Over the last week, the guide has surged to become the 5th-most-accessed book on Project Gutenberg, an open source repository of free and public domain ebooks. It is also the fifth most popular ebook on the site over the last 30 days, having been accessed nearly 60,000 times over the last month (just behind Romeo and Juliet).
Direct link to the book (without the backref):
I just don’t think that history aligns with that view. Arab spring is an example just from the past decade of a series of protest movements that escalated into armed rebellion.
Actually going and looking at the handy list of revolutions shows that it’s pretty easy to find protest movements that escalate like that.
This article in particular has the preamble that kind of sums it up: ”This article is about the nonviolent protests. For the ongoing civil war, see Myanmar civil war (2021–present)."
People in the US don’t currently connect protestors to the problem because they’re not angry. At some point you don’t see protesters as “them” yelling and making noise, and you join them because you’re also angry.
Revolution and rebellion aren’t polite and orderly. Thinking you can scare fascists in power into behaving isn’t going to work. Part of their entire “thing” is that people are a danger and they need to crack down on dangerous elements to keep society functioning. If society stops functioning and gets materially worse without a balaclava wearing gang of insurgents throwing cartoon spherical black powder bombs, people see the people in charge as the problem and are more willing to do a Mussolini.
History in the US aligns. If it slid back, it didn’t work. And, everything is sliding, therefore it did not create lasting change. The time for peaceful protesting is over. It’s time for action.
First, who was talking about peaceful protesting? You don’t go from nothing to full on revolution in one step.
Second, if the only thing that matters is that it worked in the US, then protest has driven far more change than violence. The civil rights movement ended segregation. The labor movement won numerous labor victories, but when they fought they were largely just shot. Last I checked, we still have weekends and segregation never came back. Those are the two I can think of without looking in the US.
On the flip side, every attempt at abrupt violent change has failed. Without widespread popular support they just don’t even get off the ground.