My philosophy as a liberal.

[The Witch]

This is a letter I do not plan to send to my mother, with whom I have been sniping a bit back and forth about the whole Israel issue. At one point she actually accused me of being on the side of terrorists. My own, liberal mother! This stung at me quite a bit and so I thought about it a lot and tried to justify why it was that I did not speak up in favor of the government and condemn terrorist attacks (in as much as i figured it went without saying, which apparently it doesn't.)

I know better than to send this, but I'd like everyone's opinion on it.

-

I am still a little burned by your comment that I sympathize with the terrorists. I never thought my mother, smart as she is, would ever believe such a lie, which has been used against minorities-like women and Jews-for so long to keep them oppressed.

Here's my stance as a liberal. I believe violence is bad. So whenever there are acts of aggression, I condemn them. But to the extent there is violence in the world, I think that the more powerful the instigator is and the more oppressed the victim is, the more reprehensible the act.

Here's my logic. Those with power to act by other means to change their circumstances have more options open to them. If you have a voice in the government you can petition your representatives. If you have the power, you can sue in courts. If you have property and money, you can work toward economic change with the power of the purse. If you have relations with foreign governments, you can pursue diplomacy. So, with all of these options, if you nonetheless choose violence, it betrays a lack of imagination at best and a bloodthirsty temperament at worst.

On the other hand, when you have no voice in the government because you are occupied by a military power, for example, you have nobody to petition. Et cetera. And so you have two options- nonviolent resistance en masse and violence. (Or, of course, you could stop trying to create change, but that is hardly human nature.)

Nonviolent resistance has a laudable record of success. Look at America, look at India, look at South Africa.

But look back at America. The Boston Tea Party didn't change things as we hoped. So we declared war. But only a state can declare war, so what was our Revolutionary Army if not a terrorist group? History is written by the victors, so nobody thinks of it that way anymore. But certainly to the British it was so.

The question is never whether the violence is justified. Violence never is to my mind. The question is whether there are other ways to create change. And when other ways to create change are plentiful, there is just no excuse.

There's another issue here, which is fed by the first issue but is slightly different. The issue is that of a majority vs. a minority, an oppressor vs. the oppressed. The majority, the power, is able to share its power with the minority and to guarantee rights to the minority. When it chooses not to do this, it is oppression, because when those rights are denied, the means to change them are also denied. And when the means to change them are denied, you no longer have the options mentioned above. So the oppressor is digging his own grave.

How do oppressors justify doing this to themselves? They convince themselves that they are the oppressed. That's how Germany ended up as it was - they were told they were under attack. That's how we justify our current aggressive policies. That's how Bill O'Reilly makes up a War on Christmas.

Being aware of that makes me skeptical when I hear a majority saying a minority is out to get them. I know that trick. The worst of us exploit it; the best of us are often fooled by it. I feel like, as someone who understands it, it's my job to overcome it.

On the other hand, the oppressed, by using violence, set themselves up to feel it is always justified because they feel it is justified now. Make no mistake, when an oppressed people gain their freedom through violence, they will eventually become an oppressor. Look at the Shiite death squads right now. Because they will ALWAYS look over their shoulder, afraid their power and then their freedom will be taken away again.

How on earth do we stop this cycle, then?

I feel it is our duty to break the cycle by appealing to those who have power. We have the power of appealing to our government - that is huge. So we speak to our government and to other governments who have the capacity to hear our voices and the voices of our representatives. To say "Stop the cycle. You have the power to do so. You have so much to lose by letting this go on; and we the people will make you pay if you do not listen to us---what do you think THEY'RE doing but trying to make you listen?"

The oppressed, those who have no power, cannot hear our voices and they feel no responsibility to respond because they have nothing to lose.

So that is why I speak to the governments more than I do to the people. They have the power to stop the cycle.

[rhiannon55]

1. That is an excellent letter.

Why aren't you going to send it to your mother?

[Dorian Gray]

2. I don't see why you couldn't send that to your mother...

it's not particularly offensive, and I think it states your opinion in a well thought out way. I might disagree ever so slight with your thesis (leaving more room for the powerful to use war/violence in self-defense or defense of others), but even with that very little differing opinion, I found nothing that would rub me the wrong way in what you wrote. I think you should share it with your mother.

[jdlh8894]

3. But,

In the US, the people elect the government. So the people (in theory) have the power to stop the cycle.

[The Witch]

4. We have power. The oppressed = disenfranchised citizens

in this case palestinians in occupied territories