lot of different battles to be fought in this war with fascists. Each of them can be won--maybe--but not by identical means. Obviously military force is not the solution to every single problem or humanity would already have eliminated itself--just as systematically as it has slaughtered itself it has spared itself. I already suggested that applying a Ghandian strategy to Hitler in 1940, say, would just have been suicide. But that's not to say that there are battles that can't be won by the non-violent method, and we have to win every battle that we can. The bonus of the non-violent method is that it pays a peace dividend: you don't have any bruised, beaten losers dying for revenge because the non-violent party has taken the suffering upon itself for the greater good. As I tentatively suggested in my original post, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict might be one battle that could be won for peace by this method.

And you know... when Ghandi did what he did it was--as far as I know--unprecedented in history. What is also unprecendented in history is the emergence of a "global" peace movement (nothing's global that doesn't involve southeast Asia, but whatever). Who knows what the future brings: empires have stumbled on less.

[H2O Man]

11. Words have power.

The proper use of words is important in order to reach a proper understanding. Hence, for example, it might be nice to spell Gandhi's name correctly. Now, regarding violence and non-violence: sometimes it is important to take an example to its extreme. Do we then think it makes sense to "protect" ourselves from those with an atom bomb by owning two atom bombs? I am willing to listen to those who say "yes" with an open mind, and hope that they will also consider the possibility that the answer is "no" with an equally open mind. On an earlier thread tonight, someone asked what we will do to confront fear....which is the same issue as we are discussing here. Fear and ignorance and hatred are no different on a national level than on a family level. These are the foundations of violence. If we are to deal with a family that is ill with these passions, it would be a mistake to suggest the relatively healthy people arm themselves. Instead, we must try to convince them that they are part of a sick system, and through the logic of truth, eliminate the fear, ignorance, and hatred of other family members, until eventually we can together confront the violent head of the family. This is the model that we will have to use in America, too, because in Iraq we started the violence .... and thus are responsible for ending it, and repairing the damage we have done. (And thank you for welcoming me to d.u.; nice to converse with you!)

[sweetheart]

14. In a sense the planet is using Mahatma Ghandi's

strategy of opposing imperial violence with passive resistance. It
is our tax dollars that pay for this empire and it is we who are
in debt collectively that this empire continue to occupy the
earth unwanted.

Methinks that Ghandi is not on the american-flag-cult side in this
global imperial war. We are that empire that will collapse on
less.

[TankLV]

13. Many of you are operating on an incomplete assumption/recollection, tho.

The brilliance of Gandhi is that he would all that was available to him - peaceful resistance when that was appropriate and the sword when that was appropriate. He was a brilliant strategist.

I don't have all the info at my fingertips, but when needed, he could mobilize an army, such as evidenced as his walk across India that accumulated millions as he went.

Then there was the famous hunger strike, at the opposite end of his strategies.

The man would use the appropriate method of resistance to meet the object of that resistance.

That he is most remembered for his peaceful resistance is a mark of the greatness of the man, and for the most powerful of his strategies.

[tlcandie]

16. Arundhati Roy is one whose spirit could reach out and lead us

today.


Arundhati Roy

http://aroy.miena.com/
Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy. Buy One, Get One Free

<snip>
When a country ceases to be merely a country and becomes an empire, then the scale of operations changes dramatically. ... I speak as a subject of the American Empire. I speak as a slave who presumes to criticise her king.
<snip>

<snip>
The two arms of the Indian Government have evolved the perfect pincer action. While one arm is busy selling India off in chunks, the other, to divert attention, is orchestrating a howling, baying chorus of Hindu nationalism and religious fascism. It is conducting nuclear tests, rewriting history books, burning churches, and demolishing mosques. Censorship, surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties and human rights, the definition of who is an Indian citizen and who is not, particularly with regard to religious minorities, is becoming common practice now.
<snip>

<snip>
Never mind that forty years ago, the CIA, under President John F. Kennedy, orchestrated a regime change in Baghdad. In 1963, after a successful coup, the Ba’ath party came to power in Iraq. Using lists provided by the CIA, the new Ba’ath regime systematically eliminated hundreds of doctors, teachers, lawyers and political figures known to be leftists. An entire intellectual community was slaughtered. (The same technique was used to massacre hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia and East Timor.) The young Saddam Hussein was said to have had a hand in supervising the bloodbath. In 1979, after factional infighting within the Ba’ath Party, Saddam Hussein became the President of Iraq.
<snip>

<snip>
Here we are, confronted with an Empire that has conferred upon itself the right to go to war at will, and the right to deliver people from corrupting ideologies, from religious fundamentalists, dictators, sexism, and poverty by the age-old, tried-and-tested practice of extermination. Empire is on the move, and Democracy is its sly new war cry. Democracy, home-delivered to your doorstep by daisy-cutters. Death is a small price for people to pay for the privilege of sampling this new product: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil, add oil, then bomb).
<snip>



Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris And Euphrates

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How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words? And now the bombs are falling, incinerating and humiliating that ancient civilisation.

On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers scrawl colourful messages in childish handwriting: For Saddam, from the Fat Boy Posse. A building goes down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who loves a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's marbles.
<snip>

Confronting Empire

<snip>
When we speak of confronting "Empire," we need to identify what "Empire" means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?

In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts — nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization.
<snip>

<snip>
It is not a coincidence that the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the Disinvestment Minister — the men who signed the deal with Enron in India, the men who are selling the country’s infrastructure to corporate multinationals, the men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil, coal, steel, health, education and telecommunication — are all members or admirers of the RSS. The RSS is a right wing, ultra-nationalist Hindu guild which has openly admired Hitler and his methods.
<snip>


<snip>
The two arms of the Indian Government have evolved the perfect pincer action. While one arm is busy selling India off in chunks, the other, to divert attention, is orchestrating a howling, baying chorus of Hindu nationalism and religious fascism. It is conducting nuclear tests, rewriting history books, burning churches, and demolishing mosques. Censorship, surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties and human rights, the definition of who is an Indian citizen and who is not, particularly with regard to religious minorities, is becoming common practice now.
<snip>

The Algebra of Infinite Justice

<snip>
So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the 'massacre of innocent people' or, if you like, 'a clash of civilisations' and 'collateral damage'. The sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice..
<snip>

<snip>
The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.
What we're witnessing here is the spectacle of the world's most powerful country, reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America's streamlined warships, its Cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn't show up in baggage checks.
<snip>

<snip>
For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade the American public that America's commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America's economic and military dominance—the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government's record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things—to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)?
<snip>

<snip>

To what purpose? President George Bush can no more "rid the world of evil-doers" than he can stock it with saints. It's absurd for the US government to even toy with the notion that it can stamp out terrorism with more violence and oppression. Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease. Terrorism has no country. It's transnational, as global an enterprise as Coke or Pepsi or Nike. At the first sign of trouble, terrorists can pull up stakes and move their 'factories' from country to country in search of a better deal. Just like the multinationals.
<snip>

Do Turkeys Enjoy Thanksgiving?
In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side of Imperialism and the need for a strong Empire to police an unruly world. The new missionaries want order at the cost of justice. Discipline at the cost of dignity. And ascendancy at any price. Occasionally some of us are invited to `debate' the issue on `neutral' platforms provided by the corporate media. Debating Imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?

In any case, New Imperialism is already upon us. It's a remodelled, streamlined version of what we once knew. For the first time in history, a single Empire with an arsenal of weapons that could obliterate the world in an afternoon has complete, unipolar, economic and military hegemony. It uses different weapons to break open different markets. There isn't a country on God's earth that is not caught in the cross hairs of the American cruise missile and the IMF chequebook. Argentina's the model if you want to be the poster-boy of neoliberal capitalism, Iraq if you're the black sheep.
<snip>

<snip>
The tradition of 'turkey pardoning' in the U.S. is a wonderful allegory for New Racism. Every year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation presents the U.S. President with a turkey for Thanksgiving. Every year, in a show of ceremonial magnanimity, the President spares that particular bird (and eats another one). After receiving the presidential pardon, the Chosen One is sent to Frying Pan Park in Virginia to live out its natural life. The rest of the 50 million turkeys raised for Thanksgiving are slaughtered and eaten on Thanksgiving Day. ConAgra Foods, the company that has won the Presidential Turkey contract, says it trains the lucky birds to be sociable, to interact with dignitaries, school children and the press. (Soon they'll even speak English!)

That's how New Racism in the corporate era works. A few carefully bred turkeys — the local elites of various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin Powell, or Condoleezza Rice, some singers, some writers (like myself) — are given absolution and a pass to Frying Pan Park. The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut, and die of AIDS. Basically they're for the pot. But the Fortunate Fowls in Frying Pan Park are doing fine. Some of them even work for the IMF and the WTO — so who can accuse those organisations of being anti-turkey? Some serve as board members on the Turkey Choosing Committee — so who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They participate in it! Who can say the poor are anti-corporate globalisation? There's a stampede to get into Frying Pan Park. So what if most perish on the way?
<snip>

[sweetheart]

17. respecting Arundhati Roy, she has no point

Its like listening to Noam rant about how horrible american foreign
policy has been.... ok, i get it... now what? The world she IS
envisioning, and what she wants to do are only expressed in eloquent
negatives. I presume she wants the status quo back? What is that?

[tlcandie]

18. Sorry you feel that way.. she motivates, inspires, and moves me ...

putting everything that I feel into words that I could never dream spinning to tell the tale of woe that has befallen our world and the people who live upon her.

She touches my spirit and soul making me feel that I've finally tasted the liquid of truth.

EDIT: Maybe she doesn't want the status quo...or any such ends, but wants the people (instead of herself) to decide that path and move towards it where there is justice/equality for all the earth's people and not just a few?

[sweetheart]

19. quite the reverse....

She inspires me as well, and i like her writing.

A leader, however, explains the direction they believe will lead
us out of the current conundrum. Instead, she's a good crowd
pleaser and someone who motivates, like you say. Without the
constructive part, however, she gets lumped in with many other left
writers and intellectuals as just being a negative detractor.

Like many people on this forum, she is very clear what she does not
like, and can be quite eloquent in painting that image.

I really need more positive directions from the left intellectuals,
if they intend to counter the puke. Otherwise we wallow in
emotional self-gratification without actually getting anywhere.