I think it’s important to differentiate pacifism as a strategy – the total renunciation of anything that could be considered violence, often including even mere property damage – with non-violence as one tactic among many.

Many movements have had success using non-violence as a tactic in certain situations, so long as those movements don’t take the possibility of ever using violence completely off the table (pacifism).

It’s also worth noting that Mandela founded the ANC’s guerilla branch. Western media today portrays him as a purely non-violent, MLK-like figure, but in reality he was central to the ANC’s decision to begin an armed struggle against apartheid.

It’s almost as if:

During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

The people violently resisting a genocide are also good guys.

If someone is trying to kill you and everyone who looks like you, shooting back is good.

repairing harm through dialogue between victims, offenders, and community members

What if the person who committed the crime doesn’t want to engage in this process? What if the victim of the crime doesn’t want to? What if a person accused of a crime maintains their innocence? There are plenty of cases where restorative justice can work, but many others where it won’t.

addressing root causes like poverty, mental health issues, and substance abuse

the goal is to create a society where crime is less likely to occur

I think this is a much better framework to work with than prison abolition. Picking up the pieces after a crime has been committed is expensive and usually leaves you choosing from a range of bad options.

Sometimes the law is wrong, and following it is wrong

Dying for nothing in a lost war is one of those times

don’t come complaining when Trump deports your family

You can’t claim to give a shit about people and then say things like this

The only way this can turn around for Ukraine is a the war expanding into a (more) direct conflict between Russia and NATO, which would create a high risk of a nuclear exchange, which is unacceptable.

Ukraine lost. The only question now is how many more of their people they’ll send to pointlessly die before they start serious negotiations (i.e., not wild demands like getting Crimea). This is the months leading up to the end of WWI.

The point I bring up is that the peace terms are just going to get worse. The only way Ukraine turns this around is expanding this into a great power war, which is insanity, especially in the age of nuclear weapons.

Nah, tons of leftists right here on this site used to be libs. In the U.S. at least, I’d say most leftists went through a lib phase at some point.

I don’t think calling libs fascists-in-waiting, moderate fascists, etc. moves many people in the right direction. People match spite with spite. It should be reserved for those we have no hope of bringing around, not us 10 years ago.

Just go through and count the usage of kkkanadians.

The horror!

Non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/G584y

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine

It really is something how almost all English-langage media uses the phrase “full-scale invasion” in lockstep.

From a strictly military perspective, restrictions never help.

“From a strictly military perspective” is a nonsense framing, especially in a relatively limited war like this. Militaries are for (1) resolving political questions when peaceful attempts at resolution break down, and (2) deterring other countries from walking away from serious attempts at peaceful resolution. There is no world where you set aside the ultimate political goals; that’s the whole point!

The modest seizure of Russian territory may strengthen Ukraine’s bargaining position in negotiations, ease Russian pressure on Ukrainian defenses in the Donbas, or weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin politically, but it is unlikely to change the military picture in a significant way.

Should have dispensed with the saber-rattling and started here. This isn’t going to change the overall direction of the war; at most it will prolong the inevitable.

These are the last days of WWI, where people keep dying despite everyone knowing that the war’s end is imminent.

The fact that ukrainians are still fighting to this day shows they want to be independent.

This is a post about conscription, where people who do not want to fight are forced to

It doesn’t matter who did what before

this didn’t start on February 22, 2022, but in 2014

History starts and stops exactly when it best suits my argument

“All my takes are so perfect no one but a troll could disagree with me”

Go “do your own research” then lmao

You reject the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is caused by humans, then you want to pull debatelord shit about the history of climate science forecasts. Fuck off.

claims climate change isn’t caused by humans

links to article about climate change being caused by humans

I’m owned

You’re talking nonsense. Yes, living people are currently causing climate change. Those most responsible have names and addresses.

The world should have burned down to the groun… to nothingness 10 times over according to all the specialists/scientists.

This is just embarrassingly ignorant. The climate is deteriorating faster than scientists predicted, not slower.

Your answer to OP’s question is denial and a refusal to actually investigate the situation.

It’s an illusion your mind produced.

Lmao climate change isn’t an illusion, what are you talking about

Changes to climate are going to happen naturally

We’re not talking about natural climate changes, we’re talking about climate change caused by human actions.

“You can’t yet see the train you know is barreling down the tracks towards you… I think you have better things to think and worry about”