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Peaceful protests build the sense of consensus and unity. Violent solutions can't succeed without both popular support and enough participants to make a difference, but if everybody's scared of standing alone they're doomed. Sudden upheaval is likely to make more people oppose the change, because most people like stability.
Peaceful protests that get gradually more frustrated are more likely to support more drastic measures than a sudden upheaval. Whether or not you believe peaceful protests will fix anything, they're the best solution that's viable right now.
I live in Russia, I'm having flashbacks of explanations why all the opposition is doing is peaceful protests.
Nah, it doesn't work. The faster you get to throwing Molotov cocktails, the better.
If it's five people throwing them, they're terrorists. If it's five million, they're a problem. (Depending on the size of country and military, I'm pulling numbers out my arse to exemplify a point, not as accurate measures).
Numbers matter. If you have enough people on your side and willing to join the throwing for your cocktails to make a difference, that might work for you. But if most of the populace are scared to lose more than they stand to gain, you'll end up with the brave throwers arrested or killed, the media denouncing their "undemocratic" acts and possibly the people even more afraid to do anything.
Any revolutionary movement will need to hit a point of critical mass that allows it to succeed. It's hard to gauge just when that point is reached, but if you misjudge, you'll end up another failed insurrection.
The bad guys know this too, they'll penetrate your organization (if it's decentralized, they'll still poison it with plenty of agents, they've got taxpayers' money), they'll use your inaction to communicate apathy, they'll even have something false flag to still cause the effect you're describing without real people using force. And their media doesn't need anything real to happen to report it.
Not hard for a government, no. Anything predictable and organized will not succeed. As chaotic and brave as possible or not at all.
That's sounds accurate for Russia, but could it be that different strategies remain possible in the US? The US could be on it's way to be a totalitarian state like Russia, but it's not there yet, and still has a lot of (flawed) democratic institutions. I think in the US you can still protest without being put in jail.
I don't think so, because what I said didn't mention anything about already having totalitarianism. The means today's governments have at their disposal allow to achieve most of things done by classic 30s totalitarian regimes without visible violence.
Thanks for the reply. I'd argue it's still worthwhile to speak out in a peaceful manner and hope that truth will prevail, but maybe you're right and I am too optimistic
Peaceful protests are really only effective if they are seen as an alternative to more militant groups.
Martin Luther King non violence wouldn't have been that popular if it wasn't seen as an alternative for Malcolm X's more radical ideology.
I'm pretty sure something similar occurred with the suffrage movement but I didn't remember the details.