one last thought before sleepytime

jumpingjacktrash:

lizardlicks:

jumpingjacktrash:

i think maybe folks who don’t know me well are assuming i’m advocating nonviolent resistance because i’m a gentle hippie who fears confrontation and believes in hugs and flowers

but the truth is i spent a whole lot of my life being really angry and violent, and got into a lotta lotta fights

like this is going to sound like a dumb ‘the whole bus applauded’ brag but i did in fact take on 4 nazi punks solo and ‘win’ once when i was i think 19 – by win i mean i hurt one real bad and the rest took off going “holy shit you’re crazy” and “what the fuck is wrong with you” because i was so rabid i freaked them out, because when i’m genuinely scared i kind of flip the berserker switch

this only happened once ok i was not some kind of vigilante, they caught me in a parking lot and were gonna teach me a lesson for being friends with a guy they had a problem with, it was a whole stupid thing, ANYWAY what i’m saying is that punching nazis in the face is not an abstract idea for me, it is a thing i have genuinely had to clean up after in my bathroom sink

so i know exactly what you get from it

to wit: the shakes

in addition to some self-congratulation and bragging rights, but i’m not gonna lie, i threw up when i got home

i wish i had some pat moral about what the nazi punks from colorado did next but it had nothing to do with me, they apparently went back home bc one of them had a warrant out on him or something, it doesn’t really matter, nothing changed. i don’t even know if the friend they had a vendetta for ever found out i got in a fight with them or what he thought about it if he did, we weren’t that close

real life is messy

yeah ok the point is i did the violence thing for too many years and it kinda sucked and was not very effective at achieving anything whatsoever, and that’s why i’m a pacifist now, the end.

It seems to me that a lot of people are falsely equating non-violence with non-hostility and total pacifism.  No.  That’s not even a little bit the same thing.  I hold no illusion that I’m going to be winning a neo-Nazi over by breaking bread and singing kumbaya, but I’m not under the illusion that I will be winning them over at all.  What I want to do is drive them back into their slimy sewer dumps where they can rot for good.  I intend to make an environment so hostile to their ideals that they will have no place to sow those seeds, their hate and fear mongering will bear no fruit.

Think about it.  Think about your life experiences, and remember how FUCKING HARD it was to fight back against multiple people that dismissed you and told you to shut up versus the time someone took a swing at you.  Punching back was cathartic, and made you feel in control, but being faced with an overwhelming vocal opposition probably made you feel powerless and alone, yeah?  I know we’ve ALL had that experience, either for our race, religion, gender or attraction orientation, disability, or social-economic class.  

Take that.  Take that and turn it right back on them.  Shame them, rebuke them, get your friends, your relatives and neighbors to do it to.  If you feel you are alone, try to find and connect with like-minded people online and form meet ups.  Write to your elected government at all levels and ask them what they plan to do to oppose them.  Go to town meetings and confront them directly. The alt-right is a tiny, tiny fraction, but they gain power only when they go unopposed, so oppose them at every step.  Make them fight for every single inch of ground they want, and burn through their will until they slink away exhausted, with their tails between their legs.

you make a really good point here, and thank you for taking my disjointed half-asleep confessional and making something useful out of it.

nonviolence is not for winning over the enemy. it is for turning their progress into an exhausting obstacle course they can’t complete. it is EXTREMELY hostile.