The 87-year-old whose eviction sparked a domestic crisis and triggered nationwide anti-government protests has died in hospital late on Wednesday. Protesters say they will continue to demonstrate to uphold her legacy.
The 87-year-old whose eviction sparked a domestic crisis and triggered nationwide anti-government protests has died in hospital late on Wednesday. Protesters say they will continue to demonstrate to uphold her legacy.
In general, almost no one starts shooting without trying to talk first. The difference between you and the guy who is “rushing” to more extreme measures, is usually that their experience has left them far more cynical about the chances of talk achieving anything without actions to back it up. Every cynic is ultimately a disillusioned idealist who has seen too many failures of discourse to produce results. There’s a difference between a psychopath who engages in violence for the thrill of it, and someone who has reached the end of their patience while people die around them. There is no matter in which you are either the first or the last word on, and you are disrespecting everyone who has been in the fight for these causes before you could string two coherent words together. Today’s battles are just the latest front of a war that is older than living memory.
Throwing the “T” word around is just a rhetorical, thought terminating cliche at this point. When states are charging people with “Terrorism” for possessing reading material, that word has lost all meaning. Using the phrase “Department of War” is a terrorist act. The existence of a military and the implicit threat of force is a terrorist act. My breakfast preferences are almost certainly terrorism for some people. When everyone is a terrorist, no one is.
I agree that the difference is mainly one of how much hope someone has. I still believe in the capability of most humans to come to a favorable solution when stakes are high.
I also insist on exactly this view being the most important thing to prevent atrocities, unneeded violence, and long-term conflicts with a bunch of civilian victims caught in the crossfire.
A Terrorist in my view is someone who resorts to violence when other venues of reaching goals are realistically open. For example, i would not consider Hamas an terrorist organization - Palestinians do not have any recourse left outside of violently resisting.
But for renting Spaniards, there are a lot of political and diplomatic pathways still available that have not been used for now! The legislation that did not go through because of the (fucking) separatists and conservatives will be simply pushed through in the temporary administration before the next votes, and these parties will get their receipt for shitting on the needs of the common people.
Someone advocating for violence in this situation is a fucking r* (my foreign language mind does currently not provide me with a similarily powerful word that would fit the bill, you are welcome to supply me some, thanks in advance), because it will turn the public opinion against the interests of the common people, and on top of that people that do not deserve that will get hurt (and yes, that even includes cops, even if i despise them)
Using the term Terrorist is only a though terminating cliche if you use US standards.
Most of the French would certainly beg to differ on the matter of where to draw the line in the sand. If you’re waiting until you’re standing in rubble on the inside of a cage with guard towers to decide it’s time to act, you are not going to get very far. You may be willing to be a martyr, but lecturing everyone who isn’t is not productive. You want to prevent unnecessary loss of life, focus on curing the disease, not clutching your pearls about the symptoms. Spaniards do in fact have many political and diplomatic pathways to move forward. So use them and don’t worry about policing those who break ranks. You want to tell people you think violence is premature when the question is asked? That’s fine, but always bring your attention and others’ back to what brought someone to chose it in the first place, because no sane person chooses violence lightly and there’s only so many psychopaths on Earth (and we all know which side of this they tend to fall on).
While the system functions, those who act on their own will be dealt with according to the law, as they should be. Policing the tone of those who you otherwise stand with is a distraction that only serves to divide you. You can be on the team that that chooses peace, but it is absolutely not necessary to waste your time on respectability politics. The opposition certainly
diddon’t, and tying your own hands when they have already dropped the gloves serves no purpose.This is why i also said preparing for violent struggle is not the same as actively pouring oil into the fire. There’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst. But advocating (NOT preparing!) for violence when so many paths are still open is begging for unneeded casualities on both sides. This has nothing to do with tying your own hands, it has to do with how humane you want to be. Do you want to be as inhumane an CEO deciding to raise rents beyond whats reasonable? If you do not care about loss of life or limb - go ahead! and fuck you all the same, just as they can get fucked, because they left they humanity behind, and you did just the same.
I ultimately think your heart is in the right place, but your focus is misguided. It’s not pouring oil on the fire to recenter the conversation around the issue that is fuelling the rage. You’re not going to find much success appealing to the better angels of the corpos. They’ve made their decision. I don’t want to see anyone hurt, but the natural consequences of their inhumanity, is retribution in kind. Protecting them from the consequences of their own actions is as good as permission to escalate. I will mourn for those who are hurt in the crossfire, but they need to know where this ends and there’s no clearer way to remind them the cost of playing with fire than to let them get burned. I will not encourage violence, and I will continue to work to fix the problem by advocating for reasonable housing accommodations. But I’m not going to restrain those who have been pushed past their limits. The rights of free men and women are paid for in blood, and they always have been. I don’t have to like it. But not liking the price, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be paid.
When I was a boy, my grandfather taught me to hunt. When I took my first buck, there were tears streaming down my face. After the buck was dead, my grandfather didn’t yell at me for crying, he knelt down with me and he said a prayer of thanksgiving over it. He didn’t tell me to “man up and get over it”, he told me to never get comfortable with taking a life, any life. It might be necessary, that buck fed our family for months, at a time when meat from the grocer would have been too much of a luxury. But you should never let yourself get numb to what it cost, either the deer, or you. I don’t believe in gods or bibles these days. I still say a prayer after every kill, and it still hurts.
I won’t tell you to numb yourself to the cost. I won’t ask you to cheer for blood. I will ask you to look away and keep your eye on doing whatever you are able to make sure no one ever feels their only path forward is violence again. Understand what brought them to that point, cure the disease and let the symptoms run their course. Symptoms aren’t directly caused by the disease. They’re the body’s natural defences. Sometimes they will get carried away and you need to rein them in, but they serve a purpose.
Recentering has nothing do with violence per se, and i do not think appealing to corpos is going to change things by itself. But we have civil institutions in Europe that can be an vent for all of this aggression without causing bodily harm. I believe that democracy can enact meaningful change without physically harming people.
I have never killed an animal larger than a fly, and i would never do that outside of a fight to the death, because i realized the sanctity of life. Nothing can give it back, and nothing can be gained by senselessly spilling blood. I am also an atheist - religion is a socially accepted delusion for me, and should be treated like any mental illness to release humanity from this cycle of insanity society has been caught in thousands of years ago.
I am sorry that you were indoctrinated to make it ok to kill random animals for your gain.