They Never March Against People Who Will Behead Them
Peace activists are clever about where they direct their protests, writes Dennis Prager:
We are told ad nauseam that Rachel Corrie was a "peace activist." So let it be said once and for all that most of these people are moral frauds. Why? Because "peace activists" routinely protest only against peaceful countries. Has there been one Evergreen State or other "peace activist" in Sudan during its Islamic government's slaughter and enslavement of millions of blacks? Are there any "peace activists" in Tibet to protect its unique culture from being eradicated by the Communist Chinese? Did you notice any "peace activists" trying to save the millions of North Koreans dying at the hands of their lunatic government? Of course not. Rachel Corrie and other "peace activists" only target peace-loving Israel and America.Why do they do so?
Here is one answer.
The world is filled with evil, and young idealists like Rachel Corrie don't like it. Which is lovely. But they don't confront real evil because they know they will get hurt. That's one reason there are no "peace activists" or "human shields" confronting Islamic terror, North Korean totalitarianism, or Chinese Communist despotism.
Is this akin to why you never see PETA activists throwing red paint on the leather jackets of motorcycle gang members?
Tom Accuosti at June 8, 2010 4:15 AM
I've long realized that these people, for all their soaring rhetoric, lack the physical courage of their convictions.
cpabroker at June 8, 2010 4:15 AM
Putting it more gently, Ghandi/MLK, Jr. activism typically requires the oppressive government power to be answerable to a larger public with a decent sense of ethics, fairness and justice which can be activated to effectively pressure the government. Democracy helps too.
In India, Ghandi exhausted middle and upper class voters in England, who lost their taste for empire when the financial toll of empire combined with video reels and newspapers accounts of Britain's violence to convince them to end support for occupation.
Similarly, in America, Bull Connor and his ilk could not hope to convincingly explain a need for Jim Crow to a nation watching newscasts of him water-hosing teens and loosing police dogs on praying marchers.
By contrast, no amount of nonviolent resistance would have saved European Jews circa 1939-1943. There would be no news accounts of their protests and no voting public to rouse. See also North Korea, Cambodia, Soviet Union, Cuba, Somalia, etc., etc. Put simply, peaceful protesters are just fine for mass murderers unencumbered by free press, voters, rule of law or a watching public.
So while peaceful protest works, it appears to do so where you have relatively free newspapers and/or very widespread sense of fairness.
To confront the mass murderers who do not face such encumbrances, you need a few battalions of Marines and Army personnel in the right place, with the right attitude, and a leader who understands that you must kill some kinds of people--there is no good faith negotiating with a Pol Pot or Joseph Stalin.
Spartee at June 8, 2010 5:17 AM
A few questions come to mind...
(1) I don't recall reading about that Dennis-Prager-led protest march through downtown Beijing. When did it happen?
(2) Is writing negatively about long-haired hippie protestors... for World Net Daily... really that gutsy?
(3) I don't know. Getting mangled and run-over by a bulldozer sounds like a pretty extreme way to go. Would Rachel Corrie have been less of a fraud if she'd been defending actual Palestinians? Or, if not, a building in South Sudan?
And...
(4) Can I now feel morally justified in making fun of the Tea Partiers because the Obama administration hasn't lined them up against a wall to be shot?
kevin_m at June 8, 2010 5:33 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/06/08/piece_activists.html#comment-1721653">comment from kevin_mDennis Prager (who I often disagree with) is not a peace activist.
Amy Alkon at June 8, 2010 5:49 AM
Good point. Where were the Rachel Corries when it all went down in Rwanda? In Bosnia? Where are they, for that matter, in Iran?
kishke at June 8, 2010 6:11 AM
Isaac Asimov used to say violence was for the incompetent. Asimov was a good writer, but not good at politics.
Successful, non-violent resistance, not only depends upon an open press, but also on a sympathetic press. Ghandi won without violence because the press was sympathetic, not because it was open.
MLK didn't win. I realize most blacks think he did, but he didn't. He motivated the blacks, it is true. But, for the Civil Rights movement to succeed, the racist whites also had to change.
I came from a very racist family. I worked in those days with racist people.
It was the Black Panthers, who said, roughly, "We are going to kill whoever abuses blacks," who caused these vile creatures to shut their stupid, racist mouths. They laughed at MLK as a caricature, but they did not laugh at X. People who only observed blacks at that time missed what was really happening, because they did not know what whites were saying and thinking.
With the abuses heaped on men in the US in the last 40 years, part of the reason there has been no effective resistance is the press is absolutely anti-male.
With a 40% divorce rate, and most divorce filed by women who simply want another man, and half the divorced fathers either specifically prevented from seeing their kids while being called dead-beats, or alienated, and being ordered to pay money they don't even have, not to mention false sex abuse cases, etc., hostile press coverage means most idiots still think it only happens to men who deserve it. Folks right on this blog.
The good part is men are rejecting marriage in large numbers. Several years ago, a survey showed 22% of men said they would never marry under any circumstances. And, leaving the country in small but steady numbers. Numbers will grow.
We call it Operation Rescue.
irlandes at June 8, 2010 6:51 AM
The specific circumstances of Corrie's death are telling. She knelt down in front of a bulldozer. This was either a deliberate act of martyrdom, or an indication that, for whatever she claimed to believe about the Israelis, she was confident that they were aware of her intentions and would not harm her. That even the bulldozer driver, amidst a crowd of angry protesters, was aware of her presence and would realize that she was hiding in front of his shovel. He did not, and her fellow protesters didn't have the decency to remove her, or warn the driver.
I'd participated in various activist communities when I was younger. What I came to realize is that those in the protest wings of the Peace and Environmental communities are typically motivated by vanity. Most of their time is actually spent congratulating themselves for their bravery and special 'consciousness'. The culture and activities of these groups are designed to nurture the member's positive self regard.
A good depiction of this can be found in the TV show Whale Wars.
commenter at June 8, 2010 6:56 AM
Feel free, kevin_m, and don't sweat it. You're safe, the tea party is non-violent. For all his tough guy rhetoric, Obama doesn't scare anybody either.
MarkD at June 8, 2010 7:43 AM
The next brave peace protester I meet will be the first.
Not all protests require the threat of violence for a protest to be justified.
But it is hilarious to see protesters talking about their courage when there was not threat.
Robert at June 8, 2010 9:39 AM
Re: Whale Wars
I've never watched the show, but the current commercial caught my ear when one guy was telling others that they have to risk their lives for animals.
A thought:
One can choose to risk their life for loved ones.
Ditto for their country.
Perhaps they themselves can risk to save a beloved animal, if they so choose.
But when somebody else demands that you risk your life to save an animal, some moral line has been crossed.
lsomber at June 8, 2010 10:49 AM
Related to what Spartee wrote above: some years ago there was an alternate-history story (can't remember the author or title) in which the Germans won WW2 and chased the British out of India. Gandhi and his non-violent methods faced Nazi brutality. To make a short story even shorter, Ghandi was taken out and shot.
(Note: it's not a mistake that I spelled the name two different ways. I just don't remember which is correct.)
Rex Little at June 8, 2010 11:05 AM
Either that or they hate Israel and America. If Israel and America were gotten rid of, there would be NO peace against which these "peace" activists would demonstrate. Europe would go Islamic (they might do that, anyway), and tyranny would reign on earth. There might be a few modest refuges left (Australia, New Zealand, Japan?), but besides that, life would be a vicious crapshoot.
mpetrie98 at June 8, 2010 11:10 AM
kevin_m: Can I now feel morally justified in making fun of the Tea Partiers because the Obama administration hasn't lined them up against a wall to be shot?
...yet...
mpetrie98 at June 8, 2010 11:18 AM
Re: Whale Wars...
I hate that show. It is another propaganda show. It's edited to make it look like the fisherman are poaching when the reality is they are usually in international waters where whale hunting isn't illegal. I don't condone whale hunting at all, but if it isn't illegal where they are doing it at, then the other ship attacking the fishermen is in the wrong. Period. THEY are the criminals, not the fishermen. But of course, no one is going to go after the percieved "good guys".
These "Peace activists" of late are nothing but big mouthed cowards. They are afraid to take on REAL issues and go where REAL conflict is happening. I absolutely agree with Dennis Prager on this one.
Sabrina at June 8, 2010 11:43 AM
Re: A thought
"One can choose to risk their life for loved ones.
Ditto for their country.
Perhaps they themselves can risk to save a beloved animal, if they so choose.
But when somebody else demands that you risk your life to save an animal, some moral line has been crossed."
I'm not sure anyone really has the moral right to demand anything from me (other than perhaps that I not kill one of the many people who've already pissed me off today). If people choose to risk their safety to save a person or animal, it is what it is, their choice. I've stopped on a freeway and run across lanes to catch a dog that was hit by a car. Do I have the moral right to require someone else to? No. But I couldn't have left it to be killed and so I made that choice.
And I like living in a country where we, for the most part, can make those choices.
Catherine at June 8, 2010 12:54 PM
Honestly I think that Whale Wars undermines the anti-whaling movement. Because when you watch the show, it's apparent that the crews' narration of what occurs isn't actually what has happened. Their accounts are often so at odds with what's depicted that it calls into question all of the other claims that they make, and by extension claims made by more sober and responsible elements of the anti-whaling community.
For instance they're constantly claiming to have been assaulted, sabotaged, shot at, attacked with mysterious high tech weaponry, all sorts of things. They claim to engage in 'battles' with the Japanese whalers. But when you see the footage of the very same incidents, it's apparent that what they're claiming simply isn't true. Their accounts are just self aggrandizing fabrications. It's really pretty pathetic. I can't make out whether they're all insane, or inveterate liars.
The other factor is that the crew is largely incompetent, and a danger to themselves and each other. They're obviously not people with any maritime experience, even on small craft. So the whole project comes off as a pretentious effort by a bunch of self righteous adventure tourists.
commenter at June 8, 2010 1:46 PM
No, they just needed to be marginalized.
Bull Connor using fire hoses and riot gear on peacefully marching protestors helped to marginalize Jim Crow supporters.
Against the widespread violence and social upheaval advocated by the Black Panthers, Bull Connor would have been positioned as the last line of defense and supported by many whites who, absent widespread black-on-white violence, were ambivalent about segregation.
MLK said, "The law cannot make a man love me. But it can keep him from lynching me. And I think that's pretty important."
The Black Panthers and Malcolm X confirmed the worst fears of middle class whites.
MLK showed middle class whites that the blacks being abused by segregation laws were not going to kill them or rise up in a slave revolt, but simply wanted an end to their contrived status as second-class citizens.
MLK did more to end segregation in his short life than anything a thousand acts of violence would have accomplished in a thousand lifetimes.
Conan the Grammarian at June 8, 2010 4:19 PM
Is this a matter of semantics? I'm not sure exactly what a "peace activist" is, but I certainly know people who have worked as aid workers, volunteers, educators, and such in Afghanistan, Rwanda, apartheid-era South African townships, etc. Pretty unpleasant, dangerous places. Is the difference that they were doing something useful rather than just waving their arms around and telling everyone to be peaceful? This is not a snarky question, I'm genuinely unsure what the difference is. For example, a good friend of mine spent some fairly dangerous time in Pakistan (as in, if she went to the latrines at night without a bodyguard, she was in danger of being raped, kidnapped, or killed). She was working with abused women and orphans. I think what she did was peaceful, but I don't think she'd call herself an activist, just a person who wants to help innocent victims of oppressive governments.
anathema at June 9, 2010 9:10 AM
Anathema,
One test for the difference between an aid worker and an activist is whether the aid worker regularly anticipates, seeks, or arranges for cameras to record their behavior.
My experience with sincerely altruistic people is they don't much care for attention.
Activists? They lust for attention, and seek it.
Spartee at June 9, 2010 9:59 AM
"Chinese Communist despotism"
Tienanmen Square, though the person in that iconic photo was by most accounts killed within hours or days of it happening.
Being a peace activist makes you a dead activist against a real oppressive government. They also kill your fiends and family just to set an example, or the person 3 floors below you just cause they got the wrong address. As much as I don't support these nut munching hippies they are a decent indicator that their world view is quite in error. When there are no obvious dissidents then you should start worrying. When everyone loves government and extol it's virtues we are all right and truly fucked.
vlad at June 9, 2010 10:18 AM
You know what I never understood about blaock people like Malcom X who joined islam durring the civil rights movement?
Did they not realize that slavery was still practiced by muslims in the middle east?
Or did they not care?
Also has no one else notice that Malcom X was murdered by fellow mulsims just days after saying to a journaist that black american muslims were zombies doing what they were told.
lujlp at June 9, 2010 7:18 PM
Media attention is a useful tool to effect change.
But the college students of Berkley university marching through california streets on their comfortable university campus demanding a free Tibet are the worst sort of deluded.
Those are the activists that are a JOKE.
Sure there are hard working dedicated aid workers who deserve the regard they get from those they help.
And yes there need to be organizers back at home.
But I laugh at the average present day protester in the U.S. who dares to speak of his or her courage as if they were in actual danger.
Robert at June 9, 2010 11:57 PM
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