Can anyone give an example of a single peaceful revolution in history???

"he who makes peaceful revolution impossible, makes violent revolution inevitable". Its not as if anyone is jumping up and saying "damnit ive had enough, im taking this gun and going out to get my way!" without trying talking first. Its that those in power are doing everything they can to take away the peoples ability to foster any true change in our country without violence. This sadly leaves many people feeling that force is their only option...and in reality, at certain times and places, that actually is the truth.

As to nonviolent revolutions....i would think china is in the midst of one now. While they may not be flowering into the fun loving, peacenik types we all might want, they are certainly far from the imposing, brutal communist/dictatorship they were post WWII. The cultural revolution is slowly being repealed, traditional chinese wisdom and arts are being allowed back into society and explored, and they are even embracing many capitalist ideologies quite successfully as well.

Historically, i believe that after genghis khan stormed through the world, and introduced asian medicine and influence into europe, there sprouted the rennaisance which was a form of revolution. Also, when buddhism made it to japan, there was a period of enlightenment and equality, where education and peace flourished for some time before the warlord period, and that was a peaceful revolution as well.

However, those are very different from what we have today. Now we have a massively wealthy and powerful elite, who only value acquisition, and are intent upon making their power eternal, and keeping in bondage those that provide said wealth and power. Do i believe this can be resolved by peaceful revolution? "meh." As an earlier poster pointed out, King did not force cultural revolution alone...we also had X, the black panthers, and the socialist and communist movements who were great advocates for racial and gender equality. Now, sadly, these three pillars of the working class exist no more, and there is no leadership among the poor communities, so the hope that they could organize to demand representation....seems slim. Especially when you consider what happens when they try, as exemplified by ron pauls attempt at presidency, which was scathingly laughed off as "his small but lunatic group of internet supporters who just keep logging on and voting for him thousands of times each". Great way to disenfranchise a nice chunk of true believers, especially from a system that uses non traceable computerized polling that has been shown many times to be totally flawed.

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


What a coincidence!

I wrote this on another thread:

Text
That's great, go ahead and get on the ballot, and be the change.
I (sincerely) hope that's all it takes.

But keep this in mind,
rarely in history is it the case where one individual, working within a corrupt system, is the lone cause for change.

They may be the one who is celebrated later in history,
but there is usually a violent, or potentially violent force working toward the same goal as the non-violent individual.

Martin L. King came into the spotlight shortly after the assassination of Malcolm X.
The assassination of X, however, was the cause of the rise of the Black Panther Party.

During the second and third decades of the twentieth century, Jews were lobbying the Brits for a partition of Palestine.
In the background, several violent groups were also working toward that outcome, even carrying out assassinations against British royalty.

Ghandi himself advocated non-violence and civil disobedience during the Indian revolution against the Brits.

The list could go on, but the point is that while many advocate for peaceful non-violent change, the ones who seem to get the furthest have people willing to do violence operating toward the same end.

One must compliment the other.

Sure, the "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovkia.

archiv.radio.cz...

During the second half of the 1980s, the general situation in Czechoslovakia became more easygoing, especially after the introduction of Perestroika reforms in the then-Soviet Union. But the Czechoslovak leadership - still headed by Gustav Husak, who had assumed power after the Soviet Invasion of 1968 - was leery of movements intended to "reform communism from within" and continued to toe a hard line in Czechoslovakia, much to the chagrin of Mikhail Gorbacev. But by 1988 there were organized demonstrations demanding change - and just about one month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, communism in Czechoslovakia became a casualty as well.

The six-week period between November 17 and December 29, 1989, also known as the "Velvet Revolution" brought about the bloodless overthrow of the Czechoslovak communist regime. Almost immediately, rumors (which have never been proved) began to circulate that the impetus for the Velvet Revolution had come from a KGB provocateur sent by Gorbacev, who wanted reform rather than hardline communists in power. The theory goes that the popular demonstrations went farther than Gorbacev and the KGB had intended. In part because of this, the Czechs do not like the term "Velvet Revolution," preferring to call what happened "the November Events" (Listopadove udalosti) or - sometimes - just "November" (Listopad). But we digress.
It all started on November 17, 1989 - fifty years to the day that Czech students had held a demonstration to protest the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. On this anniversary, students in the capital city of Prague were again protesting an oppressive regime.
The protest began as a legal rally to commemorate the death of Jan Opletal, but turned instead into a demonstration demanding democratic reforms. Riot police stopped the students (who were making their way from the Czech National Cemetery at Vysehrad to Wenceslas Square) halfway in their march, in Narodni trida. After a stand-off in which the students offered flowers to the riot police and showed no resistance, the police bagan beating the young demonstrators with night sticks. In all, at least 167 people were injured. One student was reportedly beaten to death, and - although this was later proved false - this rumor served to crystallize support for the students and their demands among the general public. In a severe blow to the communists' morale, a number of workers' unions immediately joined the students' cause.

From Saturday, November 18, until the general strike of November 27, mass demonstrations took place in Prague, Bratislava, and elsewhere - and public discussions instead of performances were held in Czechoslovakia' theaters. During one of these discussions, at the Cinoherni Klub theater on Sunday, November 19, the Civic Forum (OF) was established as the official "spokesgroup" for "the segment of the Czechoslovak public which is ever more critical of the policy of the present Czechoslovak leadership."

The Civic Forum, led by the then-dissident Vaclav Havel, demanded the resignation of the Communist government, the release of prisoners of conscience, and investigations into the November 17 police action. A similar initiative - the Public Against Violence (VPN) - was born in Slovakia on November 20, 1989. Both of them were joined en masse by Czechoslovak citizens - from university students and staff to workers in factories and employees of other institutions. It took about 2 weeks for the nation's media to begin broadcasting reports of what was really going on in Prague, and in the interim students travelled to cities and villages in the countryside to rally support outside the capital.

Wouldn't work in the US, though, because Czechoslovakia was a client state of the USSR, and the USSR wanted the change.

I'm afraid the only way here is going to entail some violence because the ones we need to revolt against will hire thugs to protect their interests, they always do. The only question is whether the violence will be one-sided or not. Given that we are dealing with people who have engaged in gratuitous kidnapping and torture, whatever makes you think they will allow real change to occur without fighting it tooth and nail? What makes you think that they won't pass off remote control killings by UAVs, use of area denial weapons and all the other new toys that allow moral distance from the action of harm as "nothing personal, just business".

reply to post by December_Rain


Yes, Ghandi led a non-violent movement.

This movement was carried out against the backdrop of the Indian revolution.

There was plenty of violence, Ghandi himself was just not part of it.

In the USA:
Revolution occured in 2000, when the country moved far right

Revolution occured in 2008 with the country moving to the left

Womens Lib, Civil Rights, Labor Unions, etc...actually, with the exception of full governmental system change (from say, monarchy to republic), most revolutions are done non violently.

Now...some attempted bloody revolutions:
Race war - Charles Mansion (fail)
Race war - KKK (1930-1960s) (fail)
Anti-Abortion clinic bombings - (fail)
Removal of globalisation agenda - OBL: Cole/9-11/etc - (fail)

If anything, with the exception of full governmental shift from one structure to another, bloody revolutions have shown to be not only ineffective, but typically staining the movement to begin with.

Brain will always defeat muscle. This is no exception. Battles last days, words last generations.

just think of the native americans.
i bet they had, in their history, a lot of revolutions within tribes, the best ones where the peaceful and became the biggest tribes eventually.
just a thought, cant back it up with fact`s.

a great staircase was found with the epic of warfare between maya kings.
they saw it as a great game, the better the victory and slaughter of the defeated king, the greater the shame on that people etc.

all these great monuments and kings, defeated by a peace full (different than normal practice) revolution to a different life.

the remnants of the biggest peace full revolution in history!
in my point of view.




[edit on 19-2-2010 by telfyr]

[edit on 19-2-2010 by telfyr]

reply to post by devildogUSMC


Yes but they revolted in the name of peace and revolted by leaving and standing their ground elsewhere, that is why it was succesful.

Violence is inevitable. I never said that revolutions are not violent. You just can't use violence as your backdrop, you could but it wouldn't get you far and would inevitably become deterimental to your cause.

The industrial revolution

every revolution is peaceful...things only turn violent when the warmongers hijack the cause

Sorry outkast, but i agree with devil dog. Your point is YOU are doing ok, so the country is ok. Well, someone is always doing ok in every country. Statistically, however, our unemployment is now 20%, thats one in every 5 people NOT doing ok, statistically significant, id say. Added to that, there are now 1 million children homeless in our country. 1 in 6 people are on food stamps, the highest rate ever. Home foreclosures go up everymonth, as do unemployment. This is not a good thing, and it WILL affect you. For you to say that conditions are not rapidly deteriorating in the US is pretty blind optimism. Not surprising or original, however, for even as i started telling my friends 3 years ago, that we were headed for massive economic collapse, everyone refused to believe, stating it was only the regular fluctuations of market. And every single month since this started, the news comes on to tell us "oh, its over now, we've hit the bottom, get ready for good times ahead!" and every month all those people choose to believe this crap jargon again and again.

Its going to continue to get worse, much worse, as the debt bubble, and the commercial real estate bubble are about to bust, and more places will start to resemble detroit with its 40% unemployment and 40% empty homes, and even if YOU dont lose your job, you WILL feel it as people begin to use violence to provide the food and necessities they can no longer buy. To think you can sit in your home and live your life unaffected while the city around you dissolves into chaos is unrealistic.

As to "rights that were taken away from me"....there are many. I live in new orleans, so i have no right to see a fully practicing naturopathic doctor as they are not licensed here. I also have no right to access to healthy, organic, and reasonably priced natural food. I no longer have the right to buy hypodermic needles and injectible vitamins from the pharmacy. I dont have a right to freely carry a gun without a permit. We dont have the right to protest or demonstrate where it will do any good, for now in washington there are assigned "protest areas". We no longer have the inalienable right to due process and legal representation, as if we are considered "possible terrorists" we are stripped of all of those supposed rights. We dont have the right to privacy.

And when a person states that they want the right to own land and live off the land, they dont mean they want to be given it for free. Its the american dream, gone now, that you could work to buy land, and then use that land to provide for yourself and your family. This is no longer possible because we no longer have ownership. We must pay taxes on our land every year, which means you must make some product and sell it, or you will lose your land that you already paid for. To me, that is not ownership....its rent.

The Carnation Revolution, Portugal, 1974.

Didnt hitler drive into Austria...? that was bloodless..
2nd line

How about the peaceful anti Vietnam war demonstrations held in Australia ?
The turnout was vast, and completely non violent.

That caused the Australian Government to completely change direction towards America. That was a revolution of sorts, and the people won.

Not since Vietnam has a single Australian fought in any American war.

Same thing happened again with the anti Iraq war demonstrations here.

A clear message to the Australian Government that we the people want nothing at all to do with the American Empire and it's bloodthirsty world conquest.

reply to post by devildogUSMC


I have an answer.

1) Take your cell phone/mkultra aide and smash it. Never use one again, until analog signals return, or at least, until they no longer use signals that are brain-interactive.

2) Stop 'watching your TV' and begin 'Monitoring the activities of zionist jews in control of our minds and perceptions'. Know them for what they are. While you're at it, brush up on what the Founding Fathers said about 'jews'. It's all there in the record. For a reason.

Number 1...That ought to scare the crap out of them.

What will pass from the first idea is a law requiring everyone to have a cellular/mkultra device. I don't think that will work well for them, not at all.

From idea number 2 will come enhanced propaganda tactics, the likes of which you will never see again. But they'll be packing their bags because it won't fool us. Will it?

Will it be peaceful? I doubt it, because the cell towers will remain, and no one will answer why they are needed if no one is using a cell phone. Also, though not a single shot is fired, the satellites and cell towers ARE weapons, and will be firing at all times, though the ammo only work when we are subconsciously submissive. Submission is no longer an option, if we follow number 2.







[edit on 19-2-2010 by davidmann]

reply to post by December_Rain


You are right. A revolution is about winning hearts, minds, and tangible stuff. You can use a gun to take tangible stuff, but you cannot use it to win hearts and minds.

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


I didn't say I was right, I just want the United States to actually become the "good guys" they were in the stories I was told. That is the way we ought to be, don't you think?

reply to post by thehoneycomb


I think you said it right there. Thanks for the insight.

reply to post by devildogUSMC


Thanks for taking my advice to heart.

If you love this country you should grow hemp just as our founding fathers did.

We need a source of income to make things happen in this country.

reply to post by thehoneycomb


I wish I could do that more than anything. I can't buy land though. I'm so stuck I can't believe it. I just want a place to live and a way to get food. Even that isn't so easy these days. I can't pay my rent and eat anymore. I am so mad that this is happening.

reply to post by devildogUSMC


OK you don't have to do that and for me to say otherwise or tell you otherwise would be a serious violation of t&c. Let's just say that legally there is a way to assemble and reclaim this country. It is a non-violent solution, but it does not guaruntee non-violence but it is for freedom and peace.

I have already done alot the homework.

Basically the thing I mentioned above has different loopholes in every state.

Second, part of the reason for the financial crisis is that non-profits over the last 50 years have been moving money in this country. Non-profits are the only way to do this without a paper trail.

The reason this happened is because if a non-profit company donates its money it is tax exempt. Meaning that basically all of it is tax exempt. From there we have non-profits that focus on children but are really laundering money to send Jews back to Israel. Not kidding.

So basically the law states that if you are a religious or educational non-profit, and donate to another non-profit tax free and not only can you do this, but you can also do it legally without a paper trail. If I am not mistaken after seven years the actual receipt itself can be burned and forgotten about the donation on the record books forever.

How do we overcome this?

We start a non-profit educational group that educates how the United States once was free, but now is a place of financial slavery. The same things our founding fathers were trying to protect us against.

Second, we start a non-profit religious group that educates the evils of religion and how in most cases pushing religious beliefs on others leads to bloodshed and war.

How do we finance this?

We use the seeds that God intended us to have and use.

[edit on 20-2-2010 by thehoneycomb]

In the 1960s, Quebec (just north of New York, but in Canada) had the "Quiet Revolution", or "La révolution tranquille" (Quebec is French).

The province went from being a backwards uneducated place, run by others to becoming educated and prosperous. How?

Well, politicians were convinced to partake. Granted, there were several charismatic politicians at the time who partook in this revolution. Education was open to the masses. Free education, who would've thought? Social measures were implemented to support the masses. We are one of the world's biggest producers of hydro electricity (if not the biggest); this was nationalized and contributed to pay for things.

And another very important part of this revolution was the abandonnement of the Catholic church which had spent the last century contributing to the oppression of the people.

As a result, Quebec, with a population of 7.5 million, has the 20th largest economy in the world. Our largest trade partner is the US as far as exports go.