"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend."

[¿Que?]

Today is Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday. Post some shit if you care. Monday is an officially recognized national holiday. Represent.

[Catmatic Leftist]

Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr.! We Shall Overcome!

[gorillafuck]

R.I.P. MLK Jr.

[Magón]

Thought it was cool.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mlk2.gif

[Ocean Seal]

Thank you for posting this. Also in something of a lost time, I feel as if people don't really remember what Martin Luther King's Dream actually was especially after seeing Glenn Beck's march on the capital which had absolutely nothing to do with what King stood for. Although he wasn't a socialist, but he did support the labor movement and he saw racism as more than just the simplistic overview that liberals give it (you know their people just don't like those different to them and are intolerant). He saw it as institutionalized prejudice.
Anyway regardless of the fact that I don't agree with pacifism or revisionism (the original definition) props to King.

[Property Is Robbery]

I wish peaceful demonstrations changed things..

[¿Que?]

Anyway regardless of the fact that I don't agree with pacifism or revisionism (the original definition) props to King.
Glad someone said this, actually.

[Ele'ill]

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend."

You can love your enemy all you want but if they do not cease their actions against you they are still your enemy and you are still suffering. It's much easier for someone outside of a struggle to look in and desire peace between the two but it is not an accurate approach to tactic. It's a third party desire to reach a goal unrelated to the struggle that they are not an immediate part of and as seen- can be as equally harmful as those third party outsiders that knee jerk the advocacy for violence. Diversity of tactics (outside of the common North American understanding of it) is meant to reach a level of competency- not necessarily freedom.



White liberal doctrine of non-violence

[¿Que?]

You can love your enemy all you want but if they do not cease their actions against you they are still your enemy and you are still suffering. It's much easier for someone outside of a struggle to look in and desire peace between the two but it is not an accurate approach to tactic. It's a third party desire to reach a goal unrelated to the struggle that they are not an immediate part of and as seen- can be as equally harmful as those third party outsiders that knee jerk the advocacy for violence. Diversity of tactics (outside of the common North American understanding of it) is meant to reach a level of competency- not necessarily freedom.



White liberal doctrine of non-violence
I see it more along the lines of this:

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.
Maybe I'm rethinking King tho. Good critique :thumbup1:

[Bright Banana Beard]

The real question is, what is love?

[Jimmie Higgins]

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend."

"Without Struggle, there is no Progress" - Douglas.

R.I.P. MLK, I wish there were movements like the civil rights movement today. R.I.P. "MLK Jr. Day" an "officially recognized holiday" which a memo at my work set to all employees on Jan 1st of this year told us is not really a holiday anymore and we are not going to get a paid day off or overtime for it and a number of other "holidays".

Video of a presentation on MLK and the sanitation workers campaign he was supporting when he was assassinated:
http://wearemany.org/v/2008/06/martin-luther-kings-last-struggle

[¿Que?]

"Without Struggle, there is no Progress" - Douglas.

R.I.P. MLK, I wish there were movements like the civil rights movement today. R.I.P. "MLK Jr. Day" an "officially recognized holiday" which a memo at my work set to all employees on Jan 1st of this year told us is not really a holiday anymore and we are not going to get a paid day off or overtime for it and a number of other "holidays".

Video of a presentation on MLK and the sanitation workers campaign he was supporting when he was assassinated:
http://wearemany.org/v/2008/06/martin-luther-kings-last-struggle
So Jimmie, you might be happy to hear, I've joined a union and we're marching on Monday. I'm sure some of your folks (ISO) will be there :)

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=848



Mike Macnair’s article, ‘Pause for thought’ (December 16), on the rule of law was well written, but I do have a concern for something that’s missing in the discussion: civil disobedience.

Even the reformists of the Second International supported illegal actions like peaceful sit-ins or strikes, so long as it didn’t descend into violence proper (and by this, I mean the real violence of smashing windows, burning buildings, etc). It’s like an axis of legal-illegal on the horizontal and peaceful-violent on the vertical.

The Marxist tradition has it wrong on ‘Peaceful means where possible and violent revolution when necessary’. It should be: ‘Legal means where possible and illegal means when necessary, with the bourgeois authorities determining the level of peace or violence’, emulating more the US civil rights movement under Martin Luther King Jr than the British anti-poll tax action.

I’d also like to ask comrade Macnair personally, or any other CPGB comrade familiar with law or legal history, this question: if we’re going to scrap the ever-bourgeois idea of rule of law and the slogan ‘law and order’, this means replacing words and processes like legislation. Do we replace this with mere rules and rules-making?

[TC]

Self-interest, mutual self interest, money, and, when sustained for long enough in a controlled environment, overwhelming power, fear, force, and threats, have proven highly capable as well.

[Blackscare]

The real question is, what is love?

BABY DON'T HURT ME
DON'T HURT ME
NO MORE







Anyway, yes, much love for MLK even if I think his methods alone could never fix things completely.

[southernmissfan]

Thank you for posting this. Also in something of a lost time, I feel as if people don't really remember what Martin Luther King's Dream actually was especially after seeing Glenn Beck's march on the capital which had absolutely nothing to do with what King stood for. Although he wasn't a socialist, but he did support the labor movement and he saw racism as more than just the simplistic overview that liberals give it (you know their people just don't like those different to them and are intolerant). He saw it as institutionalized prejudice.
Anyway regardless of the fact that I don't agree with pacifism or revisionism (the original definition) props to King.

You are right. It's important to note that towards the end of his life he was becoming more and more outspoken against the war and against poverty. It's unfortunate his life was ended before he could continue with this connection of war, racism and capitalism.

[Apoi_Viitor]

You can love your enemy all you want but if they do not cease their actions against you they are still your enemy and you are still suffering.

Communism isn't love it's a hammer, something about how revolution isn't a dinner party...... combat liberalism....

[PhoenixAsh]

Well...I'd say MLK-day and black history month is nice and all but it will eventually just turn into a new marketing strategy...

http://dudetruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Screen-shot-2010-11-09-at-12.51.02-PM.png

<--- wtf??? Are they for real???


Love is not the only force that turns enemies into friends. Understanding and compassion will work much, much better.

[¿Que?]

^I liked the quote, but it's just that, a quote. Not a whole treatise on how to turn enemies to friends.

That picture, though, man, talk about corporate racism...

[PhoenixAsh]

^I liked the quote, but it's just that, a quote. Not a whole treatise on how to turn enemies to friends.

That picture, though, man, talk about corporate racism...

Yeah...I came across it somewhere....and it took me two or three minutes to register what the hell I was looking at.

It is widespread unfortunately. I am not going tom use this board as a platform...but another mindboggeling example. THe question is...is it intended or complete stupidity?

http://images.feedsntweets.com/400_400_unintentional_corporate_racism_05.jpg

[Queercommie Girl]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=848



Mike Macnair’s article, ‘Pause for thought’ (December 16), on the rule of law was well written, but I do have a concern for something that’s missing in the discussion: civil disobedience.

Even the reformists of the Second International supported illegal actions like peaceful sit-ins or strikes, so long as it didn’t descend into violence proper (and by this, I mean the real violence of smashing windows, burning buildings, etc). It’s like an axis of legal-illegal on the horizontal and peaceful-violent on the vertical.

The Marxist tradition has it wrong on ‘Peaceful means where possible and violent revolution when necessary’. It should be: ‘Legal means where possible and illegal means when necessary, with the bourgeois authorities determining the level of peace or violence’, emulating more the US civil rights movement under Martin Luther King Jr than the British anti-poll tax action.

I’d also like to ask comrade Macnair personally, or any other CPGB comrade familiar with law or legal history, this question: if we’re going to scrap the ever-bourgeois idea of rule of law and the slogan ‘law and order’, this means replacing words and processes like legislation. Do we replace this with mere rules and rules-making?

Agree. All socialists should be generally pacifists but also be potentially willing to use violence when there is no other choice, in order to defend the economic and democratic rights of workers, the poor and the oppressed.

However, there is should be no glorification of violence, or the "greatness" of violent power for its own sake and violent mob rule, and other kinds of macho bullshit.

[Scarlet Fever]

All socialists should be generally pacifists but also be potentially willing to use violence when there is no other choice, in order to defend the economic and democratic rights of workers, the poor and the oppressed.

However, there is should be no glorification of violence, or the "greatness" of violent power for its own sake and violent mob rule, and other kinds of macho bullshit.

I'm very reluctant to advocate violence--it's something I'm still struggling with--but the above seems quite reasonable. My difficulty is basically this: on one hand, Dr. King said, "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." Violence alienates people and appears to result in instability and authoritarianism. On the other hand, capitalism is of course ruthlessly violent, and violence as a last resort--as a form of self-defense--would seem to be acceptable.

Then again, in terms of revolutionary change, is violence even practical? If it comes down to warfare, how could the proletariat triumph over states armed with nuclear weapons, highly-trained militaries, and the like? Not that I'm a reformist--I understand that revolution is "no picnic." But must blood be shed to effect change? Gandhi and Dr. King would say no.

:confused:

[MarxSchmarx]

I'm very reluctant to advocate violence--it's something I'm still struggling with--but the above seems quite reasonable. My difficulty is basically this: on one hand, Dr. King said, "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." Violence alienates people and appears to result in instability and authoritarianism. On the other hand, capitalism is of course ruthlessly violent, and violence as a last resort--as a form of self-defense--would seem to be acceptable.

Then again, in terms of revolutionary change, is violence even practical? If it comes down to warfare, how could the proletariat triumph over states armed with nuclear weapons, highly-trained militaries, and the like? Not that I'm a reformist--I understand that revolution is "no picnic." But must blood be shed to effect change? Gandhi and Dr. King would say no.

:confused:

Actually note that the practitioners of non-violence like Gandhi and King never said that blood will not be shed. In fact, they recognized that blood would be shed - but that it would be the proponents of oppression who will have blood on their hand. It is the ability to stand up for one's beliefs in spite of the blood and the blows, that contain the true power of nonviolent activism. For then you expose the oppressors for who they are, and can begin to deligitimize their rule.

[¿Que?]

Not that I'm a reformist--I understand that revolution is "no picnic." But must blood be shed to effect change? Gandhi and Dr. King would say no.

I think, though, we need to move away from this false dichotomy of violence=revolution and nonviolence=reformism. By definition, reformism simply means that the system can be ameliorated or as Bernstein believed, we could achieve socialism eventually by winning a set of reforms. In other words, reform the system enough and you have a qualitatively new system. The problem with this is, of course, reforms always get pushed back, not to mention that many dispossessed classes can't exactly wait 10 50 or 100 years until enough reforms are made to make the system just. Thus what is necessary is a revolution which overturns the old existing order and replaces it with a new one. The fact of violence and non-violence is simply a means to a certain end, and should not be regarded as if it were itself the end.

[Knight of Cydonia]

i really expect something else when the first time i read it's title...i thought this thread was talking about how love can discriminate a friend from other friend if that friend was in love with the enemy of their friend...

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm very reluctant to advocate violence--it's something I'm still struggling with--but the above seems quite reasonable. My difficulty is basically this: on one hand, Dr. King said, "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." Violence alienates people and appears to result in instability and authoritarianism. On the other hand, capitalism is of course ruthlessly violent, and violence as a last resort--as a form of self-defense--would seem to be acceptable.

Then again, in terms of revolutionary change, is violence even practical? If it comes down to warfare, how could the proletariat triumph over states armed with nuclear weapons, highly-trained militaries, and the like? Not that I'm a reformist--I understand that revolution is "no picnic." But must blood be shed to effect change? Gandhi and Dr. King would say no.

:confused:

Gandhi and King aren't revolutionaries, what they say don't always apply to us.

For revolutionaries, often violence is unavoidable.

What I'm saying is that violence is always no more than a means to an end, and there should never be any violence for its own sake.

[Scarlet Fever]

there should never be any violence for its own sake.

...And with that, at least, I certainly agree.