So here’s what I’ve got to say about the arguments about what happened at Berkeley last night – if I’ve tagged you, it’s because I’ve seen your concerns about it and want to reply to everyone all at once rather than in multiple threads, or you are a comrade whose feedback I would appreciate and invite you to copy and paste as much of it as you like if you want.
1) Some have argued that the protesters do not understand the history of nonviolent protests, which explains why they must not understand they are superior. On the contrary, I believe most of the protesters last night – including and even especially the anarchists who did most of the property destruction – know their history very well. They understand that the nonviolence of the Civil Rights Movement was very effective for that time and place, and they understand that in order for nonviolence to be effective, your opponents must respond violently. If the cops don’t release the dogs, don’t firehouse protesters, don’t dump food on those integrating lunch counters, the visuals and disruption that made the CRM successful don’t happen. Jim Crow was a space-based and visual regime; in that regard, it was a weak form of oppression because it could not be denied or papered-over. It was a perfect set up for nonviolent tactics, especially since white Southerners were idiots who did not understand that responding with violence, in this situation, hurt their cause over the long run.
But the people who placed their bodies in danger for justice were aware of the risks, and THEY decided to take them. But for anyone, especially someone who enjoys the privileges of being cis and/or white, to TELL black, brown, gay, lesbian, and transgender people that they only have a right to fight the forces that hope to annihilate them until they are bashing their head in is not only strategically disastrous – it’s basically asking them to wait until the Nazis are knocking on their door, by which time how the fuck will they really effectively fight back? – but morally bankrupt.
Finally, nonviolence – and we’re just talking mostly about property destruction here, in the case of last night – is NOT the most effective strategy ALL the time. Take the Anti-War movement. Same time period: the 1960s. There were multiple protests with thousands and thousands of people – the Pentagon was surrounded by such a protest at one point – not to mention the hundreds of protests across the country with hundreds of people that kept going and growing for years. What happened? Nothing. The White House continued on with its war; the Secretary of Defense, when asked years later if the protests had any impact on his thinking, replied he didn’t think so. “We were in a Cold War, and this was a Cold War activity” (see the film, The Fog of War for this quote). The war went on until 1975. One of the most violent, unjust wars in US history was not stopped by even huge, sustained nonviolent protest. Nonviolence does not always work.
2) And the reason why it does not always work is related to a second assumption in these arguments – that ultimately, large, sustained nonviolent protest can make those in power change their policies. This assumption is rooted in the belief that our democracy still is, actually, a democracy, where elites respond to the concerns of constituents, where elected officials still need a majority to gain and hold power (President Second Choice, anyone?) If this were ever true, in our current era of extreme inequality and mass incarceration and conditions that have more or less turned America into a police state, this is definitely not true now. The elites do not care about you and do not need your support. Especially anyone conservative or Republican. Just a small example: the pepper spray incident at UC Davis. A paragon of nonviolent action – with the forces-that-be lashing back, as ideally they are supposed to do (from a strategic stand point), the fallout froze fees going up for a bit, until enough time had gone by for the bad media to fade and the discussions returned to hiking them again. In any case, it totally failed to substantially change the condition and policy direction of higher education in California, and this was despite a massive march on the capital that followed several months later. And it is not hard to see why. IF THE ELITES DON’T NEED YOU, AND ALL YOU DO IS PEACEFULLY PROTEST, THEY CAN JUST LET YOU HAVE YOUR SAY AND THEN IGNORE YOU. Sorry to break it to you all, but that’s the place we live in.
3) BUT, people say, we need to win over other people, some “moderates,” and they are averse to both violence and, I even saw mentioned, vulgarity. This line of argument posits that there is this population of “moderate” folks out there, willing to have a “debate” but not if we yell too loudly, or push back against a system of repression that physically constrains our attempts at democratic action. This population of moderates is a myth – I’ll call them the mythical moderates. There are plenty of people out there who don’t feel super passionately one way or the other, yes, but if they, say, know what Milo says, and understand the effect of such ideas, and then still think any community is obligated, because of an extreme and absolutist ideal of freedom of speech, to welcome that kind of speech into their community, they are NOT going to be won over by a bunch of people holding polite signs, chanting politely. They will say, “Oh look, so one side is practicing their freedom of speech and so is the other; how nice” and go on with their day. That doesn’t help the people who are targeted by such hate speech. That doesn’t reduce the likelihood of people of color being killed by the cops, or transpeople being killed by random bigots. That makes the people who are NOT targeted by such speech feel like their hands are clean, and it makes them feel safe, because the specter of disorder is more disturbing to them than the news reports of another black and/or transperson murdered. That is the ugly truth but it is the truth; there is no winning them over to any action effective against fascists as is, so WHY THE FUCK APPEAL TO THEM. It is also a continuation of the idea that in order to liberate themselves, the oppressed have to appeal to their oppressors. This is both strategically insane (see comic about the Haitian slaves asking nicely for their freedom from slavery) and again, morally bankrupt.
4) Finally, on freedom of speech itself. It is important, but it is not, I repeat not, the most sacred value in a (real) democracy. It is one of many; but human lives are much much more sacred. If you do not understand how the hate speech of Alt-Right figures like Milo leads to the murder of marginalized people, you either need to watch the news sometime (Charleston, Quebec, just to name the more “spectacular” examples) or go back to school. Those who defend Milo and company in the name of free speech are effectively denying even the most obvious connections between speech and violence. Violence doesn’t come out of nowhere, it is nurtured over a period of time, and ideas lay the groundwork that justify it. The Nazis didn’t just all of a sudden decide they hate Jews, and the rest of Germany did not just all of a sudden decide the Jews were not worth defending; there was a long campaign of propaganda and anti-Semitic hate speech before the Nazis were EVEN IN ANY POWER, (and remember, Trump is the fucking president and his alt-right buddy, Bannon, is in a position of huge influence) when they were just some weird fringe group. If you go to the Holocaust Museum in Israel, for example, documenting such speech is THE FIRST FREAKING EXHIBIT. Gee, I wonder why? Were they trying to make a point about how hateful ideas create the conditions for hateful actions? And right now, these Alt-Right fascists are in the FREAKING WHITE HOUSE and you are asking those at the most risk to WAIT UNTIL THEY START GETTING KILLED (more often and brazenly, since they are already being killed) to defend themselves? This is not right. This is not right.
At the end of the day, it is a bad idea to fetishize free speech, which is not an end in itself but a means to an end – AND it’s bad to fetishize violence, as indeed, in some cases it is *not* the right strategy. But it is also a mistake to fetishize nonviolence, and to drink from the cup of liberal ideology that tells you it is always wrong, and it is never effective; an ideology that works to protect mainly those who enjoy the most protection and privilege under the current regime. Last night, the event was cancelled. It does not matter if Milo and company get their talking points; they will get them no matter what, they are not people to be reasoned with, and you don’t shame a bully or a sociopath into changing his tune or reversing his campaign of harassment. But what didn’t happen was that the community of Berkeley did not condone, did not allow the spread of fascism to go on as though it is something legitimate, and they shut it down. THOSE are the results that mean more to the people currently endangered by the current regime than any other. If that causes some hand-wringing amongst the mythical moderates, fine. Those hands were never going to be used to fight back against the violence the oppressed are facing in the first place, anyway.