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While this was a decent article highlighting an interesting point about the impending collapse of the US, this part was obviously classist: > There was a wave

While this was a decent article highlighting an interesting point about the impending collapse of the US, this part was obviously classist: > There was a wave of terrorism by labor radicals and anarchists. Yes. Terrorism gave us the 40 hour workweek, and in my country of Canada, single payer healthcare...

potatolicious 13y ago
I don't see the "obvious classism". Author isn't talking about demonstrations or protests, author is talking about extremists blowing things up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_United_States_anarchist_bombings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_United_States_anarchist_bo... And more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing I don't think calling bombings in public spaces "terrorism" is really straining the definition of the word. In fact it seems pretty on-the-nose. And far from driving any sort of positive change, these bombings derived zero concessions from the government. Their only long-term effect was the further marginalization of the political left in the USA, as they became associated with violence. This is a legacy that is still here in the US today, where words like "socialist" are still being used as obvious pejoratives. It's interesting that you bring up single payer health care in Canada. The first real implementation of public health care in Canada was in Saskatchewan, under premier Tommy Douglas, who was IIRC voted a few years ago as the Greatest Canada Who Ever Lived. Public health care was achieved in Saskatchewan not by hostage-taking, bombing, or shooting anyone, but by persistent demonstration and political participation. Not a shot was fired to win single payer health care in Canada. Terrorism gave us nothing except fear, violence, and death. In every place it has shown up it has actively worked against the causes it purports to advance (see: OWS and rioting). It is in spite of violent extremists that these causes have succeeded, it should get zero credit.
- Glyptodon 13y ago
  I think there's more ambiguity to a lot of events in that era. I mean take stuff like the Bisbee deportation... I doubt it gets called terrorism most of the time.
- jahaja 13y ago
  One could argue that it's at least a bit of cherry-picking. Furthermore I would not agree with the statement that those incidents is a major contributor to the stigmatization of the political left - the socialist. That I would think is caused by massive propaganda and scare mongering throughout the 20th century.
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    They also forgot to mention that at that time, the government branding them terrorists were killing them and their compatriots at many of the labour sit ins. Usually it's the elite that's quick to justify thousands of death for security, so I'd argue that while deplorable in a moral sense, the acts themselves when taken in context are understandable, as it was war.
    - jahaja 13y ago
      Indeed. This, among many other things, can add a bit of a context of the period: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1918 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1918
- scarmig 13y ago
  It's certainly terrorism, but there is a real asymmetry between how we treat the State and the individual. The State engaged in plenty of mass indiscriminate violence against nonviolent people in the same period. The incidents you mention killed two people (one of whom, as a historical irony, was a working class security officer, and the other was an anarchist himself.) But when the government comes in and kills dozens if not hundreds of people in various labor incidents (or turned a blind eye to corporations doing the same), it's just establishing "law and order" (read: used violent force to ensure the continued functioning of and economic profits of capital). There's also the elephant in the room, since we're talking about the 1910s, of some unspecified but very widespread government violence and big explosions in public squares. Though that was more a competition among elites, it was still borne disproportionately by the non-elite.
  - nickff 13y ago
    I agree with you about the state being given a free pass on violence and coercion, as well as some corporations having done the same. What you failed to mention is that unions have abused many of their members, used violence against replacement workers, and destroyed the property of their employers. This is not an issue of unions vs. corporations vs. states; it is the fundamental problem with collectivism, which frequently uses coercion as a means to achieve power or theft.
    - scarmig 13y ago
      I agree with you, except for one part. I'd correct your closing sentence to "It is a fundamental problem with humanity, which frequently uses coercion as a means to achieve power." Collectivism is a slippery concept and seems to amount to "individuals working together to achieve some aim." So long as you have systems of interacting individuals, organizations will arise to achieve economies of scale, and violence will inherently be part of it because of the components that make up the system.
      - nickff 13y ago
        Based on your definition of collectivism, I would agree with you, but I think the definition is too broad. From the Wikipedia article on Collectivism: "Collectivist orientations stress the importance of cohesion within social groups... and in some cases, the priority of group goals over individual goals" You can have individualists "working together to achieve the same aim", for example in a firm (or corporation), but they may place no importance on cohesion or group goals (when they are different from individual goals).
- duairc 13y ago
  Are you saying that the political left would be more effective if it never used violence ever?
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    Of course they are. Look at theire final paragraph tying OWS with terrorism. This person is a shill who's rewriting history. The IWW and other mass union labour movements engaged in war with business elite, which was backed/run by the government. The concessions we were given were temporary, but amazing in terms of prosperity. But they are right. Collections of Working Class people didn't die as heroes who ushered in an era of labour laws and minimum wages, but are rather terrorists who had ZERO effect on the world... /s
- tokenizer 13y ago
  > I don't see the "obvious classism". Author isn't talking about demonstrations or protests, author is talking about extremists blowing things... Don't try and dismiss entire movements with the acts of but a few extremists. Without the movement, you don't have May Day in 1919: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare#May_Day_1919 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare#May_Day_1919 Also, without context, you're argument seems reasonable, however WITH context, it does not. During class warfare, your poor and disenfranchised are AT WAR with the rich and wealthy. Of course these people have no recourse for representation from the elite, nor do they have police protection. After years of struggles with police and politicians, I find it insulting to claim that any engagements are terrorism, and that all of it is under the pretense of war. Just look at the locations of these events... > Their only long-term effect was the further marginalization of the political left in the USA, as they became associated with violence. Actually the labour movements had gotten the most concessions out of government between 1918 and 1940. If you disagree, again, feel free to explain how labour laws inhibit society from being truly free/prosperous. > Terrorism gave us nothing except fear, violence, and death. In every place it has shown up it has actively worked against the causes it purports to advance (see: OWS and rioting). OWS are terrorists? Now I know you're a shill. People should really take note of these type of subtle propoganda, and get informed. http://www.iww.org/ http://www.iww.org/
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    > "Don't try and dismiss entire movements with the acts of but a few extremists." You're mistaking my argument for my political stance. I am quite far on the left, thanks. The violent actors that are attracted to just about any cause do not represent the cause, but they are an easy scapegoat to be used by the opposition, and this scapegoating works. Short of changing human nature, this is the limitation we have to work with. Every violent act in the name of some cause directly works against said cause, even if its perpetrators are themselves a minority. A single violent actor in your midst cancels out the credibility of hundreds, if not thousands, of peaceful participants. We can whine all day about how unfair this is, but tough, this is the way public perception works. This is why as supporters of whatever cause you believe in, it's of critical importance to root out the violent elements within your group. > "OWS are terrorists? Now I know you're a shill. People should really take note of these type of subtle propoganda, and get informed." Jesus, go back to /r/conspiracy already. Look at my posting history, you think I get paid to write this shit? This is what I hate about talking to people like you, I express one thing you find disagreeable, but no, I can't possibly hold that opinion in good faith, I must be paid, I must be a planted agitator. OWS aren't terrorists, but their protests around the country (outside of NYC itself, which remained relatively peaceful) were mired with rioting, looting, and violence. It made the movement completely toxic to any support from political moderates. Over time it became largely associated with crackpots and extremists, and they never gained the support of the undecided everyman. OWS died because of its violent internal elements. You think people didn't identify with OWS? Nearly everyone I know identifies with the core complaints of OWS, but very few ever participated in their protests, because they were known to be violent, because nobody wanted to be in the same crowd as black bloc assholes smashing windows. There is a reason why MLK Jr. preached heavily for non-violence, because every window smashed, every store looted, erases the hard work of many, many more people. > "During class warfare, your poor and disenfranchised are AT WAR with the rich and wealthy. Of course these people have no recourse for representation from the elite, nor do they have police protection." Really? Really? That's the best you can come up with, after bringing up single-payer health care in Canada? One of the greatest (if not the greatest) achievements in Canadian history? The one that was won without a single bullet or a single bomb? The one that was hard-fought by people in the political process, by shrewd leaders? You brought that up and now you're saying that there is no recourse other than violence? No recourse for the everyman except to take up arms? Jesus.
- calibraxis 13y ago
  It's worth noting that you reached back to 1919. Even though the Occupy movement was based in anarchist principles. From David Graeber's _The Democracy Project_ (an inside view into Occupy): "It may well be the most nonviolent movement of its size in American history, and this despite the absence of peace codes, marshals, or official peace police. In the fall, there were at least five hundred occupations, with participants representing remarkably diverse philosophies, from evangelical Christians to revolutionary anarchists, and thousands of marches and actions—and yet the most "violent" acts attributed to protesters were four of five acts of window-breaking, basically less than one might expect in the wake of one not particularly rowdy Canadian hockey game. [...] there was virtually no discussion of the first OWS-associated window-breaking in New York itself, which occurred on March 17 [...] broken by an NYPD officer, using an activist's head." If you don't feel like reading the book, you can read this article, where Occupy anarchists were more criticized for "all this anarchist nonsense - the consensus, the sparkly fingers..." (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011112872835904508.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128728...) (I mean, one must be honest about violence within anarchist history; there exist hawkish people who call themselves anarchists, as no one owns the term. But the image of anarchist bombers is propaganda, made by hyper-violent countries which bomb all the time.)
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    The quote in question was from the article: where the author claimed that there was a rash of anarchist terrorism in the 1919-1921 time frame, and using it as an example of the instability central to the article's thesis. I'm specifically referencing the events author was alluding to, since tokenizer seems to regard this statement as an unfair coloring, where in fact the specific referenced events were bombings, some of which targeted the public, which makes "terrorism" an apt label.
    - calibraxis 13y ago
      Mea culpa; I rarely visit HN recently, and broke my own rule against commenting before closely reading the article. The media is obviously hypocritical on who they call "terrorists." (That is, they ignore the far greater terrorism on their own side.) But that aside, I clearly didn't read closely. Best to stop posting...
EthanHeilman 13y ago
But there was a wave of terrorism. I am very partial to late 19th century anarchists, but 'propaganda by the deed' included both assassinations (which could be ethically justified as part of a larger war) and a small number of random acts of violence against the general public (which I see no serious ethical justification for (x)). While such acts were a fairly small part of 'Propaganda of the Deed', they are an early example of what would be later labeled terrorism (that is, NGOs using indiscriminate violence against civil populations for political ends). For example: "February 12, 1894 – Émile Henry, intending to avenge Auguste Vaillant, sets off a bomb in Café Terminus (a café near the Gare Saint-Lazare train station in Paris), killing one and injuring twenty. During his trial, when asked why he wanted to harm so many innocent people, he declared, "There is no innocent bourgeois." This act is one of the rare exceptions to the rule that propaganda of the deed targets only specific powerful individuals. Henry is convicted and executed by guillotine on May 21." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed The small number of acts of terror carried out by anarchists likely didn't give us the 40 year work week (xx), anarchists and other radicals organizing did. x - The fact that these acts of terror were carried out in reprisal for far worse state terror is no excuse. The ends do not justify the means. xx - The value of assassination is debatable but clearly terrorism was both counter-productive and unethically unjustifiable.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  If you're arguing for syntactical purity than yes, they are terrorists. Semantically, terrorism is violence against the state/privileged public, and "the legitimate use of force" is violence by the state, to the individual/disenfranchised public. Are poor mostly black neighborhoods not under the duress of terror from the "Stop and Frisk" police in NY? What about Operation Northwood? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods Also, just because you find certain actions morally reprehensible, doesn't mean they are. I'm sure we're all missing TONS of context. Also, to quote Nietzsche: "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." If you can come up with a method for countering oppression that doesn't use force, but DOESN'T involve begging your oppressors, please let me in on the tactic. Also, revolutionary anarchism is but a branch. You have many forms of anarchism. Most of which advocate peaceful coexistence without the use of force over individuals or communities. I'd argue that dividing force into subsets of classifications is futile. You have force, you have coercion, and you have power. Anarchists inately believe that force/coercion is corrupting, which gives you a point, but many would agree that, "The war to end all wars is worth it." So while the end may not justify the mean, The end that justifies all meaning - is something else entirely to look into.
specialist 13y ago
Ah, yes, terrorism. Terrorism is what we call punching up. Law & order what we call punching down. Stuff like locking workers inside burning buildings, using thugs, cops, and soldiers to crack labor heads, forcibly deporting undesirables. I'm finally starting to get the hang of this. Now I am learning.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  Exactly. People put the ownness for grassroot movements to legitimize their use of force, AND that of their loose affiliates, but point to the government and question it's actions, and "that's different" /s. The article makes one great point thought: Many people die, INCLUDING rich people in collapses. They're either extremely confident about this time, or extremely ignorant with how revolutions and power structures usually mix.
  - specialist 13y ago
    FDR said something like "I'll either be the greatest American President, or the last". So he knew the stakes. I've characterized the New Deal as a) labor gets living wages and in return b) the plutocrats get to keep their heads. On paper, it's the creation of the middle class in exchange for the chicken hawks profiteering from the forever war.
oscargrouch 13y ago
> There was a wave of terrorism by labor radicals and anarchists. A small observation,a little off-topic: The author need to study a little bit more about what anarchism really are, to not get confused with terrorism; or equalizing it with the destruction of the current rule order.. this is chaos, not anarchism Anarchism has to do with individual freedom.. the natural one we all born with, and no force can take that freedom from you.. its the ultimate freedom.. The anarchism is the most advanced form of politics(by not imposing any particular policy by the use of force), but it need a very sophisticated type of human being.. (we can find nowadays but are very few proportionally speaking).. So its not feasible in the current social reality.. (so i dont think is a good idea to try to put it to work right now :)) To get a real taste of anarchism, its imperative the know the works of Bakunin, Proudhon, Thoureau, Nietzsche, Freud and Foucault (I can even dare to say Jesus Christ was one too) Anyone that says that anarchism is the same as blow up things and mess with "the established order" (as sampled in the Fight Club movie), dont know what they are talking about Edit: Also the people that do awful things, and call themselves as anarchists (i guess unabomber had this image of himself) are also wrong.. and are making a diservice to the real concept, the same way people misuse the concept of "hacker".. I just fell the need to also make justice to the concept of anarchism, the same way i would do with the concept of hacker
jboynyc 13y ago
I don't have enough background to flesh out this argument, but my hunch is that this classist bent can be attributed (at least partially) to the inherently conservative nature of the "cliometrics" take on historiography.

potatolicious 13y ago

I don't see the "obvious classism". Author isn't talking about demonstrations or protests, author is talking about extremists blowing things up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_United_States_anarchist_bombings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_United_States_anarchist_bo... And more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing I don't think calling bombings in public spaces "terrorism" is really straining the definition of the word. In fact it seems pretty on-the-nose. And far from driving any sort of positive change, these bombings derived zero concessions from the government. Their only long-term effect was the further marginalization of the political left in the USA, as they became associated with violence. This is a legacy that is still here in the US today, where words like "socialist" are still being used as obvious pejoratives. It's interesting that you bring up single payer health care in Canada. The first real implementation of public health care in Canada was in Saskatchewan, under premier Tommy Douglas, who was IIRC voted a few years ago as the Greatest Canada Who Ever Lived. Public health care was achieved in Saskatchewan not by hostage-taking, bombing, or shooting anyone, but by persistent demonstration and political participation. Not a shot was fired to win single payer health care in Canada. Terrorism gave us nothing except fear, violence, and death. In every place it has shown up it has actively worked against the causes it purports to advance (see: OWS and rioting). It is in spite of violent extremists that these causes have succeeded, it should get zero credit.

Glyptodon 13y ago
I think there's more ambiguity to a lot of events in that era. I mean take stuff like the Bisbee deportation... I doubt it gets called terrorism most of the time.
jahaja 13y ago
One could argue that it's at least a bit of cherry-picking. Furthermore I would not agree with the statement that those incidents is a major contributor to the stigmatization of the political left - the socialist. That I would think is caused by massive propaganda and scare mongering throughout the 20th century.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  They also forgot to mention that at that time, the government branding them terrorists were killing them and their compatriots at many of the labour sit ins. Usually it's the elite that's quick to justify thousands of death for security, so I'd argue that while deplorable in a moral sense, the acts themselves when taken in context are understandable, as it was war.
  - jahaja 13y ago
    Indeed. This, among many other things, can add a bit of a context of the period: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1918 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1918
scarmig 13y ago
It's certainly terrorism, but there is a real asymmetry between how we treat the State and the individual. The State engaged in plenty of mass indiscriminate violence against nonviolent people in the same period. The incidents you mention killed two people (one of whom, as a historical irony, was a working class security officer, and the other was an anarchist himself.) But when the government comes in and kills dozens if not hundreds of people in various labor incidents (or turned a blind eye to corporations doing the same), it's just establishing "law and order" (read: used violent force to ensure the continued functioning of and economic profits of capital). There's also the elephant in the room, since we're talking about the 1910s, of some unspecified but very widespread government violence and big explosions in public squares. Though that was more a competition among elites, it was still borne disproportionately by the non-elite.
- nickff 13y ago
  I agree with you about the state being given a free pass on violence and coercion, as well as some corporations having done the same. What you failed to mention is that unions have abused many of their members, used violence against replacement workers, and destroyed the property of their employers. This is not an issue of unions vs. corporations vs. states; it is the fundamental problem with collectivism, which frequently uses coercion as a means to achieve power or theft.
  - scarmig 13y ago
    I agree with you, except for one part. I'd correct your closing sentence to "It is a fundamental problem with humanity, which frequently uses coercion as a means to achieve power." Collectivism is a slippery concept and seems to amount to "individuals working together to achieve some aim." So long as you have systems of interacting individuals, organizations will arise to achieve economies of scale, and violence will inherently be part of it because of the components that make up the system.
    - nickff 13y ago
      Based on your definition of collectivism, I would agree with you, but I think the definition is too broad. From the Wikipedia article on Collectivism: "Collectivist orientations stress the importance of cohesion within social groups... and in some cases, the priority of group goals over individual goals" You can have individualists "working together to achieve the same aim", for example in a firm (or corporation), but they may place no importance on cohesion or group goals (when they are different from individual goals).
duairc 13y ago
Are you saying that the political left would be more effective if it never used violence ever?
- tokenizer 13y ago
  Of course they are. Look at theire final paragraph tying OWS with terrorism. This person is a shill who's rewriting history. The IWW and other mass union labour movements engaged in war with business elite, which was backed/run by the government. The concessions we were given were temporary, but amazing in terms of prosperity. But they are right. Collections of Working Class people didn't die as heroes who ushered in an era of labour laws and minimum wages, but are rather terrorists who had ZERO effect on the world... /s
tokenizer 13y ago
> I don't see the "obvious classism". Author isn't talking about demonstrations or protests, author is talking about extremists blowing things... Don't try and dismiss entire movements with the acts of but a few extremists. Without the movement, you don't have May Day in 1919: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare#May_Day_1919 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare#May_Day_1919 Also, without context, you're argument seems reasonable, however WITH context, it does not. During class warfare, your poor and disenfranchised are AT WAR with the rich and wealthy. Of course these people have no recourse for representation from the elite, nor do they have police protection. After years of struggles with police and politicians, I find it insulting to claim that any engagements are terrorism, and that all of it is under the pretense of war. Just look at the locations of these events... > Their only long-term effect was the further marginalization of the political left in the USA, as they became associated with violence. Actually the labour movements had gotten the most concessions out of government between 1918 and 1940. If you disagree, again, feel free to explain how labour laws inhibit society from being truly free/prosperous. > Terrorism gave us nothing except fear, violence, and death. In every place it has shown up it has actively worked against the causes it purports to advance (see: OWS and rioting). OWS are terrorists? Now I know you're a shill. People should really take note of these type of subtle propoganda, and get informed. http://www.iww.org/ http://www.iww.org/
- potatolicious 13y ago
  > "Don't try and dismiss entire movements with the acts of but a few extremists." You're mistaking my argument for my political stance. I am quite far on the left, thanks. The violent actors that are attracted to just about any cause do not represent the cause, but they are an easy scapegoat to be used by the opposition, and this scapegoating works. Short of changing human nature, this is the limitation we have to work with. Every violent act in the name of some cause directly works against said cause, even if its perpetrators are themselves a minority. A single violent actor in your midst cancels out the credibility of hundreds, if not thousands, of peaceful participants. We can whine all day about how unfair this is, but tough, this is the way public perception works. This is why as supporters of whatever cause you believe in, it's of critical importance to root out the violent elements within your group. > "OWS are terrorists? Now I know you're a shill. People should really take note of these type of subtle propoganda, and get informed." Jesus, go back to /r/conspiracy already. Look at my posting history, you think I get paid to write this shit? This is what I hate about talking to people like you, I express one thing you find disagreeable, but no, I can't possibly hold that opinion in good faith, I must be paid, I must be a planted agitator. OWS aren't terrorists, but their protests around the country (outside of NYC itself, which remained relatively peaceful) were mired with rioting, looting, and violence. It made the movement completely toxic to any support from political moderates. Over time it became largely associated with crackpots and extremists, and they never gained the support of the undecided everyman. OWS died because of its violent internal elements. You think people didn't identify with OWS? Nearly everyone I know identifies with the core complaints of OWS, but very few ever participated in their protests, because they were known to be violent, because nobody wanted to be in the same crowd as black bloc assholes smashing windows. There is a reason why MLK Jr. preached heavily for non-violence, because every window smashed, every store looted, erases the hard work of many, many more people. > "During class warfare, your poor and disenfranchised are AT WAR with the rich and wealthy. Of course these people have no recourse for representation from the elite, nor do they have police protection." Really? Really? That's the best you can come up with, after bringing up single-payer health care in Canada? One of the greatest (if not the greatest) achievements in Canadian history? The one that was won without a single bullet or a single bomb? The one that was hard-fought by people in the political process, by shrewd leaders? You brought that up and now you're saying that there is no recourse other than violence? No recourse for the everyman except to take up arms? Jesus.
calibraxis 13y ago
It's worth noting that you reached back to 1919. Even though the Occupy movement was based in anarchist principles. From David Graeber's _The Democracy Project_ (an inside view into Occupy): "It may well be the most nonviolent movement of its size in American history, and this despite the absence of peace codes, marshals, or official peace police. In the fall, there were at least five hundred occupations, with participants representing remarkably diverse philosophies, from evangelical Christians to revolutionary anarchists, and thousands of marches and actions—and yet the most "violent" acts attributed to protesters were four of five acts of window-breaking, basically less than one might expect in the wake of one not particularly rowdy Canadian hockey game. [...] there was virtually no discussion of the first OWS-associated window-breaking in New York itself, which occurred on March 17 [...] broken by an NYPD officer, using an activist's head." If you don't feel like reading the book, you can read this article, where Occupy anarchists were more criticized for "all this anarchist nonsense - the consensus, the sparkly fingers..." (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011112872835904508.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128728...) (I mean, one must be honest about violence within anarchist history; there exist hawkish people who call themselves anarchists, as no one owns the term. But the image of anarchist bombers is propaganda, made by hyper-violent countries which bomb all the time.)
- potatolicious 13y ago
  The quote in question was from the article: where the author claimed that there was a rash of anarchist terrorism in the 1919-1921 time frame, and using it as an example of the instability central to the article's thesis. I'm specifically referencing the events author was alluding to, since tokenizer seems to regard this statement as an unfair coloring, where in fact the specific referenced events were bombings, some of which targeted the public, which makes "terrorism" an apt label.
  - calibraxis 13y ago
    Mea culpa; I rarely visit HN recently, and broke my own rule against commenting before closely reading the article. The media is obviously hypocritical on who they call "terrorists." (That is, they ignore the far greater terrorism on their own side.) But that aside, I clearly didn't read closely. Best to stop posting...

EthanHeilman 13y ago

But there was a wave of terrorism. I am very partial to late 19th century anarchists, but 'propaganda by the deed' included both assassinations (which could be ethically justified as part of a larger war) and a small number of random acts of violence against the general public (which I see no serious ethical justification for (x)). While such acts were a fairly small part of 'Propaganda of the Deed', they are an early example of what would be later labeled terrorism (that is, NGOs using indiscriminate violence against civil populations for political ends). For example: "February 12, 1894 – Émile Henry, intending to avenge Auguste Vaillant, sets off a bomb in Café Terminus (a café near the Gare Saint-Lazare train station in Paris), killing one and injuring twenty. During his trial, when asked why he wanted to harm so many innocent people, he declared, "There is no innocent bourgeois." This act is one of the rare exceptions to the rule that propaganda of the deed targets only specific powerful individuals. Henry is convicted and executed by guillotine on May 21." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed The small number of acts of terror carried out by anarchists likely didn't give us the 40 year work week (xx), anarchists and other radicals organizing did. x - The fact that these acts of terror were carried out in reprisal for far worse state terror is no excuse. The ends do not justify the means. xx - The value of assassination is debatable but clearly terrorism was both counter-productive and unethically unjustifiable.

tokenizer 13y ago
If you're arguing for syntactical purity than yes, they are terrorists. Semantically, terrorism is violence against the state/privileged public, and "the legitimate use of force" is violence by the state, to the individual/disenfranchised public. Are poor mostly black neighborhoods not under the duress of terror from the "Stop and Frisk" police in NY? What about Operation Northwood? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods Also, just because you find certain actions morally reprehensible, doesn't mean they are. I'm sure we're all missing TONS of context. Also, to quote Nietzsche: "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." If you can come up with a method for countering oppression that doesn't use force, but DOESN'T involve begging your oppressors, please let me in on the tactic. Also, revolutionary anarchism is but a branch. You have many forms of anarchism. Most of which advocate peaceful coexistence without the use of force over individuals or communities. I'd argue that dividing force into subsets of classifications is futile. You have force, you have coercion, and you have power. Anarchists inately believe that force/coercion is corrupting, which gives you a point, but many would agree that, "The war to end all wars is worth it." So while the end may not justify the mean, The end that justifies all meaning - is something else entirely to look into.

specialist 13y ago

Ah, yes, terrorism. Terrorism is what we call punching up. Law & order what we call punching down. Stuff like locking workers inside burning buildings, using thugs, cops, and soldiers to crack labor heads, forcibly deporting undesirables. I'm finally starting to get the hang of this. Now I am learning.

tokenizer 13y ago
Exactly. People put the ownness for grassroot movements to legitimize their use of force, AND that of their loose affiliates, but point to the government and question it's actions, and "that's different" /s. The article makes one great point thought: Many people die, INCLUDING rich people in collapses. They're either extremely confident about this time, or extremely ignorant with how revolutions and power structures usually mix.
- specialist 13y ago
  FDR said something like "I'll either be the greatest American President, or the last". So he knew the stakes. I've characterized the New Deal as a) labor gets living wages and in return b) the plutocrats get to keep their heads. On paper, it's the creation of the middle class in exchange for the chicken hawks profiteering from the forever war.

oscargrouch 13y ago

> There was a wave of terrorism by labor radicals and anarchists. A small observation,a little off-topic: The author need to study a little bit more about what anarchism really are, to not get confused with terrorism; or equalizing it with the destruction of the current rule order.. this is chaos, not anarchism Anarchism has to do with individual freedom.. the natural one we all born with, and no force can take that freedom from you.. its the ultimate freedom.. The anarchism is the most advanced form of politics(by not imposing any particular policy by the use of force), but it need a very sophisticated type of human being.. (we can find nowadays but are very few proportionally speaking).. So its not feasible in the current social reality.. (so i dont think is a good idea to try to put it to work right now :)) To get a real taste of anarchism, its imperative the know the works of Bakunin, Proudhon, Thoureau, Nietzsche, Freud and Foucault (I can even dare to say Jesus Christ was one too) Anyone that says that anarchism is the same as blow up things and mess with "the established order" (as sampled in the Fight Club movie), dont know what they are talking about Edit: Also the people that do awful things, and call themselves as anarchists (i guess unabomber had this image of himself) are also wrong.. and are making a diservice to the real concept, the same way people misuse the concept of "hacker".. I just fell the need to also make justice to the concept of anarchism, the same way i would do with the concept of hacker

jboynyc 13y ago

I don't have enough background to flesh out this argument, but my hunch is that this classist bent can be attributed (at least partially) to the inherently conservative nature of the "cliometrics" take on historiography.