Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Guns are not a part of the culture of my homeland, except perhaps for the occasional Bollywood movie in which the bad guy meets his demise staring down the wrong end of a barrel.
My childhood in India was steeped in ahimsa, the tenet of nonviolence toward all living things.
The Indians may have succeeded in ousting the British, but we won with Gandhian-style civil disobedience, not a revolutionary war.
I grew up not knowing a single gun owner, and even today India has one of the strictest gun laws on the planet. Few Indians buy and keep firearms at home, and gun violence is nowhere near the problem it is in the United States. An American is 12 times more likely than an Indian to be killed by a firearm, according to a recent study.
It's no wonder then that every time I visit India, my friends and family want to know more about America's "love affair" with guns.
I get the same questions when I visit my brother in Canada or on my business travels to other countries, where many people remain perplexed, maybe even downright mystified, by Americans' defense of gun rights.
I admit I do not fully understand it myself, despite having become an American citizen nearly a decade ago. So when I learn the National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention here in Atlanta, right next to the CNN Center, I decide to go and find out more.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/world/indian-immigrant-nra-convention/index.html
(Score: 3, Interesting) by art guerrilla on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:11PM (6 children)
FORGET about any gun connection in relation to VALIDLY hating on the mainstream media: ANYONE with two brain cells to rub together 'hates' the shitty Big (Korporate) Media, doesn't matter which side of the political fence you are falling towards... again, has almost nothing to do with guns per se -although your point of the hysterical media coverage and ultra-PCness is certainly another factor- simply the awful job Big Media does across the board is enough to 'hate' them and all their clueless eee-vil minions...
also, gandhi/the indian mass civil disobedience campaign didn't succeed (or did it?) BECAUSE it was non-violent (or was it? seems like plenty of folks got their heads cracked open by state goons, if that isn't violence, i don't know what is... ), it succeeded because The State thought 'what if these unclean untouchables pick up a rock and a stick ?'; THAT is what made it succeed: THE IMPLIED THREAT OF VIOLENCE...
EVERY single participant in the non-violent movement could have been pure of heart and stalwart as jesus; but The State would STILL see the movement as a potential threat BECAUSE of the implied threat of violence/coup, NOT BECAUSE they were non-violent, they were only fooling themselves in that regard...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04 2017, @06:30PM (4 children)
> or was it? seems like plenty of folks got their heads cracked open by state goons, if that isn't violence, i don't know what is... ),
Yeah getting beat on by the state proves Gandhi was conducting a violent revolution.
When you say such utterly ridiculous things all you do is signal to everyone that you are short too many marbles to be taken seriously.
> EVERY single participant in the non-violent movement could have been pure of heart and stalwart as jesus; but The State would STILL see the movement as a potential threat BECAUSE of the implied threat of violence/coup,
No. That's a trumpist "hard power is the only power" worldview and not only is it reductive its mostly wrong.
Soft power is far more important than hard power. It just isn't anywhere near as splashy because nobody gets blown up.
The only reason the Brits were in India was money.
It dosen't take a violent coup to make occupation unprofitable.
It just takes non-cooperation by both the people doing the work for the occupiers and by their customers.
In the history of the world there are very few examples of a repressive regime being taken by force and then replaced by a non-repressive government.
Only WWII and the american revolution come to mind and it wasn't the war but rather the substantial investment in institution building afterwards that made those examples work.
Nearly all successes in making the world more liberal and more free were accomplished by negotiation and political pressure.
Not just india, but south africa, tunisia, the color revolutions from the phillipines, to serbia, to the ukraine, much of west africa, etc.
That's not to say that soft power guarantees success. There have been a lot of failures because revolution is difficult. Only that soft power has a much better record than hard power.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Friday May 05 2017, @12:41AM (1 child)
you are not paying attention, and are virtue signaling out your ass, save it for someone who cares about that idiotic, time-wasting bullshit...
i did NOT say their movement was violent because they had violence perpetrated upon them, YOU JUST MADE THAT SHIT UP... MY POINT WAS, the movement can be 100 % non-violent, yet there was still violence, wasnt there ? ? ?
that the violence was all on the part of the state doesnt negate there was still violence... you think that is meaningless; i would suggest those who were beaten or died are not quite as sanguine about it... pretty easy to be non-violent and all super-new-testament-jesusy when it is someone else taking the beating...
my other point stands in spite of your reliance on hopium kryptonite to save the day (one of these millennia), the state doesnt give a flying fuck all you mooing, pink cat-earred, latte-sipping, fake pwogwessives are weally, weally, hiwee pwincipled, and -like- totally non-violent...
the
state
doesnt
give
a
shit
they see a mass movement and equate it to a violent overthrow...
again, DOES NOT MATTER your pureness of intention, blah, blah, blah...
.
oh, and all those color 'revolutions' you point to, um, just WHAT is the status of these 'revolutions' ? ? ?
(the UKRAINE ? OUR little neo-nazi coup (krime against humanity), you have got to be fucking kidding me, boychik...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @05:10AM
holy shit, you are triggered as fuck!
I guess that is what happens when someone with a completely unrealistic world-view is faced with evidence that punctures their bubble
(Score: 2) by SacredSalt on Friday May 05 2017, @01:08AM (1 child)
I think I would take South Africa off of that list. The ANC is basically a terrorist organization that came to power after detonating around 40,000 car bombs and amassing large groups of people to murder others with gasoline, used tires, and pointy sticks.
I wouldn't say its "improved" either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @05:15AM
Actually the ANC is a perfect demonstration of the value of hard power versus soft power.
All of their terrorism failed to achieve their goals.
They only started to make progress after they gave that up.
Mandel made it clear that his time in prison caused him to re-evalute tactics and to conclude that non-violence was the best approach.
And history proved him correct.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04 2017, @09:45PM
This may be the reason as to why China is so "triggered" by Falun Gong?
They may decide to pick up stones an sticks..