32 quotes
Governments are by their nature aggressive and dominating. No society is safe if its neighbor is a state.
The Failure of Nonviolence (2013)
The goal of our criticism should be solidarity, not homogeneity.
The Failure of Nonviolence (2013)
Freedom as a concept sides with those who are struggling for theirs, whereas nonviolence as a concept sides with the enforcers of normality and the rulers of the status quo.
The Failure of Nonviolence (2013)
The imperative of nonviolence overrides the basic respect of trusting people to liberate themselves.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
The people most affected by a system of oppression should be at the forefront of the struggle against that particular oppression.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
It seems that the only form of violence [pacifists] consistently oppose is rebellion against the state.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
We believe that tactics should be chosen to fit the particular situation, not drawn from a preconceived moral code.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
If pacifists are unable to defend their own gains, what will they do when they don’t have the organized violence of the police?
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
Oppressive social hierarchies exist and replicate themselves in the behavior of all subjects and must be overcome internally as well as externally.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
Democracy requires social peace, the illusion that, in a society based on exploitation and domination, everyone can get along and nobody's fundamental well-being is under threat.
The Failure of Nonviolence (2013)
Nonviolence refuses to recognize that it can only work for privileged people, who have a status protected by violence, as the perpetrators and beneficiaries of a violent hierarchy.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
Losing fights can still be better than not fighting at all, because it empowers people, and teaches us that we can fight.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
Free speech does not empower us, and it does not equal freedom. Free speech is a privilege that can be — and is — taken away by the government when it serves their interests.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
The state is not a passive thing. If it wants to repress a movement or organization, it does not wait for an excuse, it manufactures one.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
In such a society (e.g. ours), pacifism really is passivism because not committing violence really has more to do with avoiding culpability than with taking responsibility.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
For revolutionary activists, however, victory comes from building power and out-strategizing the state. Such a path requires constant assessment and self-criticism.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
Arguing against nonviolence and in favor of a diversity of tactics should not at all imply a satisfaction with the strategies or cultures of past militant groups.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
People must build a culture that allows everyone to self-identify in terms of gender and that supports us as we build healthy relationships and heal from generations of violence and trauma.
How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007)
Governments can be democratic or not, more or less corrupt, but they will still pursue the same basic goals, and they will still be controlled by an elite. Government by its very nature concentrates power and excludes people from making decisions over their own lives.
The Failure of Nonviolence (2013)
Capitalists and their predecessors—slaveowners, moneylenders, merchant-investors—owe their very existence to the State. In early times, concentration of political and spiritual power precedes economic stratification in society.
Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation (2017)