Violence

follow my

In this blog post. I talk about violence against protesters, and specifically a school shooting which was done by the Ohio National Guard in America.

There is a saying that goes around anytime violence is used towards the state and the rich. This saying is used constantly even. It is a saying, I hate.

"Violence is never the answer."

On a personal level, for your everyday life with others. Sure I can 99% of the time agree. Violence is not THE answer. You shouldn't resort to violence unless it is your final option. I wont condemn a person for using violence against a person who is violent to them, unless that violence in return is disproportionate in comparison. A kid who fights his bully, is not at the same level as his bully.

This isn't about personal daily life though.

If that is your philosophy in your daily life, i do not fault you. However, when violence is done towards the state. The state, and state media, will puppet the quote around as if they do not do violence every single day.

Corporations making you suffer for minimum wage? Violence. Corporations bleeding you dry because of a medical emergency? Violence. Police killing a man? Violence. Forcing you to be complicit in using your tax dollars to fund a genocide? Violence. Deportation raids happening during a wildfire? Violence. Using threats of violence to keep you inline? You guessed it.

This isn't a complete list. You get the point though. Every single day they use violence against the people. Then turn around to try to act as if they are better than we and tell us to not use violence.

Violent Revolution

Yup I'm bringing it up.

There is this weird belief, I imagine the state has pushed into the public mind. The idea goes, that non-violence is the revolutionary stance. Gandhi was non-violent, As was MLK. And the state loves to parade around MLK. However, even they believe that under very specific circumstances that violence was necessary.

Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right. - Mahatma Gandhi

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor. But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. - Mahatma Gandhi

a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? - Martin Luther King Jr

So these two, who i respect for their work, that names are dragged through the mud by the state. Propped up as "good revolutionaries" for their stances on non-violence. Still believed that sometimes violence would be an answer.

"Violence" of the Oppressed

Walter Rodney, wrote in "The Groundings with my Brothers": “We were told that violence in itself is evil, and that, whatever the cause, it is unjustified morally. By what standard of morality can the violence used by a slave to break his chains be considered the same as the violence of a slave master? By what standards can we equate the violence of blacks who have been oppressed, suppressed, depressed and repressed for four centuries with the violence of white fascists? Violence aimed at the recovery of human dignity and at equality cannot be judged by the same yardstick as violence aimed at maintenance of discrimination and oppression.”

Violence of the oppressed can not be weighed the same as the violence of the oppressor.

Stokely Charmicheal once said, in response to King's belief of nonviolence: "He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”

Kent State.

During 1970, America was at war in Vietnam. During this time they started the draft. The draft was a way to bolster numbers in the war using able bodied men the ages between 18-26. They would also have recruiters on school campuses, as they do now a days, to try to bolster numbers even more. Students at the time protested this. Both the draft and recruiters being on school campuses.

May 4th, 1970. Kent State students where holding a rally against US involvement in the war, expanding of the war into Cambodia, and the national guard recruiters on campus. The rally was peaceful. Leaderless, and large, but peaceful. That was until the national guard began to agitate them. With orders to disperse being welcomed with chants and rocks being thrown at a car, one hitting an officer. Further orders to disperse where welcomed with more chanting, tear gas was thrown at the rally goers, but ineffective due to wind and being thrown back at the national guard.

There was advances and movement across Kent States campus, at one point the protesters where cornered in field, before being let out and following national guard back to an initial area. During the move back multiple national guardsmen said they had rocks thrown at them to little affect. What is, if i may ask, the normal response to this? protesters throwing rocks that are doing nothing? maybe hurting a little. Ultimately the national guard in this situation are in some form of armor. Against rocks.

Sargent Myron Pryor would be the first to turn and fire on student as they retraced their steps. Multiple other guardsmen would turn with him and fire upon the crowd, causing them the run and causing chaos. 4 students died, and 9 others where wounded during this shooting.

Guardsmen stated their reasoning for shooting was fear. Fear? Fear of unarmed students? While your armed?

They shot at students for throwing a few rocks. 8 of the shooters where on trial and acquitted. They killed protesters and then the state deemed them legally blameless.

That is not the sign of a conscious.

Bombs over Gaza

I am going to keep this slightly brief as there is too much history here to truly get into the oppression of Palestinians from the Zionist state.

October 7th, 2023. Hamas sent missiles into Israel killing around 1,100 people, and even more wounded. That, at the time of this writing, was 1 year, and 3 months ago. If you haven't been asleep for that long, you would know since that happened Israel has been committing genocide on Palestinians.

As of August of 2023, the death toll hit 40,000 people. That is over 30 times as many deaths as the attack on Israel. They are no longer defending themselves.

And are palestinians just meant to sit and take it? Am i meant to condemn violence against a state that is genociding a people? But not the genociders?

I will condemn Hamas, while Zionist will refuse to condemn Israel.

The Hannibal Directive.

Lets take it back to October 7th. among the dead from that day, an ESTIMATED 14 Israeli civilians where killed by IDF soldiers. In what is called, the "Hannibal Directive." This is a directive where they kill soldiers so that they may not be captured by enemy forces.

You can argue with god on if you think being captured or dead is worse. I don't want to hear it. But killing your own soldiers is one thing. Killing civilians? Thats another. They don't get too choose if they want that, its not mercy if they don't have a choice.

Why Hamas Exists.

You can blame Israel for this, Hamas is an answer to the violence against Palestine. When you oppress people, they remember that. Resistance groups get formed, but so do nationalist groups. Those killed have kids and family members, and those family members have every right to be angry. Retaliatory "violence" is inevitable when the oppressor only knows violence.

Israel does not have a conscious.

Bogside Massacre, Bloody Sunday

January 30th 1972. To keep a really long story short. Catholics in Ireland where staging a march for anti-internment. 1 para, a British parachute battalion, was chosen to watch the march and arrest protesters. This pick of regiment seems very particular as they specifically where known for being particularly brutal.

The march reached a barrier where the main march redirected while a few broke off and began to throw rocks at the British army stationed there. This was common with the youth, and onlookers stated that the rioting was no more violent than any others.

The rioters noticed 1 para in an abandoned derelict building and started to throw stones, in which shots where fired back and two killed. 1 para stated that it was because they where holding a black cylindrical object, however it was later proven false as both deaths where unarmed.

this would only be the start of the killing, and arrests as it would later become chaos, with rioters and peaceful marchers getting mixed up due to paratroops not following commands.

There are a few soldiers at the heart of these killings. killing 7 of the 13 victims. Their names? well, the state hides them. They protect these murderers. And I mean murderers, every report of this incident agrees. They had no reason to shoot these people, rioting or not. They beat people bloody, they shot them for fun. Yet the state protects them, but giving them letters. Soldier F, Soldier H, Soldier J, ect. We only know one, Soldier F, because of a slip up in court.

What happened when David James Cleary was named as Soldier F? Twitter helped suspend multiple accounts of people in the Republic of Ireland for naming him. That, is state sanctioned violence at its most obvious. When the man who murdered protesters for the state, is hidden, and those who name him, silenced.

England does not have a conscious.

Selma To Montgomery.

If you think that throwing rocks, is grounds to get shot. Or 1,100 deaths is equivalent to over 40,000. Lets talk, Non-violence.

The Selma to Montgomery Marches where 3 protests held in 1965. The marches would go along a 54-mile stretch from Selma, Alabama to the state capital Montgomery. The marches where to show that African American citizens had an overwhelming desire to vote in elections, as well in defiance of segregation.

Edmund Pettus Bridge, Bloody Sunday

March 7th, 1965. Lead by a few people but notably one Amelia Boynton. The march would be cut short on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. (Named after a Confederate brigadier general.) By lawmen, who would charged on unarmed protesters with batons and tear gas.

Boynton would be beaten unconscious and pictures of her would circulate quickly as word got around about it happening.

March 9th, 1965. Another march, though this would be cut short by King himself, as a federal court issued a temporary injunction against further marches. That night however anti-civil right group would murder a civil rights activist named James Reeb

March 21st, 1965. A successful march would finally take place, as the Alabama National Guard escorted the march from Selma to Montgomery under federal control, as Alabama Govener George Wallace refused to protect the protesters.

The violence held out by those in power would cause a national outcry. Resulting in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Police Intervention.

What do Kent State, and Bloody Sunday in Ireland have in common?

Once police intervened, stopping protesters or getting too close. Then people got agitated. This isn't rare either. During the BLM protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd began, it was found that they where overwhelmingly peaceful, and that the ones which weren't, where because of police intervention in the matter.

When you have a large mob of people, and you begin to corral and isolate them, those mobs will become violent. Instead of being allowed to continue on peacefully.

Battle of Blair Mountain

I'm gonna briefly talk about another fight that's near and dear to my heart as an Appalachian.

The Battle of Blair Mountain is a small part of a much larger picture. Since 1890 when United Mine Workers (UMW) was founded, coal mines in west virginia had strict anti-union rules in place. They would only hire non-union workers, and if a worker was found to be a union member they would be fired immediately. This would also mean, because many workers lived in company housing, they would get evicted from their living space.

In 1920 the new UMW president sought to end this resistance to unions in the area, along side other union presidents. With this large push from multiple union heads, over 3,000 miners would join the union, and get fired.

Being the time it was, gun fights and skirmishes where a plenty. Union busters, hired guns, would be bought out to evict past employees. Fights between miners and law enforcement. Ultimately resulting in Blair mountain.

Its said about one million shots where fired before the battle ended. During the battles though between lawmen, and union miners. Bombs would be dropped against the miners, both explosive and poison gas bombs left over from WWI.

Only ending because the national guard would show up. Many miners being veterans themselves refused to fire on military. This would end in a loss for the miners and have adverse effects on the industry and all american industries there after.

The national guard where sent in to stop the striking miners. They where sent in to protect capital and it worked.

America has no conscious.

My Point

My point with sharing all of these,

The state will protect itself, in the guise that what they do is right and you wrong.
The state will protect those that enact violence against you, in the name of the state.
The state will enact violence against you, and then when you fight back, enact even more violence.

The state will call what the people do violence, after they had started the fight. If a man punches you, and you punch back, that is self defense. If a person blocks your way, and you move him with force, that is self defense. When the state enacts violence against the people, and the people fight back, that is self defense. When the oppressor enacts violence against the oppressed, and the oppressed fight back, that is self defense.

What they don't tell you about the civil rights movement, is while it was non-violent. Black people of the time understood they needed to stay armed. As violence could be dished out at any time to them. They understood that self-defense against would be attackers was acceptable.

I am not saying to be violent. I am telling you to understand that the "violence" enacted by the working class, and the oppressed, can't be weighed on the same merits as violence from the oppressor.

The state does not have a conscious.